Common Grace and Extrabiblical Information in Biblical Counseling

Heath Lambert

Counseling Confusion

​One of the hallmarks of contemporary counseling debates is the repeated tendency of those who disagree with biblical counseling to egregiously misrepresent the position of biblical counselors. It is common for people with advanced degrees and prestigious academic posts to fail to accurately present the views of biblical counselors on common grace, extrabiblical information, and the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture.

Biblical counseling opponents make many accusations, but an accurate demonstration of real error has not been a characteristic of contemporary critics. Even though biblical counselors have been repeatedly clear about their convictions, they are regularly corrected for things they do not believe and exhorted to embrace positions they already hold. Critics persist in claiming that our view of sufficiency is not historic, that we reject extrabiblical information, that we deny common grace, and are biblicistic and simplistic. Critics who advance these false charges break the ninth commandment, advance confusion instead of clarity, frustrate the search for truth,slander their brothers in Christ, puff themselves up with pride, and repeatedly violate Christ’s Golden Rule.

​Victims of this mistreatment can do little to stop it. But we can redouble our efforts to clarify an issue of great significance. As important as it is for our opponents to represent us honestly, it is also important for biblical counselors to be clear that our position raises important questions that must be repeatedly answered. The biblical counseling position is unfamiliar in a secular world that defines problems in therapeutic terms. Worse, our position is unfamiliar in a theological context full of ministers contaminated by that therapeutic mindset and trained to think of doctrine in merely systematic categories and not in the pastoral and practical categories so familiar to our fathers in the faith. Though the biblical counseling movement has been clarifying these issues for our entire existence, recent mischaracterizations are a strong reminder that our work of shining the light of truth on these matters must continue. I would like to do that here by summarizing the biblical counseling position in two sentences. 

​It is the nature of the case that no summary can say everything. Summaries always need expansion, explanation, and elaboration. But summaries help in surveying large and complex matters. In a counseling debate where misrepresentation and misunderstanding are common, a summary of the biblical counseling position in two sentences helps us to how basic essentials fit together and avoid excluding important matters. Here is a two-sentence summary of the biblical counseling position in plain English. 

The Biblical Counseling Position in Two Sentences

Because God gave Scripture to his people to address life’s problems, Christians shouldtrust the Bible to provide all the resources necessary for the ministry our culture calls counseling. Because God filled the world with immeasurable information, his people are privileged and required to know this material without using it as a replacement or competitor with the resources in Scripture addressing counseling issues. 

I will elaborate on those statements in what follows, but this is a faithful summary of the biblical counseling position for anyone honestly looking for one. The first sentence summarizes our view of Scripture. The second sentence summarizes our view of information outside Scripture. If you are committed to biblical counseling, you understand and embrace those two statements. If you are not committed to biblical counseling, you do not understand or do not embrace at least one of those statements. Critics of biblical counseling advance opposition against something in those two sentences. 

Regarding the biblical counseling view of Scripture in the first sentence, recent criticsmake statements limiting God’s Word to a few tame and heady categories, and claim the Bibledoes not address all the different kinds of problems people face in a complicated world. The biblical counseling movement has been absolutely prolific in responding to this objection for fifty years. I responded most recently in my essay, The Comprehensiveness of Scripture and The Contemporary Counseling Conflict.

​Regarding the biblical counseling view of information outside Scripture summarized in the second sentence, critics are, perhaps, even more strenuous. Opponents typically accuse biblical counselors of refusing to embrace the information affirmed in the second sentence. They erroneously argue that our beliefs about sufficiency exclude an embrace of extrabiblical information. In fact, there is nothing about an embrace of the information inside Scripture that makes it impossible or unnecessary to embrace information outside Scripture. Let me make this clear with three clarifications.

Biblical Counselors Embrace Extrabiblical Information for Biblical Reasons

First, it needs to be clear that biblical counselors embrace extrabiblical information for biblical reasons. To see this, we need to understand that extrabiblical information is all the countless pieces of data that fill the earth and our experience with knowledge. It is a massive category of very different material. Some of this extrabiblical information is positively delightful, like the existence of my glorious granddaughter, Hazel. This is the kind of material I mean when I say that extrabiblical information is our privilege to know. Some of this information is absolutely essential, like the treatment for type 1 diabetes, or where to find the food you need to survive. Not all extrabiblical information is of equivalent necessity, but some of it is required to live life. As we continue to flesh out our understanding of extrabiblical information, consider a few more categories in this massive class of material. 

Some extrabiblical information is true, like the fact that the state bird of Florida is the northern mockingbird. Other pieces of extrabiblical information are not true, like the mistaken belief of some that the state bird of Florida is the flamingo. Other kinds of extrabiblical information are disputed. Some of the disputes, like the causes and consequences of global warming, are because of ignorance, and others, like the ethics of sex outside marriage, are disputed because of morality. Still other pieces of extrabiblical information vary according to relevance. The fact that The Pickwick Papers was Charles Dickens’s first best-selling novel is just as true as the fact that the United States is over $40 trillion in debt, but the two pieces of extrabiblical information are not of equivalent relevance in any given context. All pieces of information, whether true, false, debated, relevant, or irrelevant, exist in the massive category of extrabiblical information. Everyone admits this information exists, including biblical counselors.

​One reason biblical counselors admit extrabiblical information exists is because of the teaching of Scripture. In the very first words of divine address to the human race, God indicated the existence of extrabiblical information in Genesis 2:16 when he pointed Adam and Eve to allthe trees in the garden, only two of which we read about in Scripture. The Israelites possessedextrabiblical information about the specific houses where they could find Egyptian wealth in Exodus 12:36 when they plundered the country before their escape from bondage. Solomon demonstrates extrabiblical information of the false ways to pursue life in a fallen world in Proverbs 14:12 when he talks about the way that seems right to man. Isaiah’s encounter with the holy God is perfectly preserved in Isaiah 6:1-6, but all the information he had about it was extrabiblical until he wrote it down. Jesus endorses the existence of extrabiblical information in Matthew 6:26 when he tells us to “Look at the birds” and in Matthew 6:28 when he tells us to “Consider the lilies.” Peter affirms the existence of extrabiblical information like flowers and grass in 1 Peter 1:24-25 when he says that those things fade but the Word of God endures forever. You get the idea. One reason extrabiblical information is required is that it is impossible to understand the sufficient Scriptures without it.

​The Bible does not only teach the existence of extrabiblical information but requires Christians to use it. James 1:19 says, “Let every person be quick to hear and slow to speak.” The Bible requires extrabiblical witnesses so that every charge might be established on the evidence of “Two or three witnesses” (Matthew 18:16; 2 Corinthians 13:1). The Bible warns against the foolishness of ignoring relevant extrabiblical information in Proverbs 18:13, “If one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame.” The Bible requires the use of extrabiblical information. Biblical counselors believe it is impossible to obey the sufficient Scriptures without first receiving a tidal wave of extrabiblical information.

Biblical Counselors Embrace Extrabiblical Information Even Though It Is Tainted

​Second, it needs to be clear that biblical counselors embrace extrabiblical information even though it is tainted. In the earlier summary of extrabiblical information, I made clear that the material is an untidy jumble of true, false, and debated information. That mixture of information exists because of human weakness and wickedness. Human weakness means we are finite and frail and lack God’s exhaustive ability to know everything there is to know. Human wickedness means that sin distorts all information as it is presented to us and received by us. Some false extrabiblical information is presented to us as true, and some true extrabiblical information is received by us as false. The frustrating reality of human weakness and wickedness makes it a challenge for people to interact with and understand extrabiblical information. 

But human weakness and wickedness does not defeat the ability of people in a sinful world to perceive and present accurate extrabiblical information. In his common grace, God preserves the ability of all people to receive and share information. Common grace is all the good gifts God gives to his people even if they have not experienced the saving grace of Jesus. Just one place in the Bible that mentions this is Acts 17:25, which says of God, “He himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.” “Everything” is a comprehensive category including all the good gifts God gives to people. Just one of those gifts is the clear and accuratethoughts of people.

​Belief in the Bible leads biblical counselors to embrace the truth of common grace. We believe the doctrine makes it possible for unbelievers to swim in the sea of extrabiblical information and come to know information accurately. But we must be careful. It is not the function of common grace to negate all the weakness and wickedness of human beings. Though human beings can know true information, common grace does not guarantee the accuracy ofknowledge in any given instance. Determining whether a piece of extrabiblical information is true and grounded in common grace, or is false and so a result of life in a fallen world, is farmore challenging than some wish to admit.

This challenging situation is an important point of conflict between biblical and the clinically informed counselors. When clinically informed counselors consume information from the world of secular therapy, they have a tendency to label that extrabiblical information as important and relevant and organize it under the banner of God’s common grace. Biblical counselors tend to think that such judgments are, among other things, too hasty and like to point out that secular experts often strenuously debate the accuracy of information that less-informed Christians carelessly embrace. 

When clinically informed counselors characterize the concerns of biblical counselors as a rejection of common grace, they misunderstand the position of their opponents and the very nature of the doctrine of common grace. Common grace does not justify all claims generated out there in the world. It is a theological explanation for how some claims that come from the world could be true. Before we can place an element of extrabiblical information under the banner of common grace, we must first do the hard work of establishing that the information is accurate.

Extrabiblical Information Must Never Substitute for or Compete with the Bible

Third, it needs to be clear that extrabiblical information must never substitute for or compete with biblical information. My two-sentence summary of the biblical counseling positionmakes two assertions about extrabiblical information. The first assertion states that biblical counselors embrace extrabiblical information. The second assertion states that no information found outside Scripture should ever be used to replace or compete with information found insideScripture. This is a source of much confusion for biblical counseling opponents, so it is important to proceed carefully.

It can be helpful to think about the relationship of biblical information and extrabiblical information in three categories. The first category has to do with extrabiblical information that absolutely is not found within Scripture. The existence of the planet Neptune, for example, is in this massive category. The second category has to do with information that is addressed both inside and outside the pages of the Bible in complementary ways. Since “The heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1), we can affirm that the existence of God is one example of this kind of information. Of course, the information about God found in the pages of Scripture is different than the information about God found in the created order, but both are true and not in conflict.

The third category of extrabiblical information competes with biblical revelation. In this category we are talking about information generated by people that is specifically corrected by information contained in the Bible. An uncontroversial example of this kind of information is the nature of salvation by grace through faith in Christ. Any piece of extrabiblical information that would replace or compete with this biblical claim must be rejected.

This third category is where the debate is between biblical and clinically informedcounselors. Biblical counselors agree with our clinically informed brothers that there is much information about counseling and the human condition to be found outside Scripture. But this information is not admissible in authentic Christian ministry because the Bible has uniquely and authoritatively addressed how to care for God’s people in a way that disqualifies any otherproposed intervention. We believe God has told us the insights and interventions we need for counseling care, that he has not invited us to receive input from the world, and to receive such input inevitably replaces or competes with God’s instructions in Scripture. This position is unique in a counseling world where secular approaches dominate efforts to care for people. But it is not unique in the broader world of Christian ministry and theology. Consider two relatively uncontroversial examples. 

The first example comes from the world of preaching. Those of us committed to expository preaching believe when we stand to preach, we have a command to deliver the pure milk of God’s Word. No faithful preacher would ever consider mingling the words of Scripture with the words of man. This conviction does not mean expository preachers reject the existence of extrabiblical information and the doctrine of common grace. Preachers consume countless resources outside Scripture: biblical commentaries, books on ancient Near Eastern customs, other preacher’s sermons, and books by liberal theologians. We search for sermon illustrations in everything from Russian novels to Western research experiments, we watch documentaries, and we read texts about sermon delivery and rhetoric. We are not only privileged but required to consume information like this. We bring all that information to the preaching task and may even mention some of it. The sermon itself is an instance of extrabiblical information! But faithful preachers know that the point of the extrabiblical information is not to communicate the extrabiblical information, but biblical truth. It is not that extrabiblical information is never used or never comes up, but that it never forms the content of Christian preaching. That role belongs exclusively to Scripture. When biblical counselors consume extrabiblical information but refuse to substitute it for the biblical content of counseling, we are functioning like faithful expository preachers.

The second example comes from the world of worship. Those of us committed to the regulative principle believe God has told us how he should be worshiped and think we should not impose human principles on divine instructions. A commitment to the regulative principle does not mean there is nothing to learn outside Scripture. Most of us have been powerfully impacted by extrabiblical information in the dramatic arts and know its powerful impact on the human soul. Yet no one committed to the regulative principle argues this information is the foundation for including skits in Christian worship. We believe that, information outside of Scripture notwithstanding, God has regulated the content of worship in Scripture. Biblical counselors believe God has regulated the interventions in counseling ministry and no amount of extrabiblical information or common grace insights create a reason to add to it. We hold to a counseling equivalent of the regulative principle.

