9 Marks and CCEF on Counseling in the Church

I really am going to return to blogging on a regular basis but have to lay low for just a little while longer. The new November/December eJournal from 9 Marks was enough to make me poke my head above ground to point others to it. It's all about counseling in the church and it looks great! Here's an excerpt from the editor's note:

We know counseling ain't easy. Polls show that most pastors prefer the pulpit to the counselor's chair. Not only are the problems people bring intractably complex and heart-rending, they consume vast quantities of time.
Yet we hope this issue of the 9Marks eJournal will do two things for you, pastor: encourage you to look for ways to bring counseling into your local church, and introduce you to an incredible resource, the individuals and materials at the Christian Counseling & Education Foundation (CCEF). Both parts of CCEF's vision statement nail it on the head: "Restoring Christ to counseling and counseling to the church." Is your counseling Christ-centered or moralistic? And how are you cultivating a culture of counseling and discipleship in your church?

Here are the articles (full PDF version here):

COUNSELING IN THE CHURCH

Five Advantages of Church-Based Counseling
Here are five reasons why churches shouldn't be so quick to "refer out" their counseling.
By Deepak Reju
 

Counseling and Discipleship
How are a church's ministry of counseling and discipleship related? By Deepak Reju 

Why Every Pastor-in-Training Should Read Ed's Book
Every Capitol Hill Baptist Church pastoral intern is required to read Ed Welch's book When People Are Big and God is Small. 9Marks asks Michael Lawrence why.
 

Twenty Ways to Cultivate a Culture of Counseling in Your Church
By Jonathan Leeman and Deepak Reju
 

LEARN FROM THE COUNSELING PROS AT CCEF

Looking at the Past and Present of Counseling
Can biblical counseling draw from the Puritans? How are churches today doing at counseling? What is CCEF doing that's unique? An interview with David Powlison

Cultivating a Culture of Counseling and Discipleship
Tim Lane talks about counseling from the pulpit, the ideal church, recovery groups, promoting discipleship, and more. An interview with Tim Lane

Sorting Out the Spiritual and the Physical in Counseling
Former medical doctor and now CCEF instructor Michael Emlet discusses his own background and what pastors should make of the mind-body connection in their counseling. An interview with Michael Emlet

Premarital Counseling, Pornography, and Marriage
Today's buzzword for marriages is "compatibility." But counselors and couples need more wisdom than that, especially as pornography attacks marriage like never before. An interview with Winston Smith
 

What Should Pastors Do with Fear, Medication & Addiction
Welch considers questions like, Should pastors give more thought to fear? Are psychiatric medications unbiblical? Should pastors keep their hands off the psychiatric issues? An interview with Ed Welch

A new 9 Marks interview with David Powlison in which he discusses his conversion, counseling views, and assorted books is also available for listening online or downloading here.

Idols of the Heart and "Vanity Fair"

At last, David Powlison's masterful article, Idols of the Heart and "Vanity Fair" (PDF), is online! This is one of his works to which I frequently return and which I've long wished was available on the net so others could readily access it. It's a profound, practical look at the relevance of the recurring biblical theme of idolatry for understanding motivation. Here's Powlison's introduction:

One of the great questions facing Christians in the social sciences and helping professions is this one: How do we legitimately and meaningfully connect the conceptual stock of the Bible and Christian tradition with the technical terminologies and observational riches of the behavioral sciences? Within this perennial question, two particular sub-questions have long intrigued and perplexed me.

One sort of question is a Bible relevancy question. Why is idolatry so important in the Bible? Idolatry is by far the most frequently discussed problem in the Scriptures. So what? Is the problem of idolatry even relevant today, except on certain mission fields where worshipers still bow to images?

The second kind of question is a counseling question, a “psychology” question. How do we make sense of the myriad significant factors that shape and determine human behavior? In particular, can we ever make satisfying sense of the fact that people are simultaneously inner-directed and socially-shaped?

Reading this article will help you understand why C. J. Mahaney credits Powlison with being the "living guy" from whom he's learned the most about sanctification and Elyse Fitzpatrick, in Idols of the Heart, thanks him for reconfiguring her thinking about idolatry. (HT: Monergism.com)

Powlison & Tripp Join SBTS Faculty

Towers Online reports:

The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary continues to bolster its biblical counseling program with the addition of several renowned authors and scholars as visiting faculty.

Paul David Tripp, president of Paul Tripp Ministries and a counselor for 25 years, and David Powlison, faculty member at the Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation (CCEF), have both been added to Southern’s faculty as visiting professors.

I join David Powlison in praying “...that Christian colleges, universities and seminaries would get a vision toward orienting counseling around the Gospel.” Unfortunately, it's necessary to add "churches" to that list as well.

Read the rest. (HT: Alex Chediak)

Powlison on the Darkness of Depression

David Powlison of the Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation spoke with guest host Russell Moore about depression on the July 23rd edition of the Albert Mohler Program. (HT: Greg Linscott)

Larry Crabb on Hermeneutics and Christian Counseling

I've followed with great interest Larry Crabb's movement toward a more intentionally and explicitly theological approach to understanding people and how to help them in distinctively Christian ways. I'm hopeful that he will be influential in provoking more of his professional peers, and the body of Christ at large, to give more serious thought to the conceptual frameworks functionally governing our evaluation of what is wrong with people as well as our efforts to help them change.

The latest issue of Edification, a publication of the Society for Christian Psychology, contains an interview with Crabb in which he offers the following thoughts concerning the role of the Bible in counseling:

...I think my essential contribution to the counseling discussion is in hermeneutics. You can't go to the Bible and find verses about anorexia. As a result, people who want to stay biblical -- and I do -- but who have a limited hermeneutic, become very narrow when they find some application of the Bible to deal with problems that the Bible doesn't seem to directly address. I think that if we have a rich anthropology [doctrine of man], a rich hamartiology [doctrine of sin], a rich pneumatology [doctrine of the Holy Spirit and His work], then we will know how to "hermeneut." We will know how to interpret scriptures so that we discover ways of thinking, and categories for understanding. When I deal with a homosexual, my concern is not only to say homosexuality is sinful, so stop it, and let me hold you accountable until you don't do it anymore. Certainly that must be said. It is a sin, so it shouldn't continue any more than adultery should, or pornography, or any thing else that is obviously sin. But these are not the root sin. So my concern is to say to the homosexual, "What did God have in mind when he created them man and female?" And, "Let's explore the essence of masculinity. Let's find where your terror of not feeling alive as a man has resulted in your clenched-fisted determination to find some kind of satisfaction as a man without taking the risk of manhood, which then makes you vulnerable to homosexuality." Let's explore these deeper issues, which in my mind are not "psychology," but are very biblical, because God made them male and female.


