Alternative Christian Evangelical Counseling Programs: Thought Reform Tool and Hindrance to Recovery?
1. Alternative Christian Evangelical
Counseling Programs:
Thought-Reform Tool
and
Hindrance to Recovery?
John Weaver, PhD
Cynthia Mullen Kunsman, RN, BSN, MMin, ND
2. Evangelicals and Mental Illness
“It's a Big Problem”
Southern Baptist
Convention
New President's
MH Initiative
Intense focus on gender
and sexuality
Matthew Warren
2013 suicide
4. Defining Terms
Licensed and trained therapists who are Christians can
certainly provide counsel from the Bible
For the purposes of this discussion,
Biblical Counseling is
Specific type of Pastoral Counseling
Eschews modern clinical care
Generally “Biblical-only”
May or may not be therapeutic
5. Benefit or Harm?
Not a diatribe against Biblical Counseling
Focus on misuse
Pitfalls inherent in the model
Much depends on the skill and maturity of the counselor
Many Biblical counselors are licensed through in
a traditional MH disciplines
Many Biblical counselors do recognize their own
limitations
Can be very beneficial when applied appropriately
6. Understanding the Evangelical
The Bible is an Authoritative Document (ultimate truth)
Epistemological style
Axiomatic vs empirical truth
Hermeneutics (e.g., literal interpretation)
Ministers are experts on ethics, mind and spirt
Distrust of modern psychology / psychiatry is common
Humanist and secular
More so for Fundamentalist (Evangelical subtype)
Difficulty with Ambiguity
8. Human Agency
Dispensationalist
Man is basically good
Calvinist (Presbyterian)
Man is basically evil
Pitfall: Can tend toward
pessimism / misanthropy
9. Etiology of Mental Health Problems
and Therapeutic Approaches
Sin (“Nouthetic” Counseling)
Healthy: Cognitive Behavioral Approach
Unhealthy: Shame and Blame
Demons (Deliverance / Exorcism)
Possession / Oppression
Inner Wounds / Deficits (Theophostic Methods)
Mystical concerns about spirituality
Combination of counseling and deliverance
12. Jay Adams' “Nouthetics”
noutheto: “to admonish”
Preferred by Fundamentalists and many Evangelicals
Competent to Counsel book (1970)
Mental Illness as a Misnomer
Brain can be sick but the mind cannot
Mind problems = spiritual problems = sin
13. Nouthetic Confrontation
Purpose:
“Effect personality and behavioral change”
Reproof (or Rebuke) followed by correction
Focuses on one's worldview
Presupposes that the counselee has a problem
Inevitably a sin problem
Condemns certain “sinful” emotions
14. Influences on Development
BEHAVIORISM
William Glasser
Thomas Szasz
The Myth of Mental Illness (1961)
President of the Citizens Commission on Human
Rights, the Scientology front organization
PRIMARY INFLUENCE: O. Hobart Mowrer
Adams' successor: David Powlison
less driven by behaviorism
16. Spectrum I: Pastoral Care Focused
Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC)
Formerly National Assoc of Nouthetic Counselors
Accrediting agency; more conservative
Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation
(CCEF)
Intellectual arm; progressives
Powlison's theory dominates this group
17. Spectrum II: Psychology Bashers
More extreme than ACBC or CCEF
Psychology is truly dangerous for the Christian
Psychoheresy Ministries (Martin & Deidre
Bobgan)
Psychology Debunked (Ryan & Lisa Bazler)
Berean Call (Dave Hunt)
CCEF's tone is often different, but content is just as
extreme as the psychology bashers
18. Concerns about Biblical Counseling
Shepherding Discipleship Movement Influences
Submission to strict hierarchy
Overtones of patriarchy → misogyny
Enforce legal contracts that suppress dissent
Discourage reporting of physical / sexual abuse
Mentally ill are scapegoated as sinful
Repentance and discipline for treatment of serious
mental health disorders
20. Modern History of Deliverance Practice
Late 19th Century into 20th Century Revivalism
Keswick / Higher Life Movement
Revivalism and Healing Movements into the 1950s
Latter Rain Movement
Charismatic and Pentecostal Movements
Charismatic Renewal / Shepherding Discipleship
Movement in the late 1960s – early 1970s
Don Basham & Derek Prince
21. Modern Deliverance Practice:
Major Systems
Sozo Model (Bill Johnson)
Pigs in the Parlor (1973)
John Sanford
Agnes Sanford
Restoring the Foundations Model
Toronto Blessing of the 1990s
Most extensive taxonomy (demonic “family tree”)
Mercy Ministries
22. Nancy Alcorn & Mercy Ministries
Infamous use of RTF manual
Skepticism indicates oppression
Heavy focus on sexuality
Exorcism for eating disorders, addiction, sexual abuse
victims, LGBT, serious mental health problems, etc.
Less credible psychological therapies (recovered memory)
Hypnosis; theophostic techniques
Expelled from Australia due to public outcry
24. History and Features
History
Sanford's Inner Healing (1950s)
Smith's Theophostics (1990s)
Much like New Thought Christianity spirituality
“Lie Based Thinking” with demonic features
Some groups focused on Satanic Ritual Abuse
Abuse of hypnosis and altered consciousness
Repressed / recovered memory
Traumatic induction of symptoms
Deliverance as a cure
25. Primary Concerns
(Deliverance and Inner Healing)
Mentally ill are considered to be demon possessed
Cease clinical treatment
Scapegoating children as possessed leading to abuse
Physical and psychological harm
Exporting of these ideas to Africa
Trend of labeling children as witches
Soul ties connecting sex abuse victims to rapists
Cure only comes through forgiveness
26. Exorcism at a National Level
“Strategic Level Spiritual Warfare”
C Peter Wagner, Cindy Jacobs
Mass Exorcisms of Countries
Destabilization in Third World
Uganda: “Kill the Gays” bill
(Antihomosexuality Act of 2014)
Financing by Evangelicals in the US