When biblical counselors embrace extrabiblical information but refuse to use it to replace or compete with biblical information, we are doing in the discipline of counseling what faithful Christians do all the time. 

Where We Disagree

I hope these clarifications can help correct some of the recent mischaracterizations. Biblical counselors affirm the existence of extrabiblical information in the world. Biblical counselors affirm the necessity of extrabiblical information in the world. Biblical counselors affirm the doctrine of common grace. Anyone who says this is not true is either terribly confused or intentionally dishonest. There is no debate in the contemporary biblical counseling movement about any of these matters. 

The contemporary debate is over how much confidence we can have that the doctrine of common grace ensures the accuracy of human knowledge in specific cases. The debate is about whether secular efforts at counseling care are more defined by the doctrine of God’s common grace or by the corrosive impact of sin on human thinking. The contemporary debate is about whether any knowledge, however accurate, should ever substitute or compete with the Bible in the ministry of the Word. These are the central and crucial matters, but too many opponents of biblical counseling have been unwilling to engage them, choosing instead to debate matters where there is no disagreement. 

The contemporary conflict is a debate regarding our doctrine of the Word of God. Biblical counselors believe the scope of Scripture’s sufficiency includes the issues that are addressed in counseling ministry. Clinically informed counselors disagree that Scripture intends to address everything biblical counselors claim and so seek help from secular thinkers. Clinically informed practitioners believe counselors must mine the extrabiblical information from secular psychology in search of common grace insights to add to counseling ministry. Biblical counselors believe such a mandate is found nowhere in Scripture and to undertake it without biblical warrant is to mistreat the Bible, common grace, extrabiblical information, and the essence counseling ministry.

In order really to make progress in this matter clinically informed counselors must finally begin to make biblical arguments relevant to this debate. They need to respond to careful arguments from biblical counselors and show from Scripture that God does not intend his Word to address the panorama of problems in human living. They also need to show where in the Bible God commands believers to syncretize his Word with secular wisdom. Making those arguments is going to be a tall order. I think if the opponents of biblical counseling knew how to make them, they would have already done it. 

Regardless, the time has come to stop peddling misunderstandings and misrepresentations as scholarship and serious argument. It is time to start talking about the issues where there is actual disagreement. It is time to start talking about what Scripture actually claimsfor itself. This debate is about the Word of God. Isaiah 40:8 says, “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.” That means, when this debate finally comes to an end, only those with the most faithful view of Scripture are going to be left standing. 

Islam in America 25 Years After 9/11

Heath Lambert

September 11, 2001 

On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was living on the North Shore of Boston and was getting ready to leave my apartment for the day when a friend called and said, “Turn on the TVright now.” I did as ordered, and watched aghast as the iconic World Trade Towers were swarmed in smoke and flames. My roommates and I forgot about any existence outside of the images on our screen. For hours, we stared in shock and watched as more planes crashed, the towers collapsed, thousands fled into the streets of New York City, and our bloodied nation took its first steps to make sense of the tragedy.

The attacks of September 11 served as the introduction of most Americans to the Islamic faith. It was a pretty scary initiation. As we learned terms like radical Islam, Al Qaeda, and jihad, we became fearful of this foreign faith that seemed so committed to destruction. That fear cut both ways. If most Americans were fearful that Muslims wanted to destroy our way of life, mostMuslims were afraid of being lumped together with the terrorists who perpetrated suchreprehensible acts.

In that environment of fear, most Americans could not have predicted what has happened to Islam in America in the quarter century since the devastation of 9/11. The story of Islam in America is one of incredible growth. Since 2001, Muslims have increased their presence in the United States from no more than a few million to around five and a half million, mostly through immigration. Because demographics are electoral destiny, this increase in population has translated to victory at the ballot box. In 2001 there were zero Muslims in the U.S. House of Representatives. Today there are five. These five are all liberal democrats, which is fairly incoherent from the standpoint of Islamic theology—but we will have to save an analysis of that for another time.

The point today is the growth of Islam in America. To be clear, Muslims are still tiny in demographic terms. They only occupy about 1% of the American population and the voting members of Congress. Still, their numbers have tripled in the 25 years since 9/11. That is breathtaking progress for a period of time that began with Islamic fundamentalists perpetrating the greatest act of terror in American history. 

On the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, it is right for Christians to think carefully about Islam. We can do this in at least two ways.

Islam and The Truth

The most important thing Christians must say about Islam is that it is a false religion worshiping a false god. The Islamic Confession of Faith, the Shahadah, says, “There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger.” Such a statement is not only incompatible with biblical Christianity, but also completely untrue. 

In Scripture, God reveals himself as one. Deuteronomy 6:4 says, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” But the Bible also makes clear that this oneness is a complex unity where the one God exists in the three persons of Father, Son, and Spirit. This biblical reality of the Trinity, while notoriously difficult for finite people to grasp, is made repeatedly clear throughout the Bible. 

Islam absolutely denies this reality so basic to Scripture. Islamic teaching makes clear that the Trinity is not true, and that Allah is defined by a simplistic unity. This denial of the truth means Allah is just as false a deity as Baal in the Old Testament or anything in the Hindu pantheon. Since Allah is not the real God, it is impossible for Muhammad to be his messenger. Islam worships the false god, Allah; they follow a false prophet, Muhammad; and they obey a false revelation, the Qur’an.

To be clear, Muslims make the same charge of error against Christians, and so it is simple truth-telling to say we disagree. We need to be honest about this, but that honesty does not need to happen with a harsh and unloving spirit. 

Christians are called to love Islamic people. Anyone who has received the saving grace of Jesus understands we have no boast over any other person separated from God. Every Christian has received the same divine mercy we share with others. We must lean into relationships with ourMuslim neighbors, pray for them earnestly, and extend our love and compassion to them. One manifestation of this love is a commitment to telling the truth that the only God who exists is revealed as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and that Jesus was telling the truth in John 14:6 when he said, “No one comes to the Father except through me.” 

Islam and Culture

As Christians, we are not only concerned about Muslim people, but also about the impact of Muslim influence on our society. We are called to be salt and light to our entire culture, which requires us to think about the strength and health of our larger society. This means Christians must think carefully about the impact of Islam on culture. 

Culture is always downstream from worldview, religion, and morality. Ice freezes into the shape of that which molds it, and society always takes the shape of its dominant worldview. American society has looked the way it has for centuries because of the miraculous influence of Christianity in the founding and shaping of our country. As the dominant worldview of our population changes, it will bring inevitable societal change. 

Today, the threat to that cultural change is radical secularism far more than radical Islam. But on the 25th anniversary of 9/11, Islam, while still a minority religion in America, is not isolated and is not in decline. Islam in America is ascendant. This means that Christians in particular andAmericans in general must think about the ramifications of growing numbers of Muslims in our society. We do not have to guess as we do this, but only need to look to Europe. In recent years our neighbors across the Atlantic have been dealing with massive problems posed by swells of Islamic immigrants.

The European culture closest to ours is the one in the United Kingdom, which has only lately begun to reckon with the culture-redefining nature of mass Muslim immigration. Since 9/11, the Muslim population in the UK has increased by more than 150%. London, the UK’s largest city, is now estimated to be more than 15% Muslim, and Birmingham, the UK’s second largest city, is more than 30% Muslim. Birmingham has had several Muslims serving in the office of Lord Mayor since 2001, and London has had a Muslim mayor since 2016. 

While the Islamic influence in the UK has been growing, Christian influence has deteriorated. The long, slow decline of churches in the UK has been matched by rapid growth in the number of mosques. Across Great Britain, the sound of church bells is increasingly replaced by minarets shouting the Muslim call to prayer. While Christianity declines in the United Kingdom, it is not so much becoming less religious as it is becoming increasingly Islamic.

A Christian Response

As an American and a Christian—but mostly as a Christian—I believe everyone ought to have the freedom to choose their own religion—even if that religion is false. Also, as an American and a Christian—but mostly as a Christian—I think we have the responsibility to think carefully about the impact of worldview and religion on our entire culture. 

Western societies have spent a generation overlooking the fact that Islam always brings massive change to host cultures. It is never wise to ignore facts. Americans should acknowledge that the people you allow into your country ultimately reshape the composition of your country. When we make electoral decisions about who we entrust with power and immigration decisions about who lives in our country, those decisions are never isolated. They always work to create a certain kind of society. When we make these decisions, we need to remember the simple fact that a growing influence of Islam will lead to very different cultural outcomes than what we have known thus far in America. The UK has a head start on us in this change, and Americans ought to ask whether they are ready to deal with the same cultural revolution the British are facing. 

25 years after the terrorist attacks on 9/11, I think the greatest surprise is that the mayor of New York City is a Muslim. Regardless of what you think about it, that is something no one would have predicted on that horrible September morning two and a half decades ago. When Zohran Mamdani took the oath of office as mayor of that great city, it was the first time in American history a person elected to that office placed his hand on the Qur’an. 

Mayor Mamdani did not place his hand on the Qur’an because that book has anything to do with the founding of the United States or the development of New York City into one of the most significant metropolitan centers on the face of the planet. When the mayor took his oath on the Qur’an, you can be sure he was not thinking about influence from the past, but about his hopes for the future. 

If Muslims are thinking about how their religion should influence our society, then, on the 25thanniversary of 9/11, at the absolute least, Christians ought to think about it too.

The Comprehensiveness of Scripture and The Contemporary Counseling Conflict

Heath Lambert

Oceans, Ponds, and the Biblical Counseling Movement

The first ocean I ever saw was the one in the field behind a barn in my small hometown of Kentucky. You might have tried explaining to me back then that there are no oceans behind any barns anywhere in the state of Kentucky. It would have been a waste of time. That wonderfulbody of water was filled to the brim with brown water, was way bigger than any other onearound, and, unlike the city pool, you could swim in it for free. That meant my friends and I usedit for relief from the intense heat and humidity of Appalachian summers. 

If you have never had the pleasure of pond swimming, you simply cannot imagine all you are missing. Let me help you apprehend the wonder of the experience. A successful swim requires entering the water at a run followed by a quick dive to the deep part in the middle where you can tread water. Such a maneuver is necessary because of the sludge layer at the floor of the pond. Standing in this sludge is technically possible, but not recommended. Once you place your feet down there, you slide into the sludge up to the middle of your shins before you hit bedrock. After your feet are firmly planted, they begin to be nibbled by numerous little critters that science has not identified yet. It is important to keep your feet out of this sludge if you want to avoid serving them for lunch. 

If this description of pond swimming fails to match your idea of relaxation in the water, you need to consider a crucial fact. The glory of pond swimming is not found in a long and leisurely swim. It is found in the emergency need for relief from the sweltering heat on a summer afternoon. The relief the pond offers does not come from entering the water. On hot days the temperature of water in the pond is dramatically hotter than the temperature in the summer air and can be, in August, a few degrees hotter than a nuclear explosion. The relief from summer heat offered by pond swimming comes only after you exit the water when the summer breeze hits your wet body. Now that can feel pretty good. But you have to enjoy it fast. After the water evaporates, it leaves behind several kilotons of dirt and minerals on your body. You discover quickly that the same stuff making the pond brown is now doing the same thing to you, and it makes your skin feel tight, sticky, and, honestly, a little gross. Relief from this new problemrequires a rinse with the water hose, which is also required in order to be granted permission to re-enter your house. Some may wonder why it is not best to just skip the pond, enjoy the hose, and avoid all the grime, sludge, and the foot-eating critters in the pond. I do not have time to address these concerns.

The point is that there is nothing quite like the joy of pond swimming.

I grew up loving that pond behind the barn as well as a few others I got to swim in. While I was growing up, I knew a handful of people who visited the ocean. They would describe to me its vastness, its beauty, how refreshingly cool it was, and how wondrous it was to be carried along by the waves. Sitting with no shirt or shoes as brown pond water dripped off my body, I would listen curiously, quite unable to grasp what they were saying. What could be so great about the ocean in comparison to the brown pond behind the barn?

The Contemporary Counseling Conflict

This essay is ultimately about how the relationship of the ocean to that pond has a lot to do with the current conflict in the contemporary biblical counseling movement. In this conflict, two different groups exist. On one side is a group of counselors I have called The New Integrationists in an attempt to identify a new crop of leaders pursuing the familiar project of integration. This group of men and women typically style themselves as clinically informed counselors. As a mark of kindness and respect, that is how I will generally refer to them throughout this essay. On the other side of the conflict are a group of counselors who refer to themselves as historic biblical counselors, classic biblical counselors, or, simply, biblical counselors. 

