Dru Johnson (00:00)
Should we be using psychology to lead and pastor better in the church? Well, today I’m going to talk to Dr. Erin Smith, who is a professional research psychologist. You will find that she is a wealth of information and insight, and she actually understands how what she’s thinking fits together well with Scripture. And so I think you’re going to really enjoy how she views the role of psychology, the pluses and minuses.
and how it might actually help us to think better about what we are doing as the community of God. If you like what we’re doing here at the Center for Hebraic Thought and the Biblical Mind podcast, you can like and subscribe this YouTube channel, or you can rate us over on your podcast, podcasting thing networks.
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Dru Johnson (01:10)
So
Erin Smith (01:11)
Okay.
Dru Johnson (01:11)
When you talk about pastors engaging psychologically with their congregations, what’s the an a common hurdle or maybe a a speed bump that you have to get people past just so they can kind of hear what you’re saying?
Erin Smith (01:26)
I think there’s probably two different hurdles depending on who the pastor is. One might be born out of just a skepticism toward psychology and psychological science as a meaningful way for Christians to know about the world. But another hurdle is of a kind of different variety, which is really more that sometimes people say, What value is there in naming the thing? I I
Dru Johnson (01:51)
Hm.
Erin Smith (01:52)
Been involved in ministry for a long time. I have these relationships. I’ve seen things go well. I’ve seen things go south. What is it that psychology can offer beyond just kind of abundant interpersonal experience with others? And so then there’s a little bit of a hesitation just on the common sense value, where it’s like, well, haven’t we already sort of isn’t psychology just common sense in your naming what I’ve already discerned in the world? And I think those are two different kinds of barriers.
Dru Johnson (02:22)
I I will admit, and and maybe it’s because I have kids all in their twenties and they were raised in this kind of therapeutic vocabulary culture. And and I see even them, you know, they’re great, wonderful young adults, but kind of wanting to find a label for everything that’s maybe wrong with them or everything that’s going wrong in their thinking or that what whatever’s going wrong in their life. Okay, that on one side. And then I will also say I was recently diagnosed by the VA with PTSD.
And ADHD. And I found it strangely comforting to go, that’s why I do that jerky thing that I can’t explain to myself, like
Erin Smith (03:02)
Yeah.
Dru Johnson (03:03)
why I keep doing it, even though, you know, like Paul, I hate this thing I do.
Erin Smith (03:06)
Yeah.
Dru Johnson (03:07)
And so I I I wonder if if all psychology did or psychologically engaged pastoring did, if all it did was just name things, if that itself would be of benefit.
Erin Smith (03:18)
Yeah, so I was actually with a group of pastors yesterday and we were talking about attachment science and theory and social support and how do we create communities where people feel not just that they’re there with other people, but they actually feel a sense of mutual belonging in this community. and afterwards the con the comments I got, a good number of them were just you’ve articulated what I’m trying to do, and I now have an empowered and encouraged framework.
Think that there is a lot of value in that because this is specifically in a children’s ministry context where you have wonderful, lovely people with a very different kinds of training that might bring them into this space, and so they might actually have some intuitive sense of this is going to be effective or this is what somebody else has said I should try, and I’m seeing it work, but.
But why is it working? Because do I have to keep this package the same, or what can I change in order to maintain these relational attachments, for example? And so I do think that there was something actually really encouraging just to adding layers of language to what’s going on. And also practically in that context, if the children’s ministry pastor or director
get some side eye questions from an executive or a head pastor about
Dru Johnson (04:34)
Mm.
Erin Smith (04:35)
what they’re doing. If it looks too outside of the box of what maybe that pastor might expect of children’s ministry, they now can actually refer to different kinds of theories of like it’s it we think this is good for children’s spiritual formation for these reasons. And so it gives them a little bit stronger of a backbone maybe, but a little bit stronger of a a an anchor point from which to do these kinds of ministry interventions.
I think that’s really helpful.
Dru Johnson (05:04)
i I’m always looking for empirically based I was gonna say empirically based evidence, evidence based practices is I mean, is there any suggestion that just having a coherent set of or a label for a coherent set of symptoms for some kind of behavior or personality disorder or something, that that actually helps people navigate the next steps? ‘Cause this is the I what is behind this question is the classic
Everybody telling you what their diagnosis is but doing nothing about like that joke like, I’m not doing anything about it. I just wanted you to know how you you should be interacting with me kind of a thing. but does the
Erin Smith (05:40)
Yeah.
Dru Johnson (05:41)
the diagnosis itself help in the next steps?
Erin Smith (05:44)
So I think it’s a double edged sword. There is definitely research that shows when people
Are exposed to diagnostic language. You have fill in the blank. It actually reduces their conception that that’s changeable. So it can minimize,
and this is actually something I talk about with personality in the Enneagram. So it’s
Dru Johnson (06:04)
Mm-hmm.
Erin Smith (06:04)
not a diagnosis, but it’s a really common tool for spiritual direction. To what extent does getting a number actually reduce my belief, and therefore what I do to support that belief, does that does that number reduce my belief in that I can actually grow and
change and be different.
