Christian (or biblical) counseling is a topic that deserves more attention at places like Old Life that are lean sap and well-stocked seeking discernment. It strikes me that biblical counseling is another example of worldview, pietistic thinking that requires a biblical answer for each and every human problem. It also appears to suffer from a pietistic piety that runs roughshod over the regular ministry of pastors and elders who are ordained for the purpose of providing counsel, instruction, and exhortation — and they don’t even charge a fee for it.
Another part of the challenge of Christian counseling is the attempt to turn a human woe into a spiritual opportunity. I don’t mean to drive too great a wedge between the human and the spiritual sides of human existence, but since we do go to non-Christian physicians for help with ulcers and tumors, why do we need to go to Christian counselors for help with psychological problems or even broken relationships? What would be so awful if a person trained in certain areas of human existence wound up having a fund of knowledge about problems that Christians share with non-Christians? Are these problems the result of sin and the fall? Of course. Isn’t cancer or appendicitis also the result of sin and the fall? Of course. So why only go to Christians for help with the non-material parts of human misery? Why, I remember a time not too long ago when Christians thought treating depression with drugs was sinful. It is as if regeneration has powers that extend well beyond forgiveness, or as if sanctification leads to well-adjusted believers who will out perform non-believers in most areas of life — including happiness and well-adjustedness.
The Christian Curmudgeon reminded me of the dilemmas surrounding Christian counseling with his own reflections on depression. He writes:
Cowper’s depressions began when he was young. At his best, he was probably holding it at bay. He had at least four major depressive episodes in his life. On occasion he intended, though he failed, to end his own life. He died in despair, believing himself reprobate. His last poem, The Castaway, expresses his hopelessness with regard not just to this world but the world to come.
John Newton, with whom Cowper lived for a season and with whom he collaborated in the production of a book of hymns, testified that he did not doubt Cowper’s salvation. More recently, John Piper has given a similar assessment.
Despite the tragic course and sad end of his life, his hymns are given an important place in evangelical Christian hymnody. Six are included Trinity Hymnal. Just yesterday I sang with God’s people Jesus, Where’er Thy People Meet. Moreover, he is an object of sympathy, even of admiration, because of his affliction. He is sometimes held before depressed Christians, if not as an encouragement (how could a man with his end encourage) at least as a fellow sufferer.
Contrast that with Nevin. Several years ago, I wrote a review of a fine modern biography of this German Reformed theologian. It was not published by the media outlet to which it was initially submitted. (Happily it was published in Modern Reformation.) One of the reasons I was given for the review not being used was that it was not desired to call attention to him. And one of the reasons for not doing so was that he had been suicidal.
What? We sing despairing, suicidal Cowper but we suppress Nevin? I wonder why? Well, Nevin was not a poet, and he did not have a friend like John Newton. But, I think there is more. Cowper was a friend of Calvinist experientialism and Nevin was not. Nevin wrote The Anxious Bench while Cowper wrote O, For a Closer Walk with God.
Of course, the Curmudgeon’s point has less to do with Christian counseling than with experimental Calvinism. But he does point to another facet of the echo chamber affect that afflicts evangelicalism and its Reformed friends. And this affliction extends to Christian counseling. Even when we know that pastors and elders are supposed to be delivering pastoral oversight, which includes counseling of a basic kind, and even though we gladly receive the care of non-Christian specialists when it comes to a variety of human ailments, we generally refuse to subject Christian counseling to tough questions. The reason is that their models of human flourishing appear to point to a form of Christian piety that fits the conversionist ideal of a spiritual reorientation that radically changes a person’s entire being — from psychological make-up and worldview to plumbing.
Old Life 
Reason #836 why DGH is a hero of mine.
I think Jeremiah 17:9 is a powerfully rhetorical question that ought to upbraid the nouthetizer at least as much as the psychologist.
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Thanks for writing this.
As someone who worked in the mental health field for several years and, who is now a pastor, I want to suggest that the relationship between faith and psychology is more complicated than this brief post suggests. This is fine. We don’t expect blog posts to be dissertations, but I would like to point to one of the areas that makes this so complicated:
You write “… since we do go to non-Christian physicians for help with ulcers and tumors, why do we need to go to Christian counselors for help with psychological problems or even broken relationships?” Here is the difference: There is a pretty clear consensus regarding what constitutes good physical health in terms of dealing with ulcers and tumors. There is less consensus about what constitutes mental health and the difference is often driven by the core faith commitments of the counselor. Is there genuine guilt or only guilt feelings? Is the cure for guilt “getting over it” or finding forgiveness in a merciful Savior? If you are having marriage problems, does it matter that your psychologist has been divorced three times and thinks that you should leave your relationship as soon as it stops making you happy (this is not a hypothetical situation but is of a psychologist I knew personally)? It would probably not be hard to find mental health professions who think that men like Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Apostle Paul should be locked up – or at least heavily medicated. When some practitioners of a field think of a man as a hero while others think of the same man as insane we are clearly in an area that is governed by more than expertise in a field of human existence.
So, yes, Christians should be open to receiving mental health care from non-Christians. But we should also ask more about our counselor’s worldview and reasoning process than we would of a surgeon who is operating on a broken bone. One way to approach this is to talk with our pastor or one of our Elders about the process we are going through.
Best wishes,
David
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Counseling may simply be a pastor giving specific biblical counseling to a troubled soul. He knows the Bible and he knows his sheep, two great advantages. Beyond that, I’m not sure counseling is any more efficacious than having supportive friends and families. Yes, counselors trained as such may have some helpful nuggets, but I’m unconvinced there is one correct school of psychotherapy.
I’m not sure it gets much better than the song by Blind Willie Davis:
Won’t somebody tell me, answer if you can!
Want somebody tell me, what is the soul of a man
I’m going to ask the question, answer if you can
If anybody here can tell me, what is the soul of a man?
I’ve traveled in different countries, I’ve traveled foreign lands
I’ve found nobody to tell me, what is the soul of a man
I saw a crowd stand talking, I came up right on time
Were hearing the doctor and the lawyer, say a man ain’t nothing but his mind
I read the bible often, I tries to read it right
As far as I can understand, a man is more than his mind
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Christian counseling for a soul belongs in a completely different category than receiving medical, financial, or other such temporal counsel. It doesn’t matter what creed my doctor or tax preparer hold as long as they are competent in their field. Whereas, creed makes an enormous difference when it comes to so-called biblical counseling. And even then, these so-called biblical counselors are not necessarily competent theologians in their creed. The professional psychological biblical counseling far to often seems to be a confused theology at best and unbiblical theology at worst. I know a “counselor” who is a Plymouth Brethren and he offers a strange mix of psychology, pop Christianity counseling, and prays in tongues with his clients during his sessions. I would assert that the care of eternal souls belongs to competent pastors and as fellow Christians we could do more to help bear one another’s burdens.
