Biblical
Counseling and the Prosperity Gospel:
The
Same Side of the Same Coin.
It might sound odd at first to hear
that Biblical Counseling and the Prosperity Gospel share the same premise. This statement must be patently absurd! After all, those places most noted for
Biblical Counseling are bastions of reformed thought that vie relentlessly
against the encroachment of the Prosperity Gospel.[1] Yet, despite this apparent divergence, the
Prosperity Gospel is alive and well being actively propagated by these
schools. No, you will not hear John
MacArthur saying things like a health and wealth preacher, but you will find
Biblical Counseling being actively promoted.
Before going further, it is
appropriate to define what I mean by Biblical Counseling. The Biblical Counseling Coalition says on
their website, that God
“comprehensively addresses the sin and suffering of all people in all
situations.” This of course is done in
Scripture. This clearly means that Biblical
Counseling is founded upon the use of Scripture. A second point to this is that Biblical
counseling does not rely upon psychology because “When systems of thought and
practice claim to prescribe a cure for the human condition, they compete with
Christ (Colossians 2:1-15). Scripture alone teaches a perspective and way of
looking at life by which we can think biblically about and critically evaluate
information and actions from any source (Colossians 2:2-10; 2 Timothy
3:16-17).” Biblical counseling in a
nutshell is the use of the Bible centered on Christ to address the problems of
the “whole” person. (To be clear,
psychotherapy seeks to help a person in their distress, and does not
claim to prescribe a cure for the human condition this definition is overtly polemical at his
point.)
How then can such an obviously good
thing centered on the Bible, Jesus, and helping people be compared in
qualitative manner with the Prosperity Gospel?
Simply put, they make the similar claims about similar aspects of life. It is not difficult to find Prosperity Gospel
speakers equate physical suffering and financial difficulties with sinful
behavior (which is often gussied up under the term “lack of
faith/trust/belief”). God will bless
those who trust in Him in a demonstrable manner. And to be honest there are Bible passages
which can be used to support this.
Biblical Counseling makes that claim that by dealing with sin and
exercising demonstrable faith in the Word of God that God will bring mental and
emotional health. In both cases, the
thing that separates you from the blessings of God is your sin and a lack of
repentance. Likewise both promise that
once that faith is enacted God will act to bring the state of blessing into
one’s life. The only serious difference
is that Biblical Counseling posits that it can take a long time to bring this
change, while the prosperity peoples typically do not offer very long time
frames.
Just as the Prosperity Gospel can
lead people to ignore medical advice from Doctors and defy economic common
sense, so also Biblical counseling leads people to ignore the right use of
doctrine and the collected wisdom of the field of psychology.[2] Although Biblical Counseling is touted as
truly operating upon the doctrine of the Sufficiency of Scripture, it offers a
distorted Gospel from a distorted doctrine.
The doctrine of the Sufficiency of Scripture was used to speak about how
Scripture contains those things which are necessary for salvation and that
these same things are clearly seen from Scripture. Therefore Scripture is sufficient for one to
know what one must do to be saved. This
is evident in the Westminster confession, which I have previous argued is
incorrect on this point.[3] Yet, what was once a doctrine of Scripture
speaking about salvation has now been used as a means of rejecting
psychology! The Bible does have quite a lot to say
about how our souls can be healed by God.
However, it is not a manual of how to heal mental disorders nor was it
written as a post-enlightenment psychotherapeutic manual despite its
insights. Attempts to force the Bible
into this paradigm are guilty of fundamentally misusing the Bible and forcing
it to address things that it did not directly address.[4]
In a move befitting the
fundamentalist caricature, the “Sufficiency of Scripture” is being used to
support a worldview that does not need to accommodate the learning of any field
outside of Biblical Scholarship (which itself must be treated with abject
horror if it does not conclude within the proper confessional boundaries). Mental illnesses are cured through exegesis
and repentance. This might be more of a classical
Fundamentalist attempt to regain influence in a sphere (counseling) while
eschewing the principles of counseling. I speculate that this goes back to a perceived
need for authority and clear answers, which (from its perspective) are
primarily found in the Bible (but only when interpreted in a particular way
within a particular confessional model).
The Biblical Counseling movement
offers the same answer for mental health as the Prosperity Gospel does for
physical health and financial soundness.
Trust Jesus and He will provide.
