What’s Killing Christian Marriages: Pastors as Marriage Counselors
Blog, Essays, Featured — By Carole Smith Turner on May 16, 2012 at 10:47 am
I received a text last night from a friend telling me that her husband who moved out several months ago, has asked for a divorce.
I have two friends whose husbands were in ministry, then not, then eventually their marriages ended.
I have a friend whose husband no longer believes in God because after 20 years of marriage she left him.
I have a guy friend whose wife is staying but only for the kids, she’s not happy and is hanging on by a thread.
I could go on and on. I know of more failed marriages then successful ones.
And all the while the church is dispensing the same old tired remedies to couples like my friends and as expected, they are getting the same results-more and more divorces.
The other day I saw several retweets of a prominent preachers comment at a conference, he said “The secret to a successful marriage is to do it God’s way.”
Really? That’s it? Well sign me up.
There are MILLIONS of books and marriage conferences to tell us what IS God’s way and THEY ALL use the bible so all of them must be God’s way, right?
Couples watch online as a celebrity pastor and his wife spend a weekend in bed while offering up nuggets on marriage and sex. Another famous pastor writes a book that gets a lot of attention for all the oral sex talk in it, and all the while leader after leader is falling into porn addiction, wife after wife is leaving a loveless marriage, couple after couple are filling for divorce like the true Jersey Shores Style Christianity we have all just accepted as reality.
In case you haven’t noticed church, what we are saying and doing isn’t working.
And many churches don’t believe in referring couples to counselors at all. I have two friends who were told by their pastors that everything they needed to fix their marriage could be found in the bible and at church. They were told that they just needed some counseling by the pastor and there was no need to go to a paid professional counselor. They are both divorced now.
That is what is killing Christian marriages. The arrogant assumption by preachers and teachers who feel they have the answers on how to fix marriages and the continuation of giving those answers while getting the same failing results. And couples who expect their pastors or religious leaders to be able to give them the proper counseling. Most pastors should actually say to these couples, “Hey, I don’t feel I am qualified to help you as well as a trained professional would be, maybe you should go see a marriage counselor.” and people in their congregations don’t want to hear that either. They want the free counsel you get from the preacher and as expected, they are getting their monies worth.
I am very glad that I attend a church that works closely with trusted professional marriage counselors and regularly refers couples to them so they can get the real help they need.
One day I asked a friend of mine, Dee Adams, who has her doctorate in marriage and family counseling and is also a licensed EFT (Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy) counselor, if The Love Dare book worked. She said no. She’s been counseling couples for 30 years. But church after church use the Fireproof movie and The Love Dare book as the textbook for marriage counseling. I believe it’s because it’s neat, easy, ties up all the lose ends and offers absolute success…If done right of course.
And that leads me back to the retweeted comment by the prominent pastor and why it bothers me so much.
There are two people in a marriage, both may believe they are doing it “Gods way” and both may be very wrong.
I know too many former couples in which both people would tell you that they did everything they could to conduct their marriage as God would have it. They died to self, forgave, ask for forgiveness, prayed, fasted and begged God to fix their marriage.
I know friends who live with the guilt everyday that they couldn’t die to themselves enough to save their marriage, submit enough to save their marriage, give enough to save their marriage.
To throw that blanket statement of “do it God’s way” out there for cheers and retweets is the perfect example of why Christian marriages are dropping like flies. Preachers giving neat and tidy sounding answers to messy questions and offering sweeping statements to detailed problems, screams “We don’t know the answers but we are too proud to say so so we will just keep trying to fix the problem by making it worse.”
**See also this great post by Rachael Held Evans, “Why Being a Pastor Doesn’t Automatically Make You a Sex Therapist”
Tags: Marriage, marriage coumseling, The Church
23 Comments
I agree. I would go further, though, and say that it’s not just a matter of having knowledgeable professional help. Lack of commitment in a marriage is symptomatic of a much larger issue. People are less committed to their jobs: the average person changes careers (not jobs, careers) eight times. People move a lot more now than they used to, and so commitment to extended family and longtime friends has changed. A trained pastor or marriage counselor can have all the right answers, but it’s hard for people to break a lifetime of habits and thought patterns.
I might be a just wee bit biased because I’m a Psychologist and the Director of Clinical Training at the School of Psychology at Fuller Seminary, but I cannot thank you enough for this article. It absolutely needed to be said, but someone like me can’t say it because then it just sounds self-serving. I have had to help couples un-do a lot of damage done by well-meaning Christian programs, books, pastors, and seminars. And don’t get me started about sexuality . . .
I was doing a retreat a few weeks ago and right before I went up to speak, a man beckoned me over to him. He didn’t stand up, introduce himself, or shake my hand. He just proclaimed, “Christianity and psychology don’t really go together, so I don’t really understand why you’re here.” This really took me back because everyone else in the church had been super. It was also 8 a.m. EST and I live in LA so it felt like 5 a.m., and I wasn’t in the sunniest of moods. Usually I would have just expressed some empathy for his views and let it go. This time, however, I said, “Can you point me to the Scripture that leads you to believe that?” He said that he couldn’t, but that psychology’s view of human nature didn’t line up with the Christian view. I conceded that many influential psychologists, including Freud, were atheists and didn’t hold much regard for religion. Then I asked him if he ever took medication.
