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Exposing Psychology, Exalting Christ |
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| Q&AQuestion:
Hello and greetings in Jesus Christ,
Thanks for your great newsletters. They are
truly a blessing.
I have a question for you. There is a lady in
our body who has a heavy education in psychology and is interested in
teaching a class. As a Pastor, I do not feel this would be a good thing but
want to be responding in a way that would lift her up instead of her feeling
that she is not needed. The title and author of this book is: "Healing
for Damaged Emotions", Recovering from the Memories That Cause Our Pain -
by David A. Seamands
I will tell you that red flags go up on this
book. If you have any specific information concerning this book and author,
it would be greatly appreciated.
Answer:
Generally speaking,
Recovered Memory Therapy (RMT) is dangerous spiritually and tears apart
families due to frequent false accusations of sexual abuse. RMT's
popularity peaked in the 80s and 90s and its dangers are well-documented
(see
http://www.skepdic.com/repress.html for an overview). While Seamands
may not always attribute pain to sexual abuse in childhood, the concepts
of RMT apply nonetheless.
Regarding your specific question, David Seamands, author of many books including Healing for Damaged Emotions and Healing of Memories, uses inner healing techniques that are based on Freudian and Jungian psychoanalysis and occultism. His basic assumption is that our current hurts stem from painful childhood experiences that are buried in our unconscious, and that require visualization techniques to uncover and heal. His teachings deny the biblical practices of self-denial and faith in Christ and His Word for life and godliness in the present.
Generally, he takes the
reader back to the past--to a painful experience--and brings in Jesus as
a healing agent. The person visualizes Jesus in the scene, saying or
doing things that would bring healing.
In reality, this treatment
uses occultic techniques such as visualization and guided imagery. The
Bible condemns sorcery, witchcraft, divination and other such practices
that try to uncover "hidden knowledge" and get "healing" through some
type of technique to reach an altered state of consciousness (see
Deuteronomy 18). They have been practiced for thousands of years by
witch doctors, shamans and fortune tellers, but now Christian therapists
are using them!
Visualizing Jesus involves
summoning, or calling up, Jesus in your imagination and into your scene
from the past, in order to achieve forgiveness and healing. Jesus can
look any way you want Him to, and He will do anything you want Him to
do. You control the whole event. It is easy to see how false memories
and inaccurate accounts can be created in one's imagination using these
techniques and the help of a therapist. Families have been broken up
from therapies like this, which are many times not based on fact, but
fiction and imagination.
There are many problems
with visualization from a biblical point of view, the most obvious being
that in this scenario you are becoming a god that controls the universe
of your imagination, telling Jesus how to look and what to do. When in
reality, as Christians we are subservient to God and we say, "not my
will by thine be done." We are led by the Spirit; we do not lead the
Spirit. Jesus is the master, we are the servant. We cannot manipulate
Jesus through our imagination.
Second, this Jesus could
start to take on a personality of His own, and will be saying and doing
things that you no longer control, i.e. it's like you're watching a
movie in your mind and you don't know what's going to happen next. Agnes
Sanford, the pioneer of modern-day inner healing techniques, described
this type of experience in her own life, and many others have as well.
It is clear here that a real spirit being has been contacted and the
person is observing this spirit being's actions and words. This spirit
being who Christians think is Jesus is really a demon disguising himself
as an angel of light, since the practice of contacting spirit beings,
whether they are called Jesus or Jim or Joe, is forbidden by God.
Also, when we create Jesus
in our minds and visualize Him in our imagination, we are worshipping an
image, which the second commandment prohibits. Visualization is actually
a form of idolatry. The God we worship is not an image but a living
Person who dwells inside us and who is revealed in the Holy Scriptures.
He is with us always, in every situation we face. We don't need to
imagine and visualize Him with us, because He already is, because His
Word says He is. We live by faith and not by sight - no imagination or
visualization is necessary.
When people say they have
been healed through this process - how visualizing Jesus "works" - they
are missing the point. Knowingly or not, these people really contacted
spirit beings (demons) who gave them what they wanted, at the expense of
truth. Lots of people are doing things in the name of God today because
they "work", but they are being deceived by Satan, who the Bible says
deceives the whole world and disguises himself as an angel of light.
We know of no place in the
Bible where prophets and saints went back into their sinful past and
visualized God to heal them. They simply believed in Him and walked by
faith in His promises of forgiveness and new life. What was the "one
thing" Paul did? "FORGETTING WHAT IS BEHIND and straining toward what is
ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has
called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us who are mature should
take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently,
that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have
already attained." (Phil. 3:13-16)
Two very good write-ups about David Seamands' psychological teachings can be found here:
We hope you agree that
Seamand's techniques and teachings, while they may be wrapped in Bible
verses and Christian lingo, are psychological at their core, and harmful
to the Christian's walk with the true Jesus--the Jesus of the Bible.
Ryan and Lisa Bazler
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