Neither of these assertions fits with reality. Historically, there have been many who have
been very faithful Christians who suffered from various physical and financial
difficulties (the Apostle Paul comes to mind).
In the same way, there have been many Christians (and even saints)[5] who have experienced
mental illness perhaps even without healing.
There is even a category for this in Russia Fool-for-Christ. Further, John Cassian and other monastic
authors frequently engage with topics of mental and emotional health in direct
relation to living the monastic life and being aware of one’s own soul and body.[6] These issues were not new topics that emerged
in the 1960’s, but there is a long Christian tradition that addresses many of
the same things today, but in a manner quite distinct from the Biblical
Counseling movement.
It is important to note that
Biblical counseling affirms a good thing in affirming the need for
repentance. Indeed, the life of a
Christian is a life of repentance. The problem
comes when there are mental/emotional/relational problems that cannot be solved
through my repentance. Rape, abuse,
bullying, etc… leave damage upon the victims that cannot be healed through
repentance alone. This is the ultimate
failure of Biblical Counseling. It
cannot address the wounds on a soul wounded by another’s sin.
[1]
Based upon
the sound advice of my wife, no schools are named herein.
[2] There are a couple of evidence
based psychological theories which are largely ignored by Biblical counseling
(possibly because they do not fit the polemical bent of the movement). For example, see: Attachment Theory.
[4] Anecdotally, my first encounter
with Biblical Counseling was when I visited a friend and went with him to his
counseling class. I was horrified by how
the Bible was being used. Proverbs
7:21-23 was used as an example of how the Bible speaks to the alcoholic. Contextually, this is speaking about the
adulteress woman who is the counter-part to Wisdom:
“With much seductive speech she persuades him; with her smooth talk she
compels him. All at once he follows her,
as an ox goes to the slaughter, or as a stag is caught fast till an arrow
pierces its liver; as a bird rushes into a snare; he does not know that it will
cost him his life.”
Apparently arrow and liver along with the invitation to
drink were all that was required to clearly demonstrate how this addressed the
alcoholic. Because otherwise, I would
have understood this to teach me about resisting temptation and the dangers of
self-gratification to my soul and body.
In defense of the prof who taught this, when confronted,
he said that it seemed a little odd to him and that he would revise his lesson
for the next time he taught the class.
[5] I am not going to attempt to
retroactively diagnose anyone. Such
attempts are utter folly and go against the very nature of professional
behavior in the fields of counseling and history.
[6] Here is a link to John Cassian’s work the
Institutes. Note his section on the
spirit of dejection.
Posts
7 comments:
This comment was posted by Mary Burbink on Facebook and is being posted here with her permission.
Good article. Some observations from my own experience in biblical counseling classes:
1. An individual told a counselee not to take his medication on prescribed times during the day by his doctor because the counselees mind was too clouded by the medication. This is dangerous as the counselor is not a trained medical professional and had no idea what the person was on the medicine for. When I pointed this out in class I was told it was ok for the counselor to advise the counselee to do that because the counselor decided the counselee didn't need the antidepressants anyway bases on the fact that the person was a Christian and would benefit from counseling more than medicine. Maybe this is true. Maybe its not. I'm not a medical professional so I cant make that call and neither could the counselor.
2. A lot of BC material focuses on depression. What am I to tell a schizophrenic person who hears voices and sees things that aren't there? Are they suffering from a physical ailment or do they simply not have enough faith in God? My guess is the former, but I'm not a medical professional. I cant make that call.
3. There are many observations within psychology that can be helpful when counseling someone. Rejecting the entire field because its based on various secular personality theories at odds with a biblical nature of man is just as unwise as taking the Bible out of context to fit your worldview that psychology is unhelpful because its based on secular theories of the nature of man.
Spotted the link on Facebook and gave it a read. I appreciate continued discussion regarding the Biblical Counseling movement's development. I have lived through the ideological clash of the Christian Psychology/Nouthetic Counseling clash in a seminary context largely through the lens of an observer prepping for ministry desiring to teach and apply the Bible in a pastoral context. In general, I wary of choosing sides in the family debate, but I am admittedly more sympathetic to the Biblical Counseling approach (for pastors especially) so far as I understand it. Thus, I do not see strong parallels between the best representatives of BC and the notorious peddlers of the Health n' Wealth Gospel.
