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Faith and Counseling Malpractice

Heath Lambert: In advance of the Annual Conference of ACBC, Faithfully Protestant, biblical counseling, and the Protestant Reformation, I wrote a document called 95 Theses for an Authentically, Christian approach to counseling to sort of discuss what biblical counseling is and how it’s different from other approaches to counseling that Christians try to undertake.

This week I want to look at the 62nd theses and here is what it says, “Because the most significant problem people have is God’s displeasure regarding their sin, and since it is impossible to please God without faith, counselors who do not emphasize faith in Jesus are guilty of the most serious kind of counseling malpractice”. That is, of course, a reference to Hebrews 11:6 that says without faith, it is impossible to please him, for he who comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those who seek Him. The reason I wrote the theses to sound like that is to answer a very crucial objection to biblical counselors or to the case that biblical counselors make for their view. I have said, in the past, in print, and when I’ve been speaking that, I really believe the gospel is at stake on the issue of counseling approaches. I believe the gospel is at stake in whether or not, we are committed to a biblical counseling approach or whether we adopt an approach to counseling like Christian psychology or integration or something like that. That does not go over really well when people hear it.

There’s been a lot of people that have said, “well, you’re overdoing it. Why do you have to make this about the gospel? Why can’t we just say, let’s let Christians agree to disagree about some things”, and the reality is that Christians can agree to disagree about all sorts of things. There are all sorts of things that Christians have different opinions about, but which we would say, “hey, we can be in friendly cooperation with one another; good Christians don’t all agree on one approach to baptism or one view of the end times or one view of marriage and divorce and remarriage, so it’s not as though we have to draw lines around everything and make it a matter of faithfulness, but I really do believe the gospel is at stake on this issue of counseling and I want to tell you why.

It is ACBC alone, we are the only counseling organization in the world that makes it unethical for a counselor to avoid speaking of Christ in the counseling room. To say it in a more positive way, ACBC counselors, counselors who are certified with our organization are required to speak of Jesus Christ in the counseling room, to point to him, to lift him high, and to ground him as the sole source of change that God approves. Every other counseling approach makes speaking of Jesus either forbidden or optional; we can think of the secular requirements for counseling licensure that exist and state boards across the country. Very many states require Christians to avoid proselytizing or to avoid speaking of Jesus, to avoid sharing their faith in the counseling room. Even within Christian circles, the largest Christian organizations that try to standardize counseling care, make a sharing of the gospel optional and based on advised consent. They would say, you’re not allowed to speak of Jesus, you’re not allowed to speak of the Bible without getting informed consent from someone.

The big problem with that, as we’ve mentioned on podcast before, is that Jesus Christ does not require His followers to get permission from people who are not His followers before speaking of Him. In fact, Jesus says, we must speak of Him. He requires us to fulfill the Great Commission. Jesus says, “if you are ashamed of me and my words, then I’ll be ashamed of you”. So, one problem with this making it optional to Jesus, is that Jesus doesn’t make it optional. The other problem is that Jesus really is the solution to every problem. Now, I don’t mean that in a simplistic way, as though all we have to do is just say the name of Jesus and hard problems are going to evaporate, that’s not what I mean. But I mean every serious problem, whether it is a problem with a sense struggle or whether it is a problem with a suffering issue, requires Jesus for its resolution. People need Jesus Christ to receive help with their sin, people need Jesus Christ to receive comfort in their pain and if we don’t speak of H im, then we won’t help people the way they need to be helped. 

There are, of course, ways that we can give people who struggle with problems various kinds of advice that are devoid of Jesus. We can talk to people who are struggling in their communication and give them communication tips. We can talk with people who are dealing with conflict in their relationships, and we can give them conflict resolution tips. We can give people marital advice and you can do all those things and never speak of Jesus and you might even make some of those problems better in some measure, but here’s my question, and here’s the point of the 62nd thesis, If we can improve people’s temporal life, if we can help them have an easier marriage and easier budget, just an easier way to go as they deal with conflict in their life, but we don’t deal with the conflict that exists between them and their Creator, when we have never a really helped them ultimately, and over the long haul.

The Bible is clear that you can’t please God without faith and that faith has to be grounded in a person, whose name is Jesus. So, if counselors say they want to help people, then they have to speak of Jesus, because Jesus is the only way we can please the Lord. If we decide as counselors, we won’t really help people, we won’t ultimately help people, were not going to speak of Jesus, then that is a counseling failure and that is counseling malpractice, and we see that this has everything to do with the Protestant Reformation, with Christ alone with faith alone. And with really helping people.