Revisit to "The Seduction of Christianity" Part three

Tom:

Thanks, Gary. Dave, as we wrap up our revisiting the book we co-authored fifteen years ago, it’s only fitting that we discuss, what I think was the most controversial subject we addressed: the growing influence of psychology in the church. Now, people were shocked that we would include that as a part of the seduction taking place. After all, some of the rising stars in evangelical Christendom, from James Dobson, to Minereth and Myer, I mean, they were psychologists or psychiatrists. More pastors were turning to that field to assist them in their calling. Did we blow it on that one?

Dave:

You mean by saying that there was something unbiblical about so called Christian psychology?

Tom:

Right.

Dave:

No, I don’t think so. Maybe we should, at this point, Tom, mention something. After we wrote that book any number of talk show hosts, Christian talk show hosts, I think some secular ones as well, radio or television, approached those that we had mentioned in the book, approached them about coming on radio or television on their programs with me. Not one agreed. Well, I take that back, there was Jose Silva, the founder of Silva Mind Control, now called Silva Method, an outright occultist, he came on the John Ankerberg Show. Now, that includes all of the well known Christian psychologists. They were all asked: Would you come on? John Ankerberg asked them--others asked them: Would you come on and discuss these issues from the Scriptures? They wouldn’t do it, not one of them. Now, I find that unfortunate because I think that the church would benefit greatly from an open forum, an open discussion. We have raised some serious questions, not only we but other people like Martin and Deidre Bobgan and a number of others, have addressed this. There’s the issue of self esteem, the issue of self love and self acceptance and self image and so forth. And it wasn’t just the Christian psychologists but many leading pastors and others who had picked this up and were teaching the same thing. I think that the church would benefit if we could have an open forum, an open discussion. As you know, recently “Christianity Today”, frequently has not only ads but articles, and not too long ago they had an article written by a Christian psychologist specifically attacking me by name. Well, lets say, not attacking me, lets say, saying that Dave Hunt and John McArthur, he was also mentioned--

Tom:

For him, problems writing about the sufficiency of Christ.

Dave:

That right. And, saying that the Scripture is sufficient--we don’t need psychology--this is a Johnny-come-lately--this is something new, the church didn’t have it for nineteen hundred years--why do we need it now and so forth. I wrote what I thought was a good article in response. “Christianity Today” would not allow it. So, it’s been very difficult to bring this discussion into the public arena in the church.

Tom:

Dave, I just want to interject this because we are referring to the book, The Seduction of Christianity. Now, most of the complaints, at least initially--I won’t say most of the complaints, but we did have complaints for mentioning those who were in the Word Faith, for those who were into inner healing, for those who were into particular things that we at least, at the very least challenged them as to whether these things were biblical or not. But nothing created a furor. It’s almost as if one part of the church said, well, it’s okay to deal with these hyper faith guys, but now you are talking about highly visible, main stream evangelicals. Now there was a problem. As a matter of fact, as I remember it, for all of your speaking on this subject throughout the country, psychology, when you addressed that issue, you know, you’ve been asked not to come back. From what you would consider to be conservative evangelicals. Why is that?

Dave:

Well, Tom, you just said it. You said highly visible, you didn’t use the word “popular” but they are very popular, well accepted personalities. So people took offense at that. How dare you question this person or that person! I mean, he’s so highly respected. It wasn’t that they said: Now, wait a minute. Lets go to the Bible and lets check this out again. You’re disagreeing with the Bible. Nobody ever said that to me. They said: But this person is so highly respected. How could you possibly even entertain the idea that they might be wrong. Well, I don’t care how highly respected a person is, the issue is, is it biblical or is it not biblical? That’s what we have to decide. So, when you go to the Scriptures--

Tom:

Let’s go to 11 Timothy:3:1This is a true saying, If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.
See All...,2: “Know this also, that in the last days perilous times shall come for men shall be lovers of their own selves.” Lets look for an example or lets address an example: self esteem. That’s the cornerstone of most, “Christian psychology.” Is that biblical?

Dave:

No, it is not biblical.

Tom:

Well, it’s Biblical in the sense that it’s a problem which this Scripture just addressed.