God wants us to unpack and to interpret scripture in a way that does not result in a proof text, and not in a bunch of principle - do this, and don't do that - but in an enriched, deep understanding of what is happening in the human soul that has gone profoundly wrong that leads to all these difficult and sinful problems. You can apply it to homosexuality, eating disorders, panic attacks, whatever else. What is going on in the human soul, and how does the Bible give us categories for understanding this? So I think my major contribution is a hermeneutic that allows me to develop categories for understanding that don't come across as proof-texting or merely exhortational, but as liberating and releasing.

Crabb goes on to describe the idolatry underlying homosexual (and all other sinful) behavior:

It [homosexual behavior] is sinful, but the core sin is turning to God and saying, "You are not the source of joy, you are not the essence of goodness. There's a greater good than you." This is the sin of Adam and Eve, who decided that there was a greater good than God. So we have to get down to the essential sin in dealing with all of these problems, and I think my hermeneutic, which is very nonlinear and categorical, allows for a richer understanding of the human condition. It remains biblical, but in the minds of some looks like it's forgetting the Bible and going towards psychology. But my understanding of homosexuality, of anorexia, or multiple personality, is dependent on biblical categories and not upon psychological research, even though I find secular research to be very analytic and the secular thinkers to be very provocative. They make me think and ask questions that I wouldn't otherwise ask, but never would I regard them as authoritative.

Crabb is right to point out the vital necessity of having our thinking about the nature of human problems and their resolution substantively formed by the doctrines and storyline of Scripture. I find it alarming how frequently the explanations offered by Christians about what motivates people to do what they do sounds virtually identical to secular accounts which have no category for the activity of the heart with reference to God. When pressed, we'll acknowledge in some vague, generic sense that "we're all sinners," so as not to be thought of as unorthodox. But listen carefully to how believers talk among themselves or read some of the bestselling Christian pop psychology (frequently marketed under the heading of "personal development") and you'll find that we don't really expect the Bible's teaching on sin to be of much practical value in helping us get to the meat of the matter of our intra- and interpersonal problems. Consequently, as I've stated before, the person and redemptive work of Jesus Christ is marginalized to that nebulous (not to mention, narrow) region of our lives designated as "spiritual." The gospel becomes icing on the cake of "real life" whose primary ingredients must be acquired at the mental health market.

I'm also glad to see Crabb drawing attention to the fact that how we answer the question "What is the Bible and how does God communicate through it?" has great consequence for the conclusions we draw concerning its relevance and the scope of that relevance for counseling issues. One of the main reasons that assertions about the Bible's sufficiency for understanding and addressing counseling issues is dismissed as being naive and simplistic is that people assume that the Bible is a compilation of atomistic verses (a view revealed by the frequently encountered request, "Show me a verse for....") rather than as a comprehensive lens through which all of life is to be interpreted. Crabb's reflection on this point resembles that of David Powlison who, in the current issue of the Journal of Biblical Counseling notes, "The writers of the Bible intend to provide eyeglasses that enable all seeing, not an encyclopedia that contains all facts."

Given the place of prominence that American evangelicalism has afforded psychologists, perhaps an affirmation of the Bible's sufficiency for counseling matters from someone like Crabb will persuade more believers to take it seriously.

Challenges to the Gospel

That's the theme of the new 9Marks newsletter (available in a PDF version) which contains the following articles:

The Therapeutic Gospel by David Powlison
The therapeutic gospel limits itself to giving people what they want, instead of calling for a change of what they ultimately want.

Brian McLaren and the Gospel of Here & Now by Greg Gilbert
This emerging leader is alright on the “already,” but neglects the “not yet.”

Satanism, Starbucks, and Other Gospel Challenges an interview with David Wells
The medium is the message, and theologian David Wells says the gospel message is increasingly compromised by “relevant” methods.

Leaving Home, Returning Home by Michael Lawrence
This biblical theology of the Fall identifies precisely why a gospel is necessary.

The Devil’s Favorite Domino—the Penal in Penal Substitution by Jonathan Leeman
Here’s why the penal in penal substitution is all precious, and why the devil always topples it first.

Gospel Coalition Travelogue by Michael McKinley
A report from the frontline of Carson and Keller’s Gospel Coalition Conference.

There is also a roundtable discussion on explaining the gospel to unbelievers and reviews of the following books: N. T. Wright's Simply Christian, Leonard Sweet's The Gospel According to Starbucks, and Erwin McManus' Soul Cravings.

Why the Gospel Often Seems Irrelevant (to Christians)

Yesterday, as I've done so frequently in the past, I reflected on my deep appreciation and gratitude for the Journal of Biblical Counseling and those responsible for producing it. In some ways, the title is misleading because it could give the impression that only those engaged in formal counseling ministry can benefit from it. To be sure, it's a valuable resource for pastors, so much so that I think it should be a staple in every minister's reading. However, every issue contains thoughtful, theologically-rich content that can aid any follower of Christ in his or her pursuit of spiritual maturity.

A conversation with a frazzled parent seeking help in how to deal with a child's explosive tantrums led me to read an article by Michael Emlet and David Powlison called "Helping the Parents of an Angry Child" (Winter 2007, Volume 25, Number 1). As is so often the case when I read JBC articles, I not only received guidance for helping others but was confronted about issues in my own heart and life. The following paragraph, especially the last sentence, stood out to me because it addresses something that I think about frequently:

A child needs to learn how her anger operates directly against God. Too often parents only focus on the horizontal aspect of their child's sinful behavior - what the child has done to them. Targeting the heart means helping the child understand that her attitude, words, and actions violate God's standards first and foremost. To be self-willed is to assault God's right to rule. This God-ward focus keeps the gospel front and center, because sin against God and others has a remedy. If we confess our sins honestly, He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us (1 John 1:9). Opening up the vertical dimension presents the immediate relevance of the gospel.

