The Rise of Biblical Counseling - Pacific Standard

It was hard to prove malpractice where there was no clear practice; biblical counseling fell into a gray area between religious teaching and therapy.

Although this article is from 2014, it highlights the dangers of this so-called "biblical counseling".  This is the same type of "treatment" Josh Duggar is getting.  It is also the same type of "treatment" and training I received back in college.  I don't know how many times the mantra, “The problem isn’t the problem; the problem is the heart, ” was repeated.  Not only was it a part of my counseling, but it was oft repeated within my courses of study.

Biblical counseling had overcome its first great challenge. Now it was freer to expand without worry—and so it did. Today, it is a major force among conservative American Protestants. It is so popular, and so widespread, that in 2005 the Southern Baptist Convention’s theological seminaries—the pastoral schools of the largest Protestant denomination in the country—announced a “wholesale change of emphasis” in favor of biblical counseling over an earlier “pastoral care” model that had drawn in part on the behavioral sciences.

But biblical counseling also faces serious difficulties, ones as great as those faced by Grace Community Church over 30 years ago. It has been confronted with mounting external criticisms and widening internal divisions, and the result, among its practitioners, is a looming crisis of principle. How Christians address this crisis will shape the mental health choices of millions of Americans.

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Indirectly, the influence of biblical counseling is wider still, and echoes of it can be heard across conservative culture. In 2012, when Adam Lanza slaughtered a school full of children in Connecticut, Fox News host and onetime GOP presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee, a former Southern Baptist pastor himself, slipped into biblical counseling territory when he laid blame for the killings in part on a society in which we “stop saying things are sinful and we call them disorders.” And when Southern Baptist research organization LifeWay Research conducted a survey of evangelical Christians in 2013, 48 percent of self-identified evangelical, born-again, or fundamentalist Christians said they believe that conditions like bipolar disorder and schizophrenia can be treated with prayer alone.

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“Mental illness is real in the sense that people and families suffer,” Grady explained to the crowd, and the response of biblical counselors shouldn’t be “‘Just take two scriptures and call me in the morning.’”

There were appreciative chuckles.

“But,” he continued, “if you spend time talking to people with labels [of mental illness], you see that their lives are full of the problems of living.”

These problems of living don’t originate in brain chemistry, Grady said, but in men’s hearts. He repeated a biblical counseling mantra: “The problem isn’t the problem; the problem is the heart.”

The Rise of Biblical Counseling - Pacific Standard

John MacArthur on Having Gay Children: Alienate Them & Turn Them Over to Satan

Within the evangelical circle of pastors, heavyweight John MacArthur has for the most part stay out of the political arena - until now.

Last week, MacArthur got a letter from a listener who wanted to know what to do after one of her kids came out as gay. MacArthur's advice? If a parent finds out his or her child his gay, that parent has to completely shun them and "turn them over to Satan."

Enter Benjamin L. Corey of the "Formerly Fundie" blog and his view on shunning:

What troubles me about MacArthur’s advice, and so many who think like him, is the horrible inconsistency that often is used when it comes to shunning. One of the key passages folks use to support shunning comes from 1 Corinthians 5– the unfortunate truth, however, is that Paul lists several sins he thought were shun-worthy. Folks like MacArthur have lifted sexual immorality out of that passage while completely ignoring the rest of what Paul taught.

Why?

Because it would be horribly inconvenient to actually practice this verse. In it, Paul teaches that we are to have nothing to do with Christians who are… greedy.

Which in America, is a whole lot of us. I wonder if MacArthur would also suggest you shun an adult child who makes $200,000 a year but doesn’t tithe or give any of their money to charity? Somehow, I doubt it.

I wonder if MacArthur would teach that we should isolate, alienate, and turn over to Satan our children who struggle with over-eating? That can be a form of greed because it is taking more than you need.

Or, what about the idolators mentioned in that same passage? I know a boat load of Christians who are trusting in firearms for their safety instead of God– which is idolatry. According to Paul, they should be shunned as well.

John MacArthur on Having Gay Children: Alienate Them & Turn Them Over to Satan