The Independent Fundamental Baptist church is famous for their support of the Nouthetic Counseling movement and their rejection of psychology. They teach that psychology is sinful because it has roots in secular humanism and the only way to heal mental health issues is to use the Word of God for counseling.<\/p>\n
For those of you who aren’t familiar with Nouthetic counseling here is a brief overview:<\/p>\n
Nouthetic counseling is just a fancy way of saying Biblical Counseling or in other words, the use of ONLY the Bible for counseling. Proponents of Nouthetic counseling claim it is a Christ centered, “directive” way of counseling, as opposed to most secular “non-directive” counseling methodology. It uses the authority of God to be confrontational and discerning. Nouthetic counseling includes the following: discerning sin or wrong doings in the counselee; admonishing; confronting with the Word of God; motivating for change; providing direction from the Scripture; teaching the word of God; leading the counselee to confession, repentance, reconciliation and restoration; supporting and encouraging the counselee in his walk with God.<\/p>\n
The flagship scripture of the Nouthetic counseling movement is 2 Timothy 3:16-17 “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, reprofe, correction and instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be thoroughly furnished unto all good works” (KJV).<\/em> They teach that these two verses show that the Bible can be used for “instructing” and “correcting” all issues in life including mental health issues. They believe this because they teach that mental heath issues are the result of sin and that one only needs to purge the sin in one’s life through the use of scripture. They teach that if you pray hard enough, read scripture more, and have enough faith that there is no issues that can’t be corrected. They teach that serious mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, addiction are the result of sin and that they are in fact sin themselves. They take scripture out of context and use such verses as “And I myself also am persuaded of you, my brethren, that ye also are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish (or “competent to counsel” as interpreted by Jay Adams) one another.”<\/em> Romans 15:14.<\/p>\n There are many other verses that are taken out of context and misinterpreted to support their belief such as Acts 20:31 and 1 Corinthians 4:14. The 2 Timothy 3:16-17 passage, for example, really has nothing to do with mental health. The purpose of Paul writing that letter to Timothy was to remind him that the Bible is our guide for life and the filter by which we are to test things to see if they are true or not. It shows us how to live for Christ and what we need to do to live holy lives. The danger comes when scripture is applied to an area of life that it wasn’t intended to apply to. Just as when someone is physically sick they seek a doctor, when someone is mentally ill they seek a mental health practitioner.<\/p>\n