October 26, 2022 Show with Ed Wilde on “Legal Issues in Biblical Counseling”
October 26, 2022
ED WILDE, an author, ACBC Certified Counselor, Associated Attorney with Alliance Defending Freedom, & Adjunct Professor @ The Master’s Seminary, who will address:
“LEGAL ISSUES in BIBLICAL COUNSELING: DIRECTION & HELP for CHURCHES & COUNSELORS”
Transcript
Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown
Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
It's iron sharpens iron.
This is a radio platform in which pastors Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing
the church and the world today.
Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us.
Iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.
Matthew Henry said that in this passage We are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to
have in view in conversation To make one another wiser and better.
It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours.
And we hope to hear from you the listener with your own questions, and now here's your host Chris
Arnzen.
Good afternoon.
Cumberland County, Pennsylvania.
Lake City, Florida.
And the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth.
We're listening via live streaming at iron sharpens iron radio .com.
This is Chris Arnzen your host of iron sharpens iron radio.
Wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 26th day of October
2022.
And by the way folks if you are interested in seeing a brief video of
A television news interview I gave to a CBS TV news reporter
on Monday.
Just send me an email to Chris Arnzen at gmail .com.
And I will send you the link.
The interview was in response to a recent event that occurred at
the Bethel Assembly of God here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
Where an armed woman was threatening violence to congregation members?
Apparently with the intent to kidnap the pastor and hold him for ransom obviously a
disturbed woman.
Thankfully she was arrested before there was any harm done any physical harm done to
anyone present.
But I gave a very brief interview on that with a CBS TV news reporter.
And I will get you that link should you desire to see it, but I'm very excited to have a first
-time guest today.
He is a very important guest and we're going to be addressing one of the most important issues
that we could possibly be addressing in the 21st century in this very
frightening litigious age where those on the left politically and even religiously
are seeking to cripple and destroy the Church of Christ.
And The guest that is here today to help
Pastors and counselors and Christian leaders prevent that from happening as best as we
can on this earth.
Is.
Edward Charles Wilde he is an editor along with T. Dale Johnson jr.
of A very important book that anyone in Christian leadership needs to get their hands on legal issues
in biblical counseling Direction and help for churches and counselors
Published by New Growth Press and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you For the very first time
ever to iron sharpens iron radio Ed Wilde very much for having me.
I'm I'm really quite honored to do this and I will also tell you this is the first interview I've done in the book so far.
We want to say thank you for that, too.
I have some coming up right.
You were the very first person to get this.
Well praise God I am delighted to have the honor and privilege to be that person and To give you
all listening a little bit more details About Ed.
He is an author.
He is an ACBC certified counselor an associated attorney with
Alliance defending freedom.
And Years ago. I got Alliance defending freedom involved in a case
where the Notorious former president of Americans United for separation of
church and state Barry Lynn Was threatening to sue my dear friend.
Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega ministries.
After a debate the two had a public debate at a Presbyterian Church in Huntington, Long
Island.
The debate was on is homosexuality compatible with biblical Christianity and
Barry Lynn who is an ACLU attorney lost that debate so badly he
threatened to sue Dr. James White if he dared to distribute the video of
that debate and I Contacted the Alliance defending freedom,
which was at that time called the Alliance Defense Fund and they immediately agreed to
be James White's legal counsel and When they went to the hearing
to discuss this Barry Lynn and his attorney did not show up.
So the The judge obviously granted in favor of dr. White
to distribute the video as he pleased.
So I just thought I'd throw that in there and also my guest Ed Wilde is an adjunct
professor at the Master's Seminary and We are going to be discussing the aforementioned book
legal issues and biblical counseling direction and help for churches and counselors as I
Informed you before the show Ed.
We have a tradition here on Iron Trip and Zion radio.
A tradition that seems to be greatly loved by many in our listening audience all over the world.
That tradition is that whenever we have a first -time guest that guest gives a summary of their salvation testimony
that would include the kind of religious atmosphere if any they were raised in and any kind of
providential circumstances that our Lord raised up in their lives that drew them
to himself and saved them and that would include you some.
Very interested to hear your story.
Thank you very much and Yes, I I'm glad to hear that ADF did such a fine job
with them with ADF but I actually work at a law
firm outside of in private practice in Pasadena and We do do First Amendment work
there and all the oversaw among
other things counseling at a church in the Los
Angeles Area for about eight years, too
I was raised at some
of my early
who had been
passed on my earliest memories.
I can't remember as a child ever not going to
however as I started
to grow became perhaps more acute when I got to college.
That began to wonder whether I because they've been taught to
me or because they were true.
It wasn't that I had directly some particular
Christ.
I believe actually were mine.
Having a thought similar to that when I was a child when I was a kid growing up We had something at our school called release
time and in release time There was an hour out of the week where the students were all released
to go to religious education.
So the Protestant churches went to one place the Roman Catholic churches went to a different place.
My best friend at the time was the Roman Catholic side and I would go to the Protestant side and I began to wonder
Parents, you know what?
