A Response to Maranathas Healing Document.

At the heart of the Christian system lies the cross of Christ with its divine paradox. The power of Christianity appears in its antipathy toward, never in its agreement with, the ways of fallen men.... The cross stands in bold opposition to the natural man. Its philosophy runs contrary to the processes of the unregenerate mind, so that Paul could say bluntly that the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness. To try to find a common ground between the message of the cross and mans fallen reason is to try the impossible, and if persisted in must result in an impaired reason, a meaningless cross and a powerless Christianity. A.W.Tozer In response to questions and concerns that were being raised about the counselling ministry at Maranatha, the Council of Maranatha reviewed the ministry and prepared a document entitled Living in Community: The Healing and Restoration Ministries of Maranatha (The Healing Document). The document was presented to the congregation during a worship service in November 2009 without any opportunity for congregational input, questions, discussion or approval. The promised congregational meeting to allow for open discussion never materialized. Thus, the document remains as Councils authoritative and final word on Maranathas healing and restoration ministries. Leadership has expressed that the principals and practices outlined in the Healing Document are highly defensible, yet they explicitly refuse to put them on table and submit them to scrutiny so that they actually have to be defended. They seem satisfied with the fact that outside professionals reviewed the document and have endorsed it in letter at the beginning of the document. There are no indications that the outside professionals exercised biblical discernment in their review, or if they have any expertise in the areas of safe church policies, Church Order or the doctrinal standards of the Church. There are also no indications that the review was conducted in the light of specific concerns that were being raised by members of Maranatha or whether they consulted the Guidelines for Ministerial and Counseling Relationships prepared by the CRCNA Safe Church Ministry. In this document, Council states: As we have reviewed the ministry, the way that our model differs from clinical counselling models has become increasingly clear and focused. 1 Unfortunately, the document does not clearly explain what those differences are, but goes on to describe a healing ministry that is primarily centered on therapeutic relationships which are deeply-rooted in psychotherapeutic theory and practice. Council states: Healing takes place in dynamic therapeutic relationships in which we experientially re-learn developmental steps that were blocked or broken early in life. These relationships provide a safe place for emotionally corrective experiences that change our deep hearts.2

A Response to Maranathas Healing Document.

Council also suggests that they have developed special knowledge and expertise in dealing with specific mental disorders: We have developed a body of knowledge and understanding based on our own experience and supported by current research in the areas of developmental issues, attachment disorders and dissociative disorders. We are committed to staying current with new information and research and to equipping those engaged in this ministry with appropriate levels of expertise and knowledge.3 God has led us particularly into ministry to people with dissociative disorders and especially into what have become known as attachment disorders, which are the result of a failure to bond and connect as a result of trauma in early infancy, at birth or even before birth. As people come to life and form attachments for perhaps the rst time, the therapeutic relationship provides a safe environment to grow and develop, moving from dependence to mature interdependence4 Council also directs lay-helpers to take responsibility for recognizing transference when it arises and to help the individual to walk it out as an emotionally corrective experience.5 Appendix D of The Healing Document contains a diagram which has been used repeatedly at Maranatha to illustrate how people are healed through a corrective emotional experience. It is based on a model of psychotherapy developed by Neo-Freudian psychologist Karen Horney in the 1940s. In his self-published book Blessings and Curses, John Visser writes that the emotionally corrective experience...has been the single most helpful tool in producing real change of any of the methods we have ever used6. Even Bible study and prayer ministry take a back seat to this method of changing hearts. It is a concept that was first popularized by Franz Alexander, a protg of Sigmund Freud (Freud referred to him as "my best pupil in the United States"7). In 1946, Alexander described the concept as it relates to a transference relationship between a patient and a therapist: the basic therapeutic principle is to re-expose the patient, under more favorable circumstances, to emotional situations which he could not handle in the past. The patient, in order to be helped, must undergo a corrective emotional experience suitable to repair the traumatic influence of previous experiences. Reexperiencing the old, unsettled conflict but with a new ending is the secret of every penetrating therapeutic result.8

A Response to Maranathas Healing Document.