“Oh, yes, absolutely,” he said with maybe a little too much enthusiasm.
“Okay, that’s the product of biology and chemistry. Do you know what the prevailing view of the origins of the universe and humans are in biology and chemistry.”
“Of course,” he said. “Evolution.”
“But you don’t believe in evolution, do you?”
“Not at all!”
“But you still take the medicine even though the many of the scientists who worked on it probably think Christianity is a bunch of hooey and we’re all made from stuff that came from exploding stars?”
He got my point and sort of looked down and shook his head. So I piled on some more empathy and explained how Christian psychology tries to do things differently. He shook my hand by the end and we made nice.
I promise I’m not trying to distract from your article with a comment so long that it amounts to another article, but I just wanted to give an illustration of how right you are. No one would refer to the Bible or a Pastor or a Christian self-help book if they had to fix their plumbing, their car, or their computer. But too many Christians think that our minds and relationships are simple things, lacking the complexity that requires the attention of a professional. Many Christians would gladly trust their car or home repairs to an atheist who went to a technical school, but they won’t let a mental health professional with years of graduate training, even a Christian, anywhere near the biggest problems in their lives.
Their are plenty of therapists who love Jesus and see him as the ultimate source of all healing. We have no interest in brainwashing you into some anti-Biblical worldview. We just want to help you fix something that might be a little too complicated for your pastor or a 200 page book written for the masses instead of the uniqueness of what you’re facing.
Sorry, again, Carole for being so long-winded. I really hope I didn’t steal your thunder. People need to listen to you more than me, because you can be more objective. It’s just hard to contain myself. You’re article was so well-written and you said with vigor what most Christian shrinks are afraid to barely utter for fear or making things worse.
Thanks a lot,
Steve
No apology needed, I love this comment. I worked for 13 Christian counselors for 9 years, and still fill in sometime when their office help is out, so I completely get what you are saying and agree. You put it into words perfectly!
Good stuff.
I work in full-time ministry and one of the things one of my mentors drilled into my head is “you are NOT a counselor.”
I’m thankful for that. It actually frees me from needing all the right answers. Just the other day a student shared some really vulnerable stuff with me. My first thought was “you need counseling. And I am not going to give it to you.”
So another student went with her to the counseling center with her to make sure she did it. I think that is a much better and, dare I say it, “Godly” way to do ministry.
“I think there’s a role for pastors in helping marriages”, said the pastor as he commented on this fine post.
I do think it’s important for us to see as has having a role on a bigger team of helpers than being a one-unqualified-person show.
Yep. Because while 99.5% of pastors are unqualified to counsel a couple with serious problems, the reality is that many church-going couples go to their pastor first. So, the pastor must have a role, but the most crucial part of that role is knowing when to say, “here, let me refer you to someone who can help you”. And this is no small help. Many people are too proud or too cheap to seek professional help unless someone pushes them to do it, and even then having a recommendation to a qualified professional gives them no excuse about “hard to find one” or anything like that. And yes, not all counselors are equal and finding one that shares your faith can *greatly* aid a couple in trusting them and their advice.
Before I was a pastor, I was a caseworker at a MH RTF for children and adolescents. That’s where I fell into the idea of multidisciplinary treatment teams. The idea makes too much sense to ignore. If pastors could see themselves as assisting the people in building their personal treatment teams, it helps.
I think pastors place on the team is often to cheerlead. But there’s also the need to confront and be directive when someone is on the edge of crashing through kingdom core values. This, of course, puts a burden on the pastor to have his or her personal health and spirituality somewhat together.
An excellent article and a great reminder for us as pastors. And some excellent comments here (well said Larry and Steve, grateful you’re serving the Kingdom).
The tricky thing is that pastors are expected to comment on just about everything, including family, marriage, politics, Tim Tebow
and various aspects of life.
To further complicate it some pastors are in ministry for different reasons, many of them serving in different ways. Some are clearly speakers (and not really thinkers), some are not really speakers but caretakers and so forth. Some are more theologically-minded, others very community-minded, and obviously countless, different shades all around.
I’ve generally seen us as generalists and our gifting and experience help us to be better geared for a particular aspect of serving people. I did chuckle at the book examples you gave – well said. That’s fueled quite a bit by ego and the Christian publishing culture too.
I do think there are some excellent examples out there who can help marriages, families, etc. but still know their vocational limits. We should also remember that Christian counseling as its glitches too as sadly, there are a number of horror stories out there too. And regardless of horror stories, there are different counseling philosophies to add to the complication.
STILL, I for one am extremely grateful for the counselors that I have known and connected with over the years. I know in our community we regularly refer people to professional counseling (Christian and “non” as the situation allows) but my heart does break for the examples you mention.
