SECULAR COUNSELING IS RELIGION NOT SCIENCE

 

 

How is secular counseling a religion? It is based upon the belief that we can meaningfully change our nature and need—self-trust as opposed to God-trust!

 

We all need hope, even to get out of bed in the morning. We will either find hope in ourselves (the flesh) or in God, the only One who can truly take care of us:

 

·       Thus says the Lord: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.” (Jeremiah 17:5-8)

 

If we do not trust in God, our hope must ultimately rest on our own shoulders. However, self-trust ultimately disappoints. We all die, and our lives are a progressive march to the grave. We are held captive by psycho-spiritual needs of which we are hardly aware—needs to be significant, worthy of good, and to be loved and admired. Consequently, we spend the rest of our lives pursuing these domineering needs.

 

Self-trust is also an abandonment of truth. It requires us to believe that we are worthy of self-trust and causes us to inflate our opinion of ourselves so that we can feel that we are virtuous and highly valued. It also requires us to deny our dark-side, thereby putting an end to any hope of psychological integration.

 

Besides, whatever we manage effectively must be understood, but the process of self-trust precludes understanding in favor of feeling good about ourselves.

 

But don’t secular psychotherapies heal and provide benefits? While we might be able to build a case for the benefits of caring and supportive relationships, there is little, if any, indication that secular interventions make positive contributions:

 

·       After reviewing the research comparing trained and untrained psychological counselors, researchers Truax and Mitchell report: “There is no evidence that the usual traditional graduate training program has any positive value in producing therapists who are more helpful than nonprofessionals.”

 

·       [According to researcher] Joseph Durlak…Overall, outcome results in comparative studies have favored nonprofessionals.... There were no significant differences among helpers in 28 investigations, but nonprofessionals were significantly more effective than professionals in 12 studies. The provocative conclusion from these comparative investigations is that professionals do not possess demonstrably superior therapeutic skills, compared with nonprofessionals. Moreover, professional mental health education, training, and experience are not necessary prerequisites for an effective helping person.

 

·       Best-selling author, psychologist Dr. Bernie Zilbergeld, writes in his book, The Shrinking of America: Myths of Psychological Change: “...most problems faced by people would be better solved by talking to friends, spouses, relatives or anyone else who appears to be doing well what you believe you’re doing poorly....If I personally had a relationship problem and I couldn’t work it out with my partner, I wouldn’t go and see a shrink. I would look around me for the kind of relationship I admire....That’s who I would go to. I want somebody who’s showing by his life that he can do it.” (All the above quotations are found in: https://www.thebereancall.org/content/psychology-and-evangelical-church

 

An experienced and successful farmer told me, “If you want to grow corn, look for the best stand of corn and ask that farmer for advice.”

 

That made sense to me! I had done my fieldwork in a community mental health facility. I sat in with the psychotherapists as they discussed their cases. They joked that the marriage principles they taught would not work with their own wives! No one dissented. I thought this revealing. If their psychotherapeutic knowledge and techniques failed to positively impact their own relationships, why then were their clients reporting that they have benefitted? Is there any scientific proof that secular psychotherapy is scientific? I haven’t seen any. It should be obvious that they had grown the best stand of corn.

 

It is tragic that we send our struggling brethren to the “professionals.” Sadly, this communicates to the world that we do not have the answers. Instead, we are conceding that the secular Christ-hating world has answers! This also deprives our brothers of real help and hope. In contrast, Jesus concluded His prayer to the Father with these words:

 

·       “I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.” (John 17:26)

 

Knowing that we are beloved by God makes all the difference. This knowledge and awareness slowly dissolves our fears, regrets, rejections, and concerns about our inadequacies. It not only assures us that we are beloved but that we are also embraced by the love of Jesus:

 

·       And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose…If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? (Romans 8:28, 31-35)