It is difficult to discern any fundamental differences when comparing this quote with Councils description of therapeutic relationships quoted above. They are essentially saying the same thing. The therapeutic relationship provides not only the context for deep change in peoples lives but is often the agent of change in these psychodynamic therapies. These practices are neither cutting-edge nor even remotely Christian in their origins. In our success-oriented culture, we can easily be seduced by pragmatism; with a tendency to judge something by its results (at church, well probably call it fruit). Just because something works does not mean it is biblically sound. Attempts to thoroughly ground these practices in biblical concepts are questionable at best. Examples of this in the teachings at Maranatha include: Explaining that when Paul uses parental metaphors in 1 Corinthians 4:15 and 1 Thessalonians 2:7-12, he (Paul) is talking about re-parenting a persons inner child to create an emotionally corrective experience.9 Correlating the blessings and curses of the Mosaic covenant with the Theory of Psychosocial Development of Neo-Freudian Psychologist Erik Erikson.10 Connecting Pauls admonition to bring children up in the fear and instruction of the Lord with the hierarchy of human needs developed by Humanist Psychologist Abraham Maslow.11 The difficulty in relating these psychotherapeutic theories to biblical concepts lies in the opposing worldviews upon which they are based. Freud, a stalwart atheist, described himself as a wicked pagan and considered religious belief to be a neurosis. Attachment Theory is classified as evolutionary psychology because its founder, John Bowlby, based this theory on the principals of evolution and natural selection.12 These men, and many of those who followed hard after them, undoubtedly embraced the humanistic philosophy of the spirit of this age, which declares that God is a delusion and natural man can solve his own problems, if given the right knowledge and tools. (e.g.: Man helping man though an emotionally corrective experience). It seems highly unlikely that Apostle Paul was referring these psychotherapeutic principals in his epistles. In fact, he made it very clear that, among the church, he resolved to know only Jesus Christ and Him crucified (1 Cor 2:14). As a confessional church, Maranatha already has a rich inheritance in the reformed doctrinal standards upon which she was founded. These doctrines are indeed aligned with Pauls teachings, proclaiming that our only comfort in life and death is the deep-rooted assurance that we have been bought by Christ through His finished work on the cross. By His stripes we are healed (Isa 54:5). Remarkably, Maranathas Healing Document makes absolutely no reference whatsoever to cross of Christ, His suffering, death and resurrection, and their significance in dealing with the sin, misery and brokenness in peoples lives. This is understandable when you realize that within therapeutic relationships that are based on these secular theories, the cross is irrelevant and unnecessary. 3

A Response to Maranathas Healing Document.