Excellent post – thanks again.
Thanks for this article. These things do need to be said. I see the issue from various angles, I think. Having been to and known counselors, some Christian, I feel so strongly that this is a field of ministry, true ministry, that is rarely recognized as such. In my own case, a wonderful Christian counselor was certainly a blessing from God in helping me to sort through a painful past. Why the church would not have the greatest respect for and recognition of the potential for healing and ministry in this vocation is beyond me.
Another issue I see is in agreement with the first commenter above. People are fickle and are not committed. Many are so self-oriented that they never grow to maturity. Commitment–it’s essential. Even if it’s difficult. Even if it’s not the best marriage ever. It still matters (and I’m not talking about abusive situations). Pastors are absolutely valuable in this respect. They have the ability to lead us toward a godly way of thinking, sanctification, maturity. A wise pastor providing mentoring guidance along with a gifted and godly therapist, to me, would go far to helping the struggling. Commitment must be there though. It must. If it’s not, any excuse to flee the marriage will seem worthwhile.
I’m not an expert by any means. These are opinions. I’ve been through a difficult time personally and in my marriage, and I feel that these things are important.
Excellent piece… but I think this is just the tip of the iceberg. I’m currently in seminary and it’s been stressed in my counseling courses that we’re learning to know what we don’t know and to refer people to those with the right training. Unfortunately, the “bible-cures-all” attitude isn’t just unhelpful to marriage difficulties, it’s also dangerous when applied to psychological issues as well.
Excellent Carole
Im feeling very blessed to be a part of a congregation where the Pastors listen when you need them, and also refer you on to trained Christian counselors, helping you find the right one and following up with you.
Yes- thanks for this. I would also love for someone to write about the misconceptions the church (yes, that’s very general) portrays about the reasons to get married/ what to expect. Anyone up to writing that?
I’ve written several post about marriage and the church over the years on my blog.
Sometimes I think we ask the wrong questions. It seems like many of us long for answers on how to stay married and in-love and many wonderful things, but shouldn’t we really be asking, how can I be holy?
I really appreciate this reminder. We do focus so much on how to make things work and such. I think if we are asking and focusing our efforts on that, we wouldn’t have marriage problems in many cases. On the other hand, what about the other person who is not doing so, and there are kids and a life to manage?
CJ, What if holiness is a relational term?
What’s Killing ‘Christian’ Marriages? Not enough experts? Maybe its that we have abandoned the basics starting with no understanding of sacred vows.
Larry,
I think, “holiness,” must be a relational term in some sense, because God commanded us, “But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy’,” -1 Peter 1:15. In this case, it seems like holiness is some kind of relation to God.
But I think we could get some tragic results if we set up happiness as God’s Priority for My Life and discuss How We Can Stay Married. That cannot be what the Bible means in passages as above. I for one used to think, “Yaknow, when older people say ‘marriage is about committment,’ what they really mean is, ‘Marriage is unfortunately about committment’.” In other words, I was certain keeping your vows was fundamental, but I thought these people must be trying to let me down gently that romantic feelings don’t last after you say, “I do.” I no longer think older people mean anything like that, though. At least, the much older married people don’t mean that.
“A Christian Girl’s Guide to Divorce,” btw, reads like a piece of fiction, and I’m pretty sure some of it was written by a man, that not all of it was written by a 30-something woman named Leslie Spencer. Did anyone else have this response to it?
For example, consider the scene in which “Leslie” tells her gynecologist about her husband’s confession.
“OH, NOOOOOOOO! What the hell?! When are men going to learn to stick with just one vagina?! What an idiot. I’m so sorry, sweetie.”
Gimme a break! You expect me to believe the lady doctor said this?
CJ,
I assure you, I am a woman and wrote the entire thing. And, yes, my lady doctor said that. In addition to being a great gynecologist, she has a sense of humor. As do I.
Great article. I agree with so much of what you said, not all Pastor’s are qualified or capable of providing effective marriage counseling. As I see it there are 2 problems. Number One, the failure isn’t in the Bible, but in the Pastor’s lack of knowledge of the Bible. They try to apply Scripture’s as cookie cutters.
Number Two, they counsel outside of their strength. Counselors know they aren’t pastors but Pastor’s try to be counselors instead of Pastor’s.
But a Pastoral Counselor that can effectively use the Bible can bring the stories of the Bible to light and put practical solutions in front of their clients.
Since pastoral counseling should be Biblical counseling you are inferring that the Bible can’t possibly have the answers to life’s most difficult problems. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 says, All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work. (NLT) To assert that Biblical counsel is flawed and instead modern psychology is a more perfect solution is to suggest that man’s wisdom is superior to God’s. I’ve discovered that most often marriages fail, not because the biblical instruction was inadequate, but rather because one or both partners refused to adjust their life to what it said. As Jesus said, divorce occurs because of the hardness of your hearts. Don’t you think the God who instituted and ordained marriage knows how to sustain it?