Grief-Work in Light of the Cross: Illustrating Transformational Interdisciplinarity

During the past two-and-a-half decades, an array of practical theologians, pastoral counselors, therapists, psychologist and psychology professors who are self-professed Christians have attempted to answer these two methodological questions, "What is the relationship between psychology and theology? How does the construal of this relationship impact ministerial and therapeutic practice?" (1) In this article, I contribute to the ongoing discussion by (1) summarizing a typology of interdisciplinary models, (2) delineating a "transformational model," and (3) demonstrating the use of this model in relating grief-work and a theology of the cross. In regard to the latter, I place Alice Miller's Drama of the Gifted Child in conversation with Karl Barth's understanding of the cross of Jesus Christ and Frank Lake's Clinical Theology. ********** Richard R. Osmer (2005) identifies three categories of interdisciplinary models-correlational, transversal, and transformational--that have emerged in recent discussions among practical theologians, and I would add self-professing Christian clinicians and professors of psychology. This section introduces these three models and notes their distinct construal of both the nature of academic disciplines and the task of theology. Correlational models relate theology and psychology (and other social sciences) as equal contributors to interdisciplinary conversation. Theological and social scientific theories exert mutual influence on one another. They exist in a symmetrical relationship. Three variations of the correlational models of inter-disciplinarity can be seen, though not exclusively, in Paul Tillich, Don Browning, and Matthew Lamb. Tillich's (1981) correlation is uni-directional. Interpretations of culture from disciplines such as psychology pose questions to theology, and in turn, theology answers with concepts plausible to the modern person. At times, Tillich's interdisciplinary conversation collapses theology into psychology, while at other times, it creates a tertium quid, literally "a third thing," a hybrid concept that is neither strictly psychological nor theological. Don Browning (1996) and Matthew Lamb (1982) draw upon David Tracy (1975) to extend Tillich's method of correlation. Don Browning's "revised" correlation (1996) is bi-directional. That is, theology and non-theological disciplines pose questions and answers to one another. All disciplines are hermeneutical and thus need to be subjected to the same analytical criteria (i.e., validity claims). (2) Matthew Lamb sets forth a "revised praxis" correlational model. In this model, the emancipatory praxis of social movements and communities is correlated with the praxis of communities of faith in hopes that both will work collaboratively toward the humanization of life. In contradistinction to these correlational models and the transformational models discussed below, Wentzel van Huyssteen (1999) argues for a transversal model of interdisciplinarity. According to van Huyssteen, academic disciplines, by very nature, exist in transverse relationships. To transverse is to lie across, intersect, meet at a particular point and then diverge. Thus academic disciplines can be imaged as the childhood game of pick-up sticks, where in sticks lie across one another in all directions. Like the sticks, disciplines transverse one another; they are interdisciplinary by nature. Interdisciplinary dialogue is unavoidable. Its aim is the establishment of "intersubjective agreements," which emerge from the persuasive reasoning of all dialogue partners, including persons of different academic backgrounds and religious affiliations. Osmer identifies Hans Frei (1992), James Loder (1998) and Deborah van Deusen Hunsinger (1995) as utilizing a "transformational" model of interdisci-plinarity. Frei's approach can be depicted as an "ad hoc" correlational model. By "ad hoc," he means that theology cannot be systematically correlated with any other academic discipline, though particular psychological concepts, for instance, may be analogies for particular theological concepts. …