Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Evening Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/ev/ev20060625.htm

PROFITABLY LEARNING FROM THE ERRORS OF THE CULTS
Part VII: Profitably Learning From The Errors Of Psychology
(Romans 1:18-22 et al.)
  1. Introduction
    1. One may read this lesson's title and ask: "Are you sure psychology is a cult? I thought it was science!"
    2. Well, viewing the thought of the founders and leaders of psychology reveals it is a cult (as follows):
  2. Profitably Learning From The Errors Of Psychology, Romans 1:18-22 et al. (I am heavily indebted to the book, Psychoheresy: The Psychological Seduction of Christianity by Martin and Deidre Bobgan).
    1. Key developers of the field of psychology have been Freud, Jung, Rogers, Adler, Maslow and Ellis.
    2. Viewing the background and citing quotations by three of these key leaders reveal the founders of modern psychology intended to replace all religious thought with their viewpoint (as follows):
      1. Sigmund Freud candidly opposed organized religious beliefs: he called religion "the obsessional neurosis of humanity," Freud, The Future of an Illusion. Trans. and ed. by James Strachey, 1961, p. 43.
      2. Carl G. Jung promoted psychology as a replacement for religion, writing: " . . . we psychotherapists must occupy ourselves with problems which, strictly speaking, belong to the theologian."
      3. Carl Rogers openly admitted he had traversed the path of apostasy from Christianity in his thinking:
        1. While a student at the Union Theological Seminary, Rogers said, "I could not work in a field where I would be required to believe in some specified religious doctrine." He and some of his classmates "thought themselves right out of religious work." (Rogers, On Becoming a Person, 1961, p. 8)
        2. Rogers adopted secular humanism, dabbled in the occult, and participated in necromancy, the supposed communication with the dead through a spirit medium. He also consulted a ouija board, cf. William Kirk Kilpatrick, The Emperor's New Clothes, 1985, p. 177, 129-184.
        3. Rogers wrote: "Yes, it is true, psychotherapy is subversive . . . Therapies, theories and techniques promote a new model of man contrary to that which has been traditionally accepted."
    3. George Albee, Past President of the American Psychological Association asserts that psychology replaces religion in claiming: ". . . religion and science . . . no longer hold much water for a lot of people. So people have turned largely to psychology as one field which attempts to answer questions about the meaning of life." ("Psychology Is Alive and Well," Santa Barbara News, 9/23/81, p. B7)
    4. Psychology's major theological views are that (1) man is intrinsically good, (2) there is no personal God and (3) man can rise above his harmful lot to be His own measure of right and wrong. (Ibid., Bobgan)
    5. However, this belief system seriously strays away from the most basic, clear teachings of God's Word:
      1. Romans 1:18-22 reveals the refusal to recognize and glorify the God of creation leads to vain imagination, foolishness and resulting darkness. This is the lot of those who formed psychology.
      2. Proof of the darkness of psychology and its scientific bankruptcy comes from Jay E. Adam's testimony in his work, The Use of the Scriptures in Counseling, 1975, p. 15. There he wrote: "The unbelieving counselor . . . knows that every statement . . . judgment . . . (and) decision he makes in counseling is challenged and countered by scores of authors from an equal number of viewpoints . . . the Christian counselor who determines . . . to know and . . . use the Scriptures in his counseling is the only one who can ever have a solid basis for what he says and does." (parentheses ours)
      3. Then, Scripture presents man as helplessly lost in sin, the failure to adhere to God's righteous standard, Romans 3:10-23. The Bible reveals a personal God Who sent His Beloved Son to satisfy His wrath against man's sin by the substitutionary atonement of that Son, Jesus Christ, Romans 3:21-22; 1 John 2:1-2. Scripture teaches regeneration by faith in that atonement (Romans 3:24-25) and a life of behavioral victory by dependence upon the control of the indwelling Holy Spirit of God, Gal. 5:16-23!
Lesson: Psychology erred in failing to START with the AUTHORITY of WRITTEN SCRIPTURE in its founders' attempt to RESIST belief in God and to REPLACE it with belief in the supremacy of man!

Application: (1) May we START with submission to the authority of God's written Bible to establish just grounds for all our faith and practice, 2 Timothy 3:13-17! (2) Now, psychiatry mixes psychology and scientific medicine, so it is good for temporary behavior modification, but it fails to solve long-term outlooks and behavioral problems created by man's SIN! Only heeding God's Word will do the latter!