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Elijah’s depression was alleviated by good food and a better (I should say, truer) perspective.
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David, I know it sounds good to say that we should ask about our temporal counselor’s worldview. But I get the sense that what this line of inquiry will have to end up in is expecting our counselor to see everything the way we do before pressing on, which will actually be impossible when you think about it. But do we even do that for our eternal counselors, which is to say pastors and elders? I don’t inquire about their worldview but confession, which I gather you think are synonymous. So if I don’t require worldview from my pastor then why from my therapist? I mean, when someone close to me was suicidal I took her to the local Christian psychiatrist, but I didn’t think it immediately relevant what the doc’s worldview was but only that she was well trained and equipped to handle mental illness (clearly she was). Same for my pastor: if he confesses the Reformed faith he’s well equipped to handle my soul, even if his worldview isn’t mine.
But if “core faith commitments” actually drive things the way you suggest then does that mean I as a Reformed believer shouldn’t take counsel from a Baptist/Roman Catholic/Charismatic counselor who is otherwise well equipped to handle my mental health? Sorry, but that seems as odd as saying I should be suspicious about these folks teaching my kids the three R’s.
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Zirm, so if my loosely Catholic “counselor who is otherwise well equipped to handle my mental health” tells me to divorce my wife due to our relationship having a poor affect on my mental health, do I divorce my wife? Do I ask the advice of my pastor or other Christians regarding this matter?
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Zrim,
I’m thinking you may not have thought this subject through. 1) If someone with serious problems, like being suicidal, is in need of counseling, they are very vulnerable and there are serious ramifications on what kind of counseling they receive. 2) World views (eg: liberal views that are incompatible with Christianity) and the type of counseling (eg: Jung vs. cognitive behavioral) do matter when teaching a person to deal with or cope with their mental health issues. 3) There is a difference between a psychiatrist who is a medical doctor who can diagnose and prescribe medications and a psychologist who is limited to counseling. 4) The mental health issues may have an organic source that is caused by the person’s physical health (eg: thyroid problems can cause depression). 5) I’m thinking you can add to this list as you consider the topic further.
About 3 months ago, I met a woman with the same chronic health problems I have. Four years ago she jumped off a building trying to commit suicide because of the health problems and instead of killing herself, she broke her back. This woman was raised Roman Catholic, fell away as an adult, and since her attempt to kill herself, has been counseled by a woman who is a Unitarian with a PhD in Psychology. The materials this patient has been given to read are pseudo Christian and the seminars she regularly attends are led by new-agey speakers. The patient believes she is being given Christian guidance and support when in fact it is Christless. She is still so fragile mentally that even trying to broach the subject is threatening to her because she is bonded to her therapist and the false system she is being taught and the Deism she clings to is her lifeline. At this point in time, all I can do is pray for her.
Zrim, you are a healthy man, well grounded in the Reformed faith. You are in a position to go to any counselor you wish with almost zilch danger to being misled in your faith in Christ. I would hazard to say that most people who are truly in need serious psychological counseling are not in your boat. I would also question letting “just anyone” teach my kids the 3 R’s. World views matter and young minds are impressionable. A lot more goes on in the classroom than strict adherence to temporal facts and how they are interpreted does matter. As does peer pressure. IMO, the consequences of what a person is taught matters as much as the differences of sitting under Joel Osteen as a teacher versus Michael Horton as a teacher.
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Blind Willie Davis? Or did you mean Blind Willie Johnson? Either way the song truly is a wonderful song but I haven’t heard Blind Willie Davis before. Might have to fix that.
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WTH, I get confused by all the Blind Willies (Johnson, McTell).
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I’ve got all of Willie Johnson and Willie McTell. The former did Gospel blues almost exclusively and the latter did mostly secular music. There IS, apparently, a Blind Willie Davis, though, who did some recordings of a cuople of standard hymns. Until you did that typo I didn’t know of him. Yeah, there are a lot of Blind Willie musicians in both blues and gospel, aren’t there?
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Dr. Hart raises some important questions here about the biblical counseling movement. While I am no expert on the biblical counseling movement, it seems to me that it has morphed into something today that it was not when it originally got started. Jay Adams — regarded by some as the “father” of the biblical counseling movement — began espousing “nouthetic counseling” in reaction against the emphasis on referring all “mental health” problems to a professional secular psychologist and psychiatrist, when often such problems are rooted in spiritual issues that a competent pastor (or even an ordinary, mature, non-ordained believer) is better equiped to minister to. (This “always refer” position was usually taught to seminarians and is still being taught in many seminaries today; Adam’s groundbreaking book “Competent To Counsel” was written in large part to show that the Scriptures fully equip the church to minister to the spiritual maladies of believers that often get misclassified as “mental health issues.”)
Adams teaches that biblical (“nouthetic”) counseling is basically discipleship, and discipleship is a function of the church, not of secular mental health professionals. So, while the biblical counseling movement today may have adopted a parachurch and professionalist approach to counseling, the original impetus of the biblical counseling movement was to return the responsibility for spiritual and pastoral counseling to the church. Adams also (in good Van-Tillian fashion) showed how the various schools of secular psychology were rooted in anti-Christian (often secular evolutionary) views of the human person that implicitly deny that man is created in the image of God or has an immortal soul. Furthermore, Adams and his school never denied that mental health problems rooted in physiological or biochemical (i.e., medical) issues should be treated by a competent physician or even a psychiatrist. On the other hand, the “mental health problems” that lack any physiological or biochemical basis are very often spiritual issues that can be addressed by a competent pastor in the process of discipleship and sanctification within the fellowship of the church. While I don’t agree with Adams in every particular, I think he and the movement he helped to start have much to teach us in the church.
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I can’t help but agree with D. G Hart’s comment about the problems of worldview pietism in Christian/biblical counseling. As Steve Hays over at Triablogue put it, a biblical counselor is probably only going to be as good as the exegetical competence of the biblical counselor. Put that way, are we so sure we’ve got a better alternative to social sciences? On some things, certainly, but not everything.
I’ve also seen first and second hand how biblical counseling has made some bad family situations worse. This wasn’t intentional but the trouble was if a family, for instance, has a conflict and there’s an even split of Reformed, Pentecostal, and Eastern Orthodox adherents in the somewhat big family, a biblical counselor has not only the family dynamic problems to address but also the reality that there’s a morass of wildly different doctrines and professions within the family that may or may not exacerbate the situation.
There’s a point where a more secular approach that ignores doctrinal concerns may seem “less” Christian but is more effective by focusing on the actual relational problems and not getting sidetracked by which group constitues the “real” believers. After all, these family members may be stuck living together whether they want to or not.