Understanding the conflict between these two groups requires understanding a crucial reality. That reality is that in this contemporary conflict, neither side is saying anything very new. The back-and-forth of debate consists of very old arguments being rehashed for the umpteenth time. On the biblical counseling side, the very old argument, articulated for over fifty years, isthat the Bible is the sufficient resource to guide counseling ministry and does not require the addition of secular resources. 

David Powlison described this core conviction of biblical counseling when he said,

The scope of Scripture’s sufficiency includes those face-to-face relationships that our culture labels “counseling” or “psychotherapy” . . . The problems, needs, and struggles of real people—right down to the details—must be rationally explained by the categories, which the Bible teaches us to understand . . . We have much work to do to understand and to articulate the biblical “model.” But we don’t have to make it up or borrow from models that others have made up as ways to explain people.

That is just one quote from one leader, but it is important to understand that it represents theconvictions of everyone committed to biblical counseling. When he wrote those words, Powlison was the uncontested leader of the biblical counseling movement. The remarks were a transparent disclosure of his convictions, which were made even more obvious by the title of the article, “The Sufficiency of Scripture to Diagnose and Cure Souls.” His quote from that article was one of many that I used in my doctoral dissertation, where I made the argument that—though many differences existed between Powlison himself and Jay Adams, the founder of contemporary biblical counseling—the two men had the same view of the sufficiency of Scripture. My doctoral dissertation was written under the supervision of Powlison and was later published as a book, The Biblical Counseling Movement After Adams, to which Powlison wrote the foreword. The point is that this one quote is a very obvious demonstration of Powlison’s convictions, which reflect the beliefs of the larger biblical counseling movement. 

On the other side of the contemporary counseling conflict are those identifying as clinically informed and who disagree with that core conviction of biblical counselors. Clinicallyinformed counselors believe the Bible is a wonderful book that stands in authority over the counseling task, but that it is not the only resource that should control counseling concepts or contribute to counseling methods. Such practitioners have adopted the longstanding position thatit is important to mine the resources of psychology for insights and interventions that can augment counseling ministry. Clinically informed counselors are not monolithic. Just how necessary it is to augment Scripture with outside resources depends on which clinically informed counselor is talking, but all of them believe it is at least valuable, if not absolutely essential.

These are the very old arguments being repeated in a new setting. The central difference between the opposing sides comes down to vision. Biblical counselors look at Scripture and see a massive resource full to bursting with help for people facing trauma, heartbreak, addiction, anger, crippling anxiety, doubt, mistrust, abuse, confusion, and every other problem under the sun. Clinically informed counselors simply do not see the Bible this way. Of course, they think Scripture is wonderful, authoritative, foundational, and helpful. But they do not see all the realities that those of us in the biblical counseling movement see when we look at the pages of Scripture. 

This difference in vision is a source of pain and heartbreak to me. Before God, I want clinically informed counselors to see what biblical counselors see. That is why I am writing these words. In this essay, I want to try to expand the biblical vision of those who do not yet see as clearly as they one day will. The disagreements are sharp these days, but my prayer is that clinically informed counselors will begin to see a wonderful reality that, to biblical counselors, is clear as crystal. I want to do this by talking about the doctrine of the comprehensiveness of Scripture.

The Comprehensiveness of Scripture

​When all is said and done, the conflict in the contemporary counseling movement is a debate about the Word of God. That makes it essential to focus on Scripture and pay attention to what theologians call the attributes of Scripture. The most common way theologians do this is by talking about the four perfections of Scripture: authority, necessity, clarity, and sufficiency. Biblical counselors have had much to say about these perfections, but the focus of the movement and of the contemporary conflict has been the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture. The solution to the contemporary conflict is found within this category of sufficiency in the doctrine of the comprehensiveness of Scripture. Let me begin by explaining the relationship between the sufficiency of Scripture and the comprehensiveness of Scripture.

​The doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture has an expansive scope. In my book, A Theology of Biblical Counseling, I talk about four categories within the sufficiency of Scripture,including: progressive sufficiency, completed sufficiency, formal sufficiency, and material sufficiency. The focus of the counseling debate has not just been the sufficiency of Scripture broadly considered but has been a peculiar emphasis on the material sufficiency of Scripture. 

​When theologians talk about the material sufficiency of Scripture, we are talking about the actual contents of the Bible. Debates about the material sufficiency of Scripture are debates about the subject matter that Scripture intends to address. The orthodox Christian understanding of this matter is that the Bible tells us everything we need to know from God about any topic. A focus on the material sufficiency of Scripture raises a crucial question. If material sufficiency means that we have all the divine words we need from God, then just how expansively does his Word address the problems in living on the table in counseling? The answer to this question is found in the doctrine of the comprehensiveness of Scripture. 

​The biblical counseling movement has often addressed the comprehensiveness of Scripture. One of the central ways this issue has been discussed is in making clear that Scripture is a comprehensive resource, not an exhaustive one. I am aware of no person in the biblical counseling movement or anywhere else who has made a serious argument that the Bible is an exhaustive resource, including every detail on every piece of information it is possible to know. Such a claim would be preposterous. The only exhaustive resource in existence is the mind of God himself. Biblical counselors have not argued that Scripture addresses all of life by being exhaustive. We argue that it addresses all of life in the only way possible, namely, by being comprehensive. 

John Frame is helpful in defining the comprehensiveness of Scripture as, “The relevance of all Scripture to all of life.” He says this means God’s “Truth covers all human life.” God, he argues, intends his “whole Word to apply to the whole world.” He warns that “The comprehensiveness of Scripture rules out attempts to limit the scope of biblical revelation.”

Frame’s teaching on the comprehensiveness of Scripture is important for several reasons. First, Frame is a theologian of the first order respected across denominational lines as one of the most faithful teachers in our generation. Second, Frame has earned great respect in the counseling world from both biblical and clinically informed counselors. That respect is important because Frame’s language about the biblical doctrine of comprehensiveness is the same language that clinically informed counselors identify as biblicistic, extreme, simplistic, and unthinking when biblical counselors say the very same things. John Frame is absolutely not open to suchcharges. Frame’s teaching on biblical comprehensiveness is important because the foundation of the clinically informed project is built on the belief that Scripture is limited in scope and the doctrine of comprehensiveness is not true. If John Frame, faithful Christian theology, and classic biblical counselors are correct that there is no limit to the scope of Scripture, then there is no reason to mine clinical resources to fill in assumed gaps, and the clinically informed approach is bankrupt.

But this brings us back to the problem of vision that I spoke about before. The doctrine of the comprehensiveness of Scripture, so plain to theologians like John Frame and so uncontroversial to biblical counselors, is precisely what clinically informed counselors do not see. In what follows, I want to persuade Christians in the counseling world that the Bible addresses all the various realities that counseling addresses by demonstrating the comprehensiveness of Scripture in four ways. 

God Is the Agent of Comprehensiveness

​We all know information is important. It is so important that we are living in a world of hyphenated labels that counselors use to demonstrate how much information they have. Some want to be trauma-informed. Others seek to be clinically-informed. In such a world, Christians committed to the sufficiency of Scripture must be absolutely clear that there is nothing wrong with being informed about almost anything. Counseling is a discipline based on knowledge that requires information and wisdom in order to do it well. In such a discipline, we are eager for helpful information. The central issue concerns where we believe we find the best, most reliable, and most comprehensive information to do that work. 

​In such an information-dependent world, every faithful Christian knows the most important source of information is God himself. This is because it is God alone who knows things that no other person could possibly know. 1 Kings 8:39 says, “For you, you only, know the hearts of all the children of mankind.” 1 Samuel 16:7 says, “The Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” 1 Chronicles 28:9 says, “The Lord searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought.” Psalm 139:16 says, “Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.” Psalm 147:5 says, “Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure.” Proverbs 5:21 says, “A man’s ways are before the eyes of the Lord, and he ponders all his paths.” Matthew 6:8 says, “Your Father knows what you need.” Matthew 10:30 says, “The hairs of your head are all numbered” by God. Romans 11:33 says, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” Philippians 4:19 promises, “God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” Colossians 2:3 says in Christ, “Are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Hebrews 4:13 says, “No creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” 

​There are many more examples that could be added to that brief sample of God’s knowledge of the people he has created. Just these few indicate what all faithful Christians will uncontroversially affirm: that God as creator and sustainer is the only potential source for comprehensive knowledge about people and their problems. Too many people out there are far too eager to reject the biblical counseling position. They celebrate when they encounter almost any argument against the biblical counseling position on sufficiency and comprehensiveness. This is terribly out of place. Any Christian who would reject the comprehensive sufficiency of Scripture for counseling ought to do it slowly, reluctantly, and with a broken heart. If God has not revealed his knowledge of people and their problems to us, then there is no other way to get it, and we should weep rather than rejoice. The only possible path to comprehensive knowledge of life is through God who made it and exists as sovereign over it. ​​

The Promise of Scripture Is the Guarantee of Comprehensiveness

​The possibility of Scripture’s comprehensiveness is grounded in its author, who is the only Person who could create a resource that provides every bit of information people need to know about life, the troubles we face while living it, and the solutions we need to confront those problems. The divine authorship of Scripture does not absolutely guarantee Scripture’s comprehensiveness, however, since the fact that God could give his people a resource that comprehensively addresses everything in life does not necessarily mean that he has given such a resource or that Scripture is the resource where he reveals that information. The only way to know what God intended to accomplish in Scripture is to read the divine claims within it. 

​When we pay attention to those claims, we find that God repeatedly declares his intention to provide a comprehensive resource that addresses every problem we face and provides every solution we need. The biblical revelation is so overwhelming on this point that it is hard to know how to fit information that could fill many volumes into a brief section of a short essay. As a starting point, I will focus on a few observations from just one chapter in the Bible. 

​Psalm 119 is one long, sustained exaltation of the words of the Bible. One reality the Psalmist repeatedly praises about Scripture is the comprehensive way it addresses all of life. Consider eight statements from the Psalmist about the comprehensiveness of the Bible. Throughout all your life, God promises to guide you with his Word (Psalm 119:105). God declares that he has been candid with us in his Word about problems we face in life (Psalm 119:100, 104, 130). God says the Bible functions like a counselor sharing wisdom with hurtingpeople (Psalm 119:24, 130). God says that he gave his people the Bible as a guide for how to avoid the many problems in life (Psalm 119:3, 9, 175, 176). God encourages us that when we are enduring pain, suffering, and trauma, the Bible is the place where we can go to receive his comfort (Psalm 119:25, 28, 50, 71, 92, 107, 143). God promises that there will never come a time in life when the teaching of Scripture will be irrelevant (Psalm 119:44, 112). God assures that when life inevitably brings disappointment, fulfillment is available in the Bible (Psalm 119:93, 116, 154, 156). God makes clear that the very best resources on earth face crucial limitations, but not Scripture (Psalm 119:96). Again, this is just one chapter in the Bible that repeatedly emphasizes the doctrine of the comprehensiveness of Scripture. There are many other places (e.g., Psalm 32:8, Proverbs 6:20-23; Matthew 4:4; Luke 11:28; 2 Timothy 3:16-17; James 1:22-25).

​The point of all this is that the God who alone is able to provide a comprehensive resource addressing every issue in life has repeatedly told us that he has given us this resource in Scripture. Christians must take God at his Word on this and approach the Bible with trust and confidence. There is simply no warrant in Scripture for the assumption on the part of contemporary integrationists that there is something lacking in the content of Scripture that requires Christians to be clinically informed. The promises in Scripture require us to approach the Bible with assurance that it is comprehensively relevant to the panorama of human problems.Those statements are authoritative words in the sacred Scriptures that come directly from the God of heaven and earth. It honors God when his people believe him instead of their independent logic (Hebrews 11:6). I promise that if you will trust God and put his Word into practice in your ministry, you will never face a deficit of divine resources as you provide help for hurting people.

Categorical Content Is the Mechanism of Comprehensiveness

​God is the only being in the cosmos with the ability to provide a comprehensive resource for life, and he has repeatedly promised that he has provided such a resource in Scripture. Biblical counselors embrace this reality while integrationists and their clinically informedintellectual heirs do not. To be fair, they are repeatedly clear that the Bible is essential to the counseling task and the other resources they look to are imperfect and full of errors. Where they simply cannot agree with biblical counselors is that the Bible is a comprehensive resource addressing all counseling problems. Such a view simply does not seem credible to clinicallyinformed counselors. 

