SWBTS’s counseling track stresses church’s role

“That was a very challenging context because of how prominent the disaster was,” Babler said. “That has been probably the most poignant situation—the most challenging situation—that I’ve addressed.”

Babler, associate professor of counseling at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, traveled to Haiti to train pastors and other Christian leaders how to counsel people amid the pain and loss wrought by the earthquake. One Haitian woman especially challenged him. Her husband, a pastor, died in the earthquake. Despite her grief, she attended Babler’s class with a desire to minister to others.

Widespread disaster compelled Christian leaders like this woman to offer counsel to their suffering neighbors. In contrast, Babler noted, few ministers or churches within the United States feel able or obliged to offer counsel to those in need.

“Many years ago,” Babler said, “the church became very comfortable with outsourcing counseling. In fact, for years, the primary teaching in seminary for pastors and others was the defer-and-refer mentality: defer to the professionals, refer to the professionals.” 

Because of that, Babler said the church has been absent from being able to minister the love of Christ freely to people in crises and challenging situations.

Southwestern Seminary President Paige Patterson formed a committee in 2010 chaired by the dean of the Terry School of Church and Family Ministries, Waylan Owens, to shape a distinctively Southwestern Program of Christian Counseling. Among those serving on the committee with Owens were professors who teach counseling on a regular basis at Southwestern, including Babler, Mike McGuire, Elias Moitinho, David Penley and Dana Wicker, with provost Craig Blaising serving ex officio.

For some years Southwestern has provided two different approaches to counseling. Financial realities now render this approach an impossible luxury, Patterson explained when announcing his plans. Obligations to students in the program seeking state licensure will be honored, but the program leading specifically to licensure will not be available in the future.

Southwestern is a church-related seminary, Patterson said in explaining that the school was created by and for the local churches that support it. 

“We want to develop a program of counseling that is distinctively for the churches,” Patterson said in issuing his challenge to the committee. “Like all graduate studies, such a program should introduce the student to all of the findings, history and theories of psychology and counseling. In addition, the program will emphasize biblical principles set in the context of developing a biblical worldview and perspective on life.”

Last fall, Southwestern’s board of trustees approved the new counseling degree that re-emphasizes the church’s ministry of counseling. The 66-hour master of arts in biblical counseling includes courses that provide students with a foundation in Scripture, theology and evangelism, as well as courses in counseling.

The degree equips students with an understanding of the history of counseling, psychology and psychotherapy, while also providing a biblical approach to counseling in matters of sexuality, gender, marriage, family and grief. Opportunities are offered to foster an understanding of Scripture and develop an ability to guide people to biblical truth as they face the transitions and tragedies of life.

As part of the program, students will also conduct counseling sessions through Southwestern’s Walsh Counseling Center, while being observed and assessed by seminary faculty members.

In addition to the 29 credit hours spent studying Scripture, theology, Baptist heritage and evangelism, the remaining 37 hours of the program involve study of the basic principles of biblical counseling and psychology, while also taking specified counseling courses, such as grief and crisis counseling, cross cultural counseling, and counseling military personnel and their families. Students may also pursue training in biblical counseling through concentrations in the master of divinity and master of arts in Christian education degrees.

According to David Penley, assistant professor of counseling, the church and the Word of God lie at the heart of Southwestern’s counseling program. This emphasis upon the church, he said, also complements the vision of the Terry School for Church and Family Ministries, as reflected in its name. 

Furthermore, Penley said, the ministry of counseling naturally enhances Christ’s mission for the whole church, namely, evangelism and discipleship, citing Paul’s instruction in 1 Thessalonians 5:14 in which he encouraged believes to “admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with everyone.”

“One of the things that I am excited about is that a church that is doing counseling in this way is going to see tremendous opportunities for evangelism,” Penley added. “Churches that have been involved in this kind of counseling are constantly reporting that this is one of the best sources of outreach in their church.”

Elias Moitinho, Hope for the Heart Chair of Biblical Counseling and assistant professor of psychology and counseling, said God calls counselors to interpret and apply God’s Word on a one-on-one or small group basis much as he calls pastors to proclaim Scripture to a congregation.

“Counseling has to be Bible-driven,” Moitinho said. He applied the mission statement for Hope for the Heart, a biblical counseling ministry founded by June Hunt, to Southwestern Seminary’s counseling program: “Providing … God’s Truth for Today’s Problems.”

The Southwestern Seminary program is described as equipping students “to share the comfort and truth of God’s Word with church members and unbelievers who seek guidance amid life’s perplexity and pain.” Created to meet the needs of ministry within the local congregation, the program teaches students “to build a counseling ministry that aligns with Christ’s purposes for the church: evangelism and discipleship.”

At the 2008 inaugural chapel service when Molitinho was installed as chair of the new Hope for the Heart Chair of Biblical Counseling, he pinpointed the heart of biblical counseling. 

“Counseling must go beyond merely symptom relief, and it must aim at spiritual transformation, to get people to conform to the likeness of Christ.”

As recently as the April 5-6 trustee meeting, a new professor was asked for his views on counseling those who have been diagnosed as having a chemical imbalance.  

As the academic committee considered his election, Frank Catanzaro told Texas trustee Bart Barber, “My views are not so important,” preferring to put the focus on the science behind such a diagnosis. “There’s no concluding evidence in science that it is real,” he said, adding that neurotransmitters “are not measurable in a living human being so nobody knows for certain whether anybody has an imbalance.”

Catanzaro added: “The chemical imbalance diagnosis is problematic because, even if the imbalance could be proven, one still wouldn’t know if the imbalance caused the mood disorder, or if the mood disorder caused the imbalance,” he told the TEXAN. 

“So in biblical counseling we listen for unbiblical thinking and counter with biblical truth,” he told trustees. “That’s my methodology.”  

He is co-authoring with Babler the forthcoming book “In Times Like these: A Biblical Perspective on Crisis Intervention.”

While trained in the secular technique of family systems theory, Catanzaro said he began to give greater attention to his belief in the sufficiency of Scripture, a focus which “radically changed” his perspective, he said. Having counseled thousands of people in a church and seminary setting, Catanzaro praised God’s ability to change people from “a state of depression and anxiety to peace and security.” 
 
—Additional reporting by Tammi Ledbetter