PLANTING THE SEEDS… by Christina Sinisi

I am blessed to have been a professor at a small Baptist-affiliated university, Charleston Southern University, for 27 years! The faculty and staff are all professing Christians, but the students come from all walks of life. The majority are Christian, but there are those who attend because the school is military-friendly or because we have much better parking than the other Charleston, South Carolina schools. Students identify as Wiccans, Muslims, and agnostic/atheistic as well. This atmosphere has been especially interesting in the context of my teaching a class titled, “Psychology of Religious Experience.”

There is a controversy in that psychology, as a field, for decades dismissed religion as superstition or worse, as Freud put it, a double illusion. Religion, on the other hand, grew tired of being mocked by this social science and viewed psychology with suspicion. So, between the years of 1920 and 1970, the field was, for all intents and purposes, dead. Now, in opposition to Freud’s dismissing and derisive words, contemporary psychology and therapy embraces the positive outcomes associated with being involved in a church family and having faith—perhaps too late for some whom science drove away from God, but clear and definitive in their results (e.g., thousands of studies demonstrate that regular church attendance is associated with a decrease in depression).

Fast forward to this class I teach. Over the last two decades, I have taught about research in many areas where faith and psychology intersect. I also require reactions to prompts about students’ own faith stories and their experiences.

I once had a student from Turkey share with me that a Christian faith sounded so good to her, but fear of reprisals when she returned home made her hesitate. Atheist students once became so angry when Christian classmates argued their case that the former shut down in-class discussion and gave me scathing teaching evaluations. Last spring, a student wrote that the class wasn’t interesting and all this writing was excessive.

The fact is, much like the sower in the parable, I don’t know whether the seeds I planted took root.

“And he spoke many things to them in parables, saying, ‘Behold, the sower went out to sow, and as he sowed, some seeds fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate them up. Others fell on the rocky places, where they did not have much soil; and immediately they sprang up, because they had no depth of soil. But when the sun had risen, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. Others fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked them out. And others fell on the good soil and yielded a crop, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.’” (Matthew 13:3-8 NASB)

I do know that there are students who write, “I have learned more about God in this class than in my religion classes,” and “As a student at a Christian university, I would love to have had more opportunities to take classes that were blended… this class was phenomenal from a psychological and spiritual standpoint,” and “I feel closer to God as a result of this class.”

So, the bottom line for me is—bloom where I am planted. Not all professors undermine students’ faith and I know that God waters seeds that I have even forgotten. Praise His Holy name.

A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. (Ezekiel 11:19 KJV)

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Christina Sinisi

Christina Sinisi writes stories about families, both the broken and blessed. A member of American Christian Fiction Writers, her works include a semi-finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest and the American Title IV Contest in which she appeared in the top ten in the Romantic Times magazine. Her published books include The Christmas Confusion and Sweet Summer, the first two books in the Summer Creek Series, and Christmas On Ocracoke. By day, she is a psychology professor and lives in the Lowcountry of South Carolina with her husband and two children, and cat, Chessie Mae.