If partisans from any of the three traditions conflate doctrinal differences with the personal conflicts that pietistic impulse actually defeats what the goal of the counseling “should” be as normal people wound understand counseling. Yes, a pastor can decide that, say, the Pentecostals or Orthodox are not really true Christians from a doctrinal standpoint, but wouldn’t that lead a counseling pastor to make some judgments that would make him less than competent to mediate a family conflict in which such drastic confessional differences are part of the family conflict he is asked to help address?
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WTH:
BWM didn’t do his spirituals with a lot of conviction, though I do like “Cross the River Jordan” and “Hide Me in Thy Bosom.” Of course, BWJ broadcasts conviction with every syllable and chord. Are you familiar with Charley Patton’s “You’re Going to Need Somebody When You Go to Die?” Very forensic and powerful, but I can’t find the lyrics anywhere. Do you happen to know what they are? I do know the mid-song sermon, but “I will _______, King Jesus is His Name. I’ve got a lawyer to ______”?
I’ll try to come back to the topic at hand later, but your post is helpful in bringing up the need to distinguish the many different reasons a person may need counseling.
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Romanov, if your pastor and other Christians are Pat Robertson you run the risk of getting the same advice. But if were your elder I would tell you that whatever else your counselor is saying, you are not permitted to divorce. Does s/he have a plan B? If not, get a second opinion.
Lily, suffice it to say that you don’t have to tell me that suicidal people are vulnerable or that mental health is complicated. But I still don’t see how that means I haven’t sufficiently thought it through. The main question for me when it comes to temporal categories—mental or physical health, education, statecraft—is whether someone is fit to dispense them and not so much the state of those receiving. So while I appreciate the stellar spiritual diagnosis, I wouldn’t make this turn on my alleged health. The fact that one is impressionable or vulnerable is precisely why one must find a fit doctor, be s/he Mormon or Reformed.
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Actually I DO have a bunch of Charley Patton recordings and his vocals are often tough to work out. In that song he drops a few words here and there for guitar commentary.
“I’ve got a lawyer to go my bond” is what he says for the lawyer lines. The melody and text are so close to Blind Willie Johnson’s “You’re Gonna Need Somebody On Your Bond” we’re probably looking at regional variations on a common folk tune. Elijah Wald makes a case that if anything Patton’s take is probably indebted to Johnson’s recording, which is often considered the definitive take on that song (though take 2 is more popular than the first take). Funny that you’re asking about a bunch of recordings where I happen to own all of them. I guess it’s handy that in my teens I decided to get into pre-WW2 blues. But since I lent those albums to my brother-in-law I can’t go back and dig up the production notes about any of them right now.
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I’m surprised no one has mentioned Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ book on depression. Another example of Christian piety whihc fits the conversionist ideal?
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Zrim,
I apologize for personalizing my comments. I think we are in agreement on the need for competent counselors in all areas of temporal life. I was attempting to question some particulars in your comment:
“I don’t inquire about their worldview but confession” combined with “if “core faith commitments” actually drive things the way you suggest then does that mean I as a Reformed believer shouldn’t take counsel from a Baptist/Roman Catholic/Charismatic counselor who is otherwise well equipped to handle my mental health? Sorry, but that seems as odd as saying I should be suspicious about these folks teaching my kids the three R’s.”
Those phrases stood out to me and this is where I wondered whether you had thought through the ramifications. I agree with David’s assessment and still think healthy, well catechized believers may not always understand the dangers to our weaker/weakest members when it comes to mental health and counseling.
A non-liturgical, non-sacramental, non-confessional counselor who doesn’t see the Eucharist as central to the Divine Service. A counselor who has a theology of glory versus a theology of the cross. A pietistic oriented counselor who places the counselee on a path of never-ending works and makes it all about him. Each counselor is going to give different counsel based on their world view, and give the counselee different books to read, different seminars to attend, and offer different views of God to the struggling soul because of the differences in theologies in their worldview. Not to mention the myriad of schools of thought in psychology, politics, and humanities that reside within their world view too. And… a vulnerable Christian will seek to submit to their counsel because the counselor is the expert and the counselee wants help and to change… they are normally not in a position to critique the counsel the receive very well. These are the types of things that raise my concern.
Sometimes, I can’t help wondering how much we have abdicated our responsibilities to the tyranny of the experts and the specialists. We send struggling saints to professional blind men leading other blind men and wonder why the counselee’s faith becomes misplaced or even more distorted. It seems to me that, generally speaking, the church body often does not want to be inconvenienced by bearing one another’s burdens when it comes to mental health issues. We more often than not pawn people off to the experts instead of being advocates – our brother’s keeper – while they are in distress. We seem to want to be left out of the mess and would like to wish them well from afar.
Bereaved families are sent to support groups. Suicidal persons are sent to support groups. Divorced people are sent to support groups. Support groups that are a gumbo of different beliefs and world views. I’m not saying support groups have no value, but things have become so compartmentalized that we no longer seem to think we should have to help much or support people through the difficult or messy phases in their lives in the context of a confessional church body. We seem to send them off to the specialists and expect them to return when they are well.
I hope you get the drift of my concerns? These are the kinds of things that I wondered if you had thought through. While it is good to know our limitations in helping others, IMO, most of us, myself included, are guilty of using a multitude of excuses for pawning our weakest members off onto the specialists and fail at being the mensches we could be. Perhaps, we have drunk deeply from the spirit of the age that demands specialists for everything. And if a specialist is truly needed, perhaps it would be good if we understood how to be advocates for the weakest among us so they do not fall prey to unbiblical counselors or those with incompatible world views (not implying you did or ever would). And again, I hope you understand my drift… these are the kinds of things that come to my mind and based on what I’ve seen in the past, not only confessions, but world views matter.
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“Funny that you’re asking about a bunch of recordings where I happen to own all of them.”
Well, I have a gift somewhat like Mark Driscoll’s except I see blues collections, not blue indiscretions. And, BTW, that’s a nice assortment of Leadbelly and Blind Lemon Jefferson you have there.
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Lily, I certainly appreciate your point about expertologists. Like Ken Meyers says, we need more generalists. And I do think our therapeutic age has over-realized the function of mental health to the point of spiritualizing it. I also think religionists have followed suit and the upshot is a sort of therapeutic deism (or maybe deistic therapy).
That said, I’m also not ready to say that folks who need real psychological help should look to their spiritual communities, since it seems to me that to do so is to still presume a provisional and eternal confusion of sorts. So what I think is in order is a more grounded and realistic perspective on mental health all around. The mind isn’t the soul, and so to be mentally ill/healthy doesn’t mean one is spiritually ill/healthy. It does seem to me that to confuse the mind with the soul is also what lies behind the over-realization of education as well.
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MM, hah, I wish I had those two but, alas, not yet. I did dig up some Lonnie Johnson recordings with Ellington and Armstrong, though. 🙂 On a completely different musical wavelength, very much looking forward to Hilary Hahn’s recording of the Charles Ives violin sonatas.