When considering my own reactions to life's problems and from conversations with other believers, I often wonder why it is that the gospel seems so disconnected and unrelated to the here and now. When we're dealing with the complexities and difficulties that are bound to arise, I think our (usually) unspoken mindset is "Yeah, I'm a Christian and I believe all that Bible stuff but I'm talking about real life here." That attitude betrays an underlying assumption that the gospel is largely impractical in terms of its explanatory and transforming power as far as our everyday struggles are concerned. As Paul Tripp and Tim Lane note in their book How People Change, believers often live with a gap between the two "thens" of the gospel:

The good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is a "then-now-then" gospel. First, there is the "then" of the past. When I embrace Christ by faith, my sins are completely forgiven, and I stand before God as righteous. There is also the "then" of the future, the promise of eternity with the Lord, free of sin and struggle. The church has done fairly well explaining these two "thens" of the gospel, but it has tended to understate or misunderstand the "now" benefits of the work of Christ. What difference does the gospel make in the here and now? How does it help me as a father, a husband, a worker, and a member of the body of Christ? How does it help me respond to difficulty and make decisions? How does it give me meaning, purpose, and identity? How does it motivate my ministry to others?

Emlet and Powlison have identified one of the primary reasons that the gospel is functionally distanced from our daily lives - to the extent that I fail to see misguided worship as my greatest problem and adopt alien anthropologies offering alternative visions of what it means to be human, to that extent the gospel's luster appears dull and its melody sounds flat to my ears.

Biblical Counseling Resources

I recently described an article by David Powlison as one of the most thorough treatments on the subject of lust that I've ever read. With P&R's permission, Justin Taylor is posting excerpts from a revision of that article as it appears in Seeing With New Eyes: Counseling and the Human Condition Through the Lens of Scripture. Here's what he's posted so far: Introduction, Question 1, Question 2, Question 3, Question 4. Do yourself a favor by reading these and forthcoming excerpts.

Tim Lane, coauthor with Paul Tripp of How People Change and Relationships: A Mess Worth Making, has been appointed as CCEF's Executive Director.

Tom Brown reflects on the church's role in the counseling process:

In the contemporary world we have all become familiar with the notion of the support group. The local church is God’s ultimate support group. But unlike the contemporary model that orders its support around habitual sin like alcoholism, gambling or gluttony, the New Testament orders its support in Jesus Christ as Lord among the visible community of forgiven sinners. The ministry aim of this community is not just to deal with the symptoms of sin but to go to the heart of the matter and deal with sin at its root. This happens when the church can competently say with Paul, “We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, that we may present every man complete in Christ” (Colossians 1:28).

Redeeming Conversation

Given the choice between a lectern (or even a really sturdy music stand) in a classroom and a pulpit in a sanctuary, I'll take the lectern every time. I'll also opt for the one-on-one ministry of the Word over sermonizing, too. I'm haunted by a comment made by one of my seminary professors years ago. "Consider," he counseled us, "where else during the week the people you're preaching to have had to sit for thirty minutes listening to someone talk." That was in the late '80's. Almost twenty years later, it's no more likely that those listening to sermons on Sunday morning are any more practiced to giving sustained attention to monologues throughout their week and attention spans certainly aren't any longer now than they were then.

For the last fourteen years I've served in an associate pastor role that has allowed me to concentrate on teaching in the contexts of adult education and one on one discipleship with minimal responsibilities in the area of preaching. I don't mean to disparage preaching at all. I recognize its importance and am grateful for those who devote themselves to it. In fact, I'm an auditory learner who enjoys listening to sermons and lectures. It's just that when I'm on the giving end, I prefer the dialogical nature of teaching. I like being able to stop and ask "Am I making sense?" or having someone stop me to ask a question. I realize that in part my reservations about preaching are due to my own shortcomings such as my prideful worry that I'm boring my hearers and my unbelief that the Holy Spirit will use the words he inspired (despite my inadequacies) to accomplish his gracious purposes through biblically-grounded preaching. Nevertheless, the fact remains that I still prefer speaking with people as opposed to merely speaking to them.

In his A Christian Directory, Richard Baxter includes a section on the importance of what he called "Christian conference, exhortation, and reproof." Essentially, it's about the necessity and benefit of believers conversing with each other about biblical truth. One of the advantages of such discourse, he says, is that it supplements the ministry of public preaching:

Your fruitful conference is a needful help to the ministerial work. When the preacher hath publicly delivered the word of God to the assembly, if you would so far second him, as in your daily converse to set it home on the hearts of those that you have opportunity to discourse with, how great an assistance would it be to his success! Though he must teach them publicly, and from house to house, Acts xx.20, yet it is not possible for him to be so frequent and familiar in daily conference with all the ignorant of the place, as those that are still with them may be. You are many, and he is but one, and can be but in one place at once. Your business bringeth you into their company, when he cannot be there. O happy is that minister who hath such a people, who will daily preach over the matter of his public sermons in their private conference with one another! (Part IV, Chapter XVI, Motive X).

Later, Baxter enumerates more advantages of spiritual conversation including the following which is the best articulation of why I prefer teaching that I've come across:

5. Interlocutory conference keepeth your auditors attentive, and carrieth them on along with you as you go. And it maketh the application much more easy, by their nearness and the familiarity of the discourse; when sermons are usually heard but as an insignificant sound, or words of course. 6. You may at your pleasure go back and repeat those things which the hearer doth not understand, or doth forget; which a preacher in the pulpit cannot do without the censure of the more curious auditors. 7. You may perceive by the answers of them whom you speak to, what particulars you need most to insist on, and what objections you should most carefully resolve; and when you have satisfied them, and may proceed. All which it is hard for a minister to do in public preaching; and is it not a great sin to neglect such an advantageous duty? (Part IV, Chapter XVI, Motive XII).

When I came across these thoughts from Baxter, I was reminded of an article by David Powlison called "What is Ministry of the Word?" (Journal of Biblical Counseling, Winter 2003, pp. 2-6) in which he distinguishes among three mutually supportive aspects of the communication of biblical truth. The first two, the public and private ministry of the Word, are those with which we are probably most familiar. The former refers to the proclamation, exposition, and application of Scripture that good sermons consist of. The latter refers to personal study of and meditation on Scripture in private devotions or "quiet times." While acknowledging the necessity of both for cultivating spiritual maturity, Powlison rejects the idea that they are sufficient:

Perhaps you've heard it said, "If people would only sit under good preaching and meet God regularly in private devotions, they wouldn't need counseling." That statement is well intended. It's even partly true. Lots of personal problems are transformed by public ministry of the Word and by private ministry of the Word. But the statement is completely untrue in its premises and its conclusions. A central purpose of good preaching and private devotions is to create mutual counseling and wise counselors! When any personal problem is in fact truly transformed, then a wise counselor of others has been produced. Fruitful interpersonal ministry of the Word is the main proof that sermons and devotions are worth the time and effort.

This calls to mind Paul's exhortation that we "Let the word of Christ dwell in [us] richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom..." (Col. 3:16). In today's church there is certainly a great deal of emphasis on preaching and devotions but are we neglecting the importance and necessity of believers learning how to skillfully bring biblical truth to bear on each other's lives?

