We Got the Order Wrong: How Christianity Traded Relationship for Religion

We Got the Order Wrong | The Flourishing Journal For generations, we have handed children doctrines before we gave them a living God to hold onto. The consequences are written in the data — and in the faces of those quietly walking away. VC Victor Counted, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Psychology · Regent University · Faculty Affiliate, Harvard Human Flourishing Program Walk into almost any evangelical church on any given Sunday, and you will see it at the end of the service — the altar call. The music softens. The lights dim slightly. A voice says something like, "If you want to give your life to Jesus tonight, repeat this…

Continue ReadingWe Got the Order Wrong: How Christianity Traded Relationship for Religion

Your Earliest Relationships May Have Shaped How You Experience God

Psychology · Faith · Human Flourishing Your Earliest Relationships May Have Shaped How You Experience God By Victor Counted, Ph.D. Professor, Author, and Psychologist There is a question most people never think to ask about their faith. It is not a theological question, but a psychological one: where did your felt experience of God come from? Not the doctrine you were taught or the catechism you memorized, but the actual texture of your relationship with God—whether He feels close or distant, welcoming or demanding, safe or unpredictable. For much of the history of psychology, that question was either dismissed or spiritualized. However, a growing body of research at the intersection…

Continue ReadingYour Earliest Relationships May Have Shaped How You Experience God