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“Sadly, I do not have high hopes that the biblical counseling movement will reach a resolution in this current conflict. Private mediation efforts have failed, and public requests are being ignored. These moments point to deeper existential questions confronting the biblical counseling movement.” - London Lyceum

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Discussion

Wed, 10/21/26

This is a really interesting read. I hadn’t been paying attention to goings on within the BC movement, but it is not surprising that there is conflict. It was founded on conflict, and has always suffered from significant internal-consistency problems in its arguments.

The author pretty much blames the divisiveness in BC on its becoming ‘fundamentalist’ about BC affiliations rather than actual points of disagreement. Which about sums up the whole thought landscape (if it can be called that) everywhere the last decade. I would call it tribalism, not fundamentalism.

A sample…

The Association of Certified Biblical Counselors continues to marginalize and push out dissident voices to reflect the homogeneous ethos, temperament, and theological convictions of independent Baptists, dispensationalists, and Bible church leaders, as evidenced by the signatories of The Sufficiency Statement.41 The Association of Biblical Counselors (ABC), the Biblical Counseling Coalition, and the Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation (CCEF) are continuing to resource and support successful biblical counseling ministries among a broader evangelical audience.

The root of the conflict over the name “biblical counseling” and questions of identity, boundaries, and gatekeeping is the fundamentalist impulse to practice “second degree” separation. Many separatist-type biblical counselors are quite content to operate within their ministry silos. But for some, something still eats at them. They are unable to practice separation with a clean conscience if those identified as theologically “liberal” still call themselves “biblical counselors.” The Biblical Counseling Coalition represents the exact thing they cannot tolerate—cooperation and fellowship with “compromisers.”

What is the solution? They (evangelical biblical counselors) are not real biblical counselors. They are an infection, a zombie-virus.42 They are not historic biblical counselors.

So… humans continue to act like humans and demonstrate their need for growth in sanctification.

I would certainly like to see the debate become propositional again rather than identity-based. As long as people are focused what looks like what and sounds like what (all in reference to identities) rather what is true and what is not true, nothing will be solved.

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

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Wed, 10/21/26

Part of the problem, IMO, is that people on one side (such as Heath Lambert) continue to make very bombastic (and frankly silly) statements that don’t interact with substance. To compare trauma informed biblical counseling to mistress informed marriage was completely out of line, and I don’t think it is that uncommon. After the debate at the Rice Lectures, Lambert put out videos that did the same sort of things. Hopefully someone in that movement has the spirit of Adams (or at least the misconception of the spirit of Adams) to call him out on that nonsense. While my sympathies lie towards the position of ACBC, the rhetoric of some is shameful and should be repudiated and repented of.

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