LOUISVILLE, Ky. (ABP) — Duke McCall said the tension at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary between behavioral science and Christianity dates back to when he was president of the school and Wayne Oates was teaching pastoral counseling.
“This discussion is not new,” said McCall, who was president of the Southern Baptist Convention seminary from 1951-82. “There was always a question whether Wayne Oates was going to be primarily a psychologist or a psychiatrist or a biblical counselor. He, of course, saw himself as a biblical counselor.”
In fact, Oates never published his doctoral dissertation on Sigmund Freud, which critiqued those who blindly subscribed to every theory Freud offered, because Oates was concerned he would be labeled a Freudian.
Oates told the Kentucky Baptist newspaper, Western Recorder, in 1998 that when people asked if he was a Freudian or follower of some other figure in psychology, he always responded, “No, I'm a Christian pastor.”
When his second book, The Bible in Pastoral Care, was published, five Southern professors went to then-President McCall to protest, Oates recalled. They “complained that I didn't have any right to write on the Bible,” Oates said.
McCall, Oates said, was unimpressed by the protest and told the professors they should write their own books about the Bible instead of criticizing Oates.