I have believed the things that he believed so by the time I got to college I Began to
question what I believed not because I had some particular reason to believe that it was false but just merely
wondering if I believe these things because I've been taught them or if I believe them
because The beginning of college
a pretty thorough
one and I tried to read what other people believed about the father got Ida
I read corrupt
atheists.
So I spent time trying to find out what everybody else believed about what they believed and why they did
it.
I Also tried to believe out.
We got.
I tried to why some people
didn't believe Christianity was true.
What sorts of arguments were being made that the Bible was not in fact true and how strong were
those are?
It wasn't the lawyer yet but apparently already had sort of an inclination towards the strength of arguments then
and after having done that I Came to the conclusion that I couldn't come
up with a good reason for believing the Bible was not true.
And I had no particular reason to believe that these other Different religions or anti religions
or non religions were true.
I I didn't find better evidence or better reason to believe these things.
Other than what I was taught and so at this point I feel very comfortable with
Christianity and the truth of Christianity and the truth of the Bible and I not had
anything which has shaken my faith.
I know for instance every year Easter Time magazine is going to run some cover
story about how they finally found Jesus's body someplace in Jerusalem.
And it will always be defunct as always.
So those sorts of things don't bother me anymore, but that would probably be the biggest thing that gave me difficulty was
Just trying to make sure that my faith was my own and not something that I merely inherited
and when did you realize?
That God had placed a.
Call upon your life to enter into the field of law.
Yeah, I happened was I was an English major in college.
And when I started to get towards the end at the time I was trying to figure out how to make a
living and so I really get a law firm at the time and I figured well.
They read and write so I know how to do that when I started to get an overlap
and legal matters actually came a few years ago because
here for a number of years and
then studied very hard on my own I kind of an
auto diktat so I learned Greek and Hebrew by studying.
I Learned theology and church history history by just reading a great deal.
And I was an elder at a church for somebody to take a particular pastoral
position.
So I ended up taking over the pastoral position.
I'd already been teaching at masters in the undergraduate department Teaching
business law and some other classes and then after I came on staff at the church I began to teach some classes that
had things to do with Stifleship things like that.
I completed a master's degree in biblical counseling here at the Masters University and I
started to teach in the biblical counseling department all church then
I left being on staff at the church about 2015 and I went back into
practicing the law again.
The questions about legal issues started to come up having had an unusual kind of
background having both worked at a church.
And worked in the law.
I had some experience that a number of other people then John Street
ACBC and as the chairman of the biblical counseling department here at the Masters University.
Put me in touch with Dale Johnson who's the director of a TV
actually?
We started talking about and putting together what became this book and so we started to talk about
what sorts of issues come up
with a university on the topic and.
As I worked through the issues with the
started to come up with a good list of the
kind of faith
with the legal system and that enabled us to put together a good list of what kinds of topics we needed
to cover and that ended up being the book so it was the legal
issues and the Thing that came together over the course of time
teaching in that area and then having been a pastor and also being a lawyer.
Now now this book could not be more timely.
I am not aware of any other book.
Exactly like this.
Perhaps you're aware of something that I don't know.
I'm sure you are but as far as that point I can tell you that I I don't know
any other book like it.
In fact, I Great deal of the book actually came from the notes that I had in teaching the
class here at Masters University.
Because I couldn't get any book that was anywhere near this.
I'm in terms of how does the how does pastoral ministry
there may be such a book, but I well
you have the.
The book divided in two parts.
The first part is how do I protect a counseling ministry in the church and
Part two is how do I protect myself and my counselees?
Obviously the two most important aspects of this whole subject as
people who are Christians and who are conservative
and who have biblical values very often are cowering
in fear and in greater degrees in our current day because of the litigious nature of the
left and It is as I said Quite a growing phenomenon
and a disturbing a phenomenon.
The issues that are involved in this book are very thorough as well.
Should pastors even be involved in counseling.
There are even some within evangelicalism who Think that the sermons
preached should be sufficient To any counseling needs that the congregation
have.
And then there are others who radically oppose that view but in your opinion in regarding to
the legal.
Risks.
Should pastors be involved in
counseling.
Well, I think that it is a critical part of pastoral
ministry.
I can answer both of those questions.
I had imagined for this particular interview probably more interested on the legal side but I think that a I think that is
Something that is ministerially needed for the church and
some of the reasons for that are.
And.
And this gets to the questions you are preaching
and.
Some of them think well if I'm just preaching that may give me more protection when it comes to the legal system and
I would say absolutely they should be doing counseling or they should learn how to do
counseling and.
To the legal complications are
between being a giving counseling
and not doing therapy
under a different name.
So here at the outset to explain the difference between what we mean
by doing counseling.
Biblical counseling biblical Soul care.
Those are names that are used and doing therapy.
So if you don't mind it, oh, yeah, that's that's excellent.
Please do.
Paradigm for therapy.
Has been Freud even
of any strife or it set
up a basic paradigm to understand human beings and without using this Technical
terminology would go together something like this Human beings are born with a certain set of
desires things that we want to do.