Dave:

Nowhere does the Bible encourage us to think well about ourselves. Philippians:2:3Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.
See All... says: “...in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself.” If you want to go to the examples in Scripture , go to Moses at the burning bush. Remember, God came down and said: Moses, I want you to go to Egypt and deliver my people. And, Moses said: Don’t ask me, I’m no good, I’m no deliverer, I can’t do anything. He apparently had very low self esteem. And, God didn’t say to him: Well, Moses, that’s your problem, you know--I’ll give you about six months of Christian psychological counseling and I’ll teach you how to, you know, feel good about yourself and have a high sense of self worth and self esteem and a good self image and so forth and then you will be fit to be a deliverer. No, God said, Moses, I have chosen you because you’re the meekest man on the face of the earth and I’m going to take the meekest man on the face of the earth and I’m going to use you to confront the mightiest emperor in his palace, on his turf, to deliver my people so that God will have the glory--no man will have the glory. Or you could go to Job. Job said: “I have heard of thee with the hearing of the ear; now that I seeth thee, wherefore I hate myself, I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes.” Christian psychologists say that’s horrible! Don’t let anybody feel that way about themselves. I mean, you have to have a sense of self worth. Otherwise, if we’re not worth anything, why would God love us? And, look at the Cross—why that shows the value, that’s how highly God values us. No, if you want to be honest with yourself you would have to say that the Cross would do anything but give you a sense of self esteem and of self worth. Because it was my sins that nailed Him there and it was because of my sin that He had to reach so deep into the depth of the muck and mire of evil that is in my heart. That’s what the Cross is all about--redeeming me from my sin and myself. It’s not a measure of my self worth. And, I cannot walk the golden streets one day and say Oh God, it’s wonderful about your grace and your love and how you died for me but after all, you did it because I was worth it, because I was of such great value to you. No. John the Baptist said: You say we’re Abraham’s seed (he’s talking to the Jews) God is able of these stones to raise up seed unto Abraham. So why am I of such great value? God doesn’t need me. It’s because of His love and love just doesn’t love those who are valuable or lovable. In fact, He loves us in spite of our unworthiness.

Tom:

The point I was trying to make is that in earlier shows we talked about how an erroneous teaching, call it a false doctrine or whatever, but something that’s taken from fallen finite humanity, some concept that’s developed. It’s introduced into the church and it might be a small thing that the church begins to build on--I’m not talking about psychologists, but some of the leading evangelists who have been the major promoters of the idea of self esteem being a doctrine of the church--that’s shocking. But what they don’t recognize is that when you start with a false idea, just as you laid out the development in terms of ideas related to self esteem, you end up changing or altering the character of God. Now, I’m worth so much that Christ went to the Cross because I was worth it. What does that tell us about God? Did He die for my sake, for my worth or because of who He is? You see, I’ve got a big problem there.

Dave:

Right. The Cross is about the vindication of God’s holy character and His justice and that He does not compromise. These people teach, for example, one of the leaders says, Christ died for us because we’re really somebodys and if we realize that He died for us then we realize that we’re somebodys. No, He didn’t die for somebodys. He died for sinners and that’s not going to build up my self esteem, it’s contrary. Tom, we could go on and on with this, but I would like to move to something else a little bit related to it, but just to put a closure on this topic--California, John Vasconcellos, the Assemblyman, started the Self Esteem Task Force. They worked for years. They spent hundreds of thousands of dollars researching this and even the secular psychologist and psychiatrist came to the conclusion that self esteem is a false teaching. The idea was that it was low self esteem, a bad self image that was bringing about pornography and drugs and crime and poor grades in school and if you would build up their self esteem then everybody would act properly. Well, they found out it isn’t true and even some of the students said what’s the point of even trying. No matter what you do they praise you for it. Now, if you did something worthwhile, you worked hard and you got good grades then that might cause you to feel good about yourself although if you are a Christian you realize that’s pride. But to tell somebody how wonderful they are is not going to help them to do a good job. And so, when the graduating high students take exams around the world and they grade them all around the world, they find out that American students are Number One in self esteem. They think they are the best but they are down near the bottom with the third world countries as far as math, science and language. And so, academically we are near the bottom but they build up the self esteem. So now, even the secular psychologists and psychiatrists have been saying: This doesn’t work. What we need is self control, that’s what the Bible teaches. What we need is some motivation to work hard, not just to look in a mirror and say, I love you, I love you, I love you. But this is what the Bible has been saying all along. Now, where did this idea come from? Let me quote Bruce Narimore. Bruce Narimore is the nephew of Clyde Narimore, who I would call one of the godfathers of Christian psychology. You remember, here’s Clyde Narimore on CBN being interviewed by Pat Robertson. And Pat says: Dr. Narimore, what do you think about someone like Jay Adams? Now, Jay Adams says basically, if you are a Christian, you know the Word of God, you’re mature in the faith, you’re filled with the Spirit, you are competent to counsel. Well, Clyde Narimore gets a rather patronizing look on his face and says: Well, you understand, he doesn’t have a degree. He doesn’t have a degree? He was teaching at a seminary--he had several degrees but they are in theology, not psychology. So, what Clyde Narimore means is: you’re not competent to counsel from the Bible unless you have a degree in psychology. So, now we had a whole new concept that was unknown to people like Luther, and Calvin, and Wesley, and Whitfield, and Spurgeon, and so forth. Nobody ever had such an idea that you have to go back to school and you’ve got to get a degree in psychology in order to be competent to counsel from the Word of God, but these are now the real heroes. So, here’s Bruce Narimore now, the nephew of Clyde Narimore, and he says--these are not the words of Dave Hunt or Tom McMahon, this is Bruce Narimore--he says it was humanistic psychologists, Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers, who first made us aware of the need of self love and self esteem. Now you could read the writings of the Christians down through the centuries and go back to the Bible itself, you will never find that idea. Nobody ever got that idea out of the Bible. Where did it come from? This is the wisdom of the world which Paul says in 1 Corinthians is foolishness with God. This is the idea that the world came up with because they don’t believe in God and they are trying to explain human behavior on purely scientific basis without God, and without the soul, and without the spirit, and without the Word of God, and they came up with the idea--we need to love ourselves--we need to esteem ourselves. You know, that was Eric Fromm back there and Nietzsche before him--greatly inspired Hitler--they were the ones that came up with this idea. And now it’s in some of our finest pulpits, so again we’re talking about The Seduction of Christianity. How is it seduced? By these ideas that have come in from the world and then we want to be academically respected. Now Tom, I’m talking too much, but let me make it clear and plain. Whether a psychologist or a psychiatrist is a Christian or an atheist, please, anybody out there listening understand this: You have to take the same courses, you have to give the same answers on the same exams, you are licensed by the same licensing bureaus, okay, so whether you call yourself a Christian or not, there is no such thing as Christian psychology. Christian psychology you say oh, this is a Christian psychologist, we’ve got a lot of Christian psychologists, they talk about Christian psychology. Well, go to any library, go to any textbook, look it up and try to find the listing in the index and any psychology textbook for Christian psychology. It does not exist. Why? Because there is no Christian who is the founder of a school of psychology known as Christian psychology. You’ll find Freudian, Jungian, Rogerian, Humanistic, Behavioristics, Transpersonal, Existensional, all kinds of psychologies--not a listing for Christian psychology. So, what is Christian psychology? Well, it’s an attempt to take the wisdom of this world--the ideas are godless, anti--they are all anti-Christians from Freud to Jung, to Rogers, you name them, they are anti-Christians, they come up with these theories. Now, we’re going to take their theories and we’re going to integrate it with the Bible as though the Bible needs some help. And now we are going to improve the Scriptures by integrating psychology with theology and we have come up with a hybrid called, Christian psychology, that never existed. Now Tom, I’m just getting a little worked up here, I’m sorry. Let me keep at it.