Technorati Tags: Bible, Christianity, preaching, teaching, Richard Baxter, David Powlison, biblical counseling

Christians and the Psychiatric Culture

Last night I finished reading a book I mentioned here a few weeks ago, Will Medicine Stop the Pain?: Finding God’s Healing for Depression, Anxiety, and Other Troubling Emotions by Elyse Fitzpatrick and another biblical counselor, Laura Hendrickson, a physician who formerly practiced psychiatry. The book targets women since, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians, twice as many women as men will experience depression in their lifetime.Hendrickson not only prescribed antidepressants to her patients but for a period took them herself to treat diagnosed depression and bipolar disorder. She candidly relates her experiences with childhood rejection, subsequent emotional instability, and drug-induced confusion including suicidal and homicidal thoughts. Other first person accounts from Christian women who have struggled with depression appear throughout the book.

The authors explain how modern psychiatry frequently operates on the premise that human beings are reducible to our biochemical components. Intense emotional pain is therefore concluded to be the result of physical disease. They contrast this materialistic perspective with a biblical view of the person as consisting of the uniting of the outer man (the physical body including the brain) and the inner man which is referred to biblically by terms like the heart, mind, spirit, and/or soul. Fitzpatrick and Hendrickson acknowledge that the body can affect and influence the heart and vice versa. They also concede that there are real, empirically verifiable diseases of the brain (as well as brain injuries) that can have negative effects on one’s perception, cognition, and moods. However, they point out that there are no tests for so-called imbalances in brain chemistry for which antidepressants are said to be correctives. They also claim that emotional pain is intended to inform us what is going on in our hearts so that we might avail ourselves of the resources that are ours in Christ to experience heart transformation.

Fitzpatrick and Hendrickson take great pains to caution readers currently on antidepressants against deciding to go off them without medical supervision.  One of the medical professionals frequently cited is Joseph Glenmullen, a psychiatrist who teaches at Harvard Medical School and is also in private practice. I had seen him on ABC's Prime Time Live two years ago and had thought at the time of picking up one of his books but never got around to it. (Dr. Glenmullen's responses to Prime Time viewers' questions about antidepressant side effects and withdrawal are available here.) Glenmullen authored Prozac Backlash and more recently, The Antidepressant Solution which I’m in the midst of reading.

While he prescribes antidepressants on a limited basis, Glenmullen has been a very outspoken critic of the pharmaceutical companies' campaign to market them to physicians and the general public. He believes that the majority of Americans currently taking them are doing so unnecessarily. He is also very concerned that many physicians, who are often reliant upon the drug companies for their information about the drugs and their effects, are ignorant about antidepressant dependence, withdrawal, and how to safely taper patients off them. It’s frightening to learn how misleading pharmaceutical companies have been in their pushing of various medications, many times suppressing evidence of ineffectiveness and/or harmful side effects. According to Glenmullen, ample evidence exists indicating that in some people, antidepressants can create the very symptoms they were prescribed to treat. And in some cases, such a dependence is built that serious symptoms can result from forgetting to take the pills at their proper time. When this happens, patients often think that they are having a relapse when, in actuality, the drug is responsible for their problems.

I can't recommend the above books highly enough to those taking antidepressants (whether male or female) and those who care about someone who is. Readers may also be interested in acquiring a Mars Hill Audio Journal interview with David Healy, a British psychiatrist and author of The Antidpressant Era and more recently Let Them Eat Prozac: The Unhealthy Relationship Between the Pharmaceutical Industry and Depression on antidepressants and the concept of disease.

When one takes into consideration that the disorders the psychiatric community labels people with, are not scientifically validated, there is much cause for both alarm and caution. I’m especially concerned because I know numerous Christians who have bought the well-publicized line that taking antidepressants is analogous to taking insulin or other medication designed to treat biologically detectable illnesses. In a chapter on biological psychiatry in his book Seeing With New Eyes: Counseling and the Human Condition Through the Lens of Scripture, David Powlison makes what I believe is an accurate observation:

The church typically lags a bit behind the culture's way of thinking. But the ethos and practice of biopsychiatry are deeply affecting the church already. If it's broken, or even just not working optimally, it can be fixed from the outside by a drug: better living through chemistry. In your ministry and in your church you are probably already facing the ethos and the practices. Many people in both pew and pulpit are on mind-, mood-, and behavior-altering drugs. We all increasingly face the ideas and knowledge claims, too. The cover story in Time magazine informs the everyday queries and choices of Christian people. Eventually such ideas make it into the educational system as the received wisdom of the culture with which to disciple the next generation (p. 243)

The more believers uncritically accept the therapeutic ethos that so permeates our culture, the less relevant and precious the gospel will seem.

Related Tags: depression, antidepressants, mental illness, psychiatry, Elyse Fitzpatrick, Laura Hendrickson, Joseph Glenmullen, David Powlison, David Healy, counseling, psychology, biblical counseling

Powlison on Praying Beyond Health Concerns

Our petitions are windows into our priorities or, put another way, what consumes our prayers consumes our hearts. In a recent article at 9 Marks, David Powlison, no stranger to health problems, gives valuable counsel for remedying a common ailment of congregational life - so much of our praying never gets beyond requests for physical healing. Powlison believes that this is due, in part, to the prayers often modeled by pastors:

Such public prayers may be medically informative, but they are spiritually impoverished. They usually center on physical healing. And they typically amount to nothing more than requests for effective doctors, procedures, and medicines.

Visitors of many churches might be pardoned if they get the impression that God is chiefly interested in perking up our health, and that radiant physical fitness is our greatest need. They might also be pardoned for thinking that God can’t do what we ask, because so many chronic illnesses remain unhealed.

Powlison's point isn't that we shouldn't pray for healing but that we should frame those requests in the context of broader biblical priorities which he reminds us of from James 5 and other passages on sickness and prayer. "Is God interested in healing illnesses?," he asks, "Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Yet he is always interested in making his children wise, holy, trusting, and loving, even in the context of pain, disability, and death."

Powlison's provides profitable instruction and encouragement to those who are sick and those praying with and for them.

Powlison's Progress

David Wayne shares a good report about David Powlison's health. As one whose life has been profoundly influenced by his ministry, I join the Jolly Blogger and others in rejoicing in this news and am looking forward to his further service to the body of Christ. Please keep him in your prayers.

