Baals Of Our Day
Yesterday I got all fired up about a Christian writing a psychological article on a Biblical Counseling web site. I could hardly contain myself and I may have skipped a few steps for some. I tried to tone it down by asking questions and saying very little.
I thought I would go back today and make a few comments.
First, what many people, even Biblical Counselors, don’t understand is that counseling psychology is a religious institution. I’ll try to write more about that as we go along but suffice it to say that that is one of the premises behind everything I write when I write about psychology.
Second, not only is psychology a religious institution, it is a contender for the hearts of God’s people. When Israel came out of Egypt, God warned them about taking the Egyptian gods with them and about worshipping the gods, called Baals, of the people who lived in the land he was about to give them. You can read about that in the Pentateuch (I really recommend that you read that portion of your Bible so that you can get God’s heart and mind toward what he thinks about our worshipping other gods).
Third, in the New Testament, God warns about Christians being worldly or carnal. In 1 Corinthians 1-3, for instance, God tells the Corinthians they are being carnal and not godly because they have divided themselves according to the categories of the world and are viewing life through the lens of those around them instead of through the lens of scripture. In this passage, he tells the Corinthians that they are the temple of God (3:16) and that anyone who defiles the temple, God will destroy (3:17). We often understand that Paul, here, is warning about sexual immorality because he says we are the temple of God in 2 Corinthians 6 and there the context is being unequally yoked. But if we look at the context of both passages, Paul is not telling us that we should be sexually pure, but that we should worship the Lord God and him only. The sex part in 2 Corinthians is related to idolatry. In both places, 1 Corinthians 3 and 2 Corinthians 6, Paul is telling Christians to come out from the world around us and be holy. This theme is the same throughout the whole Bible. What was worldly in the first century took the people away from God then, and in our day, what is worldly takes Christians away from God in our day. In the Old Testament, these idols are often called baals, in the New Testament, they are called philosophies, worldly wisdom, carnality, etc. Whatever we call them, the Bible, God is very consistent and careful to enjoin us not to fall in with and worship them.
Fourth, psychology is a Baal in our day. Psychology is the wisdom of the world. It is the secular attempt to describe, define, explain, and then prescribe who we are, how we should live, and who we should worship.
This is why I get so fired up when Christians use psychology in a way that is consistent with psychology’s views of the world. It is one thing to observe their work and carefully filter it through the lens of Scripture. It is another thing to observe their work and think that they have discovered some new thing. When you do that, you have begun drinking from the cool-aid and you are in serious trouble, headed down a long dark road following another god. This reminds me of a song lyric from early in my Christian life, “Never walk down a long dark road following a blind man. If he can’t see the way, you won’t find the light. If you’re trusting in yourself (or psychology), my friend, you’re trusting in a blind man. Put your faith in something solid, follow Jesus Christ” (I think it came from a song by Bob Cull).