Will the Counselor Respect Your Conscience?

WE HOPE that John and Jane will not be shocked when they sit down with their counselor. He may tell them that by all means their marriage is worth saving. That is doubtless what they hope to hear. On the other hand, he may tell them: “A good divorce is better than a bad marriage.” “We don’t call it marriage counseling anymore,” says Earl Beatt, executive director of the Family and Children’s Service in Minneapolis. “We call it ‘relationship counseling.’”

The circumspect counselor tries to show you where you really stand in the road. He may indicate what it could be like if you take the left fork or if you take the right fork. If he tries to nudge you either way, you have to consider what his perspective is, what his values are, whether they are good or bad.

For instance, what if you have strong convictions about Bible principles? Dr. Lawrence Onoda, a clinical psychologist, says:

“For the most part, most marriage counselors advocate a neutral position regarding religion in general. While not supporting it, their official position is to be accepting and nonjudgmental toward people with different views.”

He adds, however, “Marriage counselors in general proceed on the premise that there are no universal ‘truths’ such as reflected in the Bible. Most marriage counselors base their standards of marriage on theories men have devised or on their own personal beliefs.”

So what is going to happen to John and Jane? They may, like some couples, be helped by marriage counselors. Or they may, like others, be lost somewhere in that maze of marriage theorists and atheistic professionals.

But you, what if you were in need of marriage counseling? Where would you turn? If you are a Christian, would you want a counselor who respected the wisdom of the Maker of marriage and his Wonderful Counselor?​—Genesis 2:18-24; Isaiah 9:6.

Before choosing a counselor, consider the following information. It should prove helpful.

[Box on page 6, 7]

Which counselor do you choose?

While there are marriage counselors with high moral standards of their own, and some who will sincerely respect your conscientious scruples, even as do many physicians and surgeons, the standards of others vary to the extreme. This is illustrated in the following quotations. What are compared here are not facts or scientific accuracies, but the moral values you may encounter in different sources of counsel.

THE BIBLE

“Deaden, therefore, your body members . . . as respects fornication, uncleanness, sexual appetite, hurtful desire . . . for you know that it is from Jehovah you will receive the due reward of the inheritance. . . . Certainly the one that is doing wrong will receive back what he wrongly did, and there is no partiality.”​—Colossians 3:5, 24, 25.

“‘What God has yoked together let no man put apart.’ . . . Whoever divorces his wife, except on the ground of fornication, and marries another commits adultery.”​—Matthew 19:6, 9.

“Law is promulgated, not for a righteous man, but for . . . fornicators, men who lie with males.”​—1 Timothy 1:9, 10.

“Let marriage be honorable among all, and the marriage bed be without defilement, for God will judge fornicators and adulterers.”​—Hebrews 13:4.

PSYCHOLOGIST

“Some of the more guilt-ridden and faint-hearted youth are deterred by fear of pregnancy, of venereal disease and of alleged wrath of a vindictive Jehovah from engaging in premarital sexual intercourse. . . . It is only because we keep reciting rigidly to ourselves the moral ditty about the catastrophic nature of premarital coitus that we cannot even clearly see, let alone do anything constructive about, our completely unnecessary, utterly idiotic premarital sexual morality.”​—Dr. Robert Harper in “Moral Issues in Marital Counseling,” Marital Counseling, pages 332, 333.

“A sex ethic should be constructed solely for the welfare of living and future human beings and not to please . . . any assumed supernatural beings.”​—Dr. Harper.

MARRIAGE COUNSELOR

“Premarital sex has its values if it keeps people from getting married who otherwise would get married only for the sake of having sex. . . . As a society we have no right to deny the joys of sex to people who do not marry, or who marry late by choice or by necessity, or who have lost a mate by death or divorce.”​—Charlotte Holt Clinebell in “Counseling for Liberation,” Creative Pastoral Care and Counseling Series, page 30.

“Another increasingly viable lifestyle for many people as we broaden our perspective on what it means to be human, is that of homosexuality. . . . Ministers and counselors could be influential in changing attitudes which make a person feel less than human simply because she or he behaves differently from the majority.”​—Clinebell.

CLERGYMAN

“Any law can be set aside if it would be more loving to the most people to do so. . . . Nothing is rigid. Love is for people and not necessarily for principles.”​—Dr. Ace Tubbs in “The Moral and Ethical Problems in Pastoral Counseling,” Marital Counseling, page 445.

SOCIAL REFORMERS

“If partners in an open marriage do have outside sexual relationships, it is on the basis of their own internal relationship​—that is because they have experienced mature love, have real trust and are able to expand themselves, to love and enjoy others and to bring that love and pleasure back into their marriage without jealousy.”​—Nena O’Neill and George O’Neill, Open Marriage, page 257.

Not all professional counselors hold such anti-Bible views. The fact that some do, though, shows that persons planning on seeking professional advice need to exercise extreme care. Following the counsel of someone with such unchristian ideas will make their situation worse, not better.