The Future of Biblical Counseling, Part 4

The Future of Biblical Counseling
Dreaming a Dozen Dreams

Part 4: Dream Number Three
Biblical Counseling Will Be Historical

Welcome to a multi-part Blog on The Future of Biblical Counseling. We need clarity on the issue of what makes biblical counseling biblical. I invite you to join the conversation.

Dream Number Three: Biblical Counseling Will Be Historical

The future of biblical counseling is the past. During the last twenty years we have witnessed the Christian community returning to its proper respect for that “great cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1-3). History, Chesterton reminded us, is “the democracy of the dead.”[i]

Counseling Wars

I vividly and sadly recall the “counseling wars” that occurred while I was in seminary—wars pitting competing modern counseling “camps” against each other. I also recall thinking, “Surely the Church has always helped hurting and hardened people.” That sentence sent me on a quarter-century search for the legacy of Christian soul care and spiritual direction. Simultaneous to that, God’s Spirit was moving many others along the same path.

Returning to the Ancient Paths

Biblical counselors of the future will return to the ancient paths (Jeremiah 6:16). They will seek and apply the ancient legacy and consensual wisdom for living found in the writings of great historic Christian soul physicians.

Church historian Thomas Oden illustrates how blatantly we have discarded the grand wisdom of the great cloud of witnesses. He examined how in the 19th Century those who wrote about pastoral counseling quoted copiously from believers of the past. He then compared how those who wrote about pastoral counseling in the 20th Century quoted exclusively from contemporary or past secular counselors and not once from Church history.[ii]

It is well past time to return to past times—to seek wisdom from those who have gone before. We can learn from them how to change lives in our changing times with Christ’s changeless truth.

[i]G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger, 2004, p. 3.
[ii]Thomas Oden, “Recovering Lost Identity.” The Journal of Pastoral Care 34 (March 1980): 4-19.

A Scholar's Treasure Hunt

A Scholar’s Treasure Hunt

*A Review of, Thomas C. Oden, How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind: Rediscovering the African Seedbed of Western Christianity

Thomas Oden’s How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind was not the book I expected when I read the title. It was different, it was more, it was less, it was challenging, and it was and is important.

Oden, recently retired after a distinguished professorial career, is perhaps one of the most renowned Church historians of our day. His four-volume opus on the history of pastoral care is a classic, for instance.

Oden now sees as his life’s work, for the remainder of his life, the uncovering of the buried treasure of African Christianity. Of course, what one means by “African” is crucial. Oden wisely steers clear of much modern and post-modern imbalance here. He avoids the Euro-centric approach that diminishes anything African as being simply borrowed from European culture and thinking. On the other hand, he equally avoids an “Africa first” framework that presumes that everything has its roots in Africa.

For Oden, and for How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind, the “Africa” he speaks of is anything that happened on the African continent and anyone who lived and ministered on that continent. This avoids the endless debate, for instance, about which Church Father was or was not “African.” How does one define that? By skin color? And by what amount of pigmentation? By nationality? Why wouldn’t any nation in Africa be by definition African? By ancestry?

The ancestry issue coupled with geographical/cultural impact is Oden’s most important contribution. In sum, he argues that even if Augustine, for instance, had a father whose ancestry was Greco-Roman, would that mean that Augustine, living his entire life in Africa was not African? Additionally, given that his famous mother, Monica, was almost definitely of Berber (north African) descent, would that not make Augustine African? And just as important to Oden, can we wipe out the impact on Augustine’s parents and on Augustine of living in the African geography and partaking of the African culture?

So, for Oden, “African Christianity” is the Christianity of any person who was born and/or lived on the African continent. Thus, for Europeans to claim Augustine, Origen, Tertullian, and others is a robbery of immense proportion in Oden’s thinking.

Given this perspective, Oden’s entire book is actually a call for others to build upon his small start. It is a call to take seriously the oral and written tradition of material spoken and penned on the African continent. It is then a call to explore the past, present, and future impact of that legacy.

For the past impact, Oden wants to examine how African Christian theology and practical Christianity shaped and interacted with non-African Christianity. For the present and the future, Oden hopes that such increased understanding of the enduring African Christian legacy will validate and encourage modern African Christians regarding their heritage, will open the doors for African seekers to understand that to convert to Christianity is not betraying their heritage, but returning to it, and to encourage all Christians to learn from and with modern day African Christianity.

Some will find in How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind more ecumenism than they find palatable. However, one does not have to agree with Oden’s entire perspective or agenda to learn from him and appreciate his fair and balanced historical perspective.

For anyone wanting to sort through the current debate in a scholarly way, Oden is the person to read. For anyone wanting to enliven their appreciation of the ancient African Christian faith, How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind is the book to devour.

Reviewer: Bob Kellemen, Ph.D., is the author of Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction, Soul Physicians, and Spiritual Friends.