And so that that’s one side of the sword. But of course, the other side is when there’s a collection of behaviors put together under a label, when that helps you find a community in which change and management and health is pursued, I actually do think that’s really helpful because it normalizes things. Right? I’m not the only person who fill in the blank. and so if I’m not the only one, that means that I can walk this path of navigating whatever the diagnosis or whatever the behavior is to get.
together
with someone. And we were really designed to do things with, not by ourselves. And so to the extent that the label moves us into community, I think that’s really helpful. To the extent it just kind of says this is who I am and there’s nothing that can be done about it, I think that’s problematic.
Dru Johnson (07:08)
Yeah.
Okay, r total rabbit trail, but because what you said, my mind will not let this go. I am puzzled by this particular phenomenon, which is I always thought, you know, when again, sometimes you think you’re crazy because you act or think certain things, and then you find out like like I had a collapsed lung when I was twenty or twenty one. And then later I found out that lots of people who grow tall very quickly have collapsed lung. It’s a a completely normal thing. And I thought
Wow, I wish somebody had told me that when I was hitting my growth spurt, and I would have, you know, I don’t know if it would have changed anything, but it would would have helped me know that I wasn’t dying, or maybe I was. I don’t know. The and so when my kids were teenagers, not to use my kids for everything, but it’s not just my kids. I interact with lots of teenagers as part of my job. I have found that they do not want their experience normalized. In fact, that annoys them when you kind of say,
Actually lots of people go through what you’re what you’re going through. Do you have any like off the cuff psychological explanation for why people wanna put away they they want it to be their unique experience rather than being comforted by the fact that lots of people have been through this?
Erin Smith (08:17)
Hmm. So this is my off the cuff speaking at the periphery of my expertise. Sorry about that notification.
Dru Johnson (08:26)
Yeah, no medical advice is being given here. So
Erin Smith (08:29)
I think one one thing is that we actually just want to be validated. And so to the extent that, you know, this is something that everybody experiences or lots of people experience, if that’s perceived as invalidating my experience,
Dru Johnson (08:42)
Mm.
Erin Smith (08:42)
that that can create a problem.
I was listening to to a podcast yesterday actually on a very related topic, and the the gal was essentially arguing that one of the problems with mental health is that we want our pain to be special. and
Dru Johnson (09:00)
Hm.
Erin Smith (09:00)
when we make our pain something special and we construct an identity around it, it actually crystallizes that pain as us.
Dru Johnson (09:10)
Yeah.
Erin Smith (09:10)
And it it can prevent
us from moving forward. And so when we’re thinking about like somebody wanting to be validated in their experience, I think that’s really important. But to the extent that they want that pain to be crystallized or that experience to be, I am the only one, that actually might be problematic in terms of identity formation and moving through whatever that experience is.
Dru Johnson (09:33)
I I love how you’re casually dropping these things that are blowing my mind and and
like you are naming so precisely some discussions I’ve had. Even some of my own feeling like sometimes you have pain. It pain is special, right? It is boutique to you know, I I get to spiel feel a very Dru-shaped version of pain in some ways, and you as well. Okay, so this issue, I think that
Correct me if I’m wrong, but when you talk about identifying too closely with something, let’s go ahead and go with the Enneagram. Cause hey, why not? And i is the issue here what we call self efficacy,
I see it all the time. People go, I’m an eight wing five, and I always say I’m a five wing twenty-seven or something. I have no idea what I am. And people love to guess what I am. And I hate, hate, hate, hate that. But is is the problem the identity, or is the problem that it just basically locks you in? And I’m I’m saying that because I’m thinking self efficacy.
You you wanna say, Great, that’s your that’s where you’re good. Now let’s talk about all the areas where you’re not so good and that’s where you need to have a feeling that you can you can move out of your eightness or your fiveness or your one one wing three or whatever.
Erin Smith (10:48)
Yeah, yeah. I actually think the problem is probably more fundamental than that, which is that our the way our cognitive systems are constructed is to be categorizers of things. We love buckets, we love binaries, we love sorting things, and we really have a hard time as humans conceptualizing continuums.
Dru Johnson (11:09)
Hm.
Erin Smith (11:12)
And there there’s actually some really kind of good cognitive and brain based reasons for that. It’s a lot more taxing metabolically in terms of the energy required to to think that way, but also just mentally to
To keep all the shades of gray in a thing. And so we just kind of sort like high or low, extroverted, introverted. So even in psychological science, we we talk about extroversion, introversion, it’s not bucket, it’s still a continuum. So the Enneagram just really capitalizes on our desire to categorize and sort. And I actually think this is related to our earlier conversation around diagnoses, right? We like love to have a diagnosis, and to the extent that empowers us to move through, that’s great.
and so I actually don’t come down in this chapter and say never do the Enneagram, even though it’s not scientifically backed. So I’ve also not done it. But I don’t have a problem if someone uses it as a tool to move through. The problem is that the numbering system, just like saying I’m an extrovert or an introvert, these kind of bucket systems really incline us to minimize nuances and differences between things that can get in the way of genuine relational knowing.
And so if I’m using something like the Enneagram and spiritual direction or some kind of discipleship pathway, it really should come after deep, meaningful relational connection because as soon as it happens first, I now have a number and a category to put on this person in front of me. and that’s even if I don’t want it to be that way, my I have a mind that is built on shortcuts exactly like that.
Dru Johnson (12:47)
Mm.
Erin Smith (12:49)
On the receiving end, being put inside of a number again can feel really good, especially when it’s like, look at all these things this number is really, really good at.
Dru Johnson (12:57)
Right.
