Responsible Christian Counseling.

pastoral care movement, which came into its own in the forties and has experienced rapid

expansion, attempts to integrate the biblical mandates of interpersonal responsibility and the

burgeoning insights of the social sciences.

for responsible Christian counseling. Many pastors are experiencing such overwhelming

demands on their time for marriage and family counseling that their administrative and

preaching assignments suffer. Indeed, many have seen this aspect of ministry as so significant

that they have left the parish ministry and entered into full-time counseling practices.

various psychological schools of thought. Names such as Rogers, Freud, Perls, Glasser, Mowrer,

counselor’s relationship to the social sciences? How can one assume a responsible counseling

role? What about our view of persons and counseling? What does the Gospel have to do with

the counseling relationship? {24}

Psychology (often with a capital P) pervades every area of our educational experience. Some

Christian counselors have completely accepted current psychological insights into their

counseling practice without critical assessment, whereas others have resolutely attempted to

reject whatever the social sciences have to offer.

more basic and comprehensive than revelation so that creation and providence pre-empt

soteriology and the Fall. The basic principles of emotional health have been discovered by

psychology, and there is little or no need for the Bible. The application of these principles with

the help of a therapist will lead to the resolution of emotional problems.

view revelation and science as two distinct and irreconcilable systems. Creation-providence and

soteriology are both stressed but they belong to different categories. Hence a person with

emotional problems would seek the help of a psychologist or psychotherapist and the person

with spiritual problems would go to a pastor.

movement. This is an attempt to integrate psychology and Scripture. Lawrence Crabb identifies

his own struggle in coming to terms with psychological systems as a Christian counselor:

originate in God. Hence all truths, whether from the special revelation of Scripture or from the

general revelation of creation, are from God and must be integrated into the whole. Both

soteriology-Fall and creation-providence must receive due attention. Although all personal

problems are the result of the Fall in principle, they are not always the result of conscious

(responsible) acts.

seriousness. Truths from the social sciences, which derive their insights from a study of man

(i.e. creation), must be used when they meet the test of Scripture. To reject them out of hand

knowledge that is available and submit it to the test of the Scriptures.

Rogerian or client-centered therapy. This approach dominated the entire pastoral counseling

movement in the forties and fifties and is still much used today. Rogerian counseling is based on

Freudian psychoanalytic psychology. Its emphasis is on achieving insight and casts the

counselor in a rather passive role. The assumption is that new self-perceptions and changes in

feeling will also lead to new behavior. The individual is viewed as having all the necessary

power within himself for renewal and change. It assumes that emotional disorders most

frequently stem from unconscious motivation and have their roots in childhood experiences.

Although few Christian counselors would accept the underlying psychoanalytic philosophy of

Rogerian counseling, there are emphases, such as listening and responding to feelings, which

treat the counselee in a wholistic manner and merit our attention.

client, confronting him with it, and insisting on repentance and restoration as the only approach

counselor. The general operational assumption seems to be that the client is weak, helpless

necessarily follow. It would be comparable to say that since I as a parent have authority over

my child, therefore I must always be authoritarian.

to choose between the non-directive and the directive approach? One of the problems of both

of these role models is that the person of the counselor is largely disregarded. He remains

insignificant, almost a non-entity. In the non-directive approach the client is everything and the

counselor is little more than a mirror of the feelings and ideas of the counselee. In the directive

approach the Scripture is everything and both the client and the counselor are of little

consequence. This does not seem to be in keeping with the relational emphasis of the

shift from doing to being. Now the counselor does not begin by asking what he must do (or

know, or say). He begins, rather, by asking, “What must I be to be of real help to the person?” 5

In projecting the new person-centered emphasis of counseling, Howard Clinebell suggests that,

counselee as an important part of the counseling . . . the pastor is free to reveal his own

humanity. . . . Experiencing healthy relationships is important for the personal growth of the

counselee. The pastor recognizes his rightful authority and, when necessary, uses it to guide,

teach, encourage, or confront. 6

that he give attention to himself as a Christian and to the quality of the relationship which he

establishes between himself and the counselee. The impact of the Scriptures will first come {27}

to the client through the person of the counselor, not through quoted Bible verses. David

variety of roles in his relationship to different people. 8 These included the prophetic, the

pastoral, and the priestly roles, and he exercised them in a continuous, not in the dichotomous,

fashion. The prophetic role includes preaching, teaching, confronting, and calling for

repentance. Nurturing, protecting, supporting, encouraging, and calling the lost reflect the

pastoral role. The priestly role involves listening, forgiving, sensitivity to feelings, mediating, and

calls for confession.

counseling relationships and then stereotype that role as the only “biblical” one, we can easily

person’s rightness.

