No, the title of today’s post is neither the name of a new music group, nor the start of a joke about “three men walk into a …”

Heath is Heath Lambert. Jay is Jay Adams. Donn is Donn Arms.

Bob and Donn

I’m sure all my readers know who Heath and Jay are. I’m not as sure that all of you know who Donn is. For decades, Donn Arms served as Jay’s right-hand man—no pun intended on “hand” and “arms.”

I’ve had several private interactions with Donn over the past twenty years. Though our personalities are quite different, and though the way we communicate our biblical counseling convictions can differ, I have always appreciated that I knew exactly where Donn stood. I have appreciated that Donn really listened to me and did not seek to mischaracterize my views. I have always appreciated that while Donn can pushback, he is willing to receive pushback also. Donn is open to give-and-take. He doesn’t accuse others of making it personal or being mean just because they disagree with him. I’ve always felt that Donn has been respectful in his interactions with me, and I hope I have always been respectful in my interactions with Donn. I like Donn. I hope and think he likes me. I know he has faithfully prayed for Shirley and me since Shirley’s stroke three years ago. Thank you, Donn.

Now, I don’t say all of this to imply that Donn and I are “Team Donn and Bob Biblical Counselors.” I’ve already acknowledged that we have our differences on the exact nature of biblical counseling. I’m not saying all of this to “align” Donn with me, nor to “dis-align” Donn with anyone else. I’m just giving my sense of our history.

A Parenthesis 

After penning Part 1 in my engagement with Heath Lambert, I spent small slivers of several days working on Part 2. This is not Part 2. I’m still working on Part 2 (it’s difficult to do such important and careful research and writing work in the midst of a 3,100-mile move from Seattle to Port Charlotte). I still hope to post Part 2.

However, ever since I read Heath’s first post on zombie-infected priests I’ve had a specific nagging concern about a couple of paragraphs scattered throughout Heath’s post.

Don’t Demean and Mischaracterize the First Two Generations of Faithful Biblical Counselors

Here are several examples of similar wording from Heath. In each, he warns, confronts, or challenges those he sees as zombie-infected unfaithful biblical counselors to stop demeaning and mischaracterizing the first two generations of those he sees as faithful biblical counselors. First, Heath narrates an us-versus-them, faithful-versus-unfaithful, one-side-versus-another side, “team Heath-versus-the wrong team” story of the current biblical counseling world.

“The voices in this transition are not neutral. One side is urging us to use this time of transition to rediscover our past and be faithful to the principles that have defined our movement since its founding. Another side would have us move away from our past convictions and embrace beliefs very different from the ones espoused by the bright lights of our movement.”

Then Heath specifically nouthetically confronts those he deems unfaithful biblical counselors.

“You do not have to spend your energy demeaning and mischaracterizing those of us who have devoted our lives to sharing the truth of Scripture with people in pain.”

“You don’t have to keep denying biblical truth embraced for years by your brothers and sisters in Christ. No one is forcing you to stay locked in doctrinal and ministry confusion. You don’t have to disrupt life in the garden. You can change.”

“But that change will require a humble embrace of the truth. You will have to admit where you’ve been wrong. You’ll have to retract public statements you’ve made. You will have to stop publicly opposing faithful ministers of the Word.”

Those are strong words, and I have some strong counter-narratives about those words. However, that’s not my point today.

As I read and re-read Heath’s words about not demeaning and mischaracterizing faithful biblical counselors from previous generations, I kept hearing the voice of Donn Arms. I had this nagging thought that I remembered reading an article by Donn where Donn charged Heath with having mischaracterized Jay Adams and “the first generation of biblical counselors.”

Recently I had time to do a Google search of “Jay Adams, Heath Lambert, and Donn Arms” and another search of “Lambert’s Dissertation/Book and Donn Arms.” Sure enough, this article by Donn Arms from 2012 showed up.

Book Review by Donn R Arms Published on January 30, 2012, of The Biblical Counseling Movement After Adams by Heath Lambert.

Has Heath Done to Jay Adams What Heath Says Others Are Doing to Heath and Faithful Biblical Counselors Today? 

I imagine folks on “Team Lambert” reading this header and being upset. “No one would ever accuse Heath of demeaning or mischaracterizing the leader of the first generation of biblical counseling! No one! No way! Never!”

Well…I’d encourage you to read Donn Arms’ book review of Heath Lambert’s dissertation/book. Don’t have that much time? Here are some snippets—from Donn Arms.

