The Babbling Tower of Emotional Health

As I am reviewing Nimrod’s next Discipleship Strategy, the latest book by Peter Scazzero and Warren Bird is quickly becoming the next fad among seeker-sensitive evangelical pastors. It is entitled The Emotionally Healthy Church: A Strategy of Discipleship that Actually Changes Lives. Already, I have had two pastors push this book in my direction, and both were taken back by my obvious disinterest. (I did look at it enough to validate my disinterest).

Once again, according to the modern Oprah gospel, we see that the problem with modern discipleship is the “strategy”, not the message. We need to psycho-analyze past hurts and deep emotional scars before we can become “spiritually mature”. Meanwhile, the Holy Spirit is apparently sitting on the sidelines cheering us on, occasionally giving us some good advice and pointing things out for us to deal with. One of the pastors promoting this book actually explained how activities such as looking at pornography on the internet are “serious emotional problems”. (Sorry friend. It’s a lot more serious that that). The pastor then explained that “Bible Study isn’t the complete answer. The Word, as important as it is, is useless unless we deal with our emotional health”. (So much for Sola Scriptura). Robert Reymond was correct when he noticed that the modern church has lost confidence in the power of the gospel to change lives. Instead, this book encourages us to “look below the surface of our lives, …come to grips with the scars from our past, and …learn to be honest about our brokenness and become vulnerable.”

The only scriptures that this particular pastor used in his conversation were quoted to show that “Jesus had emotions”. I do too, and it took all of the grace God gave me to keep from telling him what I really think about this strategy. Instead of preaching on the need for repentance from sin, we are now going to psycho-analyze it. Instead of preaching the Word to show us the vile wretchedness of our sinful nature, we are going to call it an “emotional problem”. Unfortunately, both pastors will be building their sermons around this book for the next two months. In all, I seriously doubt that a true gospel is ever presented in the book, but I refuse to pay the $13.00 to find out. It is all too apparent that preaching about sin, judgment, and repentance and Christ’s atoning work are no longer needed. Instead, we are going to just write it off as “emotional health”, and seek the proper counseling for sinners. My, what have we come to?