INTEGRATING SECULAR WITH BIBLICAL COUNSELING

Christians believe that truth can be found in both of God’s “books” – Scripture and the book of creation. There are many things that we can learn from the study of the earth and of the skies (Psalm 19). God’s imprint is on everything. Creation is pregnant with His knowledge, as the clouds are pregnant with water. Accordingly, Christian counselors Stanton L. Jones and Richard E. Butman write:

·       “Just as the rain falls on the just and the unjust, so too does truth, by the process that theologians call God’s common grace. Romans 1 speaks of God even revealing central truths about his nature to unbelievers…. If we understand God’s counsel to be truth, we will be committed to pursuing truth wherever we find it. And we sometimes find it in the careful and insightful writings of unbelievers.”

This is the doctrine of “general revelation.” Therefore, Christians believe that God teaches us through nature as well as through Scripture – “special revelation.” However, should this insight make us “integrationists?” This is the idea that we can and should integrate the findings from nature/science, specifically the findings and techniques of secular counseling into Biblical counseling?

In some ways we must. It is hard to derive a meaningful and robust understanding of Scripture without general revelation, which we derive through our feelings, perceptions, and experiences. It’s hard to understand the Scripture’s teachings on sin and forgiveness without experiencing these for myself. The fact that there is “no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1) would have been meaningless to me had I not experienced self-condemnation.

This, however, brings us to an area of strong contention. Can we integrate the insights of secular counseling with our understanding and practice of Biblical counseling? Writer and counselor Larry Crabb answers affirmatively:

·       “All truth is certainly God’s truth. The doctrine of general revelation provides warrant for going beyond the propositional revelation of Scripture into the secular world of scientific study expecting to find true and useable concepts.”

“All truth is certainly God’s truth,” but can the revelations of secular counseling be used productively? Christian Counselor Bruce Narramore claims that they can be:

·       “The evangelical church has a great opportunity to combine the special revelation of God’s Word with the general revelation studied by the psychological sciences and professions. The end result of this integration can be a broader (and deeper) view of human life.”

While it is obvious that the study of the brain has revealed new insights about behavior and the correlation between physical and mental states, it is unclear how these insights might impact Christian counseling, if at all. Eric L. Johnson argues that, if we can use the insights of the science of psychology, we can also use their insights in counseling:

·       “Non-Christian bias has influenced the content and practice of modern psychology, but it is also the case that God has revealed so much about the brain, learning, human development, motivation, social influences, forms of abnormality, and even helpful counseling practices through the labors of secular psychologists.

However, the study of physical psychology is worlds apart from secular counseling practices. Although the two might seem inseparable, I think that we must carefully distinguish them. While a newspaper might be inseparable from the ink of its newsprint, our efforts to understand an editorial would be misplaced if we tried to understand its message by investigating the ink patterning.

While the physical study of the brain is relatively free from the values of the researcher, the counseling enterprise is imbued through-and-through with secular values and assumptions, so-much-so that Martin L. Gross has written:

·       For many, the [Psychological] Society has all the earmarks of a potent new religion. When educated man lost faith in formal religion, he required a substitute belief that would be as reputable in the last half of the twentieth century as Christianity was in the first. Psychology and psychiatry have now assumed that special role. They offer mass belief, a promise of a better future, opportunity for confession, unseen mystical workings and a trained priesthood of helping professionals devoted to servicing the paying-by-the-hour communicants. (The Psychological Society, 9)

One example might be illuminating in this regard. Numerous Christian counselors have borrowed extensively from secular behavioral therapy, using the technique of “systematic desensitization.” If someone has a fear of flying, the counselor/therapist will slowly confront their client with images of flying to convince them that they can handle these fearful stimuli. This finally culminates with the client boarding a plane.