I actually attended Mars Hill for about 9 years and remember when Driscoll was, by his own account, a de facto cessationist. This was roughly from about 1999-2001 as best I can recall. Of course a lot has changed in ten years.
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I just found out about “The Elephant Room”. I think I’m gonna need some Paxil.
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Lily,
Something positive can be said about experts: some of our problems remain private and confidential. For instance, I don’t think that other Christians need to know if another believer has blood in his stool. And likewise, sometimes talking to an expert about marriage problems (that are not directly the result of sin) can spare the disappointment that may come with realizing that that healthy couple is really tearing each other apart behind closed doors. As a fan in In Treatment, I’m not prepared to say that psychotherapists are experts about much. But the simple fact of listening to so many different people and observing how they behave may lead to wisdom about what mistakes to avoid.
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WTH:
If you’re still interested in early recorded blues and folk, you might enjoy Lead Belly’s Last Sessions. It’s just Lead Belly, Alan Lomax, and a microphone in Lead Belly’s living room. Lead Belly sings in the holler style and his 12 string technique is hardly intricate, but somehow a very endearing personality greets you in his music. (OK, so he killed a man, still…) The real upside of these recordings are the conversations, as Lead Belly describes the origins of certain songs, his adventures with Blind Lemon, and his prescient admonition against multi-tasking (“Relax Your Mind Blues”). He says stuff like “it wasn’t written down or nothin’, it was just a real song…”
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Zrim: in your comment to Romanov & Lily you state when it comes to temporal categories—mental or physical health, education, statecraft …
I wonder if you are cutting too-wide a field for “temporal categories”? I would agree with education (for most part) and statecraft in “temporal,” but wonder about mental and physical health. Particularly as it is raised in this post. Since mankind was created as a psycho-somatic entity, in fact a pyscho-somatic unity (Dr. Gaffin uses this nifty phrase), we might not want to so quickly throw physical and mental health into the temporal category. There is a biblical understanding that would run counter to new age or other rebellious models of human nature. When issues of health intersect with or overlap with issues of discipleship and faithfulness to God, then the advice of biblically faithful people ought to be sought just as much as seeking out a good orthoped, endocrinologist or surgeon. Seeking marriage counseling is not the same thing as seeking a divorce lawyer. (I have the scars to show the difference). A “counselor’s” view of marriage, human nature, etc will have an impact on how a couple in trouble is addressed.
We all – well, I myself certainly – crave definite boundaries and love it when everything can be seen as a black & white issue. But it’s a dog-gone gray and messy world out there. I think the goal is to stand in definite spot – I am confessionally Reformed – from there I try to deal with that gray and messy world from my biblical convictions.
Cheers,
-=Cris=-
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Lily said; “Sometimes, I can’t help wondering how much we have abdicated our responsibilities to the tyranny of the experts and the specialists. We send struggling saints to professional blind men leading other blind men and wonder why the counselee’s faith becomes misplaced or even more distorted. It seems to me that, generally speaking, the church body often does not want to be inconvenienced by bearing one another’s burdens when it comes to mental health issues. We more often than not pawn people off to the experts instead of being advocates – our brother’s keeper – while they are in distress. We seem to want to be left out of the mess and would like to wish them well from afar.”
I really want to comment on this but am very reluctant to due to past experience with being “open” with others but then being burned because of my “openess.” Suffice it to say that the church is often not good with those who are struggling with their sins, addictions or other uncomfortable “mental health” issues and cannot seem to return to a functioning normal life easily (ability to maintain long term relationships in a healthy way, ability to be productive and consistent in a work and vocational environment, continuing to go to Church without having to worry about feelings of complete unworthiness even though the hearing of the Law and the Gospel and the partaking of the sacraments is what you really need when feeling this way). One really does not want to be a burden to others either- the only thing others can really do is point them to the Christ whom God imputed his sin to Christ and Christ’s righteousness to them. Only God can do something about it but others can be an encouragement, and, when need be, this may involve exhorting them with the harsh law and a call to repentance. This always has to be done in a spirit of reconciliation, reminding them what Christ has done for them over and over again. When to call on the Law and when to call on the Gospel is not easy to determine with some struggling souls. What you never want to do is put someone into despair about their souls-especially if they believe the gospel.
Since rehabs are founded and based on being spiritual programs one wonders if they should really be supported by the state. At one facility, I refused to write an essay to the governor telling them how important rehabs are to people struggling with addictive behaviors and got kicked out because of my refusal to do so (the government was threatening to decrease the amount of money for patients accepted into the program so we were forced to write these notes). Even though the rehabs proclaim a spiritual program it is not the gospel they are proclaiming. 12-step programs confuse the Gospel- they do seem to help people overcome their addictions though. So, this is a tough call. They do not let you argue the Gospel at rehabs (unless they are explicitly Christian rehabs- who happen to get funded by the state and insurance programs too) but they do encourage new age spirituality. Some people really do get help in overcoming their addictions with this finding the power within stuff- at least that is what they say. I have also found that at explicity Christian rehabs they do not proclaim the gospel accurately either. You get a lot of mixture of Law and Gospel at those Christian rehabs.
I guess my main point is that I don’t think churches handle situations like the above mentioned very well. It could be thay many churches are really not proclaiming the gospel accurately and therefore avoid uncomfortable situations for the congregants. Although I do realize I may be biased in this matter and trying to justify a problem I might have and blame my problem on others. But as you read the scriptures, especially the gospels, one wonders why people Jesus seemed to be comfortable with are not gracing the halls of most churches.
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When issues of health intersect with or overlap with issues of discipleship and faithfulness to God, then the advice of biblically faithful people ought to be sought just as much as seeking out a good orthoped, endocrinologist or surgeon.
Cris D., I’d point out that in my response to Romanov I suggested that in addition to a church member receiving marital counseling there is also necessarily elder input. So I agree with you that saved creatures straddle both spheres and thus require two different kinds of counselors. But I do think it’s important to point out that what a marriage counselor (religious or not) and an elder dispense as counsel are different. I mean, even Christian counselors will admit that their role is different from an elder’s—and good elders should know that they aren’t marriage counselors. And for everyone to know that difference seems to require a basic distinction between the provisional and eternal.
Maybe you still think I’m cutting too-wide a field for temporal categories, but I suppose I’m puzzled as to how mental/physical health are more eternal than provisional while vice versa for education and statecraft. I mean, if our marriages and families will be dissolved in the new heaven and new earth…
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Seems as though illnesses like bipolar disorder, which involves chemical imbalances in the brain, would be best left to the professionals and NOT the church. I can definitely see though where going to a non-Christian marriage counselor might be unwise. my 2 cents.