“Most biblical counselors would dismiss the term schizophrenia as an unhelpful and confusing label. Heath Lambert has demonstrated, however, that the term has validity as a literary genre. The Biblical Counseling Movement After Adams is a number of contradictory things. It is a respectful recounting of the contributions of Jay Adams and a collection of harsh and unkind epithets about the man and his followers. It is both a carefully researched Ph. D. thesis and grievous academic malpractice. It identifies important issues within the biblical counseling movement and embraces as authoritative, shoddily constructed straw men. Lambert praises concepts he himself finds questionable, and confuses movement with maturity, differences with development, and provocation with progress. Upon a careful reading of this book, biblical counselors who are familiar with the issues reported here will be made both thankful and appalled.”

And:

“He [Lambert] seeks to identify specific areas where, in his view, Adams’ work was deficient—even erroneous—and marshals support for his conclusions by quoting as authoritative those who do not share his deep respect for Adams—many of whom have misrepresented Adams, and questioned his integrity, character, and scholarship.”

And:

“As a credible scholarly work The Biblical Counseling Movement After Adams was doomed from the beginning.”

And:

“…while Lambert is willing to critique, criticize, and at times condemn Adams and his ‘first generation’ writings, there is only praise and commendation for Powlison and his ‘second generation’ colleagues. In most of the book, Adams serves as a foil, a warden from whom the ‘second generation’ has been able to free the movement. Lambert quotes some outrageous things these ‘second generation’ men have written about Adams and his followers as though they are authoritative and gives them a pass.”

And:

“While Lambert believes these differences are the result of growth and maturity in the movement, a careful examination of Lambert’s evidence often reveals a departure from what is biblical and helpful and is a retreat back to the mindset of the pre-nouthetic Rogerian practices of our forefathers which Adams inveighed against over 40 years ago.”

And:

“Here Lambert identifies two areas where he believed Adams was deficient and lauds the second generation for correcting them. First is the issue of suffering.”

After quoting what Lambert’s book said about Jay Adams, Arms writes:

“Adams, of course, believed no such thing.”

“Over and over again these straw men about Jay Adams and his followers are served up and Lambert cites them as authoritative. He questions none of it. Instead, their observations are cited as ‘progress’ within the biblical counseling movement rather than condemned as the slander that they are.”

Arms continues:

“The second issue Lambert cites is that of motivation and he begins the discussion with the claim that ‘Adams’ view of the dynamics of sin is unusual.’ In fact, he claims ‘it is a theological innovation’” (page 67).

“This ‘second generation’ view of motivation is hardly progress. It is a view of the heart that Adams has been criticizing and opposing for the last 20 years. This is not building on Adams’ work, it is a rejection of it.”

Next, under the header of “How Biblical Counselors Do Counseling,” Arms writes:

“Here Lambert seeks to make the case that ‘second generation’ counselors have advanced in their methodology by rejecting Adams’ tendency ‘to obscure the importance of building loving relationships with counselees’ (page 88). Here again Lambert quotes as authoritative those who paint Adams as a harsh, uncaring, authoritarian counselor. 

“Lambert concludes the chapter by comparing Adams to Job’s counselors ‘. . . who had a monolithic view of Job as a sinner. They ministered to Job in a static and ultimately unhelpful way. Their counsel failed because they did not identify with Job as a sufferer or seek to minister to him accordingly.’”

“Lambert has demonstrated here that there is a stark difference between Adams and the CCEF orb. The difference isn’t one of development or maturity as Lambert postulates. The ‘second generation’ approach is a retreat, a throwback to pre-nouthetic times when relationship trumped truth and commiseration with a counselee was called ‘counseling.’”

Next, under the header of “How Biblical Counselors Talk About Counseling,” Arms says of Lambert:

“In this chapter Lambert seeks to make the case that Adams drew the wrong conclusions from his failed attempts to interact with secular counselors and integrationists.”

“For Lambert ‘the biblical counseling movement has a responsibility to engage an atheistic society and the surrounding culture’ though he does not explain why. For Adams, the believer has a responsibility to evangelize, not engage—proclaim, not dialog. The theologian has nothing to learn from a Mormon. An astronomer has nothing to gain from the astrologer. Biblical counselors can hope to find no help from the secular psychologist. Those who seek to influence their integrationist friends find they become influenced instead.”