If we were talking about Postmodernism they would refer to those sorts of things as preferences
the society at large Will stand in the way of that so picking up an idea that
comes perhaps from Rousseau you have this idea that the individual is Really what the good
thing is and the culture and the culture is bad because
in a Freudian understanding The culture keeps the individual from being able to
do what he or she wants to do.
So there will be limitations on my sexual practice.
Human sexuality Seems to be an enormously important Area when it comes
to the particular person
in and of themselves not be good or bad thing.
They're just whether taught by the parents or
society at large or whatever.
So that is the super ego of any of you had an introduction to psychology and read any Freud Comes in
and says there's certain things you're not allowed to do.
This creates a conflict in the human being between the things that I want to do and the things that I'm not permitted
to do.
Psychology then taken very broad
psychology and it's really problematic to use the word psychology sometimes because psychology refers
to a number of different disciplines all the way from how do my senses
Functional level to how do we
treat and it refers to 190 some schools in the United States, so there's
not anything in particular great many different things but
I'm going to use it here just to refer to the General idea we're talking about clinical psychology and giving therapy
would not take a moral position on any of those sexual desires.
And that's being enforced by the rest state.
We can talk about that later the difficulty which that places on Christians or indeed
anybody hold to any sort of traditional Ethic particularly sexual ethic of any religion
when it comes to trying to be a licensed psychologist.
But they have these particular long and said you can't do it.
What a therapist does is a therapist very narrowly Has the job of
trying to help this person navigate that conflict between what they want to do and what they're not
allowed.
To do so they try to help the person feel better about the desires that they have so
if I come to see a psychologist and I'm feeling difficulty because I
find myself Experiencing same -self attraction rather than helping me to not
follow along and act out on that same -sex Attraction the job of the therapist is to help me feel good about
that same.
The therapist about
whatever it is.
They want to do and to help them avoid the negative Consequences which might come
about from trying to act any things that they want to do.
You know one of the areas that Psychology in the law and just in the culture at large is
what they are now referring to is mentally attracted by right
so We have people who find themselves sexually attracted to children.
The psychologist is doesn't have the job.
The therapist doesn't have the job of trying to help the person to not be attracted to children.
They have the job of trying to help the person feel okay about that and avoid negative Consequences like going to prison
for having sex with children.
So that's what a therapist's job is the therapist's job is to help people feel bad.
There'd be circumstances that feel bad feel good not feel bad and in certain circumstances We
can look at that as a relatively benign thing, you know, somebody's feeling anxious.
How do I help you feel not anxious anymore?
And it's a general matter not feeling anxious is probably a good thing.
It's very unpleasant to feel anxious and in fact, it's a it's a.
Command of Christ not to be anxious, right.
And we can talk an example about the difference I'll give you in just a moment when we look at like for instance
Philippians chapter 4 About the difference between the way a Christian about anxiety
for instance.
So but the therapist's job is just to make the person feel.
Okay, when it comes to morally complex if we're talking about what
is required of a human.
There's a human sexuality.
Trying to help you feel bad to look
at you know, helping somebody work out Romans 118
is something rather negative.
You're retract the knowledge to feel
okay about the fact that they want to engage in sinful behavior.
So that would be one of the places where there's a difference what a Christian is supposed to do when
it comes to we're talking About physical counseling is we're not doing therapy.
Train people to think and act like Christians
of thinking and acting like a Christian will have.
Effects.
So for instance, we would hope that Thinking and acting like a Christian
not to be anxious you brought up that we brought up the issue about anxiety.
Yes, and be anxious for nothing.
I might do something like try to find out why you feel a
breathing exercises.
If you get anxious around train you to notice.
How you begin to feel anxious beforehand to train you to not feel frightened about that thing.
It's not really a bad thing something like that.
But let me give you eggs there's an example that came up some years ago when I was teaching theology of
biblical kids between Christianity
would broach a particular topic about feeling anxious and how a psychologist
or a young woman.
She was in high party and she became intoxicated.
She was filmed it and the
photographs were posted online the film was and needless to say the young lady felt
horrified and ashamed and wrecked and Very very sadly the young woman
she had to leave the school and she was under the care of
there and.
Since it's going to have to limit the
human being to what we may be.
Socially physically.
To our environment into our body the most that they could offer this young woman is to try to get her to not
feel bad about having been the victim of a crime and You end
up and you have this stress
committed against her and so what they'll do is for
instance.
They'll give her medication anti -anxiety medication or antidepressant medication and the hope that her
body won't be able to the emotions.
But try to tell her she shouldn't feel bad about what happened to her.
But if we think about it, for instance from a Christian perspective, we have a rather different set of concerns here.
We can look at this and see.
Subjective victim of my
enemy and in place that happens to us when we come into
contact With sin when we've been sinned against and when we sin it's it's
part of sinner
what she needs.
She needs on Peter in chapter 1 refers to the fact that we
receive praise glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus be vindicated.
She needs more even than just these young men to being and I use the word
these monstrous people.
