Psychology – Christianity Worldview Conflicts


For more than five decades, Christian scholars have attempted to integrate Christianity and psychology. Although many models have been proposed, no one approach has won wide acceptance.

Recent news stories in the US reveal a gap between Conservative Christian values (CONS) and mainstream psychology (PSY). Although conservative Christians carefully consider the Bible concerning sociomoral issues, some issues like IVF and medically safe abortions were not available.

The table below summarizes what I think is true about a few issues regarding sex and reproductive rights. I value informed feedback.


PSY = Mainstream Psychology as presented by guidelines and ethics applicable to psychologists. In general, the profession of psychology supports reproductive rights and women’s choices concerning her body and appearance. Some psychologists who also identify as Christian may differ from official views. Those seeking evaluations or psychotherapy may want to know a psychologist’s values.


CONS: Examples of Christian groups or denominations officially holding conservative sociomoral values in the US are Evangelical Protestants, Pentecostals, Roman Catholics, and Southern Baptists. Of course, not all members of a group follow the “official teachings.”


The coding:

NA means a feature is Not Applicable to this worldview component.

W identifies a feature as being a Woman’s choice. In some cases, an evidence-based worldview component supports a woman’s right to make a choice. This is most evident in the debate over a woman’s choice to end a pregnancy versus having to abide by a law that governs what she may or may not do.






















Some notes

The Bible factor: The Bible does not mention abortion, contraception, masturbation, or surrogacy but Christians reason from various texts to establish a doctrine or position paper to guide their members.

In the Hebrew Bible, women who were infertile had children by their servants. For example, Abraham had sex with his wife’s servant Hagar.

During their period, women were considered unclean and were temporarily restricted from sacred spaces. This rule carried over into the early church.

Read more in

Reproduction: Who Controls Women's Bodies? on AMAZON

Sex, Morality, and Christian Cultures on AMAZON




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