Erin Smith (12:59)
But it also minimizes it, because it capitalizes on particular kinds of motivational systems that make us think this is just the way we are.
Dru Johnson (13:09)
Mm.
Erin Smith (13:09)
So Carol Dweck is a developmental psychologist at Stanford and has done a lot of work on what she calls mindset.
Right, your beliefs about your intelligence, for example. If you think you are smart because you work hard, that’s gonna influence a certain way of interacting with difficult problems. If you think you are as smart as you’re ever going to be, and having to work hard is a sign that this task is kind of at the border of your smartness,
Dru Johnson (13:32)
Hmm.
Erin Smith (13:34)
you’re not gonna work very hard. and that’s actually really problematic in the long run, because of course working hard and struggling through is part of a very normal human learning process.
And so it’s these kinds of implicit beliefs that drive motivation to behave in certain ways. It’s true in intelligence, it’s true in relationships, and of course it’s gonna be true in something like the way we conceptualize ourselves as well.
Dru Johnson (13:56)
Hm. I it seems to me, not to drag this into scripture, but it seems to me that that scripture has like a very long form program of shaping mindset, I identity, self, your own mindset, the kind of an outward facing mindset as well. I wonder, do you, you know, as a Christian s who is a psychologist, a research psychologist, do you do you see scripture that way? I I have a very myopic view of scripture on this front, but do you see it working that way?
And what or
Erin Smith (14:25)
Yeah.
Dru Johnson (14:25)
and what would be the danger or the benefit of seeing it?
Erin Smith (14:30)
Well, so it’s I I actually can benefit from a lot of the conversations that you have on this very podcast here. There’s one that I think about a lot and I talk with my students a lot, so I’m gonna say it and then I want you to correct me where I’m wrong as I’m paraphrasing what I’ve understood you to say before. That
Especially in the Old Testament, it’s like a pixelated view of reality. That you when you look at it kind of on the side, you get the image. But if you look at it straight on and you expect to approach it as someone in 2026 creating these analytical bucket categories, things kind of fall apart because that’s not the way that it was written. and for me, that pixelated view is that’s a continuum view. that
Dru Johnson (15:11)
Mm.
Erin Smith (15:11)
it’s saying that we actually aren’t going to be able to come to scripture and just say, here’s one bucket.
Here’s this truth, here’s this fact, and treat them as isolated individuals, but rather they need to come together in ways that are progressively revealed, both through scripture, but then also as I grow and engage with scripture
Dru Johnson (15:28)
Mm-hmm.
Erin Smith (15:28)
as a different person. So I don’t know if that if that resonates, and I’d be happy to have you correct my my memory here.
Dru Johnson (15:34)
No. I’m
mildly jealous that I’ve never said it that clearly or plainly before. Good thing we’re recording this. I can plagiarize
Erin Smith (15:45)
Yeah.
Dru Johnson (15:46)
your words now. no, I I think that’s yeah, I had never actually thought of it that way. It I I have this other nagging question in my mind too: is why is it I’m you know I’m very comfortable with the non-binary.
stuff right now. Sorry, that sounds that that could sound the wrong way. I’m very comfortable with not things not being in buckets. I certainly feel some of that has to be just age. You just realize that, you know, this comfortability that things just don’t fit that way. and some of it I’ve heard from the neuroscience, they claim, you know, the prefrontal cortex has to develop so far before, you know, non black and white binaries feel better to you. Maybe even just less taxing to you.
Erin Smith (16:27)
Mm-hmm.
Dru Johnson (16:32)
But if that’s the case, so if scripture is doing this kind of more continuum level thinking, which I would say is is what wisdom and maturity and and skilled discerning is probably aimed at, is it not for the you know, the obvious problem, then is it not for the young? Because everybody in all my classes here at this college are not of the age physiologically where they’re this is gonna be their their game, you know.
Erin Smith (16:58)
So if we wait until we are ready to engage certain ideas, then we will actually never be ready. I I really do think that the way that cognitive development happens is that we are always pushing right outside of any one person’s current capacities.
Dru Johnson (17:16)
Hm.
Erin Smith (17:16)
And so if we wait until so if if I’m trying to teach something that requires a particular level of maturity or understanding, or even just framework for thinking about the world, being able to hold multiple viewpoints, for example,
Dru Johnson (17:28)
Mm.
Erin Smith (17:29)
if I wait until that capacity arrives to introduce that kind of thinking, then that capacity will never arise. Because
Dru Johnson (17:34)
Mm.
Erin Smith (17:35)
by pushing them beyond what they’re currently able, they actually enter into that capacity. I think about this a lot with how how we teach children in in in children’s
Ministries or in in ministries in the church that are designed primarily for them, that there’s a lot of things in scripture that feel impossible to teach them. And also, I don’t want them to wait until they’re 18 to hear these stories. But I don’t want to give them a like this makes me comfortable in a Sunday morning to talk about version of these stories. And so figuring out how do we adapt and
The way that we teach these stories, in what context are they embedded, to push them just beyond where they are, not too far beyond, where everything is over their head, and not so banal that they’re like, what am I even doing here?
Dru Johnson (18:25)
Yeah.
Erin Smith (18:26)
and so that really i ends up being a an important developmental task, kinda throughout life. Like what’s the the one one place where we all can be pushed a little bit further than our current capacities?