Let me make the clinically informed argument more bluntly than some of its proponents have been willing to articulate in any but the most private of contexts. The belief underlying the entire clinically informed project is that the Bible is 66 smaller books full of letters, history, poems, songs, genealogical lists, proverbs, symbols, and apocalyptic literature, which can feel a little beside the point from a clinical perspective. The Bible’s most recent addition was a fewmillennia before our modern and scientific era. It is just too hard for some to imagine that a book like this could possibly be all humanity needs to understand and address the counseling problems of people in the Twenty-First Century. That belief is not just the basis of the clinically informedapproach to counseling, but also resonates immediately with average Christians. Most Christians want to be both godly and informed and assume you need to have your devotions in the Bible to live for Jesus and also assume that someone with an M.A. in psychology is more equipped to understand people than most Christians. That clinically informed assumption is the best thing the movement has going for it.

​But this assumption has never been proven. Clinically informed counselors have had many opportunities to prove it, but that proof has never come. Perhaps that is because the unproved assumption appears to have a certain amount of common-sense logic behind it. Appearances are far from proof, but I grant that it is hard for some to fathom that a 2000-year-oldbook could be as comprehensively relevant as biblical counselors claim. Because I really do understand this can be difficult to grasp, I would like to provide a clear response to those who sincerely fail to see how a very old book that is limited in length can be comprehensive in scope.

​Just one specific way the Bible is comprehensive is in its use of categorical content. All through Scripture, God speaks in categories that he explains, describes with specific examples, and then invites his people to fill in specific details with their own examples as they are trained by Scripture. Many more examples exist than I have space to cover—my argument is that Scripture is the one comprehensive document, not this essay! But we can consider a few examples.

​First, consider the comprehensive categories in Scripture for how Christians must approach life. An obvious example in this category is 1 Corinthians 10:31, “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” In one passage, God tells us how to live all of life in a way that brings him honor. Every activity you will ever accomplish in life is mentioned in a single verse of Scripture. The activities of your life are not listed like a Google search with 1,345,624,197 responses. Such information would be impossible to consume, much less apply. Instead, God in his wisdom includes all the activities of your life in the comprehensive category of “Whatever you do.” The point is that God’s glory is at stake in everyactivity from the coffee you drink in the morning, to the snack you eat at night, from your attendance at a prayer meeting on Wednesday, to the annoying meeting at work on Thursday. In a single verse, God speaks to everything you will ever do in life and declares that his glory must be your goal in all of it. He does not list all the activities of your life. He does not need to. He gave you the category and expects you to work out the details.

​Second, consider the comprehensive categories in Scripture for human behavior. It is a feature of Scripture to include regular lists of behaviors that we call virtue and vice lists. These lists create comprehensive categories for how Christians should live and how they should avoid living. One clue that these lists are not exhaustive is that no two lists in Scripture are identical. Another indicator that the lists are not exhaustive are the explicit statements which explain thatthe lists are intended to create categories that sanctified Christians must fill in with specifics.

One example of these behavioral categories are Paul’s lists of the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit. Paul is very clear that his lists are not exhaustive. In Galatians 5:19, before he gives a list of specifics, he says, “The works of the flesh are evident.” Many items are not included in the printed list, but still fit the category. Pornography addiction does not appear on the list in black-and-white any more than pedophilia, but every Christian knows those sins are there in principle right along with “orgies and things like these” (Galatians 5:21). Paul’s list of the fruits of the Spirit are similarly non-exhaustive. The list does not need to be exhaustive because the category of “such things” in Galatians 5:23 welcomes us to fill in the virtuous category with limitless details.

​Third, consider the comprehensive categories in Scripture for God’s blessings to his people. James 1:17 says, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father.” This one passage addresses all the gifts you have ever received in your entire life whether the wonderful parents you had growing up, the children you received after a season of infertility, the incredible night of sleep you got last night, the salvation you have in Jesus, yourdinner out with friends last weekend, that incredible sermon you heard on Sunday, or the breath you just took as you read these words. Every single gift you have ever received in your life is all there in one verse, not through an exhaustive list, but through a comprehensive category. 

​There are so many more examples. We could talk about Scripture’s comprehensive categories for human relationships (Matthew 7:12), its comprehensive categories for divine judgment (Romans 1:32; 2:2), comprehensive categories for suffering and trauma (2 Corinthians 1:4; James 1:2), comprehensive categories for human thinking (Philippians 4:8), comprehensive categories for sound doctrine (Ephesians 4:14, 1 Timothy 1:9-10), comprehensive categories for the gifts of the Spirit (1 Peter 4:10), its comprehensive categories for investment in your local church (Hebrews 13:16), and more (Romans 13:8-14; 1 Corinthians 16:16, 18; Ephesians 4:29; Colossians 3:5, 23). The point is that one of the most common ways God ensures the Bible is a comprehensive document about all of life is specifically by avoiding any effort at listing every possible detail and, instead, by offering categories that encompass all those specifics. 

The Holy Spirit as the Power for Comprehensiveness

​We have seen how God as the author of the Bible makes it possible for Scripture to be comprehensive, that God repeatedly makes the direct promise that Scripture is comprehensive, and that this comprehensiveness is made possible by the categorical content of Scripture. Those realities ensure that Scripture comprehensively addresses the issues of life. But we must address one final reality in this short essay on the doctrine of the comprehensiveness of Scripture. It is possible for Scripture to address all of life in a fully comprehensive way, and yet have no impact on us. The great risk before us is the presence of a Bible that is just as comprehensive as it promises to be, but which is in the possession of people who are blind to thatcomprehensiveness. God solves this potential problem with the gift of the Holy Spirit, who gives Christians the ability to understand and apply the comprehensive resources in Scripture.  

​This glorious truth is built on a promise that comes directly from Jesus Christ. In John 14:16-17, Jesus says, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.” Jesus goes on to guarantee in John 16:13 that, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.”

​The same Spirit who inspired the writing of Scripture dwells in the hearts of Christians through faith in Jesus and guides them into all the truth. This means that the people of the Spirit have the mind of the Spirit as they read the words of the Spirit. There is a living, powerful, and divine connection between Christians and God’s comprehensive Word. That connection is the Spirit of God. That ever-present Spirit is one reason why God can leave categories for Christians to be filled in with details. As Spirit indwelt believers read the Spirit inspired Word, Jesus promises that his people, living life together, will be guided into comprehensive truth. 

​These four categories help us to honor the comprehensiveness of Scripture. God as Scripture’s author, the promises of Scripture to address all of life, the categories of Scripture to make comprehensiveness possible, and the power of God living in Christians to help them know the truth are all ways that the doctrine of the comprehensiveness of Scripture can and should be embraced by every believer. They are four realities that remind Christians that whenever we make statements limiting the scope of Scripture to address life, we are speaking in opposition to God’s Word. 

Comprehensiveness and Contemporary Counseling Conflict

​All those years ago in Kentucky, you might have been one of those people that described to me the wonders of the ocean after your trip to the sea. If I sat there in my muddy jean shorts minimizing the greatness of that body of water while trumpeting the wonders of brown ponds, you probably would not have been upset with me or said I could not be your friend. But you would know for certain that anybody who talks like that has simply not seen what you have.

​That is how I feel when clinically informed counselors tell me how much we need to add the insights of secular psychology to the glorious truth of God’s Word. All the sophisticated-sounding arguments only prove they have never beheld the comprehensive marvels of Scripture. Oh, how I wish they could! There is no reason to slosh around in the sludge of secular psychology when the wondrous glory of the Word of God is right there waiting to tell you everything you need to know to help hurting people. 

It may help for me to close with a personal word. I have spent my adult life in the world of biblical counseling. I have known, studied with, and befriended almost every previous leader in the movement. I have led and helped to found a number of biblical counseling organizations. I have helped several current leaders attain their positions. I have seen how the resources, institutions, and people involved in this movement have aided my own ministry and the ministry of countless others. My investment in the biblical counseling movement has been deep.

But my involvement in that world feels like a former life. I stepped away from leadership in that movement in 2018 and only address these matters infrequently. My passion in life is to herald the Word of God every week to the people at First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida, the vast majority of whom have no idea about the biblical counseling movement or its alphabet soup of organizations. I have no ambition for any influence or leadership in the biblical counseling movement. That part of my life has come to an end. 

The biblical counseling movement is one thing. Biblical counseling is another. Because I love the Bible, because I want to help hurting people, and because, for my entire ministry, I have seen with my own eyes what the Word of God can do when unleashed in the lives of hurting people, it is important, every now and then, for me to make clear just how wonderful the Bible is, just how much people need it, and just how dangerous it is to use language that limits the scope of Scripture’s content. For the life of me, I cannot understand why anyone would want to devoteany energy to such a project. 

If you are one of my clinically informed brothers or sisters who loves the pond of secular psychology and who derives joy from treading in its murky waters, that is your choice. But I hope you will not think me your enemy as I call to you from the cliffs overlooking the vast ocean of God’s Word in order to help you see there is something far better than what you currently behold. I wish we could stop arguing about this. But those of us who have seen the ocean are never going back to that pond. So, I write to invite you to come over here. I promise if you do, you will not be disappointed, but overwhelmed with the delight, power, glory, and beauty of God’s comprehensive Word to tell you everything you need to live your life and help others do the same. 

The Tragic Case of Lindsay Clancy

Heath Lambert

A Complete Tragedy

For weeks, our entire nation has been riveted by the tragedy of Lindsay Clancy. The tragedy began in January of 2023 when Clancy, overwhelmed, medicated, and clearly in distress,strangled to death all three of her children: Callan, Dawson, and Cora. Her husband, Patrick, arrived at home to discover his three dead children and his wife laying in the yard after attempting suicide by cutting her wrists, neck, and jumping from the second story window. Clancy survived the attempt but remains paralyzed from the waist down. 

Now, over three years later, she is on trial for the murder of her children. The trial is not a dispute about whether she took the lives of her children, but about whether she should be held criminally responsible for the act. The verdict in the case will determine whether she is sent to prison or to a mental institution.

The trial happening in a Massachusetts courtroom is also happening in the court of public opinion and is dividing the nation. Millions have extended sympathy to Clancy and expressed outrage that such a troubled woman is being tried at all. Millions of others have expressed that no struggle Clancy faced can possibly make her anything other than a murderer of her children. 

Everyone can agree that this entire situation is an unmitigated disaster. Three children are dead at the hands of their own mother. The life of that mother has been permanently altered with paralysis, a potential lifetime of institutional confinement, and the guilt of what she has done. There is also a husband and father whose entire family was yanked away from him in the most tragic of circumstances. 

If we can all agree that this is a tragedy, there is much disagreement about the specific kind of tragedy it is and what, if anything, can be done about it. 

Five categories can help us respond to the tragic case of Lindsay Clancy.

The Limitations of Psychiatry

One reality unfolding in this drama has to do with the limits of psychiatry and psychiatric care. In spite of the fact that Clancy was being treated by credentialed professionals, and in spite of the fact that she was clearly in distress, the people tasked with caring for her were not able toprovide crucial help. Earlier this year, Clancy’s husband filed a wrongful death lawsuit against some of her doctors alleging her condition worsened after they began treating her. When a psychiatrist’s patient kills three people and attempts to kill herself, at the very least we must be willing to consider that this was a failure of care. 

Another limitation of psychiatry exhibited in the Clancy case is the conflicting expert testimonywe have witnessed in the trial. The prosecution in the case has called expert psychiatric witnesses claiming that Clancy absolutely knew what she was doing and must be held responsible. The defense has called different psychiatric experts claiming she absolutely did not know what she was doing and definitely must not be held responsible. Such opposite conclusions about central issues clearly demonstrates limitations in the modern discipline of psychiatry. 

The obvious limitations of psychiatry on display in the Clancy case do not mean there is no legitimacy to psychiatry, that it is the only discipline with professionals who disagree, or that Clancy’s case was not complex.

The point is that in our contemporary culture people have tended to extend a level of optimism and authority to psychiatric care far beyond what the discipline deserves. Modern psychiatry is far more experimental and uncertain than most understand. This is clearly demonstrated by the fact that average and untrained people looking at this situation from the distance of media reportshave the same kinds of disagreements about the case as the professionals possessing intimate knowledge of the details of the situation and being called as supposedly expert witnesses. 

