The church and therapy do not always go together. I am not one of those who believes that therapy and faith necessarily conflict, though they can because of harm and/or misunderstanding. Sometimes therapy is needed within the context of church, and vice-versa.
This is not a knock against therapy. I’ve been in therapy. Probably could use it again. I believe that there is a need for therapy, inside and outside of the church.
I do wonder, however, if the church is hiding something about therapy. There is no question that the church has been both the community for the non-normative and has not been the community for the non-normative.
Therapy Defaults
What I’ve been thinking about, though, is that too often in the church there are two default regarding therapy: “we have the Bible” and faith, so therapy is unneeded; or “we have the Bible” with all the answers, thus therapy is anti-Biblical or anti-God.
While I understand why some Christians might feel that way, I’m wondering if we’ve created a nascent monster with this perspective.
What if the default church perspective of therapy is bad, ends up producing a whole bunch of people who don’t see the problem, thus don’t want to deal with the fix?
One of the biggest aspects of holiness and sanctification (across traditions) is change. In particular, being changed by God. What if it is not just “the sins” that we don’t want to address, but ourselves?
What if those who don’t want to change through therapy are also those who don’t want to change through the power of the Holy Spirit? I do believe therapy and holiness/sanctification can happen in harmony, or affect different aspects of our lives.
I wonder if we Protestants (in particular) become so obsessed with Original Sin, that we are unable to look at humanity and change without the lens. Actually, I don’t wonder.
Paul’s Issue
1For I don’t understand what I am doing. For I do not do what I want—instead, I do what I hate. But if I do what I don’t want, I agree that the law is good. But now it is no longer me doing it, but sin that lives in me. For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For I want to do the good, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but I do the very evil I do not want! Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer me doing it but sin that lives in me.
Romans 7:15–20 NET
There is a needle that needs to be threaded. While Paul might have had a struggle with a particular sin, and identified such as a sin, that doesn’t mean that the presumed predilection toward sin is all that is involved.
Anyone whose done any sort of therapy should be able to look at Paul’s words and see the similarity to issues or trains of thought that are often dealt with through therapy. This does not challenge the Bible, it’s authority, nor sin. That’s an oversimplification of sin and therapy.
Desire
There’s the old joke:
How many therapists does it take to change a lightbulb?
None! The lightbulb has to want to change itself.
Yes, it’s a bad joke. However, as a pastor, a therapy client, and a person seeing therapy to help people, there is a lot of truth to this.
Paul wants to change. His take is that God will use his (Paul’s) weakness for God’s glory. We actually don’t hear much more about it (yes, we do hear some more about it). However, too many Christians take Paul’s revealed message from God and turn it into doctrine on therapy…which it isn’t.
Do people really think that if Paul had another tool to not suffer from his desire to sin that he wouldn’t do it? I would hope not. Paul didn’t, however, have that tool. We do.
To change, however, takes more than a baptism. It takes a decision. It takes a willingness to utilize all the tools available. It takes a decision to face the pain and decisions that got one to that point, and to deal with it.
Choosing Healing
There is a theologian (who I won’t name because his name, understandably, riles up a bunch of people, who were they to read his name would through me under the bus) who makes an interesting argument that we have to agree from our brains to our cells (yes, I know brains are made of cells, but you know what I mean) to be healed.
I think he makes a good point, and has some good thinking behind it. While I don’t agree with it completely, on the other hand, I’ve had too many conversations where, “I did it again. I’m trying to be better.”
Then you unpack it, and it’s “trying” while using only one’s will power to course correct, which doesn’t work very well. In AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) and CR (Celebrate Recovery), there is an understanding that we don’t do it well on our own. AA, CR and even secular programs all have a community, system, and overseer (higher power, Jesus Christ, science) that girds the programs.
In other words, a lot of people who say they want change really mean they want the change without the pain, discipline, or realization required for the real change. Hey, New Year’s Resolutions are the perennial poster child of this.
Consumerism = Therapy
There is a strong belief that consumerism has battered at the church and its foundations of accountability and transformation. This is more particularly about congregants. This is not to blame congregants. The wider culture is consumeristic. What if, however, the true danger of consumerism isn’t buying unneeded cruft, but what consumerism has really become…a drug or a therapy.
This is not about some stereotype of some rich white female talking about “shopping therapy.” This is about people being inundated with messaging about a problem (real or imagined) that can be fixed by a product. I’ll take an easy one.
When HD TV first game out there were gushing reviews of being able to see things is such clarity. Now we have 4K (and soon 8K) televisions whose selling point will be, now you can see things in greater clarity! Why change the pitch when it works? And, it will work.
When I was a child, I remember the great shows on animals, especially David Attenborough’s stuff. Would HD improved the images I saw? Yes, would it have fundamentally changed what I’d gained from watching those shows? No. Clarity was never the issue, but it became one.
Christians Should Know the Plot
For indeed I would not have known what it means to desire something belonging to someone else if the law had not said, “Do not covet.” But sin, seizing the opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of wrong desires.
Romans 7:7–8 NET
Consumerism is, to a great extent, a continuation of this same thinking, but Christians have missed the plot, though they’ll often be glad to point this out when it comes to sin.
I bring consumerism into this because I think this may be what kills off much of the church. People have been trained (even in the church) to expect quick fixes and the newest thing will fix what the older thing couldn’t. People church hop as part of this.
I have started to wonder if people leave a church because they don’t really want to be seen or change. I know that that statement will cause some angst. It causes me some.
True church community requires humility, vulnerability, genuineness, and love. I know people say that they want that, but do they? They get challenged on a particular issue or they’re asked uncomfortable questions and now the church they were at is no longer for them.
I don’t know how to recover this because I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced the full expression of church community. It’s not very American, at least from what I can tell. I’m not sure we can get back to something most of us probably have fully experienced. And that’s sad.
