JESUS is all we need, HE gave us life and life more abundently. |
You know when Jesus went home to Our Father He left us a job to do . He started that job and it's to love one another. Until Jesus showed me how to live in His Love I didn't have any love in me for anyone and that's a very sad and lonely way to exist. Today I know what God's will is for me and I know how to lay down my life and pick up my cross daily. I'm so glad Jesus took the nails for me. |
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by Randy Alcorn First printed in Eternal Perspectives, September 1993 In the evangelical churches of America, many people who do not know the meaning of "substitutionary atonement," "sanctification," "holiness" and "depravity" are becoming intimately acquainted with the meaning of "codependency," "enabler," "dysfunction" and "abuse." The biblical model of personal responsibility, man's sin and God's redemption is being replaced by the psychological model of victimization, dysfunction and recovery. Though past experience in dealing with controversial subjects suggests this will not be remembered, I want to make clear at the beginning I am in favor of biblical counseling and all support groups that conform to biblical truth, focus on Christ and help people deal with their pasts so they can move on in the present and future to a walk with Christ. My title for seven years was "Pastor of Counseling and Family Ministries." Ten years ago I recruited and trained sixty lay counselors at my church meeting with them every week for nine months. I have and still do recommend Christian counselors to many people. I am not anti-psychology per se, and I recognize the helpfulness of many psychological insights and techniques. I am not a crusader against psychology and counseling in the church, and am not writing a book called Psycho-Nuts in the Pulpit. That is my disclaimer. If it isn't long enough (it probably isn't) feel free to reread it several times. If as you read this issue you wonder why I don't have some articles to balance the others, it is simply because I am attempting to balance something which is already in a state of unbalance in the evangelical community--an uncritical acceptance of the beliefs and practices of modern psychology. Two Different Frameworks Is man's fundamental problem ignorance of ourselves and our psychic injuries, or is it disobedience to and rebellion against our Creator and Judge? The book of Romans gives a clear answer to this question. Modern psychology, buying into the assumptions of secular humanism that include the basic goodness of human nature, gives us a very different answer. Does the solution for the human dilemma lie in coming to terms with how others have mistreated us, or in coming to terms with how we have sinned against God and others? Are we victims, or are we victimizers, and if we are both, which problem is the fundamental one and warrants our first and major attention? Again, the Bible and much (not all) of modern psychology give us radically different answers. A Christian woman told me she was having a few problems, nothing really serious, but felt she wanted some input and guidance. Her pastor recommended a Christian psychologist. The woman told me the psychologist informed her she was showing all the classic symptoms of having been sexually abused as a child. She was stunned, and assured him she had never been sexually abused. He nodded knowingly and said it wasn't surprising she didn't remember, since such memories are often blocked out. This woman was now an emotional wreck, trying to figure out if it was her father, brother, or who it was that sexually abused her. She had no clue, but was filled with dread and suspicion. After all, the psychologist must know better than she. He'd been recommended by her pastor. Here was a growing and productive Christian who went to counseling for some insight and direction in one area, and was transformed into an emotional basket case. While this is obviously a dramatic example, some of what she experienced is increasingly typical. Consider the fact that she didn't remember being abused was taken as substantiation of the probability she had been! It goes like this--if you remember being abused you were really abused. But if you don't remember being abused, it was probably because you were abused so badly. The bottom line is an assumption of abuse which amounts to a theology of victimization. We are all victims--some of us just haven't discovered who victimized us yet but we will, in time, with help. Then we must go back and explore our history of victimization, discovering other ways we were mistreated. Even in cases where there has indeed been devastating abuse (and I do not deny such cases for a moment), the victim identity easily becomes our primary identity. Instead of children of God, our first identity becomes children of alcoholics, children of neglect and children of abuse. I do not deny some families are dysfunctional. In a world tainted by sin, of course they are. I do not deny abuse exists--of course it does. But the fact we are so preocuppied with it shows we have an unrealistic view of a fallen world. Peter says, "Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you" (1 Pet. 4:12). Life is difficult. This is to be expected. We must deal with it and move on. That may sound calloused, but it isn't when you realize it's not just "buck up"--the point is Jesus feels our pain, heals us, and gives us the resources to move on. I recently bumped into a woman who used to attend our church. I hadn't seen her for years. It turns out she got a divorce and felt wounded and condemned by her pastors. In fact, our pastors had simply pointed out to her exactly what they should have--that she had no biblical basis for divorcing her husband, and was obligated to obey God, keep her vows, remain married, and work out the problems, all of which they were glad to help her do. She had elected to get the divorce anyway. After all, her personal happiness was at stake. She couldn't deny who she was, could she? Everything was everybody's fault but her own, and she "owed herself" the happy life. This woman informed me she has spent years in recovery, and is now a recovery group leader, helping people deal with life's challenges in a self-affirming way, as opposed to how she had been treated at church. She had no repentance or regret for her sinful actions in the past--in fact she is more convinced than ever she was right. (Which means God was