In our professionalized society, people with problems tend to assume that those with extensive training and advanced degrees are able to solve their problems with drugs and other treatments that are standardized, formulaic, and uncontroversial. It is no slander against psychiatry to admit this is not true. Psychiatrists are like anyone else. They are finite and fallible people operating out of a very specific worldview who possess limitations, blind spots, and prejudices. They do their work in a discipline with more mystery and unanswered questions than we typically acknowledge. The tragic case of Lindsay Clancy is a caution to our entire culture to view these well-intended professionals with far more caution than we often do. 

The Complexity of the Human Body

Another factor we must consider in evaluating the Clancy case is the incredible complexity of the human body. Clancy’s trial raises difficult medical and biological questions. This complexityis basic to the courtroom battle we read in the news of the case. Clancy’s defense is not that she did not end the lives of her children, but that she possessed a diagnosable condition and a level of physical distress that removes the criminal responsibility for her actions. The argument from the prosecution is that there is no medical condition she faced that could eliminate her criminal responsibility.

The Bible’s teaching on the human body helps Christians think clearly about this matter. Consider two strands of biblical teaching on our bodies which form the entire context of our existence as members of the human race.

First, our bodies are wondrous creations of God and gifts from him to us. The gift of these bodiesallows us to experience every reality we encounter in life: the taste of food, a loved one’s touch, the sight of a beautiful sunset, the sound of a worship song—every gift we receive from God is mediated through his gift to us of our bodies. 

Second, in the sinful world in which we live, our bodies are weak. The Bible teaches this in places like 2 Corinthians 4:16, which says of our “Outer self is wasting away.” In this broken world, the good gift of our bodies is constantly breaking down and failing us: we get the flu, neurons misfire, our eyesight degrades or becomes non-existent, our auditory equipment gets weaker, our muscles ache, our heads ache, our backs ache, we fracture bones, sprain muscles, and confront midlife spread. All of our bodies are constantly weakening to the point that they ultimately cease to function, and we die. 

We can all agree that such physical weakness is on display in the tragic case of Lindsay Clancy. Years ago, I edited a book with Stuart Scott called Counseling the Hard Cases. In that book, I wrote a chapter about postpartum psychosis and my experience of caring for women with struggles like Lindsay Clancy. One reality I discussed in that chapter is the overwhelming physical weaknesses a new mom can confront. The physical exhaustion from no sleep and the strain of constant care for other needy people combined with enormous hormonal realignment are hard enough without the increased trouble that comes from the side effects of medication. Few conditions on earth rival the physical challenges faced by new moms. These realities are more than enough to stoke our compassion for moms like Lindsay Clancy facing tremendousbodily weakness. 

Biblical Teaching on the Human Heart

The Clancy case also forces our awareness that the Bible teaches human beings have more than a body, but also possess an inner aspect known variously as a soul, spirit, or heart. The Bible does not just reveal the existence of this aspect of humanity but teaches the priority it has in guiding our existence. In Proverbs 4:23, Solomon says, “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” In Mark 7:20-23, Jesus says, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

That teaching from Jesus on the heart is significant. Without diminishing the weakness that our physical bodies always add to our existence, Jesus is clear that sin and defilement do not come out of the body, but out of the heart. Jesus’s long list of sins that come out of the heart highlightssome of the terrible realities on display with Lindsay Clancy: evil thoughts, murder, wickedness,and more. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who made the body, says we may not blame our misdeeds on our bodies but must admit that sin comes from wicked hearts separated from God. That is true, even when the case is tragic like this one.

The Bible and Responsibility

The Bible always places responsibility for our actions, not on the kind of bodies we have, but on the kind of hearts we possess. This principle does not remove every difficulty or answer every question. Biological problems in the brain can make it hard, if not impossible, to think clearly, to remember accurately, to see, speak, hear, and move. But none of those terrible challenges in a fallen world absolves someone from responsibility after they take an action. Biblically speaking, we are always responsible for what we do. To say it another more obvious way, whenever someone does something, it is always that person that did it. There is simply no way for us to think biblically or to function as a society if we create a category of actions that people take, but for which they bear no responsibility.

We should be quick to admit that we can hold people responsible and still be compassionate. We can say, both, that someone faced overwhelming and regrettable circumstances, and, that theystill did something wrong for which they must be held to account. Lindsay Clancy deserves our compassion: she was facing overwhelming physical and situational challenges, her health care providers did fail her, her life will never be the same again. But Lindsay Clancy’s difficulties are only one side of this tragic case. The rest of the story is that three beautiful children were killed as the air was squeezed from their precious bodies. Someone is responsible for those deaths, and Lindsay Clancy is the only candidate. As a society, we must be clear that the intentional execution of innocent children is a line we must never cross, and whenever anyone does, they must be held responsible regardless of the difficulties they were confronting.

Our judicial system has ways to assign varying degrees of responsibility for crimes. Our legal code makes distinctions between first- and second-degree murder, manslaughter, accidentaldeath, and wrongful death, just to name a few. The difference in these crimes all takes account, not merely of the crime itself, but of the circumstances that led to it and the motivations behind it. As a society, we can be careful in how we weigh responsibility, without refusing to assign italtogether. 

The Importance of Guilt

The reason there is so much cultural debate on all this is not ultimately about the imperfect discipline of psychiatry or confusion about whether the body or the soul is in the driver’s seat of our decisions. The central issue the tragic case of Lindsay Clancy is only revealing is that we are a culture that does not understand guilt. One side of the cultural debate is afraid the legal system will refuse to assign guilt, and the other side is afraid they will be too enthusiastic to assign guilt. The fact of the matter is that Lindsay Clancy is guilty. Her guilt may be complicated by various factors, and she may share that guilt with others, but as the one who took the action to kill her children, her guilt is beyond dispute. 

The fact that our culture does not understand how to think about this guilt means we need more exposure to the person and work of Jesus Christ, who alone helps us know how to think about guilt in ways that address all the concerns. 

The Bible teaches that human beings are far more guilty than most want to admit. We are not just guilty of horrible crimes that can make the headlines or send us to prison. We are guilty of secret sins that no one knows but us. We are guilty of things we have done, of thoughts we have had, of words we have spoken, and—Lord, have mercy—of countless good things we should have done, but left undone. 

The Bible teaches that for that guilt we all face a future dramatically worse than a lifetime confined to a wheelchair and a federal penitentiary. We all face a lifetime separated from God in hell. 

But the Bible also teaches that Jesus came to pay for that guilt through his death on the cross, and that when we name our guilt and ask for mercy, we receive forgiveness. 1 John 1:8-9 says, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

This passage teaches the way God himself extends compassion to guilty people. Guilt is not addressed by pretending we are not responsible for the bad things we have done. Guilt is forgiven when we confess it and trust Jesus to cover it. After we receive divine forgiveness, we may still endure penalties and consequences in this life. But when this life gives way to eternal life, we will know nothing but joy, bliss, and peace in a world of unending delight. 

Lindsay Clancy has pled not guilty to a crime everyone knows she committed. As I record these words, it is too early to tell if a human court will pronounce her guilty or not guilty. But in the eyes of the heavenly court, her guilt is an objective fact. Her only hope is to plead guilty as charged to the Judge of heaven and earth. When she does, she has the guarantee of a full and complete pardon from the Lord Jesus Christ. That guarantee is not only available to Lindsay Clancy. It is available for everyone on earth. That means it is available to you.

Communion: The Vice President’s Important New Book about Christianity

Heath Lambert

Communion

This summer the Vice President of the United States, J.D. Vance, released a new book entitled, Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith. Of course, Vance is no stranger to the world of publication having already written Hillbilly Elegy, the 2016 memoir about his harrowing journey out of poverty and family brokenness. It is hard to imagine that Vance’s second book will outsell his first one, but, in the grand scheme of American national politics, this book is dramatically more important.

Vance’s second book functions like a spiritual memoir. It chronicles his upbringing in an environment of rural Protestantism, his exchange of that tradition in adulthood for atheism, and his eventual return to the Christian tradition. Vance’s book is repeatedly explicit that he now embraces Roman Catholicism. Honestly, I am discouraged by that. As a Baptist in the stream of the Protestant Reformation, I could wish that Vance’s story was one of a full return to the Christianity of his youth. But the book tells his story, not mine. And in spite of my concerns about Roman Catholicism, there is much for Christians to celebrate in Vance’s very important book.

The Vice President on Atheism

At the beginning of his book Vance confronts the fact that, “An uncomfortable reality for any devout Christian is that so many people raised in the faith later fall away from it.”1 This is true. For my entire ministry, I have dealt with the intense struggle of countless parents and grandparents heartbroken over the departure of their children and grandchildren from the faith in which they sought to raise them.

For the Vice President this problem is autobiographical in his personal abandonment of the Christianity of his childhood to embrace atheism in adulthood. To be clear, Vance did not grow up in anything like a stable and consistent Christian environment, but he did encounter Christianity in several Pentecostal and Southern Baptist churches and through relationships with many who loved Jesus. Those experiences, however, were not enough to anchor Vance to the Christian tradition.

Vance’s move to atheism happened after his move away from home and the death of his beloved Mamaw. This combination of independence and pain is a combination that leads many away from the faith of their childhood. Vance says, “What paved my path to atheism

wasn’t books or ideas, it was sadness and a sense of betrayal.”2 He said, “Losing my faith wasn’t, consequently, a primarily intellectual act. It was the equivalent of a divorce.”3

There is a lesson in this for Christians concerned to address the problem Vance experienced. Our church communities must be clear that our faith is relevant to all of life. The world Vance confronted as an adult seemed disconnected from the biblical teaching he heard as a child. Vance said, “Christianity had become completely irrelevant to me.”4

But when you read the Bible, you see that it is never disconnected from daily life. Scripture is always about the jobs, marriages, kids, friendships, enemies, pressures and burdens we deal with every day. It is constantly raising to the surface our fears, longings, trusts, doubts, suspicions, loves, and inner conflicts that are always before us. When Christian parents, preachers, Sunday School leaders, and teachers obscure the relevance of Scripture for all of life, we do something God never does. We can never work too hard to share how every page of Scripture impacts every day of life.

Our Christian communities also need to be sure we emphasize the biblical teaching on suffering. This can be particularly challenging because we don’t want to bring up difficult topics that might make our children sad or uncomfortable. More than that, we can feel uncomfortable and unsure of how to address these topics. We need to get over it. Painful, heart-rending suffering will eventually enter the lives of our children. This cannot be stopped or avoided. But we can give them the resources to handle it. We can help them understand the origins of pain in the biblical teaching on sin. We can show them that a good and sovereign God is always working in the midst of pain to turn it for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose. The Vice President of the United States got caught spiritually flat-footed when pain hit, and he didn’t have biblical categories for it. This is a reminder for all Christians that, as difficult as it can be to discuss painful subjects, we have a responsibility to prove that the Bible alone supplies sufficient answers to the pain our children are guaranteed to face in a sinful world.

The Vice President on a Return to Christianity

If ideas were not what led Vance away from Christianity, they were undoubtedly what brought him back to it. The Vice President’s new book is a thoughtful work by a thoughtful man who clearly loves to read and engage ideas.

He says, “What started my journey back to my faith, was that Christianity bore the best fruit. It was the set of ideas and practices that generated the most good, the most truth, and the most beauty of anything I’d encountered.”5 Vance makes clear that he was reading a lot

of serious Christian authors including Chesterton, Lewis, Aquinas, and Augustine, whom he credits as making the first crack in what he called his atheist armor.6

Vance makes clear that he was drawn to Catholicism for intellectual reasons and that he loves its seriousness and intellectual rootedness.

Here the Vice President’s new book serves as another reminder that, just as we need to be showing the relevance of Scripture for all of life, and its unique power to address pain in a fallen world, so we also need to demonstrate that a biblical and Christian worldview supplies the intellectual resources to think carefully and correctly about the issues we face in contemporary society. Psalm 119:43 calls the Bible, “The Word of Truth” and is why it is the foundation of all profound and correct thought.

The Vice President was attracted to the intellectual tradition of Roman Catholicism because those are the resources he found. But the intellectual resources of Protestantism are more than a match for anything produced by Rome. We have got Martin Luther on theology, Carl Henry on intellectual engagement, and Isaac Backus on political theology. We have Al Mohler on ethics and morality; John Dagg on church government. We have Schaeffer, Strong, Lewis, Spurgeon, Bunyan, and many, many more. Not all of these authors are for everyone, but Protestants in general and Baptists in particular are not in need of papal encyclicals to know how to think biblically. We have more than enough intellectual resources to bring God’s truth to bear in the heady waters of contemporary intellectual engagement. Every one of our faith communities need to find ways to make this clear.