She needs more than them being convicted having been involved the legal system for years.
I can tell you that winning Never really provides the vindication that people hope that it will.
She even if these men went to prison even if they received the death penalty for what they did She would not receive the degree
of vindication which would make up for what had been taken from her.
But the vindication that she can get from Christ will give her his glory his honor
his praise.
More than makes up for anything the sins that have been committed against us the Righteousness of Christ and
the judgment against the sin against her.
Somebody who can say you are not what these monsters said about you you are what I say about you.
And You will as we sing in our song be bright shining as the Sun for 10 ,000 years.
So there's far more that can be given to somebody in this and that's an
example of just the difference.
Another way that might be if you look at Philippians
chapter 4 when you brought up anxiety is.
A command word to not be anxious.
In fact, could you pick up in Philippians 4 when we return from our first station break?
Yes, absolutely.
And if anybody has a question for for Ed Wild Please send it in to Chris
Arnzen at gmail .com.
Chris a r n Zen a gmail .com.
Give us your first name at least your city and state of residence and your country of residence.
Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter and I could readily
understand any question about counseling.
Would likely give rise to people having very personal very private very intimate
questions.
So obviously I will grant your request in these cases to remain anonymous, but if you're just asking
general questions about general principles about the area of Biblical
counseling and other things that involve our discussion if they're just general questions Please give us your first name at
least your city and state and your country of residence.
Don't go away.
We'll be right back with Ed Wild right after these messages from our sponsors.
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I'm back now with my guest today Edward Charles Wilde who is the co -editor
of legal issues and biblical counseling?
Direction and help for churches and counselors.
And before the break ed you were just beginning to cite a Quote from
Philippians 4 I believe.
Yes, in fact one thing I do want to make clear
in discussing the difference between therapy and What a pass
we'll see in just a minute.
I hope that the legal importance of that.
So it's it's really not
Foster's and other people ministering in the church when giving counsel this may
seem like a direction.
It's actually the straightest line to where we need to go.
So to give you an example in Philippians chapter 4 we have the verse
which speaks about the fact that Do not be anxious about anything but let your request be made
known to God and the peace of God which passes all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
And Anyone who's ever done pastoral counseling or biblical counseling?
Will personally say something along the lines of I was
anxious I prayed and I don't necessarily feel better.
So it didn't work.
That's a very common sort of thing to have to
understand is is that if you look for instance at the entire?
Chapter of Philippians 4 not to mention the whole rest of the Bible or certainly even just the rest of Philippians.
But the command to pray takes place in a matrix of other commands
and assertions.
So for instance immediately before that Paul begins with his discussion about the fact of the rest of my
fellow workers whose names are written in the book of life.
So he speaks about an eternal hope he speaks about the return of the Lord.
And then he begins right after the commandment to pray and right after this commandment about Thanksgiving.
How we are supposed to conduct ourselves in terms of our thought life.
Whatever is true Whatever is honorable and such to think of those things.
And Paul says then also the things which I
lack of anxiety.
Something that takes place for somebody who has
who has been thankful
to God and obedient to the commands of God and
otherwise living the way a Christian should.
So the lack of anxiety.
Not the I can
provide to somebody what we are doing
is we are seeking to train people.
Religious in short to
as intensive discipleship training
should be doing in the book of somebody who's in a personal
conversation where you have a chance for them to ask questions to clarify what it is that they are doing
to give them Encouragement or rebuke that is tailored to the place with this particular person is
but in substance in a lot of it.
It's really not different than what they're doing at the in the pulpit you would ask that at the beginning.
You know certain pastors are thinking I should just preach and I should give up on counseling.
Well, if they're going to do that.
Then they have to give up on preaching also because the things that they should be doing in Counseling are
the same things they should be doing and the things they're doing in the pulpit are the sorts of things
they should be Doing when they're counseling individually when you realize that we're not doing therapy
providing and like a Christian.
It should provide some clarity to whether we should do this or not.
Does that make sense Chris?
Oh, yeah, definitely.
In fact unless you haven't finished concluding with that thread of thought we do have a
Number of listeners waiting to ask questions, and if you are free, I would ask the first one that has
come through.
Why don't you will just go ahead and do that?
So and the point by the way the point I wanted to make there is and I will get to the question.
But I wanted you to know why that's important overall to the question.
Biblical ministry and the law.
That and there's a number of different particular issues that come up in counseling that we address in the
book.
And I think I need to make something clear here.
I get absolutely no money from the book neither does Dale.
So we're not.
I'm not making any money by doing this.
So finance this is for the blessing of the church.
The money is all being donated to a CBC so neither one of us are getting anything from this
and.
But when it comes to the issue about can I go ahead and ask the Christian without getting in trouble.
The safest way to do that is to be making it as clear as possible that I'm not doing counseling in the
in terms of Doing psychotherapy, but rather that I'm giving instruction and being a Christian, but other than that I would be more than happy to take
whatever questions you have.
