Page 75 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 5
P. 75

Church Traditions for a Christian Psychology



             Téo J. van der Weele (Austria)
             Comment

             to “A Christian Psychologist and

             Biblical Counsellor”




             Ed Welch honest testimony touched me, as he
             shares what he does, with psychology as a bibli-
             cal counsellor and/or what he does as a biblical
             counsellor with psychology.
             He obviously is indebted to Jay Adams who re-
             ally brought us a sharp reminder of the value
             of Biblical Counselling, rather than talking in
             humanistic psychological terms.
                                                                     Deacon Téo van der Weele (1937) went

             As  a  missionary  in  Thailand  I  got  a  hold  of    in  1963  as  a  missionary  with  the  C.  &
             Competent to Counsel by Jay Adams, but his              M.A. to Thailand until 1975. He develo-
             polemic style didn´t make me feel comfortab-            ped gentle approach towards Abuse Sur-
             le. I too recognized Adams Biblical wisdom, but         vivors called Helping Through Blessing.
             had to find a way that was more suited to Asi-          After his M.A. studies in Fuller (´86), he
             ans, who in general don´t react favourably to           started  together  with  Dr.  Vibeke  Moel-
             confrontation. If they like you, they react polite,     ler an English language summer school
             agree with you, even pray in the desired way,           for counsellors (esarpac.com). He wrote
             but this doesn´t change them and they will not          From Shame to Peace: Counselling and
             come back…                                              caring  for  the  sexually  abused  which
             So I was interested  how  Ed  handled  his  inte-       gives  the  basic  philosophy  of  Helping
             gration of Bible and psychology. His studies in         Through  Blessing.  This  has  been  trans-
             neuropsychology gave him an opening to look             lated  in  various  European  languages  as
             at mankind also from God´s Book of Nature.              well as Arabic. He converted to the RC
             His grand unifying theory of Scripture is that          Church  in  2011  and  serves  now  part-
             our world is personal. We live before a personal        time as a Deacon in Tulln, Austria and
             God and we live with and among other peop-              part-time in ESARPAC summer schools
             le”. My heart warmed when he writes: Ethics are         in Denmark, Switzerland, Egypt, and In-
             joined to the Cross. How the battle with “sexua-        dia as well teaching and counselling mi-
             lity is not just trying to say “no” to temptation”      nistries around the world.
             but that we have been bought and paid for by
             Jesus on the Cross. Our life with Jesus is much
             more like a marriage then a relationship set in a
             Code of Law.                                      1) My pastoral counselling practise over the last
             I wish though that he had said a bit more about   40 years has been mostly with people who in
             the love of Christ which is the only way to fill   their  youth  suffered  sexual  abuse.  Forty  years
             the deepest inner need we all have. I found that   ago the standard answer was: you should for-
             in the time I was with the Christian and Missio-  give, otherwise God will not forgive you. The
             nary Alliance in Thailand and throughout my       decision to simply do that often resulted in a
             nearly 50 years of counselling experience.        superficial  cover-up  of  deep-seated  wounds.
                                                               Christian  Abuse  Survivors  have  thus  often  a
             I like Ed’s example of how he talks about sin for   problem with forgiveness.
             two reasons:





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