If pain is and symptoms are the primary category for resolve, then you're not opening up what some of the core existential therapists like Rolo May in the 30s and 40s began to underscore. So a approach therapeutically that is primarily symptom oriented, I would say already is barking up the proverbial wrong tree. And so we can begin with as being made in the image of God is everyone worships. The question is, who do you worship? WhatDo you worship? And how do you in some sense ritualize that worship? If we can allow that to be the basis, even in the midst of dealing with some of the symptoms that brought you in, then it's less
Curtis talks with the “elder statesman” of Christian counseling, Dan Allender, about how therapy has influenced the American church - in much needed and also problematic ways. They explore how therapy has provided an important place for Christians to bring to Jesus the real, hard, and sometimes traumatic realities of life - often in ways that the church could not. They also examine how “moralistic therapeutic deism” increasingly describes the actual civil religion of Americans.
For examples of great books by Dan and his lifelong friend, Tremper Longman III, consider these two classics: Bold Love and The Cry of the Soul: How Our Emotions Reveal Our Deepest Questions About God.
For the original description of “moralistic therapeutic deism” as the religion of American youth, check out Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers by Christian Smith and Melina Lundquist Denton.
Sponsorship details for Good Faith can be found here.