Great, and I'm sure you would agree before I ask the question that there would be absolutely nothing
wrong if you were receiving financial benefits from the publishing of this
book as many Christian authors Make a substantial part of their living that way.
It's just that you have chosen chosen not to do that.
No, it's worthy of a tire and I completely
agree on that particular point but on this particular because I You know, I sell my words in my met
my talking and all the rest.
As an attorney and as professor, so I certainly expect to get paid for the work but on this particular
occasion Dale and I were both very concerned about this work getting done in the importance
of it and so we both have effectively volunteered our time and It's been a substantial amount of
time as have all the individual authors in this book.
All of them have Effectively volunteered their time.
So this was a labor of love where all of the Various
professionals because these people all spoke about their professional capacities because we Because we all believe in
the importance of this topic for the church and just her concern for the protection of the church general.
Okay, we have Bobby in Hartsdale, New York.
Who says when someone is looking for a biblical counselor?
When one cannot be found in the congregation where they are a member, isn't it?
Very careful.
I'm sorry, isn't it important to be very careful that they seek a
biblical counselor?
And not necessarily one that is labeled a Christian counselor, isn't there
often a difference between.
The way that people identify themselves as counselors.
Because in this day and age even someone calling themselves a Christian counselor Can be
guilty of teaching and counseling using absolutely bizarre and unbiblical
ideology.
Yes.
Typically that means that they are a licensed professional counselor of some sort.
So in the state of California, for instance, somebody can be a licensed vocational social worker or a marriage and
family therapist.
There's a few different designations about what you are to be a.
You are permitted to use whatever
school or authority you want for purposes of that so you can be
a Therapist and I can be here in the city of Los Angeles I can find people who use tarot
cards witchcraft Hinduism Islam.
In addition to using cognitive behavioral therapy or Freudian psychology or Jungian or Adlerian
or whatnot.
So all the person is saying is that I Could be little more perhaps
than I'm a Christian who is a therapist.
The other problem with this is is that if you are somebody functioning under a state
licensure You are required within the
scope.
State is requiring you to say so the state has certain Limitations
on what can be said and not said and that really is causing problems for Christians who are
licensed therapists.
To be able to counsel somebody for instance saying like I'd like to counsel you for the reduction of same -sex
attraction.
That's becoming very difficult.
I believe that that is an infringement upon their First Amendment Right both the speech and to
religion and quite problematic and it's causing a great deal of grief for some Christians who are in that position.
The other part of it is is that merely saying that I'm a Christian therapist of some sort of Christian counselor.
That doesn't require them to do much of anything else.
The terms of what they're allowed to do and not do are set more by the state than by their
Christianity and I've seen a number of instances where I've had people Who have gone to
see a Christian therapist at in fact, I had to give you an example of a pretty egregious example.
I knew of a situation where there were two people who were within the church.
They're both professing to be Christian.
In fact, in fact, I don't want to cut you off during an important part of that that
story.
So we're going to go to our midway break first and then when we return we'll have you continue that story if you don't mind.
And if anybody as I said has any questions for Ed wild our email address is Chris Arnson at
gmail .com.
Chris Arnson at gmail .com.
As always give us your first name at least.
Your city and state of residence and your country of residence if you live outside the USA.
Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.
Please be patient as this midway break is always a bit longer than the others.
It's out of necessity necessity to comply with the FCC regulations that grace life
radio of Lake City, Florida Must to which they must comply to
localize this program To Lake City, Florida geographically, so please be patient.
Don't go away.
We will be right back with Ed wild right after these messages.
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To my guest today Ed Wilde co -editor of legal issues and biblical counseling direction
and help for churches and counselors.
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Wild on legal issues on biblical counseling.
Our Email address again is Chris Arnson at gmail .com and right before the midway break Ed You are
beginning to tell us a story that was quite disturbing in regard to a counseling session.
Yes, there was.
We had a situation where there was
one of the members was
Found to be involved in it.
The wife had brought them to the pastor in the church who was giving them
counsel.
The husband their Christian counselor
said not so
fast.
We don't want to be upsetting here.
Why don't we see if there's some way we can work something out and take a little bit of time?
Before yeah.
They came up was, you know.
Basically, is there a difference between going to see somebody who a person being a
biblical many very faithful people.
Licensed.
I don't want to approach hate with an overly broad brush.
But the fact of the matter is just certification
that you would factor.
I think might be the right answer.
Well a Bobby in Hartsdale, New York.
Thank you for the question that evoked that story and If you give
us your full name and mailing address in Hartsdale, New York, you will receive
compliments of New Growth Press and Compliments of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service a free
copy of legal issues and biblical counseling Direction and help for churches and counselors
edited by my guest today Edward Charles Wilde and also T Dale Johnson Jr.
And we thank New Growth Press for their generosity in providing for us a limited number of copies
for listeners who submit questions today.
And we also have someone who is using
an alias obviously.
We have lamb lamb, I don't know why it was required to have lamb twice
in this alias.
Lamb lamb from Valley Stream, New York.
And lamb lamb says.
I am so excited to hear about the book.