As Arms moves to the conclusion of his charges against Lambert, Arms writes:

“Lambert has, probably unwittingly, demonstrated the distain many in the CCEF orb have for their founder. In one place or another in his book Lambert quotes them referring to Adams and his nouthetic model as “stoic,” “bombastic,” “indifferent to suffering,” “insensitive,” “harsh,” “ignores clear themes of Scripture,” “approaches counselees with a condemning, self-righteous spirit,” “cheap and platitudinous,” “unbalanced,” “legalistic,” “moralistic,” “behavioristic,” “immature,” “sees counselees in a monolithic way as sinners,” has a “stand above you as one who has arrived” character, and is “less than biblical.”

“Twenty years ago one could read and hear countless secular and eclectic counselors scorch Adams for his views and the caricatured portraits they painted of him. One does not hear so much of it from that camp today. Today, they have been replaced by Adams’ ‘friends.’”

“Hear then, Lambert’s conclusion to the whole matter. Comparing Adams and his ‘first generation’ counselors to the CCEF ‘second generation’ Lambert concludes that ‘The movement is more thoughtful; it is more caring; it is learning to speak more wisely and loving to outsiders—the movement is more biblical’ (page 159). Does any of this really sound wise, or caring, or more loving? Indeed, is this more biblical than Jay Adams?”

And Donn’s final words: 

“My advice to the reader? Buy this book and see for yourself. Just be careful not to read it too close to an open flame. Straw men are easily combustible.”

And Now… 

I’ve done several Google searches to see if Heath ever provided a response to Donn. If he did, I have not found it. I also searched to see if Donn ever retracted or redacted his critique of Heath’s book. If he did, I have not found it.

Now, I imagine that Donn would agree with at least some of Heath’s article on zombie-infected priests. So I am not quoting Donn in any way to indicate that he and Heath see the current scene differently. I also know that Donn does not see eye-to-eye with me in everything I’ve ever written about Jay. So I am not quoting Donn in any way to imply alignment.

Heath, Jay, and Zombie-Infected Priests 

I’m about 100% positive that Heath does not think he did to Jay Adams what Heath says zombie-infected priests are doing to faithful biblical counselors—demean and mischaracterize. So I would sincerely ask Heath:

In light of Donn Arms article, how is your treatment of Jay Adams different from what you accuse zombie-infected priests of doing to faithful biblical counselors? 

Was your dissertation/book in any way communicating, “move away from our past convictions and embrace beliefs very different from the ones espoused by the bright lights of our movement” (as you moved away from the bright light of Jay Adams and the “first generation of biblical counselors”)?

Was your dissertation/book in need of the same confrontation you gave? “You do not have to spend your energy demeaning and mischaracterizing those of us who have devoted our lives to sharing the truth of Scripture with people in pain.”

Did your dissertation/book “disrupt life in the garden” as it had existed between what you labeled “the first generation of biblical counselors” and “the second generation”? Is the response by Donn any indication that you had created a disruption?

Heath, today you said in your latest missive, “When counseling practitioners debate other counseling approaches, it is easy to get entrenched in your own perspective and mischaracterize the positions of others with whom you disagree.” Based upon the feedback from your brother, Donn Arms, is it possible that you have mischaracterized the positions of others with whom you disagree in the past with Jay Adams, and in the present with fellow biblical counselors?

If Donn Arms was right, would your confrontation of others perhaps fit yourself? “But that change will require a humble embrace of the truth. You will have to admit where you’ve been wrong. You’ll have to retract public statements you’ve made. You will have to stop publicly opposing faithful ministers of the Word.”

This Is Relevant to the Current Conversation (If It Is to Be a Conversation and Not Just a Monologue) 

This is important. Heath sprinkled throughout his zombie post statements which were “conversation stoppers.” In essence Heath was saying,

“I can write against you folks because I am biblical and I am speaking truth in love. However, since you are unbiblical if you respond negatively to me, you are proving your unfaithfulness by publicly opposing faithful ministers of the Word like me and those who align with me.”

Well, which is it?

Can we have intramural discussions in our biblical counseling world where someone like Heath can strongly take to task Jay Adams?

Or, is it divisive and demeaning if anyone publicly espouses views different from Heath—even if they develop those views biblically?

I honestly want to know. Is it okay if someone responds to Heath, or does that automatically indicate opposing faithful ministers of the Word? Is this truly a mutual conversation among mature brothers and sisters in Christ?