I’ve been a bit concerned about some biblical counselors posting “95 Theses For Biblical Counseling,” not least for the (hopefully unintentional) implication that those who might disagree with them are in the same category as Roman Catholics and their indulgences were in Luther’s time.
Having said that, there are saner versions of this approach, a welcome contrast to the attempted return to the medieval times of biblical counseling which is undoing much of the wonderful reformation in biblical counseling that has been going on over the past 10-15 years.
I’ve written before about the mistake of equating the Reformation doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture with what some are arguing for in the biblical counseling movement. I’ve also highlighted how some modern versions of the sufficiency of Scripture are not just contrary to what the Reformers taught but actually end up unintentionally undermining the sufficiency of Scripture (here and here).
I’ve been close to entering this debate, not only to express concern about the damage that the aggressive tone and personal targeting is doing to the biblical counseling movement and its relationship with other Christians, but also to expose the internal confusion and inconsistency of some of the content. However, I discovered that Brad Hambrick, a biblical counselor that I highly respect, has decided to interact with Heath Lambert’s “95 Theses” and I’d commend this series to you. I’ll try to keep you updated as Brad posts subsequent articles.
In the meantime, you might want to have a look at these pages that present the case that Luther and Calvin were more “integrationist” than some would like to admit (see especially Table 1-2d). It looks like some versions of biblical counseling have more in common with Zwingli than with Calvin and Luther.
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