A offer some friendly questions for clarification in my own mind:
1. Do you think there is an organic connection that can be traced between any of the influential Biblical Counselors and the historic roots of Prosperity Gospel or even Christian Perfectionism? Or is your comparison simply one of observation of logical commonality?
2. I agree that a Christian should never equate physical suffering/financial difficulty with sin or refusal to repent, however, I think that mental and emotional health is a natural result of faith in God and meditation upon His Word (Psalm 1:1-2). God calls His people again and again to seek Him and have joy in all circumstances. Sin and the refusal to repent or forgive is likely to aggravate any existing problem to an almost unbearable degree. This need not equate to mere prosperity Gospel. Can you help me understand your criticism as being something different than what Paul promises in 1 Timothy 4:8, that godliness should benefit one's present life in addition to their eternal hope? How do you think this promise has been misapplied by biblical counselors?
3. What insights have you observed might be helpful for Christian understanding gleaned through the findings of modern psychology that would be comparable to the medical sciences? There is the fundamental difference between psychology as a social science and medicine being closer to the empirical science. Furthermore, are these psychological insights of such a nature that they cannot be gleaned from scriptural study?
4. Do you have any reason to suggest that Biblical Counseling offers a quick fix to problems comparable to Prosperity Gospel's "trust God/expect worldly comforts" stereotype? I expect any experienced biblical counselor would understand the reality of spiritual struggle in the sanctification process. I would caution against being too quick to lump the two things together as two sides of a coin. I sense they are much different in this regard.
Follow Up too long for original comment:
I did appreciate your observation about the difference in approach in that much of psychology seeks to aid a person with a particular problem rather than trying to answer all problems of the human condition. I do seem to recall that biblical counseling employs a "wholistic" (or is it "holistic?") approach to counseling that seeks to answer the big questions of man's relation to God and then work from the big picture into the particulars.
Additionally, I do wonder how biblical counseling in practice might evolve across denominational traditions, since I do not recall any particular confession of faith being given primacy in one's appeals to Scripture. Can a Catholic, for instance, appeal to a biblical counseling model without revoking their Catholicism? Can an Arminian Evangelical appeal to the model as a Calvinist would with perhaps various degrees of emphasis placed upon divine sovereignty/human volition? How would a paedobaptist vs. Baptist understanding of covenants in Scripture impact their counseling practice? Yet, does the Biblical Counseling movement teach all students of various religious affiliation the same rubric and expect them to answer those questions in practice? These are all important questions which I do not recall hearing discussed, but I also recognize my general ignorance of conferences and literature beyond the fundamental introductory works. Neither do I have knowledge of the monastic precedents you cited in your article. Overall, I appreciate the food for thought and for any responses you might be able to provide to my inquiries.
Adam, thank you for taking the time to read and put together your response. I really appreciate friendly questions. Hopefully my Friday afternoon reply is as friendly as your questions!
1. The connection I see between the Prosperity Gospel and Biblical Counseling is purely logical.
2. It is difficult for me to respond to your second question because I disagree with your premise. Mental health is a wide ranging field. I agree that some aspects of mental health are based upon thoughts and attitudes and these can be changed through repentance (which is changing ones practices). I also hold that there are aspects of mental health which fall squarely into the physiological disorder category. This is where I connect Biblical Counseling with the Prosperity Gospel since both are arguing that God will heal physical ailments if the individual does a certain action (be it repentance or whatever).
3. For question number 3, I think that my link to Attachment Theory is worth looking at. While you could argue that the seed form of various helpful psychological theories can be found in Scripture, psychology offers a more fully fleshed out approach and empirically tested theories on how best to apply various approaches and treatments. This is something that the Bible does not offer.
4. This is a really great question. To be candid, I have not sought or received counseling from a trained professional from either a Biblical Counselor or Psychologist. My perspective here is all second hand. My observation has been that Biblical Counseling offers a much quicker fix than a licensed psychologist would normally offer. In this sense, they are similar. In the sense that the Biblical Counselor actually cares for the person they are counseling, it is decidedly distinct from the prosperity peddlers.
Your speculations about how Biblical Counseling might evolve across confessional and denominational boundaries is quite intriguing. At the present, I see BC primarily operating in confessionally reformed circles (at least the Reformed at the ones predominately training biblical counselors). Confessionally speaking, I do not see what would stop an Arminian from engaging in Biblical Counseling. I think that such counseling would have a few distinct differences on the ability of the human will. A paedo-baptist and a Baptist could likely have very different understanding of their role as a counselor vis-a-vi the salvific state of their counselor.
