This was originally a comment I made to a post at The Christian Mind. I thought it was worth reproducing here, but would encourage you to read Keith’s post first. You can find it here.

The alarm sounded by Sommers and Satel, among others, is nothing new: those of us in the field of Christian counseling and therapy have been aware of it for a long time. (Bruce Narramore wrote a book thirty years ago taking himself and others to task for unbiblical psychology.) The problem in the church has been the blind acceptance of psychologists who are clinically trained but theological novices.

Those who have training in both disciplines – such as John Trent, Henry Cloud, John Townsend, and many others – have worked hard to develop their psychology in keeping with their theology. Others, notably Larry Crabb, have done the opposite: they inform their theology with their psychology. All the God-talk, theobabble, and jargon are present, but the substance and exegetical, theological foundation is sadly lacking.

We all would do well to pay careful attention to whom we listen. A Ph.D. in psychology does not necessarily know more about theology than the person that hands you a cart a WalMart or Sam’s. This is not to demean the latter – it is honest work – but only to stress that a Ph.D. in one area does not make you an expert in another.

There are those of us who struggle to help clients accept reality. Rom 12.3 is foundational here, I believe, for it says (among other things) that God doesn’t want us to have high self-esteem or low self-esteem; he wants us to have accurate self-esteem. Part of my job is to help people understand that they are average, regardless of what their mother or Joel Osteen might have told them.

What many of us who are Christian counselors, with training in both psychology and theology,* do with Christian clients is clinical discipleship. There are people with special needs who need someone to lead them out of the dark. The Christian subculture, however, in addition to its dedication to image management instead of authentic living, has no stomach for suffering and runs from others who do suffer. Or, as the cliche declares, we shoot our wounded. Whatever happened to not breaking off bruised reeds or not quenching a smoldering wick?

Until the church gets back to doing what it is supposed to be doing and not just providing feel-good services with mindless, trance-inducing choruses written by modalists, Christian counselors will not only be necessary but busy.

*There most assuredly are those Christian counselors without theological training who provide biblical therapy. They are generally humble enough to learn from theological experts, however, and are far from common; may their tribe increase! But too many others who declare themselves to be “Christian counselors” read their Bibles through the lenses of psychology rather than carefully scrutinizing their psychology through the corrective visionware of theology and God’s truth.


2 Cor 1:13