Dru Johnson (18:36)
Hmm.
I I don’t know if you know this, but I worked full time as a children’s pastor for eight years. And so this was and I and I had not had children for the first four years when I started that. And so I was definitely in over my head pedagogically. How do you how do you teach children? And I I remember having that thought. I can you know, the parents say, Well, we want you to teach our kids the Bible, and and I think, Well, hey, that’s not really my job. but I can help you help them understand the Bible.
But B, well, okay, which, you know, there’s a reason why you have the storybook Bible rather than unvarnished. I I still struggle with how you should deal with that. I I wanna s switch back to something you said earlier. Or I should say everything that you’re saying to me sounds like how do you know you’re actually learning something is because it feels like a struggle? Is that would that be true?
Erin Smith (19:32)
So I would say that you do not have to feel like something is a struggle in order to learn it, but most learning will entail some kind of struggle.
Dru Johnson (19:42)
Okay.
Erin Smith (19:43)
Because it I mean that’s that that struggle is really it’s a symptom of deep meaningful engagement.
and that if we are f if we’re only staying at okay, so I’m gonna switch to my my students. So they’re I teach cognitive psychology. and I I always joke with them, I know how you studied. You read the chapter, some of them, and then of those, they highlighted, and then some of them, when they went back and called it studying, they read the parts they highlighted. The
Dru Johnson (20:11)
Mm-hmm.
Erin Smith (20:11)
problem with that is that second reading, especially of the highlighted portions, is faster, it feels more fluent.
And so we actually call this a feeling of knowing. Because it was faster in our minds,
Dru Johnson (20:21)
Mm-hmm.
Erin Smith (20:23)
we think, I must really know this. But of course, that was actually a really easy way of just kind of reviewing eyes on page. And then they come to the exam and they say, Why did I do so poorly? I didn’t I I really thought I knew this. Indeed, you did think you knew this, and you actually didn’t because you never struggled through the kind of deep implications and drawing connections, the hard work of creating new neural pathways. That actually is this knowledge.
Dru Johnson (20:48)
Hmm. And I I know what parents of college students are thinking at home as they hear this is like, you should say that in front of your class, and then that will fix the problem. because I say something very similar to my classes and I show them the evidence that highlighting does not work, right? and then I talk about better ways. And then I was just I had office hours today and I said, Well, show me your your book and let me see how you’re interacting with the reading because you’re struggling on the quizzes.
and it was all highlighted. It did the exact thing I told them not to do, right? So there is this you have to heed the author, you have to learn to heed the authority, embody the practices they’re they’re espousing for you in order to see what they’re trying to show you. And I just always underestimate the obstinence of of a 18-year-old freshman. Like how hard, like the amount of energy they will expend to not.
Do
what they’re paying so much money to do, right? So, and
Erin Smith (21:46)
Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Dru Johnson (21:48)
it’s not and honestly, I think in most cases it’s not even their fault. It’s something has trained them to think this way and to think of knowledge as a commodity. You you probably know my critique of TED Talks on this front. that TED talks fall into this this what what did you call it? The the feeling of knowing.
Erin Smith (22:06)
Mm-hmm.
Dru Johnson (22:07)
yeah, the feel of knowing. So it gives you, because you can follow point to point to point, you can follow the logic.
Erin Smith (22:12)
Mm.
Dru Johnson (22:13)
logical connectives and so you feel like you understood something, but you actually don’t. And I there’s been some studies I cite in one of my books that where they showed you actually have an overinflated sense of feeling of knowing, which to me as an educator is is the worst possible outcome is that you come out thinking you know more than you do. in the church, I have heard it many times where people have said, I wish our sermons were more like TED talks. and I always say, I wish they weren’t
But but I I wonder when you th when you talk about psychology and preaching, I there’s gotta be lots of things to parse here when it comes to what we’re doing when we’re preaching, what would be a better version, worse versions. So give us some basic starting points here before they come to your book, pastoring
Erin Smith (23:03)
Yeah,
Dru Johnson (23:03)
the whole person. Yeah.
Erin Smith (23:06)
So it it’s interesting. I’m I’m actually really hesitant to speak too strongly specifically on preaching, in part because this is most churches kind of primary ministry.
Dru Johnson (23:21)
Yeah.
Erin Smith (23:22)
and so there is a little bit of modifying anything in any way, better or worse, neutral, is threatening.
To the people who have come to expect it to be a certain way. And so I would just say, like, if if someone reads my book and has some things that they want to try, they should probably enter into a community conversation to actually explain what they’re doing and why they’re trying it. Not because it’s gonna answer all the questions, but it’ll at least invite thoughtful dialogue around that. Okay, so that that being said.
Dru Johnson (23:58)
There there’s a rule about
this in in church change dynamics is
Erin Smith (24:02)
Okay.
Dru Johnson (24:03)
if you wanna move the platform to the other or the piano to the other side of the platform, it’s easy. Do it one inch a week.
Erin Smith (24:09)
Yeah.
Dru Johnson (24:10)
and that way you won’t cause a schism in the church. so yeah,
Erin Smith (24:13)
That’s funny.
Dru Johnson (24:14)
same thing for s minor modifications to your preaching sermons for your sake and for the congregation as well. I I that’s a good it’s a
Erin Smith (24:20)
Yes.
Dru Johnson (24:21)
very good point, yeah.