As a movement, I do not foresee it really entering into more liturgical confessions such as the Roman Catholics. RC spirituality would already, at least in theory, have the priest acting as a spiritual counselor as part of confession. In that sense, they would already have had Biblical Counseling as a part and parcel of their liturgy for well over a millennium.
Within one hundred years from now, should the Lord tarry, there will probably be a Ph.D. dissertation written at SBTS on the history of the Biblical Counseling movement that will answer a lot of these questions that I can only speculate about.
Thanks for the returned thoughts, JohnMark. I appreciate a patient discussion and reflection.
Adam:
I've appreciated reading your thoughtful questions and, if you're up for it, I thought I'd share few thoughts as I complete this first year of seminary counselling studies (M.A.). Following the same number format as your questions...
1. JohnMark answered this question. My sense is that you're on to something here. I think BC's "flavour" of faith (for lack of a better term) comes out a theological tradition that has other problems with it. I'm not really theologically educated enough to give a sense of what that might be, but I feel like there's something systemically wrong there.
2. You mention that "mental and emotional health is a natural result of faith in God and meditation upon His Word" and I agree... but what extent? The BC folks might say "all of it" whereas someone like myself who is working on integrating faith and science into a holistic approach might say that the mental/emotional health associated with faith and meditation only go so far. I think also that mental illnesses aren't simply binary problems where we can apprehend some issue, apply a "fix" and move on in the way BC proposes. Sometimes interim measures must be taken to manage symptoms so that deeper solutions can be explored (such as ECT). As for your question regarding 1 Timothy: I think that reading the verse as making a statement regarding psychological health (the latter JohnMark did not set out to define so we might not even be talking about the same thing!) is to mis-apprehend Paul's intent. Such an interpretation takes the verse out of context (godliness & teaching) and applies it to an aspect of human existence that the book doesn't otherwise address. Remember, just because there are overlaps between "psychological health" and "godliness" doesn't mean the two are the same and - even if they were - there still is not a straight line between between faith and psychological adjustment. My gosh, we haven't even begun talking about personality disorders and genetic predispositions!
3. You asked, "Are these psychological insights of such a nature that they cannot be gleaned from scriptural study?" My answer is yes. I am of the opinion that to prioritize a psychological lens in one's approach to scripture at the expense of the lenses it establishes for itself is to grossly mishandle it. It's one thing for us to experiment with and hold loosely any overlap between a post-enlightenment pscyho-scientific approach to scripture, but to make it anything more than a playful project is to ignore scripture's overarching story and do exactly the kinds of things with it as JohnMark shared in his 4th footnote.
You asked: "What insights have you observed might be helpful for Christian understanding gleaned through the findings of modern psychology that would be comparable to the medical sciences?" My studies in neuroscience, behaviour and the imago Dei have led me to believe that we grossly misunderstand who we are as humans and our basic nature. Secondly, I have learned that we over-spiritualize and over-naturalize in all the wrong places most of the time (e.g. struggles of faith are less spiritual problems than they are psychological Attachment issues).
continued...
3. (cont.)
You said: "There is the fundamental difference between psychology as a social science and medicine being closer to the empirical science." My response is... Are you sure? Or do they exist on a made-up continuum of "hardness" (i.e. hard disciplines vs. soft)? This is where the enlightenment's influence is profoundly felt as not all knowledge need be reduced to mathematical formulae and our sense that the social sciences are somehow "softer" or less empirical because they're more difficult to measure doesn't make them any less valuable as fields of knowledge. If we hold the epistemological assumption underlying your statement to be true (that knowledge from empirical science is better) then for any of us to claim personal knowledge of Jesus Christ would be hypocritical!
4. You asked: "Do you have any reason to suggest that Biblical Counseling offers a quick fix to problems comparable to Prosperity Gospel's "trust God/expect worldly comforts" stereotype?" My answer: Your caution is well founded and I think there's merit in applying a sense of humility when criticizing BC if we're wanting to model and practice constructive dialog - even if we know they're wrong. However, in my experience and in the experience of my personal counsellor (a PhD with 30 years experience as a Christian clinical counsellor whom I queried on this subject), the characterization of BC as presented by JohnMark seems 90% accurate. Anecdotally, my counsellor currently has three clients that have come to therapy broken in their faith from damage caused by BC counsellors.
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