From Pastor To Psychologist

Now, Religion in the News, a report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media.This week’s item is from thedenverpost.com February 6, 2007, with a headline:Disgraced Pastor Goes For Master’s Degree in Psychology.The following are excerpts:Former National Association of Evangelicals President and Pastor, the Reverend Ted Haggard emerged from three weeks of intensive counseling, convinced he is completely heterosexual, and told an oversight board that his sexual contact with men was limited to his accuser.Haggard broke a three-month’s silence in e-mails over the weekend to select members of his former church.In the message, Haggard revealed that he and his wife Gail, intend to leave Colorado Springs, and pursue master’s degrees in psychology through on-line courses.Among other things, the overseers urged Haggard to enter a 12-Step program for sexual addiction.Haggard’s restoration is being overseen by another panel, mega-church pastors Tommy Barnett and Jack Hayford, and H. B. London, who runs a Focus on the Family ministry to pastors.London said he was not surprised Haggard was considering the psychological field.“Many of us that go into the healing, helping professions do so out of some sort of disjunction or traumatic event in our lives. And we want to do what we can to help other people avoid what we’ve gone through,” he said.

Tom:

Dave, you know, I don’t like to pick on somebody who has sinned and then repented, we could all fall in one way or another.

Dave:

Well you know, what Moody said, seeing a drunk sag down the street, But for the grace of God go I.We could say that about anybody.Solomon said, As in water, face reflects face, so the heart of one man reflects the heart of another.

Tom:

Last week we talked about David and David’s sins, and so on.

Dave:

Right.

Tom:

But I think this is important to talk about because supposedly, the way he is going about, or has gone about resolving this issue, it seems almost like a play to the world.Well, wait a minute, I’m going to go to, and get this covered through psychotherapy, or we’ve going to see counseling, and so on.

Dave:

You remember Jimmy Swaggart?A Christian psychologist said his problem was he hadn’t gotten into psychology, in fact, he had criticized psychology.

Tom:

And, you know, I’ve read much of what this so-called therapy that Haggard went through, again, it’s not really his fault.You know, they can’t really figure out why he did this, and it was a one shot deal, an so on.But he is advancing something, obviously we just dealt that within him the first segment, and we have been talking about it for weeks.Now, psychology solved his problem and now he and his wife are going to get master’s degrees in psychology and now help the rest of the world.What is that?

Dave:

Tom, well, it’s just what we’ve been talking about, it’s absolutely staggering.Here was the head of the National Association of Evangelicals.I think his church had about 14,000 members.This is a man who is counseling others, who is a leader.Now, we don’t want to get into that, but this was also the center of the spiritual warfare program around the world, and that’s not good stuff.But anyway, blaming everything on demons, but now he realizes—it wasn’t that he didn’t know the Bible well enough, it wasn’t that he didn’t apply the scriptures to his daily life, it wasn’t that Christ was not in control of his life as he wanted to live his life through Him, but he didn’t allow that.It wasn’t that he was crucified with Christ, he had failed in that.We need to get back to this and see how did Paul do it, what did Christ do, what did He teach us, and so forth.The problem was he’s the head of the National Association of Evangelicals and he hasn’t gotten into psychology!That’s his problem!And now, he’s going to solve it.He’s going to get amaster’s in psychology, and he’s going to help other people!Wow!

So, where goes the Bible?Oh, well, of course, you know, we’ll give the Bible a little nod now and then, but the real solution is in psychology!Aren’t we grateful that these godless, anti-Christians came along and gave this to us!

Tom:

Dave, it’s tragic, it’s absolutely tragic.He’smaking an appeal to the world, because this is what the world knows and what the world respects, and at the same time he is just mocking, I think, the Word of God.

Dave:

Absolutely mocking it, because it doesn’t have a solution, that wasn’t his problem.Oh, yes, he knew the Bible, but that wasn’t his problem, that doesn’t have the solution.

Tom:

Now you would think some of these men that were mentioned in this article, Tommy Barnett, Jack Hayford, they would really straighten him out on this if they were biblical Christians going by the Word of God.And then, Dave, H. B. London, who runs the Focus on the Family ministry, now he would expect that.We’ve been saying this for years and years, that for all the good that Focus on the Family has done, it is an integrationist organization.

Dave:

Right.

Tom:

They promote psychology, psychotherapy as well as, if you can do this, you know, supposedly, Christianity and the Bible.

Dave:

They promote the idea that the Bible is insufficient, and now he says, Well, of course, I mean, that’s why most of us, or many of us, went into this healing, helping profession, because we had these problems ourselves.That’s exactly what I found out when I went to university the first year—why were all these psyche majors running around the campus?Because they had such messed up lives, and they hoped that psychology would figure it out for them, and the same went for the professors.But now, Tom, they’ve urged him to enter a 12-Step program, we’ve probably talked a little bit about that in the past.

Tom:

If any of our audience, our listeners, those watching on our video, if any of them would like more information about this, go to our website, thebereancall.org, and you need all of that, or you go to a bogus website.We have this information, we have been looking at it for years and years and years, and we have, whether it be on 12-Steps, Celebrate Recovery, all of these programs—

Dave:

Celebrate Recovery—Tom, you went down there to learn to be a counselor—

Tom:

I was trained in that to understand and to get a better idea of the program.

Dave:

Rick Warren’s program, and it’s in thousands of churches.

Tom:

Forty-five hundred churches.

Dave:

And he says it has nothing to do with Alcoholic’s Anonymous, in fact, well, Tom, you could tell us, it comes right out of the church.

Tom:

It is the 12-Steps program, only now we have put Jesus in.We are recovering, but now we’re recovering in the name of Christ, but we are still in a process of recovery.

Dave:

And you never reach that—

Tom:

It’s not biblical, Dave, you can’t find it anywhere.

Dave:

It’s a tragedy, and Tom, is anybody listening to us?Tom, it’s very difficult to say—well, it’s easy to say what we are saying and what we are saying is the truth.We challenge anybody to say that it’s wrong, give the data, but people do not want to hear this—Well, I tried the Bible, and it doesn’t work.Because you are not willing to walk by faith according to the Word of God.So now you are saying, I guess God doesn’t know what’s He’s talking about, He lied to us, or it’s not sufficient, and Tom, it is spreading everywhere, and we are doing our best to try and help people, but they are not going to get help in that direction.