The Vice President on Marriage and Fatherhood

Beyond the Vice President’s rejection of atheism and embrace of the larger Christian tradition, one of the most encouraging elements of his new book is his clear rejection of worldly definitions of success in order to embrace family. Anyone who knows of Vance’s success as an author, his wealth as a businessman, and his election to become the second highest-ranking elected official in the United States might say that he does not sound like someone who has rejected worldly standards of success. But that is just the point.

Vance is honest in the book that he has attained all the external elements of validation it is possible to achieve and, after he got them, found them wanting. Once he started meeting all the individuals in the elite culture he climbed into, he thought he would discover they were more sophisticated than the people he grew up with in small towns in the South and Midwest. Instead, he says he discovered those same elites were “As screwed up as anyone.”7 What Vance calls the meritocracy, he candidly admits, did not work in leading to happiness.

Vance’s book is filled with expressions of devotion to his wife, love for his kids, his prayers to be a good husband and father, his desires to see his children’s character formed in traditional institutions like the church. He even relates candid stories of being distracted as Vice President with messages on his cell phone when he was supposed to be playing with his kids. Most people alive would give the Vice President of the United States a pass for texting on his phone on a Saturday morning. Not Vance. He called such distractions a failure of character.

I think most working dads could use a role model like J.D. Vance, who, after capturing everything the world has to offer, achieved the perspective that none of those things is more important than being a dad who pays attention to his kids and wrestles with them on the floor. For every dad willing to learn from Vance, there is a lesson here that will save you, your kids, and your wife years of frustration and heartache.

A Lifetime Journey

As I mentioned, I don’t agree with everything in the Vice President’s book. You won’t either. But that doesn’t mean the book is not a good and important one. In this book Vance interacts with Bible verses like Psalm 73; Matthew 7:16-20, 1 Corinthians 15:32; and Philippians 4:8 to name a few. He makes intellectual arguments against atheism and for Christianity. He interacts with everything from papal encyclicals to the works of C.S. Lewis. He calls himself a Christian statesman and opens the Introduction of the book with a reference to what he describes as, “The core of the Christian faith, that Jesus Christ is the only begotten son of God, was born of the Virgin Mary, was crucified for our sin, and rose from the dead.”8

To have all of this and much more written by the sitting Vice President of the United States of America is not only unprecedented, but very, very encouraging. It is encouraging for Christians like me who desire to see Christian witness fill up more and more of our public dialogue. It is also encouraging to any Christian discouraged by someone they love who has drifted away from the truth and away from the faith.

Vance’s book is honest that he, like many, drifted away from the faith of his childhood. His book is also encouraging that he found his way back. His book reminds that we are all on a journey of faith regardless of where we started or where we are right now. He gets at this idea with the encouraging words, “If you believe Jesus is the Son of God and rose from the dead on the third day, you’re on the right track.”9

Vance’s book is an encouragement that you can get off this track and find your way back on it. It is a reminder that, once all of us are on the track, we need to keep moving. I am thankful for the long distance the Vice President has travelled down this track and am

praying for him to keep moving down it. Since none of us have yet arrived at God’s destination for us on the journey of faith in Jesus, I’m praying for the rest of us too.

Four Biblical Problems with Socialism

Heath Lambert

Is America Going Socialist?

One of the biggest stories of the summer and what will prove to be one of the most important issues in the upcoming midterm elections is the growing number of socialist candidates running for elected office across the United States. In electoral politics, the national story of socialism has really orbited around only one man, Vermont Senator, Bernie Sanders. Those days are over.

In 2026, a spate of socialist candidates is winning support in the democratic party and at least has a shot at electoral victory. Some of the candidates for the United States Congress are Chris Rabb from Pennsylvania, Melot Kiros from Colorado, Cori Bush from Missouri, Oliver Larkin from Florida, Donavan McKinney from Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan, and Rashida Tlaib seeking a fifth term for her congressional seat from Michigan. Then there is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is arguably the most famous national figure linked with socialism. Representative Ocasio-Cortez made big news recently by ranking ahead of California Governor Gavin Newsom and former Vice President Kamala Harris in a recent presidential opinion poll.

It is hard to talk about the increased interest in socialism without talking about the election of Zohran Mamdani to the office of mayor in New York City. While it is true that Mamdani won with the barest majority of 50.78%, it is also true that a win is a win, and Mamdani as the victor gets a chance to refashion public policy in America’s biggest city. He is making the most of this opportunity and has proposed everything from government-run grocery stores to free bus fare to free child care to free date nights for parents.

In one sense, this lurch toward socialism is not surprising. Electoral politics often favors pendulum swings from one extreme to the other. It makes sense that the passionate opposition of the American political left to Donald Trump would inspire an interest on the part of some to move to his perceived political opposite. In another sense, the increased interest is concerning. There has never been such interest in socialism in America, and, in the New York mayoral office, they have already racked up one win, and there is a real potential for more this fall.

It is unlikely that we are witnessing the beginning of a widespread embrace of socialism in the United States. But socialism is having a bit of a moment right now. That means it is important for Christians to pay attention to this situation and learn to think about it biblically.

Before we can evaluate something, we need to understand what it is. Socialism is an economic system where a government has the authority to control the production and distribution of goods and services. It is different from capitalism, where the authority to control the distribution of goods and services rests with individuals. It is also different from

communism, where the government, in addition to controlling the production of goods and services, also has complete ownership of the entities that create goods and services. Socialism, therefore, seeks a path between the freedom of capitalism and the complete tyranny of communism.

Many problems exist with socialism. This week, we will consider four biblical problems with the socialist economic system.

Socialism Undermines Motivation

The first problem is that socialism undermines motivation. Let me explain.

Socialism begins with a compassionate instinct. Socialists survey a population with many who face financial challenges and cannot afford many of the things they would like to have. Socialists want to solve this problem of want using the resources of the larger economy. In the United States, the resources of the larger economy are vast. Surely, they argue, the wealthiest nation in the history of the world can afford to have those with more resources offset the challenges of those with less.

The difficulty socialists face is that those with more resources do not volunteer to share them in large enough numbers to meet all the needs the socialists see. That requires socialists to use government to mandate those who possess the resources to share them with those who do not. Many problems exist with this, but just one of them is the loss of the motivation it creates on the part of individuals to work hard for their own provision.

The Word of God makes individuals responsible for their own provision, not the larger society of which they are a part. 1 Timothy 5:8 says, “If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” 2 Thessalonians 3:10 says, “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.”

The socialistic effort to take resources from those who have them and provide them to people who do not ultimately means large numbers of people receive resources and benefits without earning them. For a while, socialism addresses the problem of want, but it accomplishes this goal by undermining the biblical goal of motivation. That leads to a bigger problem of want than initially existed. This is true because most people will not want to work for something when they can get it for free. Socialism creates a growing population of people eager to flee the demands of work and join their neighbors who get their desires met with far less effort.

The Bible motivates work by making our provision dependent on it. When this principle is undermined, it leads to pain. The history of socialism is a history of this pain for anyone familiar with it.

Socialism Undermines Compassion

The second problem with socialism is that it undermines biblical compassion. Earlier I made clear that the project of socialism begins with a compassionate desire. The compassionate desire is to provide for people the things they want but cannot afford. The instinct is praiseworthy as far as it goes, but everything depends on how you seek to satisfy that desire. Socialists seek to accomplish that desire through a seizure of governmental power and mandates about everything from prices to resource distribution. Just one problem with this is that it undercuts the very compassion that was the initial impulse of the project.

One of the most repeated teachings of Scripture is that God’s people ought to have hearts of compassion that seek to help the poor. In Matthew 5:42, Jesus commands, “Give to the one who begs from you.” Other passages say similar things, including Deuteronomy 15:7-11, Psalm 41:1-3; Proverbs 19:17; Galatians 2:10, and many more. But one fact that all these passages have in common is that God’s command for compassion goes to individuals. In the Bible, compassion, just like work, is an individual responsibility.

A socialist society undermines this biblical reality, and, therefore, undermines the very concept of compassion. When government forces mandates or wealth redistribution through confiscatory tax policies, it takes away any notion of compassion. When one individual meets the needs of another because they want to, it is called compassion. When someone meets the needs of another because the government forces them to, it is no longer compassion, but socialism.

When citizens are forced to pay for the wants of others against their will, it creates an attitude of resentment and bitterness. People become frustrated with their neighbors who receive for free what others must work to provide. The result of this is not a society of abundance and compassion, but of increased want and bitterness.

Socialism Undermines Reality

A third biblical problem with socialism is that it undermines reality. A massive problem with socialism is that it simply does not work. One of the older examples of this is Cuba. That beautiful island nation has had a few generations to demonstrate the benefits of socialism. Instead, it is an impoverished country and a nearly-failed state. A more recent example is Venezuela, once one of the wealthiest nations on earth, now tottering at the brink of ruin after the implementation of socialist policies.

A different kind of example is New York City. America’s largest and wealthiest urban center did not achieve that status through socialism but through free market capitalism. It boggles the mind that the mayor of that great city is now pursuing policies which are the opposite of those that led to its greatness.

The reason socialism cannot work has to do with the hard-core reality of math. Socialists may want to give unearned resources to everyone who wants them. And this desire may originate out of a heart of compassion. But math is a stern task master and does not care about our feelings. In the real world, nothing is free; everything has a cost, and someone must generate the resources to pay those costs. Eventually you get to the point where there is not enough societal wealth to pay for all the resources that socialists want to provide. As the great Margaret Thatcher famously said, “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”

Philippians 4:8 commands, “Whatever is true . . . think about these things.” Christians are not allowed to deny reality. We are not allowed to pursue bad ideas with the best of intentions. We are commanded to think on what is true because the effort to fulfill good intentions with bad ideas will always fail.

Socialism simply does not work, and the rejection of that truth is the rejection of reality.

Socialism Undermines the Hope of Redemption

Finally, socialism cuts at the heart of the biblical message of redemption. We live in a sinful and broken world full of poverty, want, and limited resources. In that painful world, Jesus gives a sad promise in Matthew 26:11 that you will, “Always have the poor with you.” This is a tragic guarantee from the Son of God that the socialist desire to eradicate poverty will always meet failure in this life.

It is the most good news that Jesus—and Jesus alone—intends to solve the problem of poverty. Jesus’s solution to poverty does not come through state controls and wealth redistribution. It comes through the gift of eternal bliss for everyone who trusts in his life, death, and resurrection. Anyone who comes to Jesus will know pain and limitation in this life, but he promises a future existence free from all pain and full of endless pleasures forevermore.

Socialism ultimately promises through the state in this life what can only come through Jesus in the next. Any thought that we can accomplish today what only Jesus can accomplish is guaranteed to lead to failure.

This failure is why I do not believe that America is standing at the beginning of a broad embrace of socialism. Socialism has not, will not, and cannot work. The only question concerns how many elections we need to waste before we learn this inescapable truth.

Three Problems with the Roman Catholic Church

Heath Lambert

In the early 2000s I was at the very beginning of my ministry and times were rough for the Roman Catholic Church. The Boston Globe had released a report detailing years of sexual abuse and cover up by church officials. Back then I was regularly talking to people disgusted by this behavior and wanting to leave the church.

A quarter of a century later, things have changed dramatically. The buzz these days is not about disgust over the Catholic Church, but interest in it with widespread reporting about the church’s explosive growth. Numbers vary, but Roman Catholics are definitely experiencing dramatic growth unlike anything seen in decades.

The reasons for the increase in the Western world appear to be linked to the failure of secular culture. Increasingly, young people are rejecting the isolationism imposed on them from a life lived on what is ironically called social media. They are bored with the incessant novelty of our shallow culture and want to connect to ancient traditions. Disappointed by a pluralistic culture that can find no anchor they are searching for objective truth.  Many are finding these relationships, traditions, and truth in the Catholic Church.

The new interest in Roman Catholicism requires all of us to consider whether Rome can make good on the hopes of so many. Even though I am a convictional Baptist Pastor in the stream of the Protestant Reformation, I have had a lifelong interest in the Roman Catholic Church. But my study of Catholicism has led me away from that tradition, rather than toward it. There are many problems with the Roman Catholic Church, but here, I will explain just three.

The Pope Isn’t Real

The first problem Roman Catholics have is that the Pope is not real. Obviously, I don’t mean the Pope isn’t real in the sense that he does not exist. I believe in the existence of Pope Leo XIV and wish him every blessing. Saying the Pope isn’t real is not a denial of his existence but is a denial of his legitimacy.