Counseling is a Theological Matter

A seminary student preparing for the pastorate expressed to me his passion for preaching and one-on-one discipleship. When I asked him what involvement he foresaw himself having in counseling, he replied that while he saw it as an important ministry, he didn't have great interest in it nor did he think he was particularly gifted at it. I followed up by asking him what distinction he made between counseling and the personal discipling about which he was enthused. His knitted brow indicated that he was seriously pondering the inquiry and after a few moments he admitted that he really didn't know.


As is the case for many Christians, this young man was operating with a conception of Christian discipleship and counseling as two distinct tasks. According to this way of thinking, discipling someone involves teaching them how to grow in their relationship with God. This includes instruction in such things as how to interpret the Bible, have personal devotions, witness, and practice other spiritual disciplines. It might also entail helping someone overcome overt patterns of sinful living and thinking. Discipleship, in other words, deals with the "religious" or Godward dimension of life.


Counseling, on the other hand, concentrates on the resolution of intra- and interpersonal problems that we face in the rest of our lives; things like marital conflict and disappointment, depression, anxiety, parenting issues, addictive behaviors, etc. We might say that whereas discipleship addresses a person's relationship with God, counseling focuses on his or her relationship with himself and others. Items in this category are the province of therapy and must be handled by those with formal clinical education in various psychotherapeutic models of human personality and motivation. 


When stated in this manner, the false dichotomy should be apparent. To slice life and people up into religious and non-religious compartments lacks biblical warrant. All of life is infused with religious significance because it is lived coram Deo, before the face of God. Nevertheless, I'm convinced that more believers than we'd like to think operate with this truncated view of discipleship with the tragic consequence that the gospel seems woefully irrelevant to where most of our lives are lived. Oh, we may look to the Bible for inspirational nuggets of consolation and general encouragement. But we don't expect it to speak to the details of our lives with potent specificity. We doubt its adequacy to diagnose and transform us. We have learned the ways of the therapeutic nation well.


I'm in the midst of doing a lot of reading and reflecting on the relationship between theology and counseling. One of the articles I reread this week is David Powlison's Answers for the Human Condition: Why I Chose Seminary for Training in Counseling Powlison makes the case that counseling is essentially a theological matter and offers a broad and narrow definition of what counseling is:

Broadly speaking, from God's point of view, counseling is as broad as "the tongue." Every word out of every mouth communicates values, intentions, and worldview; "the mouth speaks out of what fills the heart." All human interactions are essentially counseling interactions. Counseling, then, is either wise or foolish. Some words are rotten, destructive, misleading, unnourishing (Eph. 4:29a); other words are constructive, timely, true, loving, grace-giving (Eph. 4:15, 29b). No words are neutral.

More narrowly, counseling is any conversation intended to influence, guide, or help another person solve a problem in living. A lawyer, a financial advisor, a college counselor in high school, a friend to whom you pour out your heart, a pastor, and a psychotherapist may each offer counsel (the explicit or implicit content) and do counseling (the relational and change processes).

Commenting on the inherent moral and theological aspects of all counseling, Powlison notes:

All counseling uncovers and edits stories; what is the true "metanarrative" playing in the theater of human lives? Stories differ. All counseling must and does deal with questions of true and false, good and evil, right and wrong, value and stigma, glory and shame, justification and guilt. The answers differ. All counseling explicitly or implicitly deals with questions of redemption, faith, identity, and meaning. The redemptions offered differ.

The article is worthwhile reading for all believers but those considering a seminary education in counseling should profit from the list of sample questions Powlison suggests prospective students ask of faculty and students.

Speaking of theological education as it relates to counseling, not long ago I lauded Southern Baptist Theological Seminary for revising its counseling program to train students in biblical counseling. I was pleased to learn from a friend (Thanks, Hans!) earlier this week that two lectures David Powlison gave to SBTS counseling students earlier this month are available as MP3 downloads (Lecture 1, Lecture 2).

Powlison had invited students to email him questions, concerns, criticisms, and objections about biblical counseling before the event so he could respond to them during their meeting. He arranged the issues they raised into the following six categories:

1. The nature of Scripture: Is Scritpure a manual for counseling?
2. Biblical counseling and medical/biological problems
3. The relationship between David Powlison/CCEF and Jay Adams/NANC
4. Common grace, science, and general revelation
5. Employment opportunities for biblical counselors
6. Intra-departmental tensions at Southern

Powlison gave thoughtful and thorough responses to all of these areas except the sixth since he did not have firsthand knowledge of the specifics involved. After each of his presentations he also responded to questions and comments from the audience.

In all likelihood you won't be able to listen to all that Powlison has to say in one sitting but I encourage anyone interested in offering Christ-centered counsel to make time to listen to and seriously consider his.

Pray for David Powlison

I was saddened to learn last night (via Justin Taylor) that David Powlison, my favorite author on the subject of biblical counseling, has been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Girl talk blog posted the following email from David Powlison to C. J. Mahaney:

I've just been diagnosed with prostate cancer. After some further tests, we'll discuss treatment next Monday, and it seems likely I'll be soon for surgery.

Perhaps you saw John Piper's "Don't Waste Your Cancer" that he recently posted. I've added a paragraph of my own to each of his 10 paragraphs, doubling it in length. It is in light of this that I hope for prayer, for healing, for growth in faith and love, and for this latest news to be spread! I pray especially for God to work the spiritual grace of 'endurance,' that holy, vibrant bearing up under weaknesses. A body whose fragilities continually reveal a lack of physical endurance and resilience provides a God-designed proving ground for me to learn the true inner endurance, that I too often lack, and that I long for the Spirit to teach me.

Feel free to share whatever of this note seems to you to be constructive. I value so much the love of the brethren.

You can download David Powlison's annotated version of John Piper's "Don't Waste Your Cancer" here. Please pray for him.

One of the things I so appreciate about David Powlison is his ability to illuminate familiar problems in daily life with Scriptural truths. Not one to settle for dispensing vague generalizations or trafficking in abstractions, he brings the specifics of the gospel into potent contact with the specifics of our lives, thereby helping us to see new and more profound applications and implications of the gospel.

Bringing the particulars of the gospel together with the particulars of a person's life is the subject a recent article by Powlison at 9Marks Ministries. He suggests two questions to keep in mind when seeking to help someone: "What is this person facing in life?" and "What does the Lord say that speaks directly into what you are facing?" Concerning the value of these questions he writes:

Both questions enable us to work together on what counts. Ministry is always in the business of helping people make connections they haven’t been making. It’s always reinterpreting what’s going on, in order to identify the redemptive opportunities in what seem like the same old ruts. It traces out previously unseen practical implications of life in Christ. It’s always remaking minds, hearts, and lifestyles that are still misshapen. These questions will help you to say the timely, significant, and appropriate words that help bring to pass such a discipling of lives.

