The Truth About the Biblical Counseling Movement
WINTER 2014
“For one, they know that people come to counseling with the expectation of gaining knowledge that will lead to change. The brain trust of this movement believes no such thing.”
“The outright deception of the movement is best expressed in Paul David Tripp’s ‘How People Change.’ The title states that people change, but on pages 64 and 65 of the 2006 edition he plainly states that people don’t change. On those pages he calls Christians ‘enemies of God’ and ‘dead in trespasses and sins.’”
Biblical counseling is now widely available in the American church. The three primary organizations that encompass this massive movement are The National Association of Nouthetic Counselors (NANC), The Christian Counseling and Education Foundation (CCEF), and the upstart Biblical Counseling Coalition (BCC). These three are really different divisions of the same movement. CCEF is the think tank, NANC is the training and certification wing, and BCC is the promotional engine. These three organizations represent 90% of what constitutes formal counseling in the present-day church.
The movement operates in upper-middle class zip codes and above with few (if any) exceptions, which is one of the earmarks pointing to the fact that this is one of the biggest scams ever perpetrated on the American church. For one, they know that people come to counseling with the expectation of gaining knowledge that will lead to change. The brain trust of this movement believes no such thing. Like the Christian psychologists they claim to refute, they teach people how to cope with their totally depraved selves. Except in this case, they offer something better: how to experience joy in your totally depraved state. And apparently business is booming; the leadership of these organizations rate with the premier charlatans to ever walk upon the earth.
New Calvinism and the Biblical Counseling Movement
I was recently sent a transcript of an interview with John MacArthur Jr. in which he stated plainly that the present-day New Calvinist movement is a return to authentic Reformed doctrine. He would be absolutely correct about that. Authentic Calvinism hijacked the aggressive discipleship movement of Jay Adams in the early 70’s. Even though many in the present-day biblical counseling movement experienced the Spirit’s power of individual change in that movement, it was infiltrated and hijacked for the purpose of “real and lasting” change. That’s because we are not really changing, we merely experience the joy of “vivification” subjectively while the “lasting” change is the manifestation of Christ’s objective gospel outside of us. The counseling focuses on “mortification” which leads to perpetual rebirths that we “experience.” This was the crux of Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation.
The outright deception of the movement is best expressed in Paul David Tripp’s “How People Change.” The title states that people change, but on pages 64 and 65 of the 2006 edition he plainly states that people don’t change. On those pages he calls Christians “enemies of God” and “dead in trespasses and sins.”
Recently, I attended a funeral of an old friend who was deeply involved in the movement. He was one of the good guys who I think never understood the real crux of the issue. But telling was what was said by the NANC brain trust who spoke at his funeral. You see, my friend never really did anything that pleased God, all of his good works were really “shadows of Christ.” Also, God took him “so that we can see Christ better.” He also deserves “no honor” for anything he did lest it steal any of Christ’s glory. It was even stated that he was a “wicked sinner.”
These statements are clear contradictions to the plain sense of Scripture and the milieu of life. This is a resurgence of Luther’s stoic Gnosticism that strives to completely empty self in order to observe reality outside of us and detach ourselves from it. And again, these movements always abide exclusively among the affluent while producing a league of elitist, cold-hearted, spiritual snobs who are wreaking havoc on the church.
And their counseling is helping no one. They point to their stoic joy in the midst of trials as if Gnosticism is commendable. I have heard pastoral proponents of this movement ridicule those who grieve because their grief “eclipses the glory of Christ.” How dare them value anything on this earth more than Christ! In one particular instance, a pastor was indignant that his terminally ill mother-in-law mourned the fact that she would not be able to see her grandchildren grow up. Hence, she supposedly loved her grandchildren more than Christ. A “mature” Christian would have been rejoicing for the opportunity to leave this despicable life and everyone in it.
But I guess that is “real and lasting change.” Question is, what kind of Change?
paul
Sent to PPT: Poster of Paul Washer Stalkers
Sent by email via victim of Paul Washer’s minions:
“By their fruits you will know them.”
Calvin: The Essence of God the Father Can Only be Known Through Christ
When we listen to our friendly neighborhood Calvinist say that God can only be known through Christ, we assume that he means “knowledge” in regard to knowing God in a salvific way. Not so. What is meant is that we can only see any fact or essence of God through a Christocentric prism. In other words, God and the Holy Spirit are shadows of Christ. This goes hand and hand with Luther’s Heidelberg Confession which posits the idea that all realty is interpreted through Christ. This same assertion can be found in Reformed statements such as the first tenet of New Covenant Theology. “All” reality would include God and the Holy Spirit.