This is a great problem for the Roman Catholic church because of the importance they place on the Papacy. This importance is difficult to overstate. Here is just one statement from the Catechism of the Catholic Church,

The Pope, the Bishop of Rome and Peter’s successor, “is the perpetual and visible source and foundation of the unity both of the bishops and of the company of the faithful.” “For the Roman Pontiff, by reason of his office as Vicar of Christ, and as pastor of the entire Church has full, supreme, and universal power over the whole Church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered.” (882)

This Catechism says some extraordinary things about the Pope: that he, as the Bishop of Rome, has an exalted place among other religious leaders, that he is the source of unity among Christians, that he is the Vicar—or representative—of Christ on earth, that he has total power over the whole church, and that he can use that power in an unhindered way. The Pope—Papa, or Father—is the exclusive head of the Catholic Church with “unhindered” power.

The problem is that this office, so crucial to Catholicism, is not mentioned in Scripture.  The Papacy is instead a creation of the Roman Catholic Church imposed on the text of Scripture and developed over the course of thousands of years of intrigue, violence, immorality, and theological innovation. The Bible never mentions a successor to the Apostle Peter, never appoints a representative of Christ on earth, never gives any human being unhindered power in the church, and never identifies anyone as a spiritual father except our God and Father in heaven. All of these are inventions of Roman Catholic tradition.

The Bible authorizes numerous spiritual offices including pastors, evangelists, teachers, apostles, and others. The Bible never gives any mere human plenary authority over the entire church. This means that the fundamental issue regards the authority of Scripture. Does the Bible alone get to say who the officers in Christ’s church are, or may church history add to and contradict that teaching?

The Protestant Reformers insisted that Catholicism had corrupted the ancient faith. Their doctrine of sola scriptura declared Scripture alone as the first and final authority for the Christian. As God’s Word, it alone tells us how we should structure the church and who the leaders of that church should be—not the church, not church officers, and not church tradition.

Because the Papacy is not found in Scripture but in the misinterpretation and misapplication of Scripture, we must reject it as illegitimate.

Your Works Don’t Save You

A second problem with the Roman Catholic Church is that as human beings our works play no role in our salvation but only in our condemnation. The Roman Catholic Church disagrees with this fundamental truth. The Catechism of the Catholic Church makes room for works as a crucial part of the salvation of human beings.

Faith does not fully unite the believer to Christ and does not make him a living member of his body. (1815)

Moved by the Holy Spirit, we can merit for ourselves and for others all the graces needed to attain eternal life, as well as necessary temporal goods. (2027)

These statements make it clear that faith is not enough to fully unite the believer to Christ and that human merit is important in the attainment of saving grace. We should be honest here that the Roman Catholic Church has been clear in its teaching that the work of Christ on the cross is crucial in accomplishing salvation for his people. The Catholic Church is also clear about the importance of having faith in the work of Christ in order to be saved. The difference between Catholics and Protestants is the difference between faith and faith alone. Catholics believe that faith is necessary for salvation, but not sufficient for it. This is very different than what the New Testament teaches.

When the Protestant Reformers sought to strip away unbiblical traditions that Catholics added to the ancient teaching of Scripture, one of their rallying cries was sola fide—faith alone. The Reformers believed that the Catholic Church had corrupted the Apostolic teaching of salvation by faith alone without any possibility of works leading to righteousness. This teaching is found repeatedly in the Scriptures in places like Romans 3:28, “We hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law,” Galatians 2:16, “A person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ,” and Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith . . . not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

Roman Catholics respond to this teaching by pointing to James 2:24 which says, “You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.” When making sense of this statement, Christians must decide whether or not this reference is the one passage in the Bible that contradicts the consistent teaching about faith alone. The Protestant Reformers joined with the ancient church to argue that James believes the same thing about salvation through faith alone as the other authors of Scripture, but is making a very specific argument in the second chapter of his book.

 James is focusing on the corrupt claim that the presence of faith does not need to lead to the presence of righteousness and a changed life for the Christian. He is addressing whether it is possible to have a kind of faith that does not necessarily bring good works with it as evidence of its existence. James is not discussing whether our good works join together with our faith to grant salvation. Instead, James agrees with every other biblical author that true saving faith always brings good works in its wake. To quote the axiom attributed to several Protestant Reformers, “We are saved by faith alone but the faith that saves is never alone.”

In the Bible, good works are important, not because they join with faith to save, but because they flow from faith to demonstrate salvation.

Mary Wasn’t Perfect and Doesn’t Hear Your Prayers

A final problem for Roman Catholics is that Mary was not perfect and does not hear your prayers. This is a problem for Catholics who believe doctrines that teach the opposite. These are the Catholic doctrines of the immaculate conception and the intercession of Mary. The immaculate conception teaches that Mary was sinless. The Catholic Catechism says,

Through the centuries the Church has become ever more aware that Mary, “full of grace” through God was redeemed from the moment of her conception . . . and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin. (491)

By the grace of God Mary remained free from every personal sin her whole life long. (493)

That is the immaculate conception. The Catholic teaching on the intercession of Mary teaches that Catholics can pray to Mary who hears those prayers and helps to answer them. The catechism says:

Taken up to heaven she did not lay aside this saving office but by her manifold intercession continues to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation . . . Therefore the Blessed Virgin is invoked in the Church under the title of Advocate, Helper, Benefactress, and Mediatrix. (969).

With these two doctrines, the Roman Catholic Church exalts Mary to an extraordinary degree. The Church is at pains to make clear that Mary is not God, only occupied her state of sinlessness by the grace of God, and that her role as “Mediatrix” does not detract from the role of Christ.

And yet, with each of these teachings, the Roman Catholic Church has gone far beyond what the Bible teaches about Mary. Scripture is clear that Mary was full of grace and favor from God. Christians understand this is true and for millennia have revered Mary as one of God’s most choice servants who carried the Savior of the world in her virgin womb and delivered him on Christmas night. But the Bible never teaches that Mary was sinless. It also never teaches that any other person occupies a mediatorial role. 1 Timothy 2:5 says, “There is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”

In their effort to honor Mary, Roman Catholics have dishonored her by saying things that are not founded in Scripture and have led into error those who follow their teaching.

The Ancient Faith

There are many doctrines that the Roman Catholic Church gets correct. I am thankful for their teaching on the Trinity, their teaching that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man, and I am grateful for the ally they are to Christians on the sanctity of life. But Roman Catholic Teaching is full of many errors. Errors that, if believed, will bar the door to eternal life. I am thankful for growing interest from a new generation in truth, religion, and in ancient traditions. I pray that the many people whose interest in these matters lead them to look at the Catholic Church will do what the Protestant Reformers did and strip away the false trappings added to Christianity from Rome and will turn to the most ancient faith. I pray they will turn to the historic teaching of the Apostles, following Scripture alone and having faith alone in Christ alone.  

The Mohler Amendment and SBC 2026

Heath Lambert

The Truth and Unity Amendment

On Monday, May 18, Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, weighed in on the ongoing Southern Baptist confusion regarding female pastors. He did it in a big way.

For years now, the Southern Baptist Convention has been in a debate about female pastors. As I have made repeatedly clear, this debate has not been whether the SBC is in favor of female pastors. They are decidedly against it. The debate has been how best to remove churches from the SBC when they engage in this unbiblical practice.

For years, most Southern Baptists have been in favor of an amendment to the SBC constitution that would instruct the convention and our committees that churches with female pastors should be removed from friendly cooperation. In spite of large majorities supporting such an action, Southern Baptists have failed to reach the requirement of two years of supermajority votes necessary to amend the constitution.

Why Amendments Keep Failing

The reason for this failure has been a combination of messaging and activity on the part of a relatively small group of convention leaders. The messaging has been that Southern Baptists should not pass such amendments because it will incur legal liability for the convention, it could punish churches who agree with the SBC in principle but who apply the title pastor to women who do not function like a pastor, and because messengers can always vote on the convention floor to remove churches when necessary. 

Southern Baptists have been learning over the years that this messaging simply does not hold up. Regarding legal liability, Southern Baptists are already in print in our confessional documents declaring what we believe on this matter, and it has never been clear how repetition could increase our legal risk. Even if it did, the Southern Baptist commitment to the truth is not so weak that we will maintain our convictions until we are threatened with legal action. With regard to punishing churches that use the language of pastor for people who are not qualified to be pastor, this is exactly the point. While no one desires to punish people, this whole issue is about ensuring our use of the pastoral office, including the language used for that office, remains faithful to Scripture. Finally, regarding the proposal that Southern Baptists can just vote out churches from the floor, it is becoming clear that Southern Baptists are willing to do this every time it is necessary. It is also clear that there is no way for us to function as a healthy convention if we have to talk about this matter every year when we already know what we believe and can address it with an amendment.

But the difficulty in getting an amendment has not only come down to messaging. The majority of Southern Baptists have also been thwarted from reaching the required supermajority because of a minority of leaders who have managed to maintain control of the platform at the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention. Platform control is no small thing. Those controlling the platform set the agenda for the meeting, decide who cannot speak, who can speak, and often how long they can speak. Southern Baptists have learned that we can win majorities without controlling the platform, but we cannot win supermajorities.

That is why the announcement from Al Mohler this week is so important. Here is the motion he intends to make:

Mohler video 2:00-1:22 (this is the countdown)

Support for the Mohler Amendment

Mohler referred to this action as the Truth and Unity Amendment. I’ll call it the Mohler Amendment for short. There have been other amendments named after other people, and Mohler has supported all of them. What is new about this amendment is that it comes after years of Southern Baptists learning hard lessons about our failure to get amendments like this passed. What is new this time around is that the amendment comes with a long list of supporters, including the current president of the SBC, Clint Pressley.

Here is what Clint Pressley said (let’s put the visual of his X post up)

“Thank you Dr Mohler! Looking forward to this year’s SBC in Orlando. Let’s get this thing done! Hope to see everyone in just a couple weeks!”

It is not only the current president who has expressed his support for this amendment, but both of the announced candidates running for president this June in Orlando.

Dr. Willy Rice is one of those candidates and, in his support of the amendment, he said something nobody else has said,

Rice Video 1:02-:14

Rice fully supports the Mohler amendment, but also reminds us of how hard it is to pass a constitutional amendment. That is why he is continuing to call for a presidential task force in addition to the effort to pass an amendment. This is important because task force recommendations do not require a supermajority but can pass with a simple majority vote of Southern Baptists. In addition to supporting Mohler’s action, Rice is giving us another way to solve this problem should the amendment fail. Rice’s statement, however, did even more than that. He specifically pledged his full support for the amendment this year and the next. That means that if Willy Rice is elected president of the SBC, he is pledging the support of the SBC platform. This platform support is what it will take to pass the amendment and finally get this thing done.

A Generational Opportunity for Southern Baptists

I want to say to my fellow Southern Baptists that we have a remarkable opportunity waiting for us this year in Orlando. It is within our ability, finally, to address a problem we have been arguing about for years. Now is our chance to stand on conviction and to stand on clarity.

Every generation has a few crucial moments to stand with God on his Word. There are a few situations when we have the privilege of standing in solidarity with our heroes in the faith from the past. In the 1970s and 80s, a generation of faithful Southern Baptists stood for the truth and saved our denomination. We stand on the shoulders of those great leaders. Now is the time to renew our resolve and square up our own shoulders so the generation after us can stand on something strong. This is our moment and our unique opportunity from God to be found faithful to him. God is calling you, me, and the churches we lead to stand on the faith once for all delivered to the saints. This is our time to answer that call. It is our time to say, not only, that we know what the Word of God says, but we really believe what it says and, and we are willing to do something about it.

This June, the messengers to Orlando must make a bold stand for the truth that will make future Southern Baptists look back and be grateful to God for what we did.

My Southern Baptist brothers and sisters, doing that requires getting to Orlando. You can’t fix this problem if you don’t vote. And you can’t vote if you stay home. I want to appeal to Southern Baptists who planned on missing the convention this year to change your plans. Adjust your calendar. Buy a plane ticket or get in the car. This June, we need every faithful Southern Baptist to fill the roads and the skies as we all cut a path to Orlando to answer God’s call to biblical fidelity.

I am praying for God to be kind to our convention of churches. I am praying for God to shine his favor on us. I am praying that our Great God will raise us up as the leaders he has called us to be. I hope you will join me in this prayer and that we will join one another for this historic moment in Orlando.

The Conflict Over Iran

Heath Lambert

Epic Fury

The American conflict in Iran began on February 28, 2026, and has been controversial from the start. It is called Operation Epic Fury and this week I don’t mostly want to talk about that military conflict but about the relational epic fury related to the conflict that is raging here at home.