He goes on to show how these questions can also help us better understand how Scripture operates:

The Word is not a textbook of normative and propositional truths. It does not operate like a systematic theology text, dense with abstracted propositions logically arranged. And it is not a treasury of verse-sized proof-texts. A topical study using a concordance is often not the best way to understand something biblically. The Bible is not a how-to book, a self-help book, or inspirational reading. Scripture does not work like some handbook chock full of abstracted principles, advice, steps, sayings, and cheering anecdotes. Instead, the Word of God reveals God’s person, promises, ways, and will in action onto the “stage” and into the “story” of real human lives. Our two questions attune us to that; they arise from becoming attuned to that. In our discipling ministry, we should seek to work in much the same way that Scripture works. We are discipling the same kinds of people who originally received any particular chunk of the Word. So let’s get the living God into the daily watershed moments!

New Book from David Powlison

A trusted bibliographic informant notified me that David Powlison, editor of the Journal of Biblical Counseling, has authored a new book, Speaking Truth in Love: Counsel in Community. This is all the information I could find. It should be available in a few days. I can't wait! 


UPDATE: Minutes after posting the above I received in the mail a publication of the Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation called Seasons. This issue features a brief interview with Powlison about his new book. Here's his response to the question, "Why this book? Why right now?":

I think the time is right for a book that takes a new look at what biblical counseling is at its best: a way of talking and acting that moves us toward God and one another. Speaking Truth in Love is the most practical book I have written, but also the most comprehensive. I think many people are looking for something deeper, more profound, and more redemptive from the community of Christ than what they have experienced. They have glimpsed what it could be like to live in a community where the faith, love, sacrifice, and wisdom that God has given one person flows towards others so that the whole community grows together. Speaking Truth in Love is a guide to speaking and living together in this redemptive way.

Reclaiming Spiritual Warfare

Phil Johnson's excellent, myth-busting series of posts about spiritual warfare (which began here and wraps up here -but be sure to read the intervening posts) reminded me of what I think is one of the best contemporary books on the subject - David Powlison's Power Encounters: Reclaiming Spiritual Warfare (Baker, 1995). In it, he critiques what he calls ekballistic modes of ministry, offering the following explanation:

I will describe the demon-deliverance movement using an invented term that might seem awkward at first glance. But it will carry the freight and highlight the distinctives that most need serious debate within the body of Christ. I will use the term "ekballistic mode of ministry," with the acronym EMM for short. Ekballistic comes from the Greek word ekballo, which means to "cast out." From ek--out--we get "exit." And from ballo--to throw or cast--we get "ballistic."

In the gospels when someone suffered an unclean spirit, Jesus showed mercy by casting it out. The practice of casting or driving out spirits captures the most distinctive feature of contemporary deliverance ministries, or EMM. Proponents say that Christians and non-Christians often require an "ekballistic encounter" to cast out inhabiting demons that enslave us in sexual lust, anger, low self-esteem, substance abuse, fascination with the occult, unbelief, and other ungodly patterns.

Powlison later makes an important distinction between moral and situational evil, noting that demonization is consistently portrayed in the gospels as belonging to the latter category:

"All those who had afflictions [the sick and demonized] pressed about Jesus" (Mark 3:10, NASB). Demonization is in fact recognized and identified by its expression through miserable conditions, such as blindness, deafness, paralysis, dementia, and seizures. Sins, such as unbelief, fear, anger, lust, and other addictions, point to Satan's moral lordship, but never to demonization calling for EMM. People are victims of demonic sufferings, just as they are victims of lameness, blindness, or purely physiological seizures.

As Powlison notes, demons were consistently cast out in order to alleviate suffering, not to morally improve people "except as the miracle prompt[ed] grateful faith in Jesus." Powlison also notes the different stance Jesus took toward those who were demonized and those practicing sin. Those in the former category he healed. Those in the latter, he called to repentance.

Unfortunately, Power Encounters is no longer in print. Why? My guess is that it was too biblical and not sensationalist enough for the Christian market. Unlike many popular treatments, Powlison puts the activity of Satan and his minions in its proper context--a universe governed by an absolutely sovereign God. That alone is enough to cut sales. Now, had he thrown in a few "warfare prayers" and a guide for how to put on the armor of God each morning, I'm sure the book would be sitting on the shelf of your local Christian bookstore. Anyway, if there's any way you can acquire this volume, I urge you to do so. This is a potent antidote to all the superstition and sensationalism surrounding this important topic. Apparently, I'm not the only one who thinks the book is valuable.

Sanctified Self-Interest

In response to yesterday's post in which I quoted David Wayne's notes from his first day of class with David Powlison, my friend Tony raised a question in the comments section that I thought I'd answer here. In response to Powlison's claim that in our glorified state we will be persons "with no stain or calculation of self-interest," Tony asked:

Does he mean we will have no self-interest at all? Or does he mean that self-interest will be properly placed beneath our interest and motive to glorify God? Isn't it the case that most Christians think of virtue in the sense that all self-interest is bad? I think that's a mistake. I would argue that self-interest is good and necessary, but needs to be placed beneath interest in God's glory issuing in love to our neighbor. Heaven will be a world of love, as Edwards says. We will have self-interest, but we will not be selfish, correct?

Being the good little Christian hedonist that I am, I too wondered in what sense Powlison was referring to self-interest. Having given it some thought, I'm persuaded that Powlison did not mean that we will be completely void of all self-interest such that we will in no sense be motivated by consideration of what will bring us pleasure. I come to this conclusion not only on the basis of my familiarity with Powlison's other work, but also on the basis of the seven points he makes about what it will be like to experience the fullness of our redemption.

Powlison offers these descriptions to entice and enthrall us with the vision of what awaits us. He paints an eschatological picture of what it will be like to be fearless, healthy, happy, holy. Of our relationship with Jesus he says, "I will obey Him and will love every word out of His mouth - it will be my food and drink, the finest river of life and hope for me." In other words, he is appealing to our interest in our own welfare and satisfaction. This would be an odd strategy indeed for someone who believed that self-interest was absolutely wrong. Therefore, I understand Powlison, when he talks about being free from the stain and calculation of self-interest, as having sinful self-interest (what Tony helpfully identifies as selfishness) in mind. Perhaps we can coax David Wayne into posing the question to Dr. Powlison and letting us know how he answers. How about it, David?

