The Biblical Counseling Movement

Powlison first takes his readers to the historical backdrop that led to the rise of modern nouthetic biblical counseling. As E. Brooks Holifield explained in A History of Pastoral Care in America, so Powlison traces the movement of pastoral ministry from a focus on salvation to a focus on self. In the generation before Jay Adams’ ministry (the 1920s to 1950s), pastoral counseling was strongly influenced by liberal Protestantism and secular psychology.

Powlison tells the riveting story of Adams’ journey as a young pastor facing crisis after crisis among his parishioners and feeling inadequately prepared. Adams’ internship under the secularist O. Hobart Mowrer, of all people, was a culminating experience leading to Adams’ rejection of secular psychology.

In Powlison’s hand, the narrative is never shallow. He describes other influencing factors on Adams’ theory, including his personality, his background as a preacher, his Reformed Presbyterian theology, and his study of Van Til’s pressupositional apologetics, among others. One cannot understand Adam’s nouthetic approach apart from grasping these background elements. Read it all HERE