Hence, all realty, including the other members of the Trinity, are shadows of Him. In fact, at a funeral just yesterday, I heard a Reformed pastor speak of the Holy Spirit’s work within us as “shadows of Christ.” John MacArthur Jr. stated in the Forward to “Uneclipsing the Son” by Rick Holland that a focus on “anything” or “anyone” other than Christ hinders the sanctification of the flock. Graeme Goldsworthy contributed to an article entitled “The False Gospel of the New Birth” that warns against any emphasis on the Spirits work within us as opposed to the works of Christ. I have also added the following to make the point from the Calvin Institutes. Paragraphs are added.
2.6.4. By familiarising the Jews with these prophecies, God intended to teach them, that in seeking for deliverance, they should turn their eyes directly towards Christ. And though they had sadly degenerated, they never entirely lost the knowledge of this general principle, that God, by the hand of Christ, would be the deliverer of the Church, as he had promised to David; and that in this way only the free covenant by which God had adopted his chosen people would be fulfilled. Hence it was, that on our Saviour’s entry into Jerusalem, shortly before his death, the children shouted, “Hosannah to the son of David,” (Mt. 21:9).
For there seems to have been a hymn known to all, and in general use, in which they sung that the only remaining pledge which they had of the divine mercy was the promised advent of a Redeemer. For this reason, Christ tells his disciples to believe in him, in order that they might have a distinct and complete belief in God, “Ye believe in God, believe also in me,” (John 14:1). For although, properly speaking, faith rises from Christ to the Father, he intimates, that even when it leans on God, it gradually vanishes away, unless he himself interpose to give it solid strength. The majesty of God is too high to be scaled up to by mortals, who creep like worms on the earth.
Therefore, the common saying that God is the object of faith (Lactantius, lib. 4 c. 16), requires to be received with some modification. When Christ is called the image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15), the expression is not used without cause, but is designed to remind us that we can have no knowledge of our salvation, until we behold God in Christ. For although the Jewish scribes had by their false glosses darkened what the Prophets had taught concerning the Redeemer, yet Christ assumed it to be a fact, received, as it were, with public consent, that there was no other remedy in desperate circumstances, no other mode of delivering the Church than the manifestation of the Mediator.
It is true, that the fact adverted to by Paul was not so generally known as it ought to have been—viz. that Christ is the end of the Law (Rom. 10:4), though this is both true, and clearly appears both from the Law and the Prophets. I am not now, however, treating of faith, as we shall elsewhere have a fitter place (Book 3 Chap. 2), but what I wish to impress upon my readers in this way is, that the first step in piety is, to acknowledge that God is a Father, to defend, govern, and cherish us, until he brings us to the eternal inheritance of his kingdom; that hence it is plain, as we lately observed, there is no having knowledge of God without Christ, and that, consequently, from the beginning of the world Christ was held forth to all the elect as the object of their faith and confidence. In this sense, Irenæus says, that the Father, who is boundless in himself, is bounded in the Son, because he has accommodated himself to our capacity, lest our minds should be swallowed up by the immensity of his glory (Irenaeus, lib. 4 cap. 8).
Fanatics, not attending to this, distort a useful sentiment into an impious dream,185 as if Christ had only a share of the Godhead, as a part taken from a whole; whereas the meaning merely is, that God is comprehended in Christ alone. The saying of John was always true, “whosoever denieth the Son, the same has not the Father,” (1 John 2:23). For though in old time there were many who boasted that they worshipped the Supreme Deity, the Maker of heaven and earth, yet as they had no Mediator, it was impossible for them truly to enjoy the mercy of God, so as to feel persuaded that he was their Father. Not holding the head, that is, Christ, their knowledge of God was evanescent; and hence they at length fell away to gross and foul superstitions betraying their ignorance, just as the Turks in the present day, who, though proclaiming, with full throat, that the Creator of heaven and earth is their God, yet by their rejection of Christ, substitute an idol in his place.
Pedestrian Christian Weighs In on More New Calvinist Vomit
In the following article, Alex Guggenheim documents the shameless pandering to liberal race politics by the New Calvinists and why they do it. Also telling is his documentation of Al Mohler’s continuing struggle with speaking truth.
But let me throw in my two-cents worth before you read Alex’s astute observations: New Calvinism is Socialism dressed up in Bible verses. The historical process is always the same: religions founded on The Republic playbook always support totalitarian parties, and then once they help them obtain control, they bid for their piece of the pie; ie., “We can offer you control over this much of the population on a silver platter—we just need a little help with enforcing “truth.’” And if it happens, they might even let Julie Anne Smith pick out the color of her guillotine. I presume pink would be her preference.
This is how it always happens, and is behind the huge ecumenical movement of New Calvinism. People express surprise that a lot of these guys vote for liberal politics. It doesn’t surprise me in the least, but without further comment, here is Alex’s post:
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