Geoffrey W. Sutton PhD, Psychology and Culture

  Oral Roberts University/Google images On a hot and humid 1950s Sunday afternoon, I sat amongst the crowd of white-shirted, perspiration-soaked men and paper-fan waving Sunday-hat-covered women at a tent crusade in Southeastern Pennsylvania. After preaching salvation, the dark suit jacket came off. Holy hands touched one after another. I watched a line of broken people approach a healing stage and leave with a testimony. Everywhere, white and black hands reached upward as organ tones bolstered songs of praise. (Sutton, 2021, p. 79)   As I was writing Counseling and Psychotherapy with Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians , I was struck by the transitional figure of Oral Roberts who blended faith healing and a nascent Pentecostal theology, which eventually led to a grand attempt to integrate medical science and faith.   Oral Roberts   Oral Roberts was born 24 January 1918. The next month, four waves of a flu pandemic killed off about as many as died i...

  Zechariah in the Temple/ Bing Public Domain Zechariah Punished with Aphasia In Luke’s version of the Christmas story, Zechariah is punished with the loss of speech (aphasia) for asking what would seem to be a reasonable question. I study the psychology of religion and have conducted many neuropsychological examinations as a psychologist so the description of the impairment struck me as looking like the results of a mini-stroke. Check out the features of stroke in the story from Luke 1. Zechariah, a Jewish priest, and his wife Elizabeth had a reputation for being faithful to the law. As my friend Martin Mittelstadt, known for his scholarly study of Luke , points out, Luke presents his gospel in several contexts including recurrent biblical themes. We see a record of angelic announcements and divine intervention in cases of older barren women in the Hebrew Bible. Perhaps Luke is presenting the new Christian tradition emerging from the womb of an elderly and barren Elizabeth in ...

Top 10 Prayers for Healing Have you ever asked God to heal you of a condition?  What happened? Scientists have studied prayer in different ways and do not find a great deal of support for its effectiveness. There are testimonies of healing. And sometimes you will find medical evidence that a condition has suddenly improved without medical intervention or despite medical opinion that a condition was not expected to improve. What do people pray for? A Lifeway Survey reported 1 October 2014 identified the following Top 5 things people pray about. 1. Family or friends 82% 2. personal problems or difficulties 74% 3. Good things that recently occurred 54% 4. Personal sin 42% 5. People in natural disasters 38% See their survey for their language and more details. It's pretty impressive that people care about others. Pew Report on Prayer               Published on the U.S. National Day of Prayer, May 1,...

How are children raised in religious homes different from those raised in secular homes? A friend of mine once told me he warned his son about declaring himself to be an atheist on the internet. My friend was raised in a Christian home but gave it up along the way. Now he is an atheist but kept it quiet. Being an atheist has career and personal costs in the U.S. But atheists and agnostics have become better known in recent years. Still, my friend kept his silence whilst his son braved whatever discrimination might come his way. Atheistic and theistic worldviews can be quite different and in conflict. A substantial percentage of U.S. children are exposed to Christianity at home, in church, and in schools. They learn Bible stories. And they read fictional stories –both secular and religious. The Bible contains many stories that delight children when illustrated in pictures and movies. But the stories contain fantastic events not seen in daily life. Kathleen Corrivea...

Afterlife What do  people  believe? Surveys of religious beliefs are common in the USA.  Christians are the largest group of religious people in the US so, it makes sense to consider the context  of beliefs about life after life. The primary story is from the Gospels, which can be found in the New Testament section of Bibles. Easter events begin with MaundyThursday or Good Friday (Some protestant groups skip Maundy Thursday). Jesus celebrated the Jewish Passover with his followers. He was betrayed and accused of wrongdoing. He was sentenced to die by crucifixion and buried. On Easter Sunday, his followers found his tomb empty, encountered Jesus in different situations, and spread the word of the resurrection. The Gospel of Luke reports the events beginning in  Chapter 22 . A Harris Poll (16 December 2013) has some findings relevant to the Easter story. The survey of 2,250 adults was conducted between 13 and 18 November, 2013. Belie...