Reformed Covenanter
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The Reformed Free Publishing Association website have published the following article critical of Jay Adams's approach to mental health: The Foundation of Biblical Counseling.
RFPA artice - The Foundation of Biblical Counseling
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I read it.
Having spent time in SGM in the 90s, and also having a daughter who counseled with CCEF for two years more recently, I'd say the article makes some broad brush sweeping assertions.
First of all, my husband had Jay Adams in Seminary, having loved his "Competent to Counsel" book, and that experience was a huge disappointment. The flip comments lacked wisdom and were often contemptuous and even ignorant.
In our experience in SGM, who either accurately or inaccurately appealed to Powlison for their perspective, everything was idolatry and we were defined as idolaters. We were not new creations with the holy spirit, but idol factories, and any desire or thinking that didn't fit with their rules was sin and idolotry. It left me very negative at the time about CCEF.
We talked to a guy during that time who was hands down the most successful counselor we ever heard of. I mean gays converting, drug addicts getting free, depression, floundering marriages rescued. He said that CCEF seemed to lack a biblical understanding of the theme of us being hungry and thirsty people, and the answer is to learn to eat and drink, not to feel guilty of the actual hungers. You don't repent of the idol of hunger and thirst, you learn to eat and drink the way the Lord intended.
This was mid 90s. By the time somebody begged me to talk to the CCEF adoption specialist 20 years later, things were different and they had distanced themselves from Adams. The counselor told me they treated people as sinners, saints, and sufferers, and tried to treat the genuine suffering of a counselee's cruel victimhood, address their sin nature, and to help the new creation grow and walk with the Lord and feed on Him. Our counselor at one point almost had my daughter committed to a live in facility that would have been called "psychobabble" in the 90s. (Daughter had a breakthrough and was OK).
Powlison was sick for a long time and that tends to mellow people. And Mike Emlett is a doctor- he is no trite dummy. So I would say that this article is perhaps too narrow and too stuck in the past, at least for CCEF. Having followed the SGM drama the past decade to some degree (we left a long time ago) it does sound like they didn't change, but remained controlling and legalistic for a long time if you read the accounts.
Biblical counseling is of course always the right way to counsel, so a lot depends on your definitions, and what means of grace you are willing to allow. I have found that secular books on trauma did more to help me understand my daughter (adopted from Romania) than anything Christian. God made souls and brains and even the unsaved can understand how they react in many circumstances.
Its complicated. If anything, the problem is people who think they have all the answers and don't need wisdom as they counsel, and don't hold out the hope of the power of the Holy Spirit to truly change us and help us. If your counseling is not birthed in compassionate prayer you can pretty much guarantee it isn't so great.
Just my current thinking. I've been thinking about all this for years and will probably adjust my outlook again in the future. Its getting worse and worse out there with the way people think and act and how deluded they are, and how they want to talk about their problems but do not want Jesus Christ. Or, they want to vent and are Christians but can't get past blame shifting to see their own sinfulness. We need God to intervene and open up minds and hearts.
Having spent time in SGM in the 90s, and also having a daughter who counseled with CCEF for two years more recently, I'd say the article makes some broad brush sweeping assertions.
First of all, my husband had Jay Adams in Seminary, having loved his "Competent to Counsel" book, and that experience was a huge disappointment. The flip comments lacked wisdom and were often contemptuous and even ignorant.
In our experience in SGM, who either accurately or inaccurately appealed to Powlison for their perspective, everything was idolatry and we were defined as idolaters. We were not new creations with the holy spirit, but idol factories, and any desire or thinking that didn't fit with their rules was sin and idolotry. It left me very negative at the time about CCEF.
We talked to a guy during that time who was hands down the most successful counselor we ever heard of. I mean gays converting, drug addicts getting free, depression, floundering marriages rescued. He said that CCEF seemed to lack a biblical understanding of the theme of us being hungry and thirsty people, and the answer is to learn to eat and drink, not to feel guilty of the actual hungers. You don't repent of the idol of hunger and thirst, you learn to eat and drink the way the Lord intended.
This was mid 90s. By the time somebody begged me to talk to the CCEF adoption specialist 20 years later, things were different and they had distanced themselves from Adams. The counselor told me they treated people as sinners, saints, and sufferers, and tried to treat the genuine suffering of a counselee's cruel victimhood, address their sin nature, and to help the new creation grow and walk with the Lord and feed on Him. Our counselor at one point almost had my daughter committed to a live in facility that would have been called "psychobabble" in the 90s. (Daughter had a breakthrough and was OK).
Powlison was sick for a long time and that tends to mellow people. And Mike Emlett is a doctor- he is no trite dummy. So I would say that this article is perhaps too narrow and too stuck in the past, at least for CCEF. Having followed the SGM drama the past decade to some degree (we left a long time ago) it does sound like they didn't change, but remained controlling and legalistic for a long time if you read the accounts.
Biblical counseling is of course always the right way to counsel, so a lot depends on your definitions, and what means of grace you are willing to allow. I have found that secular books on trauma did more to help me understand my daughter (adopted from Romania) than anything Christian. God made souls and brains and even the unsaved can understand how they react in many circumstances.
Its complicated. If anything, the problem is people who think they have all the answers and don't need wisdom as they counsel, and don't hold out the hope of the power of the Holy Spirit to truly change us and help us. If your counseling is not birthed in compassionate prayer you can pretty much guarantee it isn't so great.
Just my current thinking. I've been thinking about all this for years and will probably adjust my outlook again in the future. Its getting worse and worse out there with the way people think and act and how deluded they are, and how they want to talk about their problems but do not want Jesus Christ. Or, they want to vent and are Christians but can't get past blame shifting to see their own sinfulness. We need God to intervene and open up minds and hearts.
Yes I believe this is a very important point. Martyn Lloyd-Jones was very critical of Nouthetic Counselling for that reason. I think his books "Spiritual Depression" and "Healing and Medicine" should be read by all pastors. His book "Healing and Medicine" includes his famous Rendal Short 1974 lecture on the relationship between physical, spiritual, and mental health.
Here is an interesting article by pastor Geoff Thomas on why Martyn Lloyd-Jones was exceptionally gifted at helping people in both biblical counselling and mental illness:
Part 1 https://www.evangelical-times.org/4...pped-to-write-on-spiritual-depression-part-1/
Part 2 https://www.evangelical-times.org/4...pped-to-write-on-spiritual-depression-part-2/
Wow. Good stuff, I love Geoff Thomas.
I very much enjoyed reading those two articles. Thank you.
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