As the military engagement stretches toward the three-month mark and a solution to it seems increasingly difficult Americans are feeling growing pressure and are talking about it with mounting tension. That tension creates relational strain among people with different viewpoints on the military operation.

More and more, I have church members approaching me to ask how we should think about this operation and describing conflict they are having with their friends, families, and fellow church members over their differences of opinion. As a pastor, I obviously bear no responsibility for American foreign policy and have no authority to deploy military resources. But I bear a great deal of responsibility for the relationships in my congregation and want to help my people grow in love for Jesus and for one another. When American military engagements create pressure in that regard, the call to faithfulness requires us to think carefully about these issues.

We should be honest that knowing how to think about the military operation in Iran is very challenging for at least four reasons.

The High Stakes of the Conflict

First the stakes in this conflict could not be higher. The biggest reason for American interest in Iran is because of the pursuit of nuclear weapons by that regime. Everyone should be able to agree that a country that kills innocent people by the thousands, supports terrorism, holds hostages, and persecutes Christians could never be trusted with a nuclear weapon.

But many of the same people who agree that Iran should not have a nuclear weapon disagree about when it is prudent to intervene. Should we stop Iran when they are a year away from the bomb? A few months? A week? American policy toward Iran has often been guided by avoiding military intervention until there is a proverbial “smoking gun.”

This policy is manifestly unwise. If someone threatened to run you over with their car, you would not wait until they opened the door, started the ignition, and put the car in drive before you ran out of the way. It makes no sense to wait until the last possible moment to defend against a dangerous threat.

But American presidents have treated Iran this way for decades because the very real threat of a nuclear Iran is brewing thousands of miles away at secret facilities built under mountains far out of the sight of Americans who want high wages and cheap gas. American presidents have not wanted to pay the political price that comes with eliminating a threat if it requires disrupting the good times at home.

But this is a very dangerous gamble. Winning the gamble requires absolute certainty that you know everything about Iranian nuclear development including the location of all their secret facilities and the exact information about where they are in the developmental process. Losing the gamble requires being wrong only once and could result in tens of thousands of deaths.

This is a gamble that Donald Trump has made clear he is not going to play.

I am not saying I know for a fact that President Trump is handling this situation well—stay tuned for more on that in a moment. I am saying that when we remember the incredibly high stakes of a nuclear Iran it makes the calculation more complicated than whether the deployment of resources is something we want to do. It may be something we have to do whether we like it or not.

Lack of Knowledge

A second complicating factor is all the information we do not know. When we carry our strong opinions into a personal conflict, our desire to win an argument can make us forget how little we actually know. None of us have access to the best and most classified information that those in authority use to make their decisions.

We simply do not know everything that is known by the decision-makers in this conflict. We can hope in the future we will know more than we do today, but right now we have to be honest that the real information we have about the state of Iranian nuclear development and the classified intelligence possessed by officials who initiated the conflict is limited enough to keep our boldest opinions in check.

President Trump

A third complicating factor in evaluating the conflict Iran is Donald Trump. President Trump’s statements are very hard to evaluate for at least few reasons.

One reason his statements are challenging to evaluate is related to his office. As president, when Donald Trump speaks, his words are picked up by every media outlet in the world. President Trump knows this and understands that when he answers questions on the White House lawn, he cannot think only about speaking to the reporter in front of him, but must also speak through that reporter to nervous American allies and committed American enemies in Tehran.

Another reason President Trump’s statements are difficult to evaluate is related to his personality. It is no secret that the president loves to speak highly of himself, that he loves to speak of his enemies in derogatory ways, and that he loves to trumpet his own accomplishments. When Donald Trump wants you to know about something he will tell you in grandiose terms that what he did was the best thing that has ever happened, that his enemies are the absolute worst, and that the things he is accomplishing are unlike anything anyone has ever seen.

It is also a fact that Donald Trump has made confusing statements on Iran. In just the last week he has made alternating statements about his encouragement and discouragement about how close we are to the end of this conflict.

The point of all this is that, for personal reasons and reasons connected to his office, it is absolutely impossible to gauge where we are on this issue on the basis of presidential pronouncements.

Media Bias

A final complicating factor is media bias. Donald Trump is not the only person whose statements are hard to evaluate. American information about this conflict is mediated through news agencies that all have a bias for or against the president and for or against this conflict. The other day, I did a little test. I turned on a cable news station and listened to their news on Iran. There were some expressions of concern and a few questions, but the entire segment was vigorously supportive of the president and the American mission in Iran. Then, I switched channels to a different network and didn’t hear a single word of support for the Iranian conflict but only condemnation and suspicion of the action and the president.

This is a poisonously biased media culture that does terrible damage to our society.

Conversational Care

And that is actually the point I want to make. I am not saying there is no right and wrong on this matter. I am also not saying Christians should avoid discussing the issue, form opinions, and seek to influence the national conversation.

I am saying that the current environment and the complexity of the issues make doing all those things very hard. I am saying that Christians should not take their cues for how we speak to one another from competing media networks and rival politicians. I am saying that we should emphasize humility and love when we talk to one another about these things.

In Romans 12:3 the Bible says, “By the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think.” This is a biblical command to hold our opinions with great humility especially when we are as far downstream as we are on this matter from authentic sources of information.

The Bible also says in John 13:35, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” When we interact with our brothers and sisters in church, we are allowed to have careful and humble opinions about the important matters in current events. But Jesus does not say that people will know you are his disciples when you have a strong opinion about international relations. He says people will know you are his children when you have love for one another. This means that we are not ready to have a careful conversation about a truly complex matter until we have prioritized the call to love other Christians.

Iran is a big deal, and Christians need to seek to understand this issue and to talk about it together. But when we do that, we need to emphasize humility and love over our strong opinions that are less informed by fact than we sometimes wish. When we do that, we will find that the Epic Fury in Iran does not need to translate into epic fury in our homes and churches.

Who’s Bad?

What the Legacy of Michael Jackson Says about Us

Heath Lambert

Michael Jackson became an icon when I was a kid in the 1980s growing up in Eastern Kentucky and was partial to country music. But Jackson’s music struck the culture with a force hard enough to penetrate the foothills of Appalachia, and the heart of a bunch of country boys more personally inclined to George Strait than the former lead singer of the Jackson Five.

I remember being with my friends and leaving MTV on all day just waiting for Thriller, Billy Jean, Bad and other songs by the King of Pop. I was captivated by the music along with every friend I had. It was that captivating quality of Jackson’s music that created millions of fans around the world and fuels interest in the new movie about his life. I have not seen the movie and am not planning on it. But that may make me unusual since it has earned over $200 Million in less than two weeks of release.

In addition to generating a lot of money, the movie has generated a lot of controversy. The film nearly ignores the numerous claims of sexual abuse made by the many children with whom Jackson surrounded himself. The movie raises questions about how we evaluate the legacy of someone who made an unparalleled impact on our society but who is simultaneously accused of devastating moral wickedness. Regardless of what you think about Jackson or the recent movie about this life, these are important questions that we regularly must address in a sinful world.

Telling the Truth

The film is controversial because it barely addresses the many scandalous sexual accusations made against Jackson. Some have responded that the film only covers the star’s life up to the late 80s and before the allegations of sex crimes became a serious issue. That is actually the point. The makers of the film made a conscious decision to cover the parts of Jackson’s life that led to his superstardom but to ignore the parts that led to scandal. The film paints an incomplete picture.

It is true that Jackson, while accused of many crimes against children, was never convicted of any of them. But it is also true that the lack of criminal conviction does not mean there are no good reasons to believe Jackson was guilty of at least some of the crimes he was accused. It is true as well that there are some incontrovertible events to which Jackson has admitted that paint a picture of a man you would never want to leave alone with your children or grandchildren.

The complexities of the situation—the trials that were never completed, the multi-million-dollar settlements paid to accusers, the people who once defended Jackson only to accuse him later, even his own death—mean we are unlikely ever to know exactly what happened between Michael Jackson and everyone who says he devastated their childhoods. But we

should be able to agree that it does not serve the cause of truth to ignore the issue altogether.

Obviously, a film bankrolled by Jackson’s estate has an interest in neglecting the most scandalous elements of the star’s life and legacy. But Christians should insist that a healthy society is not capable of evaluating someone’s life until we have considered all the relevant facts available.

The one-sided picture of Jackson’s life portrayed in the recent film simply does not allow for an honest accounting of the singer’s legacy.

Evaluating Success and Failure

Once we consider all the available facts things get even more complicated. How should we evaluate someone with such remarkable accomplishments who is simultaneously suspected of such terrible evil?

Answering this question requires tremendous care. In a world stained by sin only one man is untarnished by failure. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and savior of humanity through his death on the cross, is the only perfect person in history. He alone gives grace and forgiveness to anyone who comes to him in faith. But even when Jesus forgives, it is still true that the most accomplished people are sinners living lives with blemished records. That is true of biblical heroes like Moses, of doctrinal heroes like Luther, and of American heroes like Washington. A proper evaluation of someone’s legacy requires an evaluation of their accomplishments together with their failures.

The crucial issue is how to weigh the legacies of people who are a mix of talents and transgressions. Society tends to do this by instinct rather than a clear moral formula. We tend to weigh the nature and extent of a person’s failures against the nature and extent of their accomplishments to yield an imprecise verdict regarding their legacy. For example, in the case of someone like Jeffrey Epstein, our society acknowledges the remarkable accomplishment of his vast fortune, but we have refused to celebrate that accomplishment because of the magnitude of his crimes against women. On the other hand, in the case of someone like Martin Luther King, Jr., society has generally been willing to overlook his marital infidelities because of the significance of his civil rights reforms. The verdict of society has been more split with politicians like Bill Clinton and Donald Trump whose many sexual sins are overlooked by their supporters and emphasized by their opponents.

How should society weigh the accomplishments and failures of someone like Michael Jackson?

In the category of accomplishments, Jackson was a phenomenal musician and entertainer—certainly one of the very best in history. In the category of failures, he has been accused of crimes that spanned a vast period of time, that included a vast number of people, and that involved behavior that is universally acknowledged to be among the most vile. More than

that, if the claims are true, it means that Jackson’s moral failures were tied to his accomplishments. Jackson’s talent, fame, and wealth were a trap luring in his alleged victims. Jackson’s accomplishments that society is so ready to praise are the very realities that granted him access to many more victims than similarly accused men.

The moral heart of the matter concerns how we weigh the heinous accusations from people who say Jackson ruined their lives against his accomplishments of singing and dancing. Do we have the right to ignore the claims of sexual victimization against children because someone sang songs that made us feel good? Is it proper to celebrate the legacy of someone accused of devastating the lives of countless children because we loved watching him moonwalk?

Check Your Own Heart

The answers to these questions move us away from Michael Jackson and into our very own hearts.

I don’t believe in censorship, and I reject cancel-culture. I find it unhelpful to ban books or movies and boycotts are often ineffective. That means that if people want to listen to Michael Jackson’s music or go to a movie celebrating his life, they should have the freedom to do that.

But no person should embrace that freedom without examining their own heart. How does it make you feel to tap your foot to the music of a man said to use the influence of that music to trap countless in a lifetime of pain and heartbreak? How do you feel about spending your money on a movie that makes it harder rather than easier to discern the truth about this man’s life?

A while back, I was listening to an 80’s playlist when Billy Jean began to play. I heard the syncopation of the opening drums, the synthesized bass line, and the electric keyboard play those familiar alternating notes. I heard that signature voice sing the opening line, “She was more like a beauty queen from a movie scene . . .” As I listened my foot started tapping, my head started bobbing, and my heart rate quickened. That amazing music did something to me. I was transported back in time to incredible memories of silver gloves, ray bans, red leather jackets, and music that defined a generation.

Then my mind was transported to some of the accusations I have heard over the years from people my age in news reports and documentaries. I remembered the things I heard Jackson say with my own ears about his bizarre attachment to children. I thought about the preciousness of the childhood of my own kids, and I started to think about the tender innocence of my incredible granddaughter. That recollection also did something to me. My stomach turned and that awesome song didn’t sound so awesome anymore. The joy I felt was replaced with pain and disgust and I turned it off.

You can tell a lot about a society by the sin they will tolerate in order to be entertained. You can tell a lot about your own heart by which sins you’ll ignore so you can enjoy a really good song. When our interest in enjoying a good performance is stronger than the desire to weep over victimized children it reveals something truly bad deep in our hearts.

That means the new Michael Jackson movie may say more about us than it does about the star himself.