Christian psychology, furthermore, and I’m just being logical, it didn’t exist until a very few years ago, okay? So, if it has anything of any value to offer--the church was without it for nineteen hundred years. Now, apparently God somehow, through ignorance or oversight--whoa, I hate to say that but how are you going to explain? He left out of the Manufacturer’s Handbook, the Scriptures, something that is really important. And this is what they say: How are you going to help people with their problems today because we need psychology? Well, but the Bible says that He’s given us all things that pertain unto life and godliness to the knowledge of him who has called us to glory and virtue. And, the whole secret of the Christian life is not me struggling in my flesh to live up to some standard that I couldn’t possibly live up to but it’s allowing Christ to live His life in me. Well, I don’t think Christ in me, who is my life the Scripture says, I don’t think Christ in me needs any help from Freud or Jung or Rogers or anybody calling themselves a Christian psychologist who has drawn from the wisdom of this world. What I need is to get back to the Word of God. But now, what Christian psychology has done--it has undermined our confidence in the Word of God and they will blatantly say that the Bible is not enough. I remember when Moody Monthly, and I’m not saying that Moody Monthly--that these are bad people. These are Christians, they love the Lord, but again, they have been seduced by these ideas. On the front cover, it was Sam, this woman, remember, who had some problems. She went to a Christian psychologist who regressed her into the past--we haven’t had time even to talk about all of that stuff, but anyway, these are occult techniques and Christians are using them now--regressed her into the past, came out with memories--these are false memories, a False Memory Syndrome we call it now. She came out with memories of having been sexually abused by her father and being involved in satanic rituals and so forth, SRA, Satanic Ritual Abuse, and then, after a couple more years of therapy, she began to manifest multiple personalities. I mean, this has gotten to such an extreme that now--I have twenty personalities in me and they only were able to leave nineteen of them to Jesus. Am I going to go to hell because one of my personalities--or they will make such statements such as: you should let the dominant personality rule, you know, and so forth. This was never heard of. But the point I’m trying to make is: Moody Monthly, tragically said in that article: “Now you couldn’t just leave a person like this to prayer and Bible study repentance. They’ve got to have professional help.” So that brings us back to Clyde Narrimore on the 700 Club when he says: He doesn’t have a degree. Jay Adams doesn’t have a degree in psychology. How can he possibly counsel from the Word of God? So, we have undermined confidence in the Word of God, we now have a new clergy class, in fact it’s a new priesthood in the church. They have degrees, Ph.D’s in something that Paul never heard of. You can’t be a Berean because the Bereans checked Paul out from the Scriptures. But they say that there’s another source of God’s truth, Freud, Jung and so forth and you don’t have a degree in that. So, Tom, I would have to say it is one of the major problems in the church. And I don’t know whether we mentioned it on another program or not but you remember, we had a lunch with J. Vernon McGee?

Tom:

Yes, we haven’t mentioned that.

Dave:

You remember one of the things that he said?

Tom:

I think he was in his mid-eighties and I think he just lived a couple of years after that ,but he was a distraught guy when we had lunch with him.

Dave:

It was even less than that. I think it was a number of months but in those days he was promoting The Seduction of Christianity wherever he went and he had just been removed from his time honored position at Moody Radio from his noon hour, to a much less desirable time, to put in Minereth and Meyer. He said-- this is J. Vernon McGee now, not Dave and Tom, this is J. Vernon McGee--he said this is symptomatic of the decreasing biblical and increasing the humanistic content that we’re getting from Christian radio and television and Christian pulpits and books and so forth. He said if this trend continues Christian psychology will be the destruction of the evangelical church! Now, that’s how strongly I feel about it. I’m very concerned. The problem is--it isn’t biblical. It wasn’t in the Bible. You won’t find it there. The church knew nothing about it and therefore, either the church was at a disadvantage for nineteen hundred years and now suddenly we have this new thing that’s going to help us and we ought to be a whole lot better than the apostles. I mean, read of the martyrs and so forth, how did they get along without Christian psychology? Well, I guess they were at a disadvantage but we should be a lot better or this is not what we need at all and what we need is to get back to God’s Word, plain and simple.

Tom:

You know, Dave, the Scriptures are not only clear that this is not biblical, it actually speaks against it. You know, we quoted earlier 11 Timothy:3:1-2 [1] This is a true saying, If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work. [2] A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach;
See All...: “Mark my words, in the last days perilous times will come, men will be lovers of themselves.” It talks about the last days. We’re referring to The Seduction of Christianity, Spiritual Discernment in the Last Days. We know that humanity has always had a problem with pride, self love, I mean, from the garden on we’ve had that problem. But try and point to a generation in which the problem is being offered as the solution in the church!

Dave:

Seminars, teaching you how to love yourself.

Tom:

Exactly. So, I mean, this is scary stuff on the one hand, but on the other hand the Lord is still in charge and what we want to do in this program and the programs to come is to continue to encourage people. Yes, there is a lot going on out there. We don’t have to be nit pickers about this and that but there are things that are being promoted that you have to ask the question: Where do we find this in the Word of God? Are the Scriptures sufficient? Can the Scriptures guide me through these things?

Dave:

Is the Bible our guide or isn’t it?

Tom:

Yes.