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Zrim, Doc, and Cris,
All – good points and love the designation “deistic therapy.” That label well describes what the woman I mentioned earlier is receiving in her counseling.
John,
I appreciate your input and pray things will be resolved. This is a rock and a hard spot. As I understand things, the church must focus on what is primary – providing Word and Sacrament for all. As DGH well points out, there is a need for privacy in these situations just as our tradition’s confession and absolution does. As I think about things further, sliding into the Evangelical church’s pattern of moralistic therapeutic deism with all of the small support groups for everyone’s ills could be easy. I wish there were good solutions to the needs I see around me and wish my health would allow me to be actively involved.
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Now this is quite a topic…
DGH — “marriage problems (that are not directly the result of sin) ” … Isn’t marriage between two fallen individuals? How then can sin, at least on some level, not be involved if there is a relational problem, even if the cause isn’t immediately traceable to sin? Relationships ultimately are at the mercy of individuals and their directional (moral) choices… love they wife as thyself.
Now, I don’t think a Christian counselor necessarily has a corner on the insights needed to help someone… given the state of today’s Christianity, maybe even less than secular counselors. So much of counseling is applying common wisdom which, too often, is in short supply, be it a Christian or non-Christian counselor. As an example, I think one of the best books for parents to read on raising children is by a non-Christian (Children The Challenge by Rudolf Dreikurs). A lot of wisdom in that book, yet I find it incomplete due to the lack of taking sin into account.
The designation “Christian” counseling is indeed problematic in that to help someone in a personal or relational struggle does not necessarily nor usually involve a redemptive component. Yet the added insight that comes from accepting a biblical view of fallen man made in the image of God is inseparable from wise counsel offered to a fallen human. I would also be cautious of defining counseling or psychological problems in such a way as to draw bright lines between our fallenness and the actual problems we struggle with.
I think Lily makes some good points. And overall, I am sympathetic to Darryl’s post, especially this point; “we generally refuse to subject Christian counseling to tough questions.” Indeed.
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Lily,
I don’t think churches should be providing small support groups for particular problems. They should stick to what they are supposed to be doing and take that responsiblity more seriously-especially in regards to accurate doctrine and teaching on the role of the sacraments. I have found that church discipline also poses all sorts of problems because only certain obvious sin usually get disciplined. But that is something pastors of local churches, their governmental synod structures and the congregants have to work out amongst themselves.
I too watched In Treatment and found it to be a program worth watching. There was no reference to redemption and the gospel but the insight and graceful manner in which the therapist did his job on the show was a sight to behold. He was firm and yet gentle and accepting of his clients at the same time. He often had to put his foot down and would not accept certain behaviours in his clients. Also, it was always made known that the therapist was a jar of clay too and was dealing with complex issues in his own psyche. We may have hangups in our mental makeup which are making it difficult to trust the gospel. This may effect our behaviour too in ways we really do not understand. So, who knows what the answers are. You try to do the best with what you know and with the cards you have been dealt- trusting God to provide the insight and help when you need it.
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Does the Bible give us everything we can know in this world about the embodied, soulish being that is man? Or, are there things we can learn about this being from observation (psychology), whether casual or studied, and are there perhaps things we can draw from such observation that may help to understand and perhaps help the this worldly life of such a creature? And, the same questions with regard to science/medicine.
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This is a very interesting post and subsequent discussion, and it crosses many very personal issues for me. Without too much kimono opening, I’ll simply say that I am diagnosed Bipolar (Type II), and have made some solid progress since my diagnosis a decade ago. I’ll simply offer some insight from my own experience:
1) Probably the most important point: Good help is hard to find in either biblical counseling or clinical practices. There’s plenty of quacks on all sides, but both have value if the affected person can find an adequately qualified, skilled, and sympathetic practitioner.
2) The nexus of the parts that comprise the human person is incredibly complex, and tightly integrated. There are very few instances where serious maladies of the brain that don’t result in spiritual ones. Often this means a very integrated approach from more than one source, as I have found there is no one ‘silver bullet’ to address my own struggles.
3) Regarding the Physiological component of mental illness: The brain is an organ, as much as the kidneys, heart, skin, and lungs are. It is unreasonable to expect that imbalances in the gray matter will not cause mental and emotional side-effects. Medications can be helpful, but they aren’t a panacea, and in some cases they can do damage. A qualified psychiatric evaluation can be very helpful, but be very wary of doctors that are quick to prescribe, because some of the best treatments aren’t tied to medications. However if after qualified advice, the patient decides to take meds, they need to be dilligent with dosages in order to observe if they are working or not, and this can take up to a couple of months to restore normal brain function. It is best to look at psychotropic medications as one would at medications such as insulin for diabetes, it addresses physiological malfunctions only, recovery and managment of mental illness takes hard work and dedication to a path of healing and the meds can only prop up the physiological side of this, they cannot change developmental, psychological, or spiritual disfunction.
4) Regarding Counseling: There can be a wide variety of approaches that can work. Personnally I have found that cognitave behavior (Cog B)therapy has been the most helpful as it helps to develop an understanding of the underlying causes of the mental illness, helping the patient to understand their triggers and how to avert them and employ more healthy behaviors and thought processes. In this respect, the biblical counsellors I visited were wholly unhelpful as they jumped to decidedly spiritual cures to common problems that all men face. That doesn’t mean there aren’t biblical counselors out there who can help in these areas, but I certainly didn’t encounter any. The process of Cog B isn’t unlike physical therapy after a traumatic injury, you are addressing problem areas with practical exercises that help bring the affected areas into proper function. In my case this meant learning to manage the manic upswings by being aware of my triggers and avoiding them, while engaging in more relaxing activities such as reading, writing, surfing, fishing, prayer etc. that helped normalize my self-destructive urges. In the case of depressive episodes it involved acknowledging the condition, normalizing my sleep patterns and engaging in similar activities that I would to avert mania in an effort to avoid self-medicating through excessive drinking or illicit drug use.
5) Spiritual Development/Discipleship: While the challenges that mental illness presents can be unique, the spiritual needs of the person suffering from an illness aren’t. We sin, and shouldn’t be able to use our impairments as an excuse, and a good pastor, or biblical counselor should have a gracious way of not letting the mentally ill off the hook. Church membership, and especially tending to the ordinary means of grace have a power that nothing else does, as it opens up the suffering soul to the reality of God’s work and will that transcends their current situations. Being grounded in a thriving (even if imperfect) spiritual community is probably the most important part of this equation. This can create accountability for the mentally ill to ensure that they are tending to the other areas that I listed above. Personal worship and prayer may be a struggle, as even those without these problems will attest, but the ministry of the church can be the most life-giving treatment to those afflicted with mental illness, as it offers hope in the world to come where such problems no longer exist, and strength to face any of the issues that they might face as a result of their struggles knowing that God’s power is perfected in weakness.