Dr Wilde has written bringing awareness and help to the church in the spare of
biblical counseling.
Thank you.
Can dr. Wilde clarify that to prevent this potential danger?
About lawsuits the counselor has to put out the disclaimer about the
Advice and help to be given will be based on the Bible and Christian
Christianity belief or should the counselor Have some knowledge of
the law.
Thank you for this talk with dr. Wilde brother Chris.
Okay, the answer that question is a lot of the
book Discusses that particular
along the lines of what we talked about at the beginning of this, but there's also
an of an intake form Which we suggest that you
use when Having a biblical counseling ministry and in that form We
explain what we do and we don't do now.
Since the law can vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
It would always be wise to have somebody in your particular state who's an attorney read it over to make sure that it
meets your state or your county because There's a number of jurisdictions within the state of the United
within the United States that control that.
But one of the things that we have in there is we make very plain that we are providing Biblical instruction how to live as a
Christian and we're not providing psychotherapy.
We're also not providing a number of other things.
We're not giving you Legal advice not giving financial advice.
We're not going to come over and fix the plumbing in your house.
There's a number of things That we're not going to be
doing for you when we're doing this.
So it's really important to make that clear.
So the counselor should not only say that but one of the things that we suggest you do is that you
have them to fill out the form where they Have going to
do and not do in the counseling situation.
Second question.
Yes.
There's a number.
In fact, one of the things we didn't talk about at the beginning was There's about four different places.
You're involved in that you
need to have some area of the law or at the very least You need to know that you need to have the
help of somebody Who understands the law so having a relationship with an attorney those briefly
give you the four basic areas?
One area that you're going to need to have knowledge of the law.
Involves things that we would we can put in the context of business.
Chris you were talking earlier about the fact that.
You know what?
I've made mention that on this particular book Dale and I aren't being paid for it.
The money's being donated to ACBC.
But a number of Christian authors make a living by doing that and they absolutely should I think that's a good thing.
If you're going to be running a ministry, you know.
You're talking about the fact that you had to give a particular announcement so that you could meet
FTC requirements and also so that You could make a living, you
know, you're trying to run this radio show.
It takes a lot of work.
It takes a lot of money and you have advertisers who come on it.
All those sorts of things are important if we're going to have a church.
You're going to need to have a building.
You're going to have insurance.
Somebody's gonna have to either pay rent in that building or purchase that in building.
You're going to have employees.
You're gonna have former employees.
You're gonna have to hire people.
There's a great many places that a Christian ministry is going to be involved with that are simply business
kinds of questions.
And if you're going to do this need to know what is requirement?
What is required to meet the requirements for having a business if your church is a religious nonprofit or you
have a counseling ministry.
That's an LLC.
What do you need to do to qualify in your state?
How do you pay taxes on this?
What sorts of taxes do you need to pay and not pay and so on?
So that's one general area that the knowledge of how a business should work.
Second big area is that counselees themselves are going to be involved with the law.
So for instance the class they teach here at Masters University for the graduate students in counseling in the law.
We spent a great deal of time talking about what happens to people when they become involved in the legal system
counselees.
We're going to be dealing with people in Christian ministry who have gone to jail.
So, how do we go and minister somebody in jail?
So I had a very dear friend Frank Mastro Leonardo who is the chaplain for the Los Angeles County Jail System and he came
in and spent time with my students explaining to them.
How do you get into the jail, how do you do this?
You have a counseling ministry by the way in your church or in your area.
Is there anybody ministering to the people in prison there?
The people in prison need Jesus and they're very often quite anxious to hear that.
We have a young man who is at the master seminary now who became a Christian in jail.
He's been living on the street got arrested went to prison and is now going to be a pastor.
Praise God.
It's a wonderful story his wife was living on the street in fact.
The fact that he became arrested led to his salvation which led to his wife getting off the street.
So that the baby that he didn't know that he was going to have to be born in a safe place.
They both became Christians.
It's just one of the most wonderful stories.
I know it that's definitely a Romans 828 story.
In fact, if you could put me in touch with him later, I would love to interview him.
Another one of my former students who deals with women involved in domestic with women who've been
trapped.
You might have that person as your counselee.
How do you walk them through the legal system.
Because there's enormous pressures or.
Single mothers who find themselves in divorces or people being bankrupt.
So understanding how the legal system Affects the people who are in our ministry
is another aspect of it.
And then there's two sets of issues that involve the counselor as counselor and how to protect yourself.
One area is how does the counselor protect themselves from the counselee and.
That's sort of what the question specifically went to.
We discussed that in the book one of the ways of doing that is by the counseling intake form which
make where we make Very clear what we're going to do and not do.
In the final area.
Which is where a lot of people first think of the relationship between counseling and the law is the
relationship between church and state.
What is the government going to say about what I'm doing?
You have the question earlier about you know, should we just do preaching and not do counseling.
And.
We actually get questions into ACBC a lot of times.
They get filtered over to me when they're legal questions.
And so we had a church in one location who was wondering maybe we should just stop doing counseling at all.
