Rounded Rectangle: What is Christian Counseling? Dr. Sid Bradley, Dean of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary - Charlotte, NC Considerable controversy exists about whether there is, or should be, a distinct field of counseling under the label of “Christian counseling.” Some argue that all competent counseling is the same regardless of religious persuasion. Others contend that at best Christian counseling is simply Christian believers who practice psychotherapeutic healing arts. In other words, these helpers are informed by a Christian value system, but their actual practice and strategic intervention are indistinguishable from an unbelievable professional. Here at Agapé Christian Counseling, Inc. we strongly affirm that Christian counseling is a discrete and describable branch of counseling and psychotherapy. We are firmly persuaded that the claims of Christ upon a believer and the rich texture of the Christian lifestyle cannot be divorced from the problem solving, helping process. The direction and insights of scripture and the bracing power of prayer, we are convinced, form the essence of the process of restoration to the wholeness that God intended. The tendency then is for a skeptic to assume that a Christian counseling approach is a diluted form of therapy which spreads a thin façade of professional counseling over a religious exhortation to simply try harder to be a good person. Quite the contrary, Christian counseling, at its best, is an in-depth work of interpersonal exploration and healing of human brokenness. By coming along side the hurting person, the Christian counselor seeks, through empathetic understanding and compassionate objectivity, a lofty goal. That supreme objective is the optimal blending of divinely revealed truth with the scientific, clinical insights gained from psychotherapy. Christian counseling is a thoroughly professional approach to personal problems that integrates both the psychological and theological understandings of human functioning. In summary, Christian counseling attempts to integrate all that is valid from competent clinical counseling with all that is relevant to the personal issue from the context of biblical truth and faith in Christ.