After listening to the frustrations of pastors who’ve come to us (John Mark Ministries) to debrief about their lives and ministries over the last three decades, I’ve developed a minority view about seminary curricula. After Bible and Theology I would put Social Psychology (how humans relate to one another in groups) next. Before ancient languages (Greek and Hebrew), and, yes, even above Church History.
I guess there’s a seminary somewhere that includes this important subject in its standard curriculum (as distinct from a post-grad. option) but I haven’t seen it yet.
Muehlhoff and Lewis’ book suggests some reasons why one branch of Social Psychology – Communication theory and practice – is important for Christian communicators.
In this postmodern age, there’s a prevailing view that identity and meaning are created in social groups through language. Actually, as ‘homo narrans’ we impose meaning on our lives through narrative. But from there, social psychologists like to make it complicated. For example: there’s a distinction between a ‘signifier’ (a particular word) and the ‘signified’ (the meaning a word has within a particular culture). So when a leader/preacher uses words, sometimes (because there are various sub-cultures represented within the audience) ‘what you say isn’t necessarily what they hear’.
If the leader wants to promote change, there will be various forces at work resisting that: and woe betide the pastor who doesn’t understand those dynamics. (The technical word is ‘feedforward’ – anticipating how our hearers will hear, understand and receive our message).
One of these authors leads seminars on conflict management within marriages. At the beginning he asks for the first thing that comes to mind when they hear the word ‘conflict’. The answers generally include: hate, battle, love, argument, rejection, explosion, sadness, anger and failure. So? People mostly avoid conflict at all costs.
In terms of evangelism, the Barna Research Group has identified six ‘obstacles to persuasion’ among the ‘Mosaics’ and ‘Busters’: hypocrisy by Christians, ‘convert obsession’ (where someone feels they’re a ‘target’ rather than a ‘person’), hostility to homosexuals, simplistic solutions from a sheltered life, politically conservative bias, and judgmentalism.
Sometimes we communicate best by taking note of St Francis’ dictum:  ‘Preach the gospel, use words if necessary’. A church in Whittier has been offering the congregation, once a month, a volunteering role in hundreds of nonpaid community projects instead of routine ‘church’. So odd that the national press ran the story…
The theological stance of the authors is what might be called ‘progressive evangelical’. The book ends with a couple of excellent chapters on Social Justice (in social psychological jargon, being ‘counterpublic’).
So… if one wants to learn more about all this, where to from here? One suggestion: go to an academic bookshop, buy a couple of ‘remainder’ text-books on Social Psychology – and read them right through. (Don’t be put off by the jargon – every academic discipline suffers from that)!
Rowland Croucher
November 2010
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