A Word from Bob
Throughout this post, I’ll use the phrase “nouthetic counseling” because it ties in with someone nouthetically confronting nouthetic counseling as a movement.
However, nouthetic confrontation is just a slice of historic biblical counseling. Comprehensive, compassionate biblical counseling is parakaletic biblical counseling where:
We provide soul care and spiritual direction for saints who face suffering and battle against sin on their sanctification journey.
As Frank Lake said in the 1960s:
“Pastoral care is defective unless it can deal thoroughly both with the evils we have suffered as well as with the sins we have committed.”
For more on the comprehensiveness of parakaletic biblical counseling see: Parakaletic Counseling: A Comprehensive, Compassionate Biblical Name for Biblical Counseling. And see: The Comparative Significance of the Noutheteo/Nouthesia Word Group.
The Twitter Background
When I visited Twitter this weekend, I found a lengthy thread confronting nouthetic biblical counseling. Here’s the first of a long series of tweets:
“A Christian counseling methodology that only accounts for people as sinners and not also as sinned against is woefully incompetent and deleterious to souls. And yet, the disturbing irony is that such methodologies get the stamp of approval of being ‘biblical counseling.’”
This tweet thread picked up steam, and others joined in with their critiques of biblical counseling.
Potential Defensive Responses
For those who want to read the entire tweet string, I’ll note the Twitter handle below. Since it’s a public Twitter string, it seems fine to share who posted it. But I’d rather share it at the end, so we can focus now on how we BCers might respond…
Jay Adams launched the modern nouthetic counseling movement over 50 years ago with a desire to confront out of concern for heart change—nouthetic counseling. So, when an “outsider” to “the movement” offers nouthetic challenge, how could we respond? Well, I’m sure we might be tempted to respond somewhat defensively. For example…
#1: A “Yes, But” Defensive Response
My first gut reaction was to post all the ways the biblical movement is not just about confronting sin, but also about comforting the suffering. I could have documented a host of proofs of that fact. This would have been a “Yes, But” response. “Yes, that may have been true of some at one point. But it’s not true of us as a maturing movement now…”
However, what if I/we stopped and listened. We BCers teach listening as a core component of our approach to people-helping. Before “yes, butting,” we could stop and ask,
“Why might this reputation remain?” “Are there past approaches that we need to more clearly admit as one-sided?” “Are there current ways that I/we may still overemphasize sin to the neglect of grace and of suffering and being sinned against?”
The honest, self-reflective, self-counseling questions we could ask are almost endless.
Here’s another question. “How would we respond to a counselee who was always ‘yes-butting’ everything we said?” What if we were counseling a demanding, controlling, perfectionistic husband and we care-front him in love, and he were to say something like the following? “Yes, some of that may be true of me some of the time, but let me tell you about all the times I’m different than that…” We might begin to think he’s a tad defensive and at least a tad unwilling to consider his own issues… We might think he has a defensive tendency to deflect any concerns about areas he needs to address by highlighting areas he’s already addressed…
#2: A “You’re Not Perfect Either” Defensive Response
Another response I thought about to this tweet string was, “It would be only fair if a BCer started a tweet string about ways other Christian approaches to counseling are wrong. That’ll teach ’em!”
We might call that the “You’re not perfect either” defensive response. Again, what if we care-fronted that husband I mentioned a moment ago, and he responded with this approach? “Well, I may not be a perfect husband, but let me tell you about all my wife’s imperfections and sins. Why don’t you confront her!?”
We might assume that this husband was good at looking at the speck in his wife’s eye, but horrible at looking at the log in his own eye.
So, rather than immediately jumping to ways that other approaches to counseling may be less than perfect, what if we as a movement stopped and humbly pondered any potential biblical counseling speck or log in our own approach?
#3: A “You’re Not Confronting in Love” Defensive Response
As I read the Twitter thread, I also was tempted to respond with, “Well, your tenor and tone do not seem to reflect a loving motivation. And the follow-up tweets seem like angry piling on. I’m not going to listen to what you have to say because you’re not confronting in love.”
Then I caught myself. I don’t even know the person who initiated the tweet string. I’m not one of his Twitter followers. I’m not even sure why it showed up on my Twitter feed. So, who am I to question the motive of his heart? In fact, the more I read, I sensed that his motive was love—at the very least love for counselees who might potentially be harmed by one-sided counseling that focuses on sin but not on suffering.
Then I thought, how might I/we respond, if that husband I mentioned earlier kept saying something like this? “Look Mr. Biblical Counselor, I don’t have to take this from you. I don’t have to listen to your confrontation, because you are not speaking the truth in love. You’re speaking the truth in anger.”
#4: A “Others Maybe, But Surely Not Me” Defensive Response
Then I thought of a 4th response—this one deceptively arrogant. “Well, perhaps those other BCers might be like this, but I’m more enlightened!” Maybe that’s not deceptively arrogant. Perhaps it’s deceived arrogance—as in I am blind and deceived about various potential deficiencies in my own biblical counseling.
Any one of us may or may not be “guilty” of the negative approach that this Twitter string highlights. However, can any of us claim that our approach to biblical counseling is perfect? Of course not. Should any of us arrogantly claim our approach is better than others? We should not. That would be like the husband we’ve been mentioning saying, “Well, I may not be a perfect husband. But I’m sooo much better than sooo many other husbands!” Again, that’s a defensive, deflective response.
So, instead of that type of response, we could ask ourselves questions like:
“In my approach to counseling, are there any ways I am guilty of what this Twitter string highlights?” And, “If I’m not guilty of that particular faulty approach, what other areas in my counseling may need change—what other areas of fault might I be blind to and how could I become more aware of them so I could change and grow?”
A More Humble, Prayerful Response…
In response to a tweet critical of biblical counseling, perhaps we could pray something like this:
“Father, please make me aware of any areas where my biblical counseling is not truly biblical. Lord Jesus, please empower me to counsel so my counseling is more like You the Wonderful Counselor. Holy Spirit, please reveal to me any areas where I need to change so that my counseling is more like You—the Divine Counselor Jesus sent to live within us.”
So…when you or I see, hear, or read a critique of the biblical counseling movement, how should we respond? Are nouthetic counselors open to nouthetic confrontation about nouthetic counseling?
The Twitter String
If you want to find the Twitter string (assuming it has not been deleted for some reason), check out the Twitter handle of Timothy Isaiah Cho here: https://twitter.com/tisaiahcho. And this link should take you directly to the thread.
Thank you, Timothy, for challenging me to examine my counseling. Thank you for nouthetically confronting me/us about our counseling approach.
Join the Conversation
As biblical counselors, we share loving challenges with our counselees; are we as open to receiving loving challenge about our counseling—individually and as a movement?