Because it's a potential legal liability, you know, the counselee suing us or the state coming after us and
unfortunately I don't know that forever.
We're going to be free from the state coming after us.
There are certainly people who are in the state that want to go after that.
We could talk a little bit about that.
But the other part of it is is that the best protection we have for doing that is by being very clear.
That we're engaged in religious activity.
We're not doing therapy.
That's one of the reasons that I belabor the point at the beginning of this podcast.
Was this the distinction between what we do in town or biblical
soul care or biblical directive ministry of some sort and What a licensed therapist would do.
I Have a question.
You may be too young to remember this.
I don't know how old you are, but I'm way too old Chris.
I'm 60 years of age.
Oh, that's how old I am.
We remember the world that it used to be different.
Well, this actually is an incident that took place and I can't remember exactly when but I think it was in
the late 80s or early 90s.
Perhaps you may remember hearing about this because I think it made Nationwide news
but there was a woman who attended a Congregation in what is known
as the Church of Christ.
They have also been known as a restorationist movement Church.
Pejoratively they have been called Campbell lights and The Church of Christ, they're not all the same
because they have in common.
One of a couple of the things they have in common with Baptists is they strongly believe in local church
autonomy and independence and they have a
authority structure where the only One outside of the local churches
elders that have authority in that church are God himself in his word.
So that's where they have a commonality with Baptists.
But.
Many of those within that movement many of the churches do not even believe in
the concept of church membership.
They also have such a radical position typically on only using the
Bible That you will rarely find one that Officially has a
confession of faith And or a constitution and that got this
Church of Christ in trouble.
When this woman who was Discovered was an adulteress she refused to
repent and When she refused to repent the church made her sin
public knowledge.
She was excommunicated and she sued that congregation because she said I wasn't even a
member of that church.
They had no business doing that.
They had no business telling people my my personal private
Activities and there was nothing in the there was no Constitution that mentioned anything
about this prohibition so I Can't remember if
you are familiar with the story.
I can't remember whether or not this woman won her lawsuit.
I think she may have.
But does is this a lesson to be learned about churches and how detailed they need to be
In regard to statements of faith whether they call it a creed or a confession At
least has some kind of a constitution whatever you call it.
So it's very clear where you are coming from and what the responsibilities of members are.
You are actually one of
those and less a
couple
of things.
There is a very useful thing for a
number of reasons and If you just want to be self -service, let me
give you an example.
Watching one another they're going to end up in jail.
Unless they're both boxers.
Because they've entered into an agree that it's legal for them to hit one another as hard as
they can and try to give the other man a concussion.
Any other place than a boxing ring that would result in jail time for both of them.
So we're allowed to do things to one another if we have a contract which allows
us to engage in this behavior.
That's why we can have baseball matches and football matches, you know.
Normally a giant man tackling another man would be a crime, but instead it's going to be you know on
Saturday afternoon.
We're going to watch college football teams do this one another and we're going to cheer.
So in other words my church should stop tackling people as a part of church discipline.
I'm.
Say that I'm going
to be a member of this church and this is what we do and this is what we uphold.
You agree to that other things that I would recommend that the church do.
I would recommend that the church Not only have formal membership in this regard in
there for having very in the church
bylaws or the Constitution someplace.
Where you describe the disciplinary process and how that will work?
So I when I was on staff at the church.
One of the things that I made sure was quip was that if somebody had been involved and
formally involved in the dip the disciplinary Process they wouldn't be able to resign until that
was completed after we had made clear.
We're instituting a formal investigation into this.
That the church preach on this at least once a year.
So it's not only just clear but that the church have a clear Proof that it
has been regularly teaching on this particular process and why it is and
that In the intake form of the that's in the book We have a discussion in there
about the fact that the information that we obtain in counseling Might be necessary to
disclose to the church as part of it.
Just one of things I need to make clear too is that if we find out somebody.
If some if you find out in a church somebody's committing a crime against a child.
You report that to the police right away.
I think that that goes without saying and we have that in there that we may need to Report to the police if there's
a child being hurt in some way.
So if we find out that a child is being sexually abused.
We're going to be making a call the police.
We make that clear in the intake form and That's something that I just think has to be a matter of course
aren't set up to investigate crimes.
And we certainly don't want to run interference for people who are committing crime.
By the way, I forgot to tell I think Bobby in Hartsdale, New York and Lam
Lam and Valley Stream, New York that you have each one a free copy of legal issues and
biblical counseling Co -edited by my guest today.
Compliments of New Growth Press and also compliments of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service CV
BBS.
Calm.
Who will be shipping the books out to you at no charge to you or to iron sharpens iron radio?
You have to give us obviously your full names and mailing addresses for us to do that.
Let's see here.
We have Joseph in South Central,
Pennsylvania.
Joseph and South Central, Pennsylvania.
Asks are there any states in the United States that currently have reached the point?
Where a person is likely to win a lawsuit if they do not.
