Brainwashed Christians

One of the most remarkable advertising and sales jobs ever has been accomplished by the counseling community, particularly the secular community. For around the past 50 years the church has bought into the conclusions of secular psychology. They have done an admirable job of selling their product and we have bought it. I think the reason is our lack of spiritual discernment and willingness to believe something propagated by the professionals. After all, they are the experts, right? Maybe. To make it worse are the professing Christian counselors who serve an integrated form of secular psychology mixed with Scripture. Then it really gets confusing. But in the end we accept what the Christian professionals have served up for us. We are not only undiscerning, we also do not practice 1 John 4:1ff: "do not believe everyone... but test them..." First of all we do not need to just pitch everything we have been taught out the window. There are two words which describe most Christian counseling: plausible and pragmatic. It is plausible because the observations made usually are accurate. They ask me a few questions and make some very good observations from those questions. So far so good. Then they tell me a little more about my character based on what they have heard and I am convinced they are a prophet from God. Here is where things start to change. The observations made are right and the conclusions sound good because they seem to work (pragmatic). But the problem is how the conclusions are made. This is the part of human behavior and motivation that sets Christian counseling apart from biblical counseling. The conclusions usually drawn by those who integrate secular psychology point to something outside of myself as the cause of my problems. I no longer am very much responsible, culpable, or accountable for what they see as wrong with me. The problem is something or someone else. If we are faithful to our Bibles and study the verses they add into their diagnosis, we will find that those verses were taken out of context, misinterpreted, and misapplied. But is sounds so good. Biblical counseling is true to Scripture because it believes that God, who made us, knows us intimately, understands us, and uses Scripture as a mirror to our hearts. That is where our problems begin and end; in our hearts. It really boils down to whether I believe Scripture is truly sufficient to diagnose and cure what truly troubles me (Psalm 19:7). So stop being lazy and study, really study your Bible.