Erin Smith (24:23)
But I would I would also think when there are changes that are necessary, you we almost need to reverse engineer. Like what is it that you think this thing, whether it be a a sermon, a ministry, a certain kind of constru way of of organizing a Sunday service or a midweek ministry or whatever, what is it that you actually think the outcomes of that are gonna be? And I recognize that that language feels very mechanical, and that doesn’t mean that we’re you know pulling
Some divine levers and are going to get these outcomes. But I think that by starting with what do we hope that this will do first? Are we gonna try to create relationships? Are we trying to create biblical knowledge? Are we trying to get people in the practice of spiritual disciplines? Are we trying to just gather it in prayer? Like, what is it that we would say success from our view could look like?
And then reverse engineer and make sure that we’ve organized the ministry with those goals in mind. Because there’s lots of ways to build roads to Rome. But if
Dru Johnson (25:24)
Hm.
Erin Smith (25:24)
we don’t actually know that Rome is where we’re going, we’re probably not gonna get there. And so starting with what do we think the outcome should be, and then reverse engineering. So is Sunday morning preaching mostly about information download? I’m gonna approach that one way. Is it about getting people to engage reflectively on some practical implication for their life? I might actually
organize my time differently. And that’s not to say one church only needs one way, but that any given week we might actually want to say, okay, we’re going to do things a little bit different, because I want to make sure I’ve created space for this outcome, whatever that might be.
Dru Johnson (25:59)
Yeah,
and and of course I would love to tell people, whatever the outcome is, you should probably true it up to scripture in some way. Including one of my current dilemmas, this is all in my own head, kind of the stuff I wake up thinking in the middle of the night kind of stuff. but while I’ve got a psychologist on the line here, I really, really worry that the church in its worship service as a whole.
Does not practice the lament of the Psalms, or the kind of hope the hopeless Psalms is it called, like Psalm 88, you know, being one of the darker ones that doesn’t have that, but we trust you, God, at the end of it. And when bad things happen to good people, they I mean, they’ll tell you, I have no words. I can’t even talk to God because I don’t even know what I would say. And I say, people who’ve been through what you’ve been through, they they had words. They’re not gonna be good words. They’re gonna be, in some ways, harsh words for gods, but they had them.
Erin Smith (26:53)
Mm-hmm.
Dru Johnson (26:55)
You know where you can find them in the Psalms. How many Christians are shocked by this? So I wonder, you know, psychologically speaking, what how do we help people understand the full range of emotion that actually is available to them in scripture? but as some of my friends said, that would just be too much of a bummer on Sunday morning to sing some of those psalms. And I say, well, maybe a bummer for you, but if your child just died.
Maybe not, right? so I wonder
Erin Smith (27:22)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dru Johnson (27:24)
you can you can fire back at me telling me why I’m wrong as well. I’m happy to be corrected.
Erin Smith (27:26)
Or
no. No, I actually really agree with you. and I agree with the intended sentiment of your friend that when I’m feeling really great, I’m celebrating something at work or things are going really well, to come up and show up and bear witness to my brothers and sisters in Christ, their legitimate pain means that I actually need to decenter myself a little bit.
Dru Johnson (27:48)
Mm.
Erin Smith (27:49)
and I think that’s a really healthy practice. And so I think that
incorporating those opportunities on a regular basis because of course lament isn’t something that just happens. I think about the there’s usually a like a l a long I can’t remember what they’re called because my particular denomination has not historically practiced them. but the long night the longest night service that happens around Christmas time. Yeah. I think they’re beautiful. Like every time
Dru Johnson (28:11)
yeah, yeah, yeah. We don’t practice them either. Yeah.
Erin Smith (28:16)
I hear about them, I’m like, I’m just gonna seek one out. I’m gonna find it, just to show up and mourn with those who are mourning.
I think there is something about the regular practice, not just once a year, of saying, look, you might not be in a space where these emotions meet your words, but you actually need to show up and sing on behalf of the person who can’t yet open their mouth.
Dru Johnson (28:37)
Right.
Erin Smith (28:37)
And
there is something about this kind of relational obligation that comes when we say we are part of this family of Christ that as Americans we really don’t like and we don’t like practicing. But I think w how could the church actually create these kinds of relational attachments that
Right now as I’m showing up and singing on behalf of the person down the road who I don’t know what they’re mourning, how might that actually encourage them to take their next step in relationship in this church that is part of their pathway to seeing God redeem what has happened, right? And whatever that might look like.
Yeah, so I would just say I don’t actually have any pushback. I think that we do a great disservice to people when we say we just wanna we wanna meet them where they at as long as it’s happy.
Dru Johnson (29:25)
Right. Yeah. I I mean, even as you said that I was thinking, I have often been in church and I don’t I can’t open my mouth to the joy, joy, joy is down in my heart ’cause I’m thinking,
Erin Smith (29:35)
Mm-hmm.
Dru Johnson (29:36)
it’s not really there right now. I’ll still sing those happy clappy songs because I I know that it’s good for me to do so. But I think it’s also we don’t I don’t know if we don’t want to admit or I think I
My guess is in most cases we don’t even know who’s hurting in the room because that’s not the kind of relationship we have in the church. And maybe that’s symptomatic of the problem. And I’ve certainly been tuned into when you can tell when the pastors know all the pain in the room, when they have been praying and talking and visiting with people.
