Jay Adams has agreed to be interviewed for SharperIron. The interview will probably occur later this week. If you’ve got a question you’ve always wanted to hear someone ask (or just a suggestion), I’d be happy to hear it.
How would he recommend a pastor/Christian counselor deal with an unregenerate counselee? What was his personal practice, and what did that process look like specifically?
What encourages you about the current state and future trajectory of nouthetic counseling? What causes you concern?
Name five nouthetic/Biblical counseling books other than your own that you would give a hearty endorsement to, and briefly explain why.
Is there a place for the professional Christian counselor outside of pastoral office and/or direct oversight of the local church? In light of the complimentarian/egalitarian conflicts out there as it relates to pastorl office, is there a place for professional women nouthetic counselors? in church ministry?
How do we know what we don't know? How can we know for sure that things like depression or irresponsible behavior cannot be caused by brain chemistry we have yet to discover, genes we have yet to decode, or chemical imbalances we have yet to realize?
For those of us who don't know, who is Jay Adams?
For those of us who don't know, who is Jay Adams?
For those of us who don't know, who is Jay Adams?
Yeah, that's a good one, too. We'll make sure we include some bio stuff in the article as well as some in the interview itself. Many would characterize Jay as the father of the biblical counseling movement, and I think "movement" is a good term for it. In the 1960's when he published Competent to Counsel there was not very much available for counseling resources for pastors and lay people who wanted to help people deal with their relationship and "emotional" problems from a biblical point of view. The attitude tended to be "leave it to the professionals," which mostly meant folks with little or no knowledge of, or regard for, the Bible. There were some Christian colleges/univs offering degrees, but these too were not usually emphasizing the Bible's role in solving human problems.
Jay's thesis was: most of these problems have to do with sin and what it does to us, so believers should be able to use the Bible to help other believers with the vast majority of these things... hence the title of his seminal book "Competent to Counsel."
In the years since--especially in the 80's and later I'd guess--there has been an explosion of resources from a much stronger biblical point of view, lots of authors, degrees at many Bible colleges, etc. Adams has been a huge factor in fueling that movement toward trying to use the Bible for all it's worth in helping sinners deal with their personal and inter-personal problems.
Great ideas. I know the answer to one of them because I heard it in another interview, but will probably include it anyway. And we'll have something pretty close to these others also. I'm interested in his take on what's happened on the whole "nouthetic" scene for the last 20 yrs and where he thinks it may be headed... and also its influence on non-nouthetic counseling--that is, biblical/christian counseling in general.
And his view of sanctification and how that impacts counseling efforts and what we tell counselees.