The problem isnt that psychotherapy is bad, but when it is added to the gospel of Christ and regarded as a component of our sanctification, when purely secular notions are baptized with non-contextual verses of Scripture, when it is viewed as a churchs special inheritance from God, when it is considered more powerful than the study of Scripture and prayer, when it assumed to be the healing ministry of Jesus apart from His finished work on the cross, then we may well find ourselves on the perilous path of promoting another gospel. This is not to bash the psychology/counselling profession or deny its value to society. We should be grateful for the calling that God places on Christian men and women who enter these professions. Likewise, we should support the vision and mission of Christian counselors and Christian counseling organizations where professional training, supervision and boundaries are established and maintained. At the same time, we must acknowledge the healing power of the church and the importance of equipping and building up the Body with community-based initiatives. This includes the ancient activities of pastoral care and true biblical counseling, which trusts in the sufficiency of Scripture and the power of the Holy Spirit to transform people to Christ. It also includes spiritual direction, spiritual friendships and one another relationships that are based on mutual submission under Christ, as envisioned by Dr. Larry Crabb in his book Connecting. Although Council appeals to the writings of Dr. Crabb to support their paradigm of communitybased non-professional counseling, it is clear that the relationships Dr. Crabb envisions are much different from the Maranathas one-up, one-down therapeutic relationships. These are essentially psychotherapeutic in nature and are intended to operate within the professional domain of psychotherapy, where practitioners subscribe to their credentialing codes of ethics and practice within the limits of the law that regulates their practice. These include confidentiality, necessary training, limits of expertise, avoiding false claims, misdiagnosing, violation of boundaries, unethical use of power, adequate record keeping, duty to warn in cases of abuse, limits of confidentiality in cases of suicide or homicide, among others. Professionals are well aware of the possible ethical and legal pitfalls and challenges inherent in treating individuals with emotional and mental health issues.13 Council seems to disagree, stating that it is inappropriate to impose a clinical model on Maranathas wholistic discipleship model. Although Maranathas web site and other promotional literature refer to the pastoral staffs extensive counselling ministry, they insist that these therapeutic relationships are not counselling or psychotherapy relationships, but merely life-coaching relationships, as modeled by Christian Psychologist Gary Collins. Dr. Collins himself clearly distinguishes between counselling and coaching, stating:

A Response to Maranathas Healing Document.

Coaching is not for people who need therapy to overcome painful influences from the past; coaches help people build vision and move toward the future. Coaching is not about looking back, it's about looking ahead. Coaching is not about healing; it's about growing. Coaching focuses less on overcoming weaknesses and more on building skills and strengths. Usually coaching is less formal than the counselor-counselee relationship; more often it is a partnership between two equals... 14

Obviously, relationships that generate transference and where people experientially re-learn development steps that were blocked or broken early in life in order to produce corrective emotional experiences are NOT life-coaching relationships. To refer to them as such is misleading. Unlike typical coaching relationships, they are exceedingly powerful and potentially very dangerous. The therapeutic bonds that are forged in these relationships are extremely strong, especially at Maranatha, where normal healthy boundaries are often crossed when the process involves physical intimacy in the form of embracing and holding counsellees during crossgender therapy sessions. The counsellee may indeed have a dramatic therapeutic experience at Maranatha, but not without being put in a very vulnerable position. Transference relationships are particularly dangerous when they arise and laypersons attempt to help the individual to walk it out as an emotionally corrective experience without adequate training and boundaries in place. Leanne Payne, founder and president of Pastoral Care Ministries, says that by far the most difficult and damaging situations she has encountered in almost fifty years of healing ministry arise from the destructive power of psychological transference. She explains this phenomenon in her memoir: Transference is a term first coined by Sigmund Freud to describe a process by which an individual distorts a present relationship because of unresolved issues from earlier relationships. Within the context of a professional therapeutic relationship, such as psychotherapy, transference can be used to help the individual become aware of, identify, and process these unresolved issues in a safe and structured environment. The therapist and the client in a healthy therapeutic relationship have significant boundaries, including limited contact, which help to contain the client's transference to the professional relationship. The therapist has virtually no contact with the client outside the therapeutic session. Outside the safety of a highly structured therapeutic environment, transference can wreak havoc in both the client's life and upon the object of this transference. ... Competent therapists are trained in understanding and helping their clients make sense of these emotions and associated behaviors. 15

A Response to Maranathas Healing Document.