Erin Smith (30:09)
Mm-hmm.
Dru Johnson (30:10)
so that relational part, I don’t know, that whole relational thing seems really important. even in scripture I it shows up every once in a while. So
Erin Smith (30:19)
So
I will say that’s it as I was doing the research for
the book. I mean, so you when you do the proposal, obviously you say this is what I’m gonna talk about, and then about half of what I thought I was gonna say just changed as I
Dru Johnson (30:29)
Hm.
Erin Smith (30:29)
was doing some more of the research and the thinking and like to see where these arguments took me. and one of the things that surprised me was that no matter what I had something to say about relationships were the through line to it all.
and so as I talk about what’s going on in the brain, right? There there’s actually relational components to that. When I think
Dru Johnson (30:49)
Mm-hmm.
Erin Smith (30:49)
about memory and like what is the role of memory, there’s actually relationships in that too. When I and then of course when you start talking about like community and narratives, that’s you might think, that’s inherently relational. But even in some of these things where we want to think on individualistic terms, from
Dru Johnson (31:04)
Hm.
Erin Smith (31:04)
a psychological perspective, we just can’t. Not if we’re gonna be honest to what the science has to say. And so I think there’s a beautiful opportunity for the church to say, and this is actually baked into
what what we’re supposed to be. and so so yeah, I would just say that the relationship piece matters whether you’re starting from scripture or you’re starting from psychology.
Dru Johnson (31:26)
Yeah. yeah, and we a friend of mine, Josh Cockane and Gideon Salter, who is a developmental psychologist, write about child development and the joint attention and that like I mean we all know this is true, but it’s it’s some you know, l like hearing you, an expert who can just point out exactly what’s going on. It’s it’s difficult I would have said boldly and from scripture, everything is relational all the way down. You know, it’s turtles of relationship all the way down.
so it’s nice to hear that there’s some empirical evidence to that as well. But going back to where we started, where where do you see the rub when you’re like where the empirical evidence, where you say, look, psychology has found X, Y, or Z, and a pastor or someone in ministry pushes back and says, Well, that’s not what the word of God says. and and how do you maneuver, how do you make peace in those moments or sort those things out?
Have you had that happen? I guess I should start with.
Erin Smith (32:28)
Well so I actually think it probably doesn’t happen with me because people know where I am. But like
Dru Johnson (32:34)
Ha ha.
Erin Smith (32:35)
everyone talks about these conversations, so I know they’re happening.
Dru Johnson (32:38)
Yeah.
Erin Smith (32:42)
But and someone someone asked me a very similar question recently, and I just said, you know, I actually don’t feel like it’s my job to try to convince
A pastor who is so skeptical of psychological science that they need to engage it and apply it in their ministry because there’s something else happening. I actually think that’s an impoverished epistemology, just generally
Dru Johnson (33:00)
Yeah, yeah.
Erin Smith (33:01)
speaking, that we can say, you know, scriptures work scripture is like the the way that we know about the world. And not that’s also not an exclusionary way that there is no other way of knowing about the world, because there’s lots of things that I live my life, kind of knowing it’s true, that don’t come to me through scripture.
And so in that context, if someone just really has a problem with either all of psychology or specific areas, I would just say, okay, maybe let’s be curious about that.
and let’s ask some other questions. But I’m not trying to evangelize psychology in that way. I think it can be a really helpful tool and an important ally in a lot of different kinds of ministry conversations and and conflicts. but I don’t feel compelled to kind of like make people take the the red pill as it were. Is it red or blue in the matrix? I don’t know.
Dru Johnson (33:49)
Yeah. I it it’s
well it’s calling getting red pilled as when you when you wake up from the matrix. So that’s it’s it’s sad that modern masculinity culture has taught me what the matrix said. the so we don’t need to evangelize psychology, but I wonder if you could justify it because I think there there is a broad maybe it’s just the people I hang around, c you know, conservative people who will say, like, look
Psychology has had this massive problem with unrepeatability, you know,
Erin Smith (34:23)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Dru Johnson (34:24)
data, data errors, if you know, the the correlational coefficients in social psychology can can be pretty low. I mean, even though they can have power dynamics to them.
Erin Smith (34:35)
Yeah.
Dru Johnson (34:35)
so what would be the kind of bottom line? Yeah, yeah, yeah. All all areas of science have their issues, psychology has their own special issues, but here’s why you should still
take s to someone who has an open ear and is willing to hear
Erin Smith (34:47)
Yeah.
Dru Johnson (34:47)
you out, here’s why they should take it seriously.
Erin Smith (34:50)
Yeah, so I I think I would say that we don’t actually want to draw from any one study massive
Dru Johnson (34:57)
Hm.
Erin Smith (34:57)
conclusions. But rather if we step back over the course of the past, you know, hundred plus years that psychology has been a discipline, there have been them some things that we’ve really pretty well documented about the way humans work. And that doesn’t mean that they these things won’t change. I mean if we look at the history of science.
Broadly, most of the things we’ve ever believed have been wrong. So I I don’t actually want to take an overly arrogant view of what we know now. And also even those things that were wrong in the history of science were useful.
in a lot of ways in helping advance what we understood and and their kind of engagement with the world as they understood it to be. and so even kind of setting aside what psychology might have to say several hundred years from now, what we can say is that there i if we look at
The main findings and some of the theoretical explanations that bring these well-supported findings together, we actually can say something meaningful about humans and their dynamics and their relationships. And so as new studies come out, we don’t want to immediately redesign our life around one new study. I don’t think that’s wise.