wrong.) She does not attend church any more, but she assured me she is much "closer to the Lord" than ever. Her recovery group is now her "church," she said--it makes her feel good about herself. She put short-term happiness over holiness, and her new religion is popular psychology. The Tyranny of Self What is the common focus in self-esteem, self-image, self-determination and self-actualization? Self. And while we must pay a certain amount of attention to ourselves--I do not discount this--we are not to make our self-interest the center of gravity in our lives. A husband's focus is to be on his spouse and her needs, not himself and his needs. Our focus is not to be on our spouse's responsibility to meet our needs, but our own responsibility to meet her needs. The modern "self-" movement legitimizes and glorifies selfishness. It leaves many people feeling better about sin (self-gratification in violation of God's Word) because sin has at its best become virtuous self-actualization or at its worst a dysfunction where no one sees himself as the perpetrator of sin, but only its victim. Many Christian leaders have bought into this. A seminary professor, now president of a leading evangelical seminary, said in a Christianity Today interview, "There is a more complicated way in which tendencies to certain addictions--including certain sexual misbehaviors--seems to run in families. I'm convinced there is a genetic propensity to alcoholism. That makes us nervous, because we want to say that if a person is drinking too much, it is her fault; or if a person habitually commits adultery, that's because of a decision he made." The real issue is not what "we want to say" but what the Bible says. Alcoholism is not a new problem--the Bible just considers it a sin in which one is willfully involved, not merely a disease that one passively catches. The Bible condemns drunkenness and clearly holds people morally accountable for it (Luke 21:34; Rom. 13:13; 1 Cor. 5:11; 1 Cor. 6:10; Gal. 5:21; Eph. 5:18). In answer to the seminary president, regardless of environment, genetics, proneness or anything else it is, in fact, "her fault." (Some have presented evidence that there may be a genetic propensity to rape. Shall we then say rape is not the fault of the rapist?) And what about the habitual adultery the seminary president refers to? It is "because of a decision he made." Decisions to view pornography, decisions to put himself in the place of temptation may have led up to it. But in any case he made a decision, or repeated decisions, to have adulterous sex, to violate his marriage vows, to betray his wife. These are decisions he has made, and God's Word holds him fully accountable for them, just as you and I are fully accountable for our moral decisions no matter what influences or abuses we have endured. When a leading evangelical seminary president, charged with molding the minds and ministries of evangelical pastors, can hold such a view, isn't this a red flag that suggests secular psychology is dethroning the Scriptures as the reigning authority of the church? Instead of helping deliver people from the bondage of sin, is our strategy degenerating into helping them sin with less guilt? Is our calling from God simply to help people feel better or is it first and foremost to help them be better? Does Conversion Matter? I recently heard of a pastor who told his congregation, "Every Christian should be in a recovery group." Not a discipleship group, not a growth group, not a Christian life and ministry group, but a recovery group. Of course, many people are helped in recovery groups. But are they the backbone or core of church life, a universal need for every Christian? I was assured by a pastor and counselor at a well known evangelical church that it "wasn't realistic" to think Jesus really changes peoples lives in dramatic ways. To think otherwise, he said, was "simplistic" and "naive." But where do you find that in the Bible? 2 Corinthians 5:17 says "if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come." God sounds pretty simplistic and naive, doesn't he? We have come to grossly underestimate the life-changing power of conversion, and the role of the Holy Spirit in illumination and sanctification. We are content with too little change. Sometimes therapy is helpful, to direct people to biblical long-term changes in thinking and behavior, to help overcome especially entrenched patterns. But is it possible some problems intended to be dealt with in a moment at the cross are now the center of years of therapy? We do people no favor by telling them their life will be inevitably centered on their dysfunction or disorder (e.g. they are "sex addicts" or "food addicts" or "alcoholics" or "adult children of alcoholics"). We not only put the focus in the wrong place, we rob them of hope. Why? Because Christ didn't die for dysfunctions and misfortunes. He died for sins. Therefore he doesn't deliver us from dysfunctions and misfortunes, he delivers us from sins. He covers us with the righteousness of Christ, changes us, transforms us (2 Cor. 5:21). The beginning of life change is confession and repentance, to which God responds with grace and empowerment. But confession and repentance require that people take responsibility for their sins, for their choices. If we take away people's sense of responsibility, we take away the hope that God can change them. So what about the school of thought that insists an alcoholic will always be an alcoholic, a homosexual will always be a homosexual? God has an opinion: "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." (1 Cor. 6:9-11) Notice the past tense--"such were some of you." But what we were we no longer are! While the Christian life is certainly fraught with temptations and struggles, Christ's work on our behalf is sufficient to let us live victoriously, so sin does not master us (Rom. 6:11-14). We have underestimated and undermined the sufficiency of Christ in dealing with our sins, addictions and inadequacies. By all means, if you can get help from a counselor, get it. But that help--both the |
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In the next issue of Eternal Perspectives I'll address the issue of self-love and self-esteem. Is the Bible's view different than modern psychology's?
Related Articles:
Self-Love and Scripture, by Randy Alcorn
Psychology: Servant or Master?, by Randy Alcorn (concise, with biblical references)
Integrating Psychology and the Bible, by David Powlison