I do think Tony is right about many Christians regarding all forms of self-interest as wrong. Reading John Piper's Desiring God years ago challenged my own thinking about the issue. It was eye-opening to see how frequently God appeals to our desire for satisfaction and delight as a motivation for obedience. Yes, we are to deny ourselves but that because we are convinced that walking in God's ways is far better than temporal sinful pleasures. Yes, we are to give generously and sacrificially but such giving is only pleasing to the Lord when it springs from assurance in his promise that this is the path of superior blessing. Calvin makes this point in the Institutes when describing the nature of Adam's sin he writes:

Never would Adam have dared to show any repugnance to the command of God if he had not been incredulous as to his word. The strongest curb to keep all his affections under due restraint, would have been the belief that nothing was better than to cultivate righteousness by obeying the commands of God, and that the highest felicity was to be loved by him (II. I. 4.).

Tony has more on the relationship between self-interest and ethics in his post, The Positive Side of Egoism.

Jollyblogger Aids My Sanctification

I'd like to thank David Wayne of Jollyblogger for unknowingly assisting me in disciplining myself for the purpose of godliness. Today David reports on the class he began yesterday at Westminster Theological Seminary (Dynamics of Biblical Change) taught by David Powlison, who just happens to be one of my favorite authors. This will give me untold opportunities to practice contentment, rejoicing with those who rejoice, and resisting covetousness.

David shares his notes from the first lecture in which Dr. Powlison talked about the relevance of our destination as glorified beings to the daily process of change now. Among the seven descriptions he gave of what life will be like when we are raised immortal is this one:

Some day, I will be good. So will everyone else. On the near side of evil is goody-goody, Pollyanna. On the far side of evil is good, a true good that has gone through evil and is truly good. I will be a person with no stain or calculation of self-interest. I will be genuinely living the beatitudes. I will be the person who hungers and thirsts for righteousness, who is pure in heart, who is a peacemaker. Having been persecuted, I will be like Christ.

I read that and marvel, "That will really be me?!" Grace truly is amazing, isn't it?
In addition to his class notes, David offers some exhilarating personal reflections on the glories of the new heavens and new earth as well as its occupants. Do yourself a favor and read the whole thing.

Sowing Abraham's Seed (Part 3): Maslow & Marriage

In the initial post in this series I said that many popular Christian authors, particularly those who write on the subject of marriage, presuppose a view of personality and motivation bearing a strong resemblance to that of Abraham Maslow's. I also claimed that Maslow's thinking has so saturated American culture that it often serves as the silent and invisible framework through which we read the Bible and understand ourselves as Christians. Instead of helping believers cultivate sorely needed discernment by critically assessing Maslow's philosophy of life from the perspective of a biblical worldview, many Christian authors assume his diagnosis of what ails us and then force Scripture to conform to it. The gospel, if it is mentioned at all, is then offered as the solution to a problem that someone other than Jesus has defined while the problem that from God's perspective is most critical is viewed as being of little practical value to the issues with which we struggle. 


In this and following posts I wish to illustrate the phenomenon, citing examples from popular Christian books on marriage. Before I proceed, however, I want to plainly state that my criticisms are not intended in any way to call into question the faith of any of the authors I'll mention. I have no reason to doubt the sincerity of their commitment to Christ or to the institution of marriage. I think all of them are devoted to doing all they can to aid couples in strengthening and protecting their marriages and for this I am grateful. Unquestionably, zeal for marriage is a good thing. Zeal not tempered with biblical truth, is not.


Traces of Abraham's seed can be detected in a book recently recommended to me - For Women Only: What You Need to Know About the Inner Lives of Men by Shaunti Feldhahn. As the title indicates, the book is intended to help women better understand the men in their lives. But this is not an end in itself but a means to a greater end. Feldhahn tells her readers, "The more we understand the men in our lives, the better we can support and love them in the way they need to be loved. In other words, this revelation is supposed to change and improve us" (emphasis in the original, p. 20). The book is based on the results of a survey of hundreds of men who were asked about their desires, fears, aspirations, dislikes, etc. I've heard from a few women that it has been an eye-opener for them and from my own reading I can understand why. On more than a few pages, I recognized myself in the descriptions of men's inner lives. Despite the following criticism, I think this small volume has much merit and can be instrumental in fostering greater understanding.


The reservation I have about the book, however, is that the author concludes from the fact that many men deeply desire the respect of their wives that this desire constitutes a need; a need that if unfulfilled, results in undesirable behavior. According to Feldhahn, "A man deeply needs the woman in his life to respect his knowledge, opinions, and decisions - what I would call his judgment" (p. 29). This male "need" for respect and affirmation is "so hardwired and so critical that most men would rather feel unloved than disrespected or inadequate" (p. 22). From her use of the word "hardwired" I take Feldhahn to mean that this need is a given of creation in which case we cannot but conclude that it is good.

As far as I can tell, Feldhahn nowhere considers the possibility that the desire to be esteemed may at times be so domineering that it is perceived as a need when in actuality it is better described by the biblical concept of lust or ruling desire. Is it not possible to want a good thing so much such that I experience frustration, discomfort, and anger if I can't have it? It shouldn't take much reflection on any of our parts to think of a time when that was so for us. Another question. Does the fact that I act badly when I don't get what I want prove beyond question that I need what I long for? Amnon, desirous of his beautiful half-sister, Tamar, "was so tormented that he made himself ill" (2 Samuel 13:2). But would anyone conclude from his adverse reaction that his craving for Tamar constituted an actual need?

The answer to that question is obvious, of course. Amnon was driven by sexual lust, something clearly proscribed by Scripture. But what of good desires -- wanting my wife to respect me? Is it really possible to lust after something with which God is pleased? I don't know of a better treatment of the New Testament concept of lust than that offered by David Powlison in a book titled The Coming Evangelical Crisis: Current Challenges to the Authority of Scripture and the Gospel (Moody, 1996). In a chapter called "How Shall We Cure Troubled Souls?" Powlison states that we have drastically thinned the New Testament's thick teaching about lust so much so that:

...."lust" has become almost useless to modern readers of the Bible. It is reduced to sexual desire. Take a poll of the people in your church, asking them the meaning of "lusts of the flesh." You will find that sex appears on every list. Greed, pride, or gluttonous craving might appear in the answers of a few of the more thoughtful believers. The marquee sins of the heart appear, but the subtleties and details are washed out. And a crucial biblical term for explaining human life languishes (p. 211).