Personally, I am grateful for my illness, as it has taught me humility, and to cherish God’s grace as my only hope in this life and in the life to come. And I find great comfort in the fact that many brothers and sisters before me, and alongside me struggle in similar ways and find strength in times of need. In all, mental illness is a tool in God’s hand for the Christian to work his grace in their lives, and as such they should carry no stigma in the church. Good churches get this, and hopefully more will as these issues can’t just disappear with bible reading and prayer.
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Zrim:
Hey it probably comes down to a toe-may-toe / toe-mah-toe distinction. I wonder how an elder giving advice, answering question on spousal interactions and child-rearing, you know, “family visits” or elder visitation isn’t a valid expression of “counseling”?
While it’s true the marriage and family relationships don’t survive into the Resurrection that doesn’t mean we consign them to a sphere other than the christian’s walk and discipleship. Don;t Paul’s epistles (the Haustafeln of Ephesians & Colossians in particular) have much to say about the believer’s household?
But like I said, I’m guessing it’s a poe-tay-toe / poe – tah – toe thing for you and me. Cue Samwise lecturing Smeagol/Gollum on “what’s taters, Master?”
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Jed: Thanks for your transparency, humility, and qualified perspectives. Very insightful.
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OK, I’ll jump in Mr. Christian Curmudgeon…
The CC: Does the Bible give us everything we can know in this world about the embodied, soulish being that is man?
No, in that its purpose is not to teach specifically, let alone everything, about depression or anxiety. Yet, it does provide insight into man’s struggles, his fears, as well as his complex sinful responses and means of ineffectively coping with an uncertain world, failure, and alienation… all of which enter into the understanding of depression and anxiety.
Or, are there things we can learn about this being from observation (psychology), whether casual or studied, and are there perhaps things we can draw from such observation that may help to understand and perhaps help the this worldly life of such a creature?
Most certainly. Common wisdom goes a long way.
And, the same questions with regard to science/medicine.
The Bible is much less helpful here, and thus these are much more of the common kingdom disciplines, as the truths and cures of science/medicine, unlike psychology, can be verified through experimentation with quantifiable data. And in this regard, I would say that good psychology is much less a result of good science and more reflective of wisdom.
I remember reading a book, Comparative Theories of Counseling (or some such title). One study in that book tracked “cure” rates (defined as showing some verifiable improvement) of individuals counseled from various psychological schools of thought. Also included were those who simply took the direction of “self-help” books as well as other resources (friends, church). The result was that they all showed about the same “cure” rate (approx. 67%). Why would that be?
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Thanks DJ, the humility is a work in progress as my wife can attest. My kids are still young enough to think I am cooler than Lightning McQueen, but not by much. Let’s just say I won’t have a book on humility coming out anytime soon, which will keep me from Gospel Coalition mega-stardom and the benjamins therein.
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In an article published by Modern Reformation magazine entitled “Hi, I’m a Sinner” the anonymous author writes the following: “I have a disease. I was born with it. I will die with it. In fact, I will die of it. An autopsy that could see everything about me would prove it to be the underlying cause of my death. While not all realize this and fewer acknowledge it, I have this malady in common with all of humanity. In my case it has been treated by divine intervention (human, too, at points), but it has never been eradicated. In fact, the most obvious manifestations of symptoms have occurred since it was treated early in my life.
This is one of the mysteries of this disease. It can be radically treated. For those who receive it, the treatment is always successful. But the disease does not go away. It is always there. At times I would swear the disease is just as powerful and destructive as it would be had it not been treated. But I am assured that this is not the case, and I try to believe that.
At times I feel pretty optimistic. Right now is one of those times. But I am not sanguine. The disease is still there. I could suffer a serious relapse at anytime. My memories of previous relapses are too vivid, and my knowledge of the the way the disease works is too clear for me to think I am done with it…..Despair is the worst thing that can happen with this disease. Despair can be deadly. Sometimes, when an outbreak of the disease would not be fatal, the despair is…….
The author then goes on to explain that the disease manifested itself most obviously, in his particular case, with drinking alcohol in excess. Something which became almost impossibe for him to control and stop. He goes on and writes: “Professionals have told me that these things, which could manifest themselves whether I was drinking or not, are in fact, “character flaws” or “alcoholic thinking and behaving.” It turns out that alcoholics are self-centered, selfish,self-absorbed, prone to self-pity, often resentful, wanting control of people and circumstances, and frquently manipulative. But they are this way with or without drinking. Evidently, drinking does not cause these ugly traits; it exacerbates them. In my case , alcoholic drinking occured until I was approaching the end of the sixth decade of my life.”…..He then goes on somemore: I have known lots of people with the same character flaws who do not abuse alcohol or other substances. In fact, though there are often fewer destructive effects, it seems to me that these things are pretty much universal.
He then explains that he does not call himself an alcoholic: “When I say I have a disease, I mean disease in the metaphorical sense as the Bible does. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick (Jer. 17:10). Surely this spiritual disease has physical consequences, and since it affects the whole person, it may have physical components, such as genetic predispositions. But this is not the way the vast majority of addiction specialists use the term. They teach that it is a physical disease that medical science may someday cure, though it has not done so yet.
But the most important reason I do not call myself an alcoholic is because there is a divinely revealed diagnosis of the problem. This disease I have is sin. I was born with it, I am living with it, and I will never in this age be free of it. It affects every part of my being, every relationship in my life, everything I think, say and do.
I hate this disease. I wish to God I could be free of it. But sometimes I seem to love it and even enjoy it……This inborn and incurable disease is first treated by God, not by attacking the disease’s controlling power, but by addressing its condemning power. This is where the Christian gospel differs from the standard treatment of addictions. It is true that people are powerless over the disease and that they cannot change themselves. But the next word to the person in despair is not “God could and would if he were sought.”
“When I was at my lowest I found a ray of light first in this: “When iniquities prevail against me, you atone for our transgressions (Ps. 65:3). Would others forgive? Maybe, maybe not. How genuine was my desire to change? I was pretty sure I was about as sincere as I have ever been, but others, with reason, had their doubts. What I knew was that someone else (the psalmist) knew the experience of being overwhelmed by sin yet believed God would provide atonement. And by his using “my” and “our,” he held out the same hope to others.”
In his concluding remarks he makes the following observations:
1) “Justification always goes before sanctification. Your sins must be forgiven and you must be declared righteous by faith apart from anything at all that you do or try to do before you can begin to develop a holy character or engage in holy conduct.”
2) “The necessary revovation of the heart and reformation of life cannot progress apart from regular massive doses of the gospel. God does radically treat sin when we come to faith….but this radical treatment does not eradicate the problem. And nothing save forgiveness can deal with daily struggle….even the successful struggle, does not get me God’s favor. Nothing but the forgiveness of sins received by faith in Jesus and his atoning death can get God to smile at me and like me.”