And yet that doesn’t mean we have nothing to say, even with all of the things that you mentioned, the reproducibility crisis and some of these small small effect sizes and things of that nature.
Dru Johnson (36:20)
and the sorry, the the one study issue, I’m not gonna edit this. I’m gonna leave all my stumbling around here ’cause I got caught up on the one study issue. I I I I immediately thought when you said this one study, A, does this actually happen? And B, it certainly happens with scripture where people take one data point from scripture, but Jesus said, or, you know, but the the word of God says this, and then they kind of
you it becomes a meat grinder for
Erin Smith (36:49)
Yeah.
Dru Johnson (36:49)
everything they wanna think. Is there you know, certainly psychology has found a new way of existing empirically that it did not like in the days of behaviorism, or f certainly Freudian technique. So how do you help people sort out? I feel like I have a similar problem with biblical theology and and th theology more general. How do you help people sort out the good, the bad, the ugly?
Especially I imagine some students get really hopped up on certain theories and certain bits of evidence.
Erin Smith (37:22)
Yeah, yeah. Well, and to kind of make things worse with things like artificial intelligence, we can ask a question and get
Dru Johnson (37:30)
Yeah.
Erin Smith (37:31)
a very eloquent readout of maybe something that’s a good answer or maybe something that’s been trained off of your own algorithm and searches. So, you know, there’s all of these things.
Dru Johnson (37:40)
Yes.
Erin Smith (37:41)
So we I think we really need to do a better job of distinguishing. I heard someone else make this distinction between
Being the they said it really eloquently, like being an expert versus having expertise, right? Like
Dru Johnson (37:56)
And
Erin Smith (37:56)
being an expert, like I’ve I’ve received a ton of training, I know how to read these studies, I’m engaged in the scholarly discourse communities. I am both contributing information through my research.
and engaging information given by psychological research, right? So so I have ex I I’m an expert here. And also I have some expertise in other areas because I’ve done some reading, I listen to a lot of the right people, I hang out in certain circles, but I’m not actually a contributor of knowledge in those spaces.
And given the way that kind of media and information and works now, it’s really easy to assume that because I am familiar with something, right? I have expert I have some kind of knowledge about something that I’m also an expert in that and I’m an active contributor. And I don’t think that’s accurate. so I think it’s really important first just to kind of start there that
Dru Johnson (38:45)
Mm-hmm.
Erin Smith (38:47)
Just because you’ve had exposure to something doesn’t actually mean that you have the requisite expert knowledge to meaningfully engage. And so we should seek out experts. even me, as I’m engaging in research, I seek out more expert individuals in
Dru Johnson (39:02)
Right.
Erin Smith (39:02)
new areas of research to mentor me and to help me understand and get a lay of the land before I can start meaningfully contributing to these scholarly conversations.
I think I’ve probably lost the thread of your question at this point.
Dru Johnson (39:17)
it was how do you help people sift through all you know
Erin Smith (39:20)
Yeah.
Dru Johnson (39:21)
all all the ex experts and the expert data? How how do you help people
Erin Smith (39:23)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dru Johnson (39:25)
figure out what’s better and worse? and it’s
Erin Smith (39:28)
Yeah.
Dru Johnson (39:29)
and it’s descriptive and pr prescriptive approaches, I guess.
Erin Smith (39:32)
Yeah, thanks. in and so f then I’ll go back to something I’ve already said in community. I mean, this is not something that we are going to develop well on our own. one of my research groups we study misconceptions, like psychological misconceptions that even after something like introduction to psychology, people continue to believe these things that are like that they’re just n really inaccurate about human people.
so I mean like things like a full moon makes people hyper or things like that. Like no it’s that
Dru Johnson (40:04)
Right, right.
Erin Smith (40:05)
that doesn’t happen. Okay. but why do people continue to believe them even after they’ve been trained, at least at a very low level, in how to think about these things? and some of that’s because a lot of the things that we believe just take up residence in our heads and we don’t actually talk to people about it.
And we don’t have meaningful opportunity for people to push back. Sure, there’s social media pushback, but that actually just makes people they dig their heels in more. That’s not meaningful, open, curious conversation. But I find, like for me personally, when I actually articulate some of the things I believe in meaningful community, sometimes I’ll get a look and I’ll say, maybe what I said was odd. Let’s think about that some more. And so
Dru Johnson (40:45)
Hm.
Erin Smith (40:45)
then we have a conversation, but I was just unaware of the inaccuracies or the odd.
of what I believed until it actually bore witness in community. And so I really do think we need that. And inviting people with different expertise and different knowledge to partake in those conversations. Yeah.
Dru Johnson (41:03)
I I mean I obviously I think that’s very biblical. I
mean, I I think it’s in Christian I would say. we have a fundamental belief as cr I always say, as Christians, you don’t get a choice. You have to believe that more perspectives are truer than one perspective. We have four gospels and we believe they’re truer together than anyone alone.
Erin Smith (41:23)
Uh-huh.