It should be obvious that, in these situations, the counselees objectivity would be compromised with respect to the various other roles that the counsellor may assume in their life. In the context of Maranathas model, the counsellor may assume any number of additional roles including: pastor, supervisor, employer, business owner (inviting the counsellee to invest in his/her venture), co-worker and other various social/business/financial relationships. At Maranatha, it is not unusual to hear members (including staff and council members) who have presumably been in re-parenting relationships address John Visser as Dad, even in everyday conversation. The supposition on the part of leadership appears to be that the power imbalances inherent in these therapeutic relationships are inconsequential and that the therapeutic bond will not influence the counsellees objectivity within in these other relationships. These are known as dual relationships. These issues are exacerbated by the fact that counselling is provided without charge in the church community. Counselees develop a deeper sense of gratitude and loyalty towards the counsellor. It is not unusual to hear phrases like: I owe them so much or even, I owe them my life. Counsellors also speak in terms of giving so much of themselves to particular people. This sense of indebtedness is part of the reason dual relationships are so problematic. Perhaps the counsellor is able to remain emotionally detached from the therapeutic relationship when engaging a counsellee in other roles. However, personal experience and evident reason indicates that the counsellee often does not have that same capability. The Healing Document does acknowledge that dual relationships need to be managed by the counsellor. This is a significant departure from most ethical codes, which address the inherent power imbalances by establishing that dual relationships are to be avoided and that certain dual relationships, especially supervisory and financial relationships, are rarely, if ever, permissible. It is inconceivable that any organization that oversees counsellors would permit their members to borrow large sums of money from counsellees. At Maranatha this is permissible. In fact, where this has occurred in the past, leadership explained that it was not only appropriate, but that they saw it as a positive expression of a biblically-functioning community where members share with those who have need. In addition to the obvious problems associated with multiple relationships, there are many other implications to developing these types of therapeutic relationships in the context of a church community. Confidentiality is a huge concern. When people have raised concerns or are engaged in conflict at Maranatha, it is not unusual for staff to explain to concerned third parties that these individuals have issues and sometimes even violate their privilege of confidentiality by disclosing personal counselling information about these people. They seem to justify this approach as an appropriate defence when their actions are called into question. This shifts the focus away from the underlying issues by implying that the conflict merely arises out that persons brokenness or demonstrating that the person is somehow untrustworthy. The fact is, every time by a staff or council member uses they have issues as an explanation for a counsellees actions, it is a form of breach of confidentiality. Anyone who has been around Maranatha for while knows this has happened countless times. Sometimes it is subtle and

A Response to Maranathas Healing Document.

implied; sometimes it is explicit and obvious, leaving you burdened with private information about a particular person who would be devastated if they knew what you know about them. These serious breaches of confidentiality leave counsellees feeling exposed, shamed and powerless. While leadership presents Maranatha as a safe place, where lay-helpers guard very, very carefully, the need for absolute confidentiality when counselling, these actions send another message: Your secrets are safe, as long as you remain submitted to and refrain from speaking out against those in authority. If you dont, you are fair game and leadership appears to have no qualms about defending themselves by using personal information you shared in confidence against you. No doubt, the fear of this type of reprisal has kept many members from being open about concerns similar to ours. Those fears are well founded. Another area of concern is that of labelling and diagnosing. By stating that they have developed a body of knowledge and understanding based on [their] own experience and supported by current research in the areas of developmental issues, attachment disorders and dissociative disorders, Council is implying that they are qualified to identify and treat these disorders. When lay helpers describe individuals as having kid issues such as attachment disorder, emotional deprivation neurosis etc., they are assuming competencies that extend beyond their qualifications and legal authority. Licensed psychologists are the only people authorized by law to communicate these diagnoses, yet they are often reluctant to do so because they are aware of the damage that can result from communicating a diagnosis, even if it is correct. Another area of concern are the mechanisms that are in place for dealing with complaints and conflicts. The attitude of Maranathas lay helpers appears to be that conflicts arise as a normal part of the therapeutic process and offer an opportunity for resolving personal issues via a corrective emotional experience. For this to happen, they must remain submitted to the therapeutic relationship. Councils position regarding those who believe they have been harmed in unhealthy therapeutic relationships is clear: we need to learn how to help people to be accountable in the therapeutic relationship, following the principles of Matt. 18 and sending them back into the relationship rather than encouraging them to drop out.16 At the presentation of the Healing Document, the analogy used here was that of a patient undergoing surgery who wants to get up and leave in the middle of the operation. The assumption is that of a one-up/one-down relationship where the problem lies with the counsellee, and that the conflicts arise out of their brokenness or kid issues. Given that attitude, it is perfectly understandable for those who have been hurt in these relationships to be reluctant to go back to try to resolve their differences, especially when they have sought professional counselling advice which confirms that these relationships are indeed unhealthy and are therefore advised not to resume the therapeutic relationship.