3) “Yes, I knew and believed all this before a recent crisis. Why then did I crash and burn? Looked at in one way, these articles of my faith explain it. The problem is permanent and its symptoms recurrent. Looked at in another way, to borrow words from a secular group that offers understanding and help to those with alcoholic problems, “it works if you work it.” What they mean is that if you follow the program, you are much less likely to experience what they call a “relapse.” In these terms I was not really believing and practicing my faith. That just about guaranteed some kind of crash and burn scenario.”
So, how is this all relevant to the biblical counseling movement? The bottom line is that the church really is the only one with a solution to the sin problem but it is often not giving the proper remedy to the problem. I think people go to biblical counseling with the hope that they can find there what they are not finding in church (the Gospel) Until the church starts dispensing massive doses of the gospel people will look elsewhere to try to solve their main problems.
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Jed says: the humility is a work in progress as my wife can attest. My kids are still young enough to think I am cooler than Lightning McQueen, but not by much. Let’s just say I won’t have a book on humility coming out anytime soon, which will keep me from Gospel Coalition mega-stardom and the benjamins therein.
My kids are older now and no longer think I am “cooler than lightening McQuenn.” That is a great line though. I wish I could get those days back but unfortunately they are long gone. I have a hard time getting them to listen to my rants about the Gospel these days. I am surprised they still even talk to me. It is a joy to me just to spend time with them now- I am fortunate that at least I can still do that on occasion.
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Another, thank-you, Jed. Your input is more than appreciated.
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Chris, I’m not sure how elder visitation isn’t a valid expression form of counseling either. And my point about natural familial relationships not carrying over into the new age wasn’t to suggest them irrelevant to the believer’s pilgrimage in this one. It was to simply say that if they don’t survive then they must be just as temporal as any other provisional quest (e.g. education and politics). Sure, family is the highest temporal institution, but temporal still isn’t eternal and Jesus did say that if we want to follow him we must hate our families. Wouldn’t Luke 14:26 make a great cross-stitch?
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Jed,
I found your post to be extremely compelling. Thanks for sharing.
I must add though, that this subject especially reveals the danger of disregarding the organic connection between the Church and the State, the soul and the body, redemption and creation, etc.
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Jed, so is there a coincidence between being bi-polar and two-kingdom? (kidding)
I am sorry to learn of your “condition.” Having lived with and loved two people who suffer from bi-polar disorder, I appreciate your input. Boy is life complicated.
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Dr. Hart.
Thanks for posting this and thanks to all for the insightful comments (especially helpful was Jed’s). I find the two kingdom approach so refreshing precisely because of views like this. One of my friends was really struggling with being a Christian and pursuing a career in psychology. I found that struggle to be an unnecessary one precisely because I find it odd that a common field of study has to be deemed “Christian” or be blacklisted, which I believe many people do with psychology. Thanks for the post.
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Upon reading dgh’s “It strikes me that biblical counseling is another example of worldview, pietistic thinking that requires a biblical answer for each and every human problem.” I began doing a little thought experiment to see if a long-term dilemma of mine may have a solution after all.
First let me set up the dilemma. I have wanted to believe that nouthetic counseling or something very much like it is the only correct way of counseling. For the other side of the dilemma, let me explain some of my relevant experiences. I taught Bible studies to incarcerated juveniles. I spent years working with adults who had psychiatric issues substantial enough to preclude their independent living. Then I worked with – and lived with – younger kids who were in the state “system” because their parents were unfit.
All of the children and adults in these population groups were receiving counseling. It struck me – as I reference from the lyrics above – that the soul of man is no simple thing, and not only “cures” but even progress can be elusive in the counseling context. More to the point, I tried to envision nouthetic counseling on these kinds of clients. It just made no sense. I could imagine a suburban professional discontent with his marriage as a subject of nouthetic counseling, but the idea of nouthetic counseling for an angry, impulsive, explosive boy who was abused by his crack-whore mother’s boyfriend just seemed a bit surreal. Same for the adult who was keenly aware of the location of every object in his room, including objects neatly arranged inside boxes in the back of his closet (move any object one inch and he would be very upset).
It’s not that these people have no need of counseling, but maybe their counseling does not have to be as ultimate at nouthetic counseling to be legitimate. Perhaps, rather than conceiving counseling narrowly as that which redeems and sanctifies, there is room for a kind of counseling that is just designed to enhance functionality. It may be designed to make a little progress toward controlling impulses so that violent crimes can be avoided. It may be designed to help someone focus enough to graduate high school or hold a job. In short, maybe there is a quite legitimate “common kingdom” way of counseling that can be quite distant from nouthetic counseling yet be valid. It is not a trivial thing to relieve suffering and enhance the operation of the common kingdom. In such counseling christians do not have a monopoly, but would be highly dependent on observation of human behavior as they hone their counseling skills and counseling theory.
Dilemma solved?
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DGH,
Thanks, and I’ll give a hearty word-up to the complications of life. We all catch it somehow. As to the connection between bipolar disorder and 2k, I don’t want to drag the whole system down by saying that you have to be insane to buy in, but there is probably a personal affinity to the 2k model. Life’s waters are muddy enough, why muddy up the clear role of the church according to scripture? At an intuitive level, it made sense from the get-go.
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Don,
Thanks for the kind words, but I am not sure I can follow you here:
I must add though, that this subject especially reveals the danger of disregarding the organic connection between the Church and the State, the soul and the body, redemption and creation, etc.
I see it almost completely opposite than this. With regard to the church and the secular sphere it takes almost entirely different domains of knowledge, emotional intelligence, and even transparency to function in each sphere. The church addresses spiritual conditions, doctors prescribe pills and treat physical maladies. There may be legitimate crossover, but in my blended treatment and recovery I had to separate the issues to keep from going insane. Brain malfunction, while related to spiritual malady is different, and the treatments for both are different. The medical field is reasonable equipped for the former, and not so much the latter, and the church vice versa.
Yes the soul and body are bound together, but this is really biblical and borne out in some detail in our own confessional standards. There are some ways that the church can tend to physical needs, as in diaconal ministry, and prayer, and even at times sound advice, but the moment my pastor takes it upon himself to perform an appendectomy on me is the moment I start looking for the nearest Lutheran church, since they seem to have a better grasp on 2k than most in the Reformed camp.
Creation and redemption, well I’ll leave that alone since that is a 500 mile rabbit trail, but while we can say there is some measure of continuity there, I don’t think Scripture has clearly revealed the boundary markers. But we still end up having to render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s. In spite of this, I think God has made it abundantly clear what he has called his church to, and beyond those mandates we can draw no strict conclusion. I happen to be of the opinion that that ambiguity pervades life under the sun, and that is why we must employ wisdom, in fear of God, where there are no commands, but often that isn’t cut and dry and situationally bound.
