About Gideon
Our Vision Statement
The Gideon Institute of Christian Psychology and Counseling at HCU will foster Christ-centered, biblically rooted, clinically competent soul care.
Our Mission Statement
To promote a Christ centered, biblically-rooted science of psychology and counseling through education, research, and training.
Gideon’s Guiding Principles
We believe that the triune God of Christianity is the designer, source, sustainer, center, and goal of human life. “In him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28); “Whether you eat or drink or whatsoever you do, do all for the glory of God” (1Co 10:31).
We believe that Christian soul care is especially focused on Jesus Christ, being both God and human, Jesus is the way of life and true fulfillment of human being (Jn 14:7)—the True Human—“in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col 2:3). Christian therapy, therefore, involves Jesus Christ, and Christian psychology brings together the wisdom of Scripture and the Christian traditions; theory and research based on a Christian worldview; and the best contemporary science of human beings, which we interpret critically, because of the secular worldview assumptions upon which most of it is currently based.
Personal and relational growth and transformation is best found in the sacred space where Christ dwells with us and we with one another, reflected in our curricular emphasis on spiritual and character formation and the recommendation of extracurricular therapy.
There are multiple, valid sources of soul-care knowledge, beginning with Scripture and the Christian traditions; bodily, personal, and social experience, empirical research; and philosophical reflection.
We hold a holistic, multi-dimensional model of humans as biologically embodied, psychosocial and cultural-historical, ethical, and spiritual.
We seek to conform to the highest standards in relevant theological and psychological knowledge, spiritual experience, clinical competence, and professional ethics.
The Institute offers two-track training that equips graduates to respect and work with the worldview beliefs of all clients, using creation grace resources available to everyone and the redemptive grace resources available to Christians.
We maintain a fundamental respect for all humans in their freedom and diversity as images of God, combined with the desire that all humans find their healing and unity through conformity to the will of God as revealed in Jesus Christ, the savior of the world (1John 4:14), and the Christian Scriptures.
Christian psychology and counseling is based on a Christian worldview and is developed primarily for members of the Christian community. At the same time, Christian psychology and counseling is evidence-based and should be treated as an equal to secular forms of psychology and therapy, and allowed to participate in contemporary psychology and the public mental health system, towards the end of a pluralistic public mental health system that reflects the worldview values of all its citizens, in order to promote the common good and the flourishing of all humans.
To achieve our curriculum includes:
- A Christian studies core, that include relevant biblical, theological, philosophical, empirical, and spiritual subject matter; and
- Distinctly Christian content diffused throughout all the courses in the curriculum, depending on how worldview-dependent they are
- Our goal is to form therapists who are Christ-centered, biblically rooted, clinically competent, and can work with all kinds of people.