Dru Johnson (41:23)
and so community is even baked into our our canon, as it were. one last question, ’cause you know when you and I are together, I will
Not cease peppering you with questions. So I’ll keep it. There’s one last one that is one that really puzzles me. psychologists, like geologists, don’t find humans in pristine estate. For Christians, we’d say, look, we’re studying humans in their warped and broken version.
Erin Smith (41:52)
Okay.
Dru Johnson (41:53)
So I wonder how you think of
the truer version of us and our bodies and our being and our psych psyches that will one day be versus the ones that you study today.
Erin Smith (42:08)
I love that question because I don’t have an answer and I love questions I haven’t answered. but that doesn’t mean I don’t have thoughts.
Dru Johnson (42:12)
Okay. Darn it.
Erin Smith (42:16)
so no answers but thoughts.
Recently, so one of my research projects is we’re we’re creating a measure of human finitude. What it is that Christians like how how do Christians believe it is good or bad, and how might this relate to things like our willingness to technologically enhance ourselves, right? Things of this
Dru Johnson (42:37)
Hm.
Erin Smith (42:37)
nature. Because if I believe that my finitude is actually part of God’s good creation, then I’m gonna engage in the world differently and I’m gonna engage with technology differently and all of these kind of downstream implications. And so I’ve been thinking a lot about what
is and is not part of the created good of me as a human, right? So
The fact that I need to sleep, the fact that I’m vulnerable to illness, right? Some of these things, I don’t like them, but that doesn’t mean they’re not good. And so I have I have all those thoughts th swirling around in my head that I don’t think the nature of some of those created goods will necessarily change. In part
Dru Johnson (43:13)
Mm-hmm.
Erin Smith (43:14)
because they require me to decenter and say, and it is all God who sustains me in these,
Dru Johnson (43:19)
Mm.
Erin Smith (43:20)
in my weaknesses, in these areas. And I’ve also been thinking about how,
Again, I’m stepping into your territory here, so you can you can correct me about how humans were created good, not perfect.
Dru Johnson (43:32)
Mm-hmm.
Erin Smith (43:33)
and just even the meaningful distinction between those two words and what does that mean for how I think about and conceptualize human psychology? What does it mean to be good? What does it mean to grow and develop and maybe that being part of the original design and why would I expect that to change?
in in the Eschaton. Like I mean so so I’ve been thinking through some of these things,
Dru Johnson (43:54)
Mm.
Erin Smith (43:55)
which is not at all an answer to the question that you have asked
Dru Johnson (43:57)
No, it’s good.
Erin Smith (43:58)
me. but I do think that some of the things that we might want to package up with the brokenness of human psychology is actually not part of that. And so these are some of the things I’ve been chewing on specifically.
Dru Johnson (44:11)
Yeah.
I I mean you j okay I’m not gonna ask you any more questions, but you just fired off twenty rockets in my mind. And and I’ll just tell you on what fronts, so we can talk about them some other time, is A, I’m always telling people the biblical authors do not do what worship leaders do, which is they don’t say, You are so infinite and I am so finite. They don’t juxtapose like an infinite God against a finite human. They just kind of pose it as this is creation, this is how we are created to be.
also what was the second point you just said that really got me going?
What did you just say? You’re in the same boat as yes.
Erin Smith (44:53)
Perfect and good. Perfect and good. Is that it?
Dru Johnson (44:58)
I I just submitted a manuscript for this book. It’ll come out next year. on the intellectual development of Jesus. And
Erin Smith (45:05)
Hmm.
Dru Johnson (45:05)
it was one of those things that puzzled me and fascinated me for a long time. Why does Luke include that Jesus grew in wisdom and stature before God and men? And which is a quote about Samuel from first Samuel. and then you see the gospels depicting Jesus.
like developing his thinking as well. So there’s something even at the cognitive and intellectual layers, Jesus as a hundred percent human seems to be growing in his thinking, which means, you know, maybe he wasn’t the best carpenterslash stonemason out of the blocks, right? That maybe he actually had to mess a few of them up or something. Yeah, I I am fascinated by that. What what is goodness and
And is goodness like a finished state in Eden or is it like the beginning of something great? Lots of
Erin Smith (45:49)
Yeah.
Dru Johnson (45:49)
great scholarship has argued the latter. Okay,
Erin Smith (45:52)
Hmm.
Dru Johnson (45:53)
that’s that’s my thoughts in in relation to your thoughts, which you did not ask for. Doctor Erin Smith.
Erin Smith (45:58)
No, but I’m glad you gave
it ’cause I was gonna ask you if Jesus was the best carpenter. So you answered my question. So thank you.
Dru Johnson (46:04)
Well, I always have to say he wasn’t a carpenter, he was a stonemason according to
the the scripture, but he also had carpentry still skills, because you have to as as a stonemason. But this idea of the eschaton as a kind of a check, I don’t know, when I ask students what do you think it’s gonna be like, they essentially describe a good heroin high. and I always think, do you think you’ll meet new people in the new heavens and new earth? and have to ask them questions about where the
where they’ve been and you know that like what w what exactly do you think the nature of being a human and history and unfolding and revealing and forgetting and all that kind of stuff are. So fascinating stuff. I’m so glad that you’re dealing with misconceptions. and I’ve been in these work groups on conspiracy theories. So I feel like there’s a lot of overlapping on this stuff. Doctor Erin Smith, thank you so much for your wisdom and your time.
Erin Smith (46:55)
Thank you for having me.