So in brief, I think there is value in bifurcating the various aspects of mental illness into its constituent parts, both symptoms and causes. The church is well equipped to deal with the spiritual components, or at least should be. The secular sphere, i.e. the medical, therapeutic, and counseling fields are better equipped to deal with some of the more physiological, emotional/psychological, and practical aspects of such illnesses – and I’d probably lump qualified biblical counselors into this secular sphere, since they really aren’t involved (typically) with the ministry of the church. There might be overlap, but in my experience they are really quite different, that is why I don’t ask my doctors to figure out why I am sensing distance from God.
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Michael Mann,
I hope you don’t mind me horning in on your last comment to DGH. I don’t have a out and out problem with nouthetic counseling per se, and from what I understand they are doing a much better job with integrating some of the medical sides of mental illness, but I don’t think it is without it’s limitations either. Like I said, I don’t think there is an either-or dilemma to the field of counseling or therapy of most any stripe. Some methods are better than others, and some practitioners in less reliable methods may have a better skill set and track record than those in a more reliable field. For the patient, the issue is much more utilitarian, which treatment works best for them, and that really does vary.
There has been a lot of cross-disciplinary work done between sociology and mental health fields, and the fact is mental illness is on the rise at alarming rates. Some of that might be skewed to the fact that the mental health field is overly quick to diagnose, and some “diseases” might simply be diagnosing idiosyncrasies of sinful human nature. However, discounting this skew even by say 50% wouldn’t account for the current rise of mental health issues. Much of the problems, as sociologists, psychiatrists, and psychologists are learning has much to do with the human mind was never intended to flourish under the pressures of life in modern societies, where the proliferation of choices, and the speed of life doesn’t bode well for the mind (among other uniquely modern problems). The church can’t “fix” this issue since we exist in this cultural matrix, and there may be some mental issues that have spiritual effects, but not spiritual causes. Just ask the incoming college freshman who not only must deal with the pressures of study, but the nearly endless career fields that he might be training for, and he must make that choice with not only his parents wishes in mind, but societal pressure, and trying to figure out how that squares with his own inclinations. In the past these sorts of scenarios never existed, the college freshman, even 50 years ago was more likely to stay within a career field that his father had, and before the industrial revolution it was most likely that he simply carried on with the family work, that had stretched back generations. This is only one example of myriads of complexities of modern life.
I think that pastors and church leaders, even when well intentioned, do their congregants a disservice if they place themselves in the position of determining what kind of treatment is best for their flock. To be certain they should be involved in accountability (varying case by case), and a clear understanding of how his pastoral ministry can help the mentally ill grow as Christians, and even in some cases helping the mentally ill to seek better treatment when the current methods are destroying spiritual vitality, or advocating sinful practices as these cases do happen (like a therapist instructing a believer struggling with homosexuality that he should simply accept his identity and even act upon it). Just like it isn’t the role of the pastor to cure lukemia, he can’t be held responsible for the cure of mental illness, just simple, thoughtful, biblically mandated spiritual care. In some cases he may never be able to alleviate the symptoms of mental illness, but he can help the person in question with a spiritual perspective that allows him or her to face their challenges head-on. It’s okay to be depressed, we aren’t home yet; it’s okay to be a broken person, we are sinners. The pastor’s tools are spiritual, geared to addressing the spiritual condition.
Even nouthetic counseling, properly administered as I understand, lies outside the purview of typical pastoral ministry. It may be one of the few fields that does bridge churchly and worldly concerns, but still it isn’t exactly “ministry” in any confessional sense. I see a lot of good developments in the nouthetic field of counseling, and I am interested to see how it develops over the years. So long as those inclined to this field, or even prefer it don’t bind the consciences of those who suffer with mental illness unduly. All truth is God’s truth, and the big-bad field of modern psychology isn’t always as bad as it seems and can be useful for a lot of folks. It too has limits, which I why I have found a multi-faceted approach to be best, and I have seen this in many cases with people I have known, not just myself.
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“Isn’t marriage between two fallen individuals? How then can sin, at least on some level, not be involved if there is a relational problem, even if the cause isn’t immediately traceable to sin?”
Sure, but the problem comes – from my limited observation – in trying to diagnose the sin, and often in being a bit too quick to do so. If you want to see an extreme example of this, look over at the various SGM blogs. I don’t think that scripture gives a warrant for assuming that we can always accurately diagnose sins in other people lives to the degree that nouethic or biblical counselling seems to require. Not everything can be worked out by simply taking the antithesis as a first principle.
Similarly, while all sin is sin, some sins seem to lead to more civic harm than others. A man who makes his work, rather than the bottle, his idol, is probably less likely to physically abuse his kids. So while I’m aware of the dangers of an addiction being ‘moved around’ by secular counselling (and don’t accept that that is all a competent counsellor does), surely there is some value in it even if it did just that.
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Jed,
I really appreciate your depth of thought in addressing the questions surrounding counseling and mental health and your openness about your experiences. Your comments helped me sort out my objections to secular counseling giving “deistic therapy” and reinforced the good things I have heard about cognitive behavioral therapy. Personally, I would still be cautious about the so-called biblical counselors since their theology/worldview would most likely not be compatible with sacramental, confessional Lutheranism. And for some reason that I can’t quite put my finger on, the biblical counselors are a mix that makes me uncomfortable. Best I can figure is that their lack of seminary training in theology and their Evangelicalism is behind my discomfort.
From what I’ve read about the nouethic type of counseling, I would want to be very cautious with them since they seem to want to tie sin to things far more often than I am comfortable with. It reminds me of the lack of wisdom in disciplining a fussy child who is merely tired or hungry and simply needs to be fed, comforted, and taken home so they can have a nap. Just as the fussy child’s behavior is physical in origin, it appears the endocrine system that supplies numerous kinds of hormones, that the body needs to function well, can have a similar effect – causing depression, anxiety, a lack of sense of well-being with God, and so forth. It’s physical in origin and cruel to accuse someone of sin and discipline them for something they cannot control whereas, if I understand things rightly, the cognitive behavioral therapy can help a person manage their symptoms? Anywho, it sure seems to take a Solomon type wisdom to understand and provide care for struggling souls.
In recent years, we have had two LCMS pastors come forward and be open about their mental health struggles, treatment, and how supportive their congregations have been with them. They went to a Lutheran organization called Doxology that provides treatment for pastors and trains pastors to be better equipped in giving pastoral care to their parishioners. Hank Sankbeil, who wrote “Sanctification, Christ in Action” is one of the primary leaders in this organization. I am thankful to see them addressing pastoral mental health needs and training pastors to address mental health issues in a wholistic way. http://www.doxology.us
Again, thanks.
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