In response to the question of what makes a desire sinful, Powlison writes:

This question becomes particularly perplexing to people when the object of their desire is a good thing. Notice some of the adjectives that get appended to our cravings: evil, polluted lusts (Col. 3:5; 2 Peter 2:10). Sometimes the object of desire itself is evil: e.g., to kill someone, to steal, to control the cocaine trade on the Eastern seaboard. But often the object of desire is good, and the evil lies in the lordship of the desire. Our will replaces God's as that which determines how we live. John Calvin put it this way: "We teach that all human desires are evil, and charge them with sin -- not in that they are natural, but because they are inordinate." In other words, the evil in our desires often lies not in what we want [e.g., respect from my wife] but that we want it too much. Natural affections (for any good thing) become inordinate, ruling cravings. We are meant to be ruled by godly passions and desires. Natural desires for good things are meant to exist subordinate to our desire to please the Giver of gifts. The fact that the evil lies in the ruling status of the desire, not the object, is frequently a turning point in counseling (p. 212).

Isn't it odd that such a prevalent biblical theme as lust or sinful desire plays only a supporting role (if it gets any stage time at all) in some of the most popular Christian books while the concept of emotional needs (which at least at first glance don't seem to be prominent in the Bible) gets top billing? Like other authors on the topic, Feldhahn seeks to ground biblical support for the "women need love and men need respect" model in Ephesians 5:33: "However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband." But this doesn't seem to me to be what the verse, considered in its context, is getting at. I suspect that this commonly held interpretation of the verse is due to our adopting Maslow's hermeneutic for interpreting people.

Next, drawing from Feldhahn and others, I want to discuss the implications of this view for our understanding of the nature and cause of sinful behavior. 

Oh, in case anyone's wondering, I haven't overlooked the question someone asked in response to Part 2. It's an important one that I intend to address in a future post. Your patience is greatly appreciated.

Sowing Abraham's Seed

Humanist psychologist, Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) was very optimistic about human nature, writing in his Toward a Psychology of Being: "This inner nature, as much as we know of it so far, seems not to be intrinsically or primarily evil." On the contrary, human nature is "good or neutral rather than bad." In the introduction to the same volume, Maslow wrote: Destructiveness, sadism, cruelty, malice, etc., seem so far to be not intrinsic but rather they seem to be violent reactions against frustration of our intrinsic needs, emotions, and capacities." In response to the question of the origin of neuroses, Maslow wrote:

My answer...was, in brief, that neurosis seemed at its core, and in its beginning, to be a deficiency disease: that it was born out of being deprived of certain satisfactions which I called needs in the same sense that water and amino acids and calcium are needs, namely that their absence produces illness. Most neuroses involved, along with other complex determinants, ungratified wishes for safety, for belongingness and identification, for close love relationships and for respect and prestige.

Basic needs, said Maslow, possess the following characteristics:

1. The deprived person yearns for their gratification persistently.
2. Their deprivation makes the person sicken and wither.
3. Gratifying them is therapeutic, curing the deficiency-illness.
4. Steady supplies forestall these illnesses.
5. Healthy (gratified) people do not demonstrate these deficiencies

Maslow described these "deficits" or "deficiency needs" as: "...empty holes, so to speak, which must be filled up for health's sake, and furthermore, must be filled from without by human beings other than the subject." Elsewhere he says that these psychological needs "may be considered as deficiencies which must be optimally fulfilled by the environment in order to avoid sickness and subjective ill-being." It is as important that psychological needs be met as it is that physiological needs (e.g., the need for salt, calcium, or vitamin D) be satisfied.

Maslow grouped needs into five levels that stood in a hierarchical and developmental relationship to each other. Beginning with the foundational level they are: physiological needs (e.g., food, drink, air, etc.), safety needs, love and belonging needs, esteem needs (respect from others and for oneself), and the need for self-actualization (the ability to make the most of one's potential). Maslow proposed that we are most immediately aware of lower level needs but once they are satisfied, upper level needs become more apparent and have greater motivational force.

In that Maslow was seeking to construct a humanistic model of personality and motivation, it's no surprise that the concept of "sin" is absent from his system. Sommers and Satel write in One Nation Under Therapy:

From the beginning, Maslow's aim was to displace moral philosophy and religion with a science of man. Traditional religion, in his judgment, had proved inadequate. He proposed a "religion-surrogate." He said, "Throughout history [humanity] has looked for guiding values, for principles of right and wrong outside of [itself], to a God, to some sort of sacred book, perhaps, or to a ruling class." Maslow believed that he had found the basis for ethics and personal fulfillment in human nature itself.

Behavior and attitudes that are, from a biblical perspective, sinful, are not, according to Maslow, evidence of a morally corrupt nature but of frustrated needs. Assuming Maslow's diagnosis, the appropriate cure is not a new heart with redirected desires but satisfaction of the natural heart's yearnings. Neither the objects nor the intensity of our desires are the cause of the conflicts among us. Nancy Pearcey notes in Total Truth that "Every worldview...offers a counterpart to the Fall, an explanation of the source of evil and suffering. What has gone wrong with the world? Why is there warfare and conflict?" For Maslow, unfulfilled psychological needs are what bar us from Paradise.
 
This assumption about human motivation is deeply entrenched in the American psyche even among those unfamiliar with Maslow's work. What I find so astonishing (not to mention disturbing) is how influential and pervasive this perspective on human nature and behavior is among Bible-believing Christians. You don't have to search hard for it. It's propagated in sermons and popular Christian books, particularly those having to do with marriage. It's the lens through which we view life and even the grid through which we interpret Scripture.
Maslow was well aware that his motivational model was part of a larger worldview. In the preface to the second edition of Toward a Psychology of Being he described Humanist Psychology as "one facet of a general Weltanschauung, a new philosophy of life, a new conception of man...." Why, then, do Christians so readily accept and even defend this way of thinking about the human condition? Why does so much Christian teaching about why we do the things we do sound more like Abraham Maslow than Jesus, the seed of Abraham, the patriarch? I share the curiosity David Powlison expresses in his essay in Care for the Soul: Exploring the Intersection of Psychology and Theology:

Why does one or another secular theory of human motivation almost inevitably control the Christian counseling theory at the punch line, where counseling engages the details of life as it is lived? In particular, why have "need" theories that define significance, love and self-esteem as the standard needs been so prominent when they are so alien to the gaze of God and the psychological experience of Jesus? Why has the most typical, and apparently the most vital, external contribution of psychology been secular motivation theory, the very thing that wrenches human life out of its true context and drains psychological experience of its essential characteristics? Why do integrationist theories fail to take seriously the specific, omnipresent nature of sin as the chief and most immediate problem in the hearts of those we counsel?

I'll devote future posts to further exploration of the influence of Abraham Maslow on the children of Abraham, including examples of this influence in Christian literature. Go to Part 2