University schools or faculties of social and human sciences may include  departments of sociology and anthropology, social work, economics, business management, politics, government, international relations and psychology. A growing number of schools of social sciences include geography and cross-cutting subjects such as area studies, ethnic studies, gender studies, population sciences and environmental studies.

When you study social sciences, you are concerned with understanding the ways human beings have organized themselves as groups, communities and nations in pursuit of their socioeconomic, cultural and political goals. In the social sciences, you learn how theorists have thought about various models of the society, social change, continuity, conflicts and consensus.

A Christian approach to studying the social sciences takes biblical absolutes as starting points for all societies. We engage with the society from the premise that everything the Bible teaches about human beings and human societies are universally true and timeless. As in all other areas of knowledge, the immediate empirical data available to us in the social sciences are for a fallen human race. Christians in the social sciences grapple with social institutions, patterns of relationship and behaviour that are dis-equilibrated by sin and disobedience against God.

In the studies of social and human sciences, your Christian mind focuses on God’s original plan for humanity, His purposes and His priorities in the light of the fall. Commit your Christian intellect to a search for what God’s approved model of the society could be at any pont in time.

In sociology and anthropology Christian scholars are interested in various ways groups have tried to organize within and outside the divine principles of social relationships. We study to understand the importance of social group membership for a variety of social, economic and political institutions. Christian scholars assess the consequences of different models of social organizations within and across generations in the context God’s  agenda and priorities for the human society.

In economics we are confronted with the challenges of understanding not only the artificial scarcity that resulted from the fall, but also the consequences of competing  needs, insatiable wants and uncontrollable desires of human beings.  The wrong  conceptions and management of  power by people, and the resulting conflicts, are among the major themes in the disciplines of politics, public administration and  international relations.

Many scholars present direct humanistic challenges to the Christian worldview in psychology. Dominant perspectives in mainstream theoretical and applied psychology deny the image of God and  responsibility in human beings. They reject the concepts of sin, guilt and repentance towards God through Jesus Christ. Instead, they promise paths to personal happiness, healing and wholeness that are contrary to biblical prescriptions. Ultimately, the key question for Christians in the discipline of psychology is  whether to accept the authority of the Bible on how to define the nature, moral responsibilities and goals of a person. If you accept the biblical authority, you must be prepared to start from scratch to construct a view of the person that is consistent with the truths of the Bible.

Lastly, a  group of applied and issue-based social science disciplines are grounded in a humanistic vision of the world that fails to recognize God’s total and active control of His creaation. Among the more widely known of these disciplines are population and environmental sciences. In such disciplines, a Christian scholar avoids the wrong naturalistic assumption that sees human beings alone as controllers of all human affairs.  God, who created the world, is actively in charge of it. He cannot let things go outside His purposes and plans for humanity and all creation. However, in recognizing God’s active control of His creation, Christians in applied social sciences are not blind to the divine  mandate for us to take care of the world that is within our sphere of control in this phase of eternity.