the need of the client.

conclusions, and of speaking the words of the Lord before the person is ready to listen. By the

same token, the non-directive pastor faces the pitfall of not sharing the Gospel, not speaking

words of comfort, and not offering forgiveness and healing. {28}

He is a person as God is personal. He is a social creature, created for fellowship with God and

with his fellow creatures. God’s assessment of the individual human condition is “that it is not

good that man should be alone.” But man is also fallen, a sinful creature, with innate

tendencies to rebel against God. The result is that separation from God is part of the human

conditions. But the Bible teaches further that God is at work through His Holy Spirit in the life of

unregenerate and regenerate persons. The Holy Spirit convicts sinful man of sin, righteousness,

and judgment, whereas He empowers Christians to walk in the Spirit.

recognizes that man assumes responsibility for his own spiritual destiny. Recent counseling

“He is trying to ruin my life;” “She always puts me down;” “He doesn’t have any respect for

me.” A responsible attitude toward persons will help them to recognize that each of us must

assume responsibility for our actions, our feelings, and our decisions. No one has the power to

make us angry, or to hate, or to be jealous. Our responses to various situations and persons are

our own responsibility. God holds us accountable.

points out that the danger exists that such an approach may well promote effort in the power

of the flesh. 12 We can only hold the counselee responsible for that which he can {29} control.

But we must again indicate our basic assumption that the Holy Spirit is at work in us to help us

both “to will and to do of his good pleasure.” Christian counseling becomes more than just the

ways so sharply as in the belief in the work of the Holy Spirit. Christians are aware that they can

tap into a spiritual, supernatural, source of Divine power which is at work in both counselor and

counselee. A responsible view of persons in the Christian counseling relationship must,

therefore, recognize the sinful nature of man, encourage him to assume responsibility for his

feelings and behavior, and together with him rely on the power of the Holy Spirit for changes in

his life. This reliance is not an avoidance technique since God does not overwhelm us and force

us into His mold; rather he works with us and heightens our powers as we decide to follow him.

Paul Barkman says that “It is impossible to support from the Bible the idea that when the Holy

Spirit guides a person he is less intellectually keen, perceptive and oriented to reality than when

he is not divinely guided.” 14

attained, the religious mores that he has broken, or the Christian ideals that he ought to

achieve. And then we congratulate ourselves because we feel that we have once more been

true to the Bible. But the client that comes to us seeking help is usually deeply aware of his sin

along with an enduring sense of failure, guilt, frustration, and discouragement. What he needs

most at this point is not judgment but grace, not law but the Gospel. To the sin-ridden

Corinthian church, Paul says, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus

Christ” (1 Cor. 1:3). {30}

counselors. Psychoanalysts have tended to resolve this problem by shifting the blame to

unconscious motivations and childhood experiences of the past. Behaviorists will readily call

attention to the determinism of the external environment. Others may seek to excise guilt by

an act of the will. All these will fail. There are two ways to remove guilt: one is to pay for our

sins and the second is to seek forgiveness from someone with the authority to grant it, namely,

God. To be responsible as a Christian counselor, my task is to share the Gospel, the Good News

closely related to our attempt to share the Gospel. Almost uniformly counselors are taught not

to be judgmental, not to impose their values on the client, but to be supportive and accepting.

The assumption is that the client must experience freedom of choice in developing his own

values and in making decisions about his life. This is best accomplished in a climate of love and

concern. Paul Tournier has pointed out that judgment is always destructive. 15

without the reciprocal influence of values. The Bible also reflects this tension when on the one

hand we are instructed not to pass judgment on another person and on the other we are

encouraged to confront, to teach, and to advise. Our Christian values, our Christian

personhood, will impinge with judgment upon others in the counseling relationship. We do not

condone sinful living. At the same time our attitudes, our willingness to listen and to forgive,

person of the counselor as a Christian. The first answer to the question, “In what way are you a

Christian counselor?” is not by sharing an outline of our counseling methods, but rather with

the affirmation, “By being Christian in the counseling relationship.” {31} Our first act of love,

sharing the message of the Gospel, will be our non-judgmental attitude and relationship with

the client. Our values, the quality of our relationship, our total being will be a significant level at

which we share the message of God’s love.

dialogue that is carried on between the counselor and his client. Self-disclosure of the humanity

of the counselor can open the encounter to the experience of God. A look at the Apostle Paul

conclusion that the Spirit had, in fact, been in their midst and exercised His divine influence

everyday events, the happenings between persons: the conflicts, failures, misunderstandings

and forgiveness. This message, however, must be given in the context of the authenticity of the

person of the counselor and the caring quality of the relationship. Then we will be able to say

with Paul, “Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1).