However, the success of this operation depends upon the client growing in the faith that s/he can do it. While helping the client grow in self-confidence and self-esteem is central to secular counseling, it is antithetical to Christian counseling. Instead of growing in self-confidence, the Apostle Paul understood that he had to diminish in self-confidence so that he could grow in God-confidence:

·       We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. (2 Cor. 1:8-9)

Biblical counsel takes us in an opposite direction from the secular. On its most basic level, the secular attempts to build confidence and self-esteem while the Biblical goal is humility and self-acceptance based on God’s acceptance of us through Jesus Christ. The secular foundation is diametrically opposed to the Biblical. While we are to die to self and to look towards God, the secular emphasis is upon growing the self.

Some Christian counselors believe that they can merely “Christianize” secular methods. As they lead their client through “systematic desensitization” to show them that they can tolerate the fearful plane ride, they are careful to say, “You see, God is able to give you courage to take this flight.”

However, was the resulting greater freedom-from-fear, when imagining themselves boarding a plane, the result of God’s intervention or a very human suggestive process? Was their diminished anxiety the result of their relationship with God, or a natural process, from which anyone could benefit?

I have little doubt that systematic desensitization can produce at least a temporary reduction in fear, but can we legitimately bring God into this process? To put it another way, can we expect God to endorse our clinical manipulations in the way and at the time when we want Him to manifest His healing power? Can we attribute any fear reduction to His intervention or to the clinical process? Probably, the credit would go to this process, since it tends to work for Christian and non-Christian alike.

More importantly, does God want to be inserted into an antithetical practice? Instead, He tells us that He will heal and raise us up according to His timing and in His way:

·       Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. (1 Peter 5:6-7)

In His own way and in His own time, He will raise us up. This is why we are counseled to be patient rather than to expect that methods and techniques will produce meaningful results:

·       Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. (Romans 12:12)

We are also counseled by the Scriptures to wait for the Lord as we trust that He has our best interests in mind:

·       Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD! (Psalm 27:14)

When we compare this counsel with secular counseling, we see that they are radically different and cannot be combined. Instead, the Christian needs to understand that there is a surpassing need to endure our weaknesses and infirmities rather than to feverishly find an immediate cure:

·       But [God] said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)

In view of these Biblical teachings, we deny God’s sufficiency as we try to integrate secular approaches into Christian counseling. Consequently, I am very skeptical about  integrationism. I am also assured that our Lord has given us everything that we need, in this regard, to come to spiritual maturity – the goal of all true Biblical counseling. In these matters, Paul assures us that, through the Scriptures, we have everything we need:

·       All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Tim. 3:16-17)

Yet, we do go to doctors and auto-mechanics with our problems. Why not also to secular counseling? We even invest some trust in these specialists, and I too think that this is legitimate. However, these are not God’s primary domains, even though he can also intervene in these matters. Therefore, while there is nothing wrong with going to an auto-mechanic, seeking spiritual counsel outside of God’s Word is forbidden:

·       …that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another. (1 Corinthians 4:6)

·       And when they say to you, “Inquire of the mediums and the necromancers who chirp and mutter,” should not a people inquire of their God? Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living? To the teaching and to the testimony! If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn. (Isaiah 8:19-20)

Nevertheless, I admit that I do read secular authors, even when it pertains to spirituality and psychological change. Why? In some cases, as I grapple with their perspectives, it helps me to better understand or even illuminate my own perspective. However, Scripture will not allow me to import anything that doesn’t coincide with the Scriptures:

·       For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, (2 Corinthians 10:4-5)

Consequently, everything must conform to God’s revelation. Sadly, we – Christian counselors and Christian lay people – fail to understand how well-endowed are. We are rich beyond belief. When we fail to realize this, we compromise and “integrate.”

·       See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority. (Col. 2:8-10)

Much of the church has been taken “captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy.” This is because we fail to understand our riches in Christ and how they are jeopardized by alien philosophies. When we fail to understand these things and are taken captive by alien philosophies, we deprive ourselves of the things of God. Consequently, the Apostle Paul prayed:

·       that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Ephes. 3:16-19)

Without this “knowing” we deprive ourselves with “the fullness of God” and are left thinking that we are missing out. Integrationism is a symptom of this thinking. We think that we are missing out, and that the Biblical revelation is not sufficient. Therefore, we draw from other sources to our great loss.