A Response to Maranathas Healing Document.

These concerns and the basis for them have been clearly explained to Maranatha Council and staff in recent years through a significant number of letters and face-to-face meetings, some of which were facilitated by the Classis Quinte church visitors. In these discussions, concerned members tried to focus on the underlying issues that arise out of the principals, policies and practices of the healing ministry. Councils response has been disappointing. They seem to dismiss the most serious concerns, deeming them to be irrelevant because they stemmed from imposing a clinical model on Maranathas discipleship program. They also explained that Council is sovereignly qualified to oversee this ministry. Therefore, any suggestions that their objectivity may be compromised by their own personal therapeutic relationships or that they may lack sufficient expertise in dealing with mental disorders and psychotherapeutic practices can be, and apparently are, simply ignored. The implication is that clinical counselling guidelines dont apply to Maranatha, because they utilize a church-based model. The problem is that church-based counseling policies do not apply to Maranatha either. The practices adopted at Maranatha would violate the safe counselling and abuse prevention policies of most churches. Most churches have counselling policies that require counselling to take place in a room at the church with a window and others present in the building. They usually place restrictions on counselling people of the opposite sex, and limit the number of sessions and length of each session. They usually have protocols for establishing appropriate physical boundaries and ensure that lay counsellors do not engage in controversial therapies or practice professional counselling or psychotherapy. The vast majority of individual conflicts and allegations of harm that have arisen over the years would have been prevented had Maranatha adhered to these guidelines. Councils position represents a reckless disregard for the CRCNAs Safe Church Ministry Guidelines for Ministerial and Counseling Relationships. Given the fact that an independent assessment committee has deemed the ministry to be inherently unsafe and continues to place people at risk for harm, this is irresponsible. For most us, all we have ever really wanted is to see Maranatha adopt a system of safeguards in line with what is already in place in the vast majority of churches and a structure of independent, effective accountability. This, we believe, is more than reasonable.

A Response to Maranathas Healing Document.

NOTES 1. Living in Community: The Healing and Restoration Ministries of Maranatha, p. 2

2. Living in Community: The Healing and Restoration Ministries of Maranatha, p. 4 3. Living in Community: The Healing and Restoration Ministries of Maranatha, p. 5 4. Living in Community: The Healing and Restoration Ministries of Maranatha, p. 8 5. Living in Community: The Healing and Restoration Ministries of Maranatha, p. 11 6. Visser, John Blessings and Curses ,Essence Publishing, 2005 p. 293 7. Saul, L.J. (1964). Franz Alexander1891-1964. Psychoanalytic Quarterly., 33:420-423. 8. Alexander, F., French, T. M. et al. (1946). Psychoanalytic Therapy: Principles and Application. New York: Ronald Press. 9. Blessings and Curses p. 293 10. Blessings and Curses p. 70 11. Blessings and Curses p. 89 12. Carole Somerville, Attachment and Bowlby John Bowlbys Theory of Attachment http://www.bukisa.com/articles/119439_attachment-and-bowlby-john-bowlbys-theoryof-attachment 13. Pablo Polischuk, Training Laity for Pastoral Care and Counseling http://enrichmentjournal.ag.org/201003/201003_066__LayCounsel.cfm 14. Counseling vs Coaching http://www.garyrcollins.com/coaching.php 15. Payne, Leanne (2008) Heavens calling: The Story of One Souls Steep Ascent Grand Rapids, MI:Baker Books 16. Living in Community: The Healing and Restoration Ministries of Maranatha, p. 8