Like the way they have been counseled or disciplined in regard to sexual
activity or a host of other reasons that the left would want to defend them
to Continue practicing.
That would be
if you were in the context of doing Counseling or choose me if you're in the context of doing
psychotherapy in this state.
Then yeah.
That would be something which may actually be the case in just about every state that such a thing
could arise.
How would they be likely to win a lawsuit like that though?
I mean that the person complained.
Licensed therapist in that state and somebody came in and wanted counseling
the.
And they came in and said you
can't do that because that contravenes religion and what?
Is the truth on that they could very likely
be speaking?
Has undertaken this.
Understanding of human beings that accords effectively with that Freudian discussion we had at the
beginning.
So for instance a few years ago There was the Obergefell decision where the United States Supreme Court found a
constitutional right to homosexual marriage.
That right really wasn't grant.
It wasn't grounded in any history of the law the words of the Constitution in any Anglo
-american tradition of the law or Liberty.
It was grounded almost solely in a very modern understanding of human psychology
that runs along the lines that I Listed at the beginning where human beings have desires the
desires are not bad.
They're merely prescribed by people who are bigots and therefore we need to make you feel good about them and therefore any
sort of restriction on Sexual activity at least at the moment.
I'm between adults is a bad thing.
So we have the law actually very favorable towards any sexual conduct between adults and
quite the culture is.
Pointing where the law is going to go because the law and the culture are going to remain roughly in step with one another.
The law moves more slowly because it takes a little bit more work for the law to change.
Yes, there's a number of places where somebody who if they were a licensed therapist could get reason
why?
The counseling given in the context of religious instruction the First
Amendment protects the freedom of religion and religion includes
the way we conduct our life.
So recently if we go back a hundred years ago in the United States.
And there were three men who worked together in a bakery and one was a Jew and one was a Roman Catholic and one was a
Presbyterian.
Although they had different religious practices to varying degrees on Saturday or Sunday come Monday
morning.
Their ethical life would be remarkably similar.
They'd have the same understanding of what marriage is about how human beings are supposed to comport themselves.
Paying their taxes and all the rest.
So there really wasn't any difficulty when our religious practice outside of Sunday
morning or Saturday if you were Jew Would differ.
However, we've reached the place where people are trying to argue that we should have freedom of worship.
But not really freedom of religion and what that would mean is this.
Freedom of worship is whatever you want to do in your religious house as soon as you close the door.
None of us know what you're doing.
So the state wouldn't care if you're Trinitarian or Aryan or you want to worship the devil.
We really couldn't care less whether you offer incense or don't offer incense or wear robes or
don't wear robes.
None of that is our business.
You open the doors and you come outside.
The state can start to regulate what you are allowed to do and not do.
Freedom of religion would say the way that we conduct our lives on Monday morning is as much part of
my religious Obligation is the way that I worship on Sunday morning.
In fact part of my worship is how I treat my wife and being chaste and how I treat my children and all the rest.
So we do want to make it plain that we're giving religious instruction and part of our instruction is how we conduct our life
at present.
Plainly and unambiguously legal excuse me religious instruction is still protected by
the law for speech and Religion if we are being
very the laws will change so the
Christians feel the therapy are permitted to give.
Remain a matter of some judge
striking down the laws in a number of states.
Somebody who's in pastoral ministry a pastor is
giving what effectively amounts to doing therapy.
They're trying to do therapy.
They're using clinical therapeutic techniques.
They're describing what they're doing in terms of doing therapy and they think of themselves as doing that.
And so we have somebody now practicing psychotherapy without a license and They'll be
violating the laws.
Governing what is allowed to be done and not being done in psychotherapy.
So a Perilous pastor is likely to be somebody who's going to cause this problem by not
understanding that the goal to create Disciples and if we stay
there and we create disciples and we're very clear about that.
We have to be the case forever
troubling things coming up in the law in that area and.
Joseph South Central, Pennsylvania, you have also won legal issues in biblical counseling and
please give us your full name and mailing address and Cv bbs .com will ship that
out to you.
And once again We thank new growth press for their generosity and providing us these copies.
Let me take this time to make an announcement.
I would ask all of you who have won and will win a copy of the
of this book.
That when you're finished with it or even right away please give it to one of the elders
of your church or a deacon who may be involved in a very
important decision -making.
Or a biblical counselor in your church so that it can be of best use.
And I'm not saying that quote -quote Layman or ordinary Christians in the church are not
valuable.
Don't get me wrong.
But this is a very unique book and I'm asking you to please pass it on to those who could
use it best.
We have an anonymous listener Who says is there a difference when it
comes to being vulnerable to a lawsuit?
Between a biblical counselor and a church who is only counseling members of the church
and is doing that for free and a biblical counselor who is actually setting up an
office in or outside of a church and seeing people from the community
whether they are Christians or not or whether they are members of that specific church or not and charging for
the services.
Good question.
Nothing in the law ever topics that we address some
links in the book.
What we want to do is we want the
Christian to be
a Christian who's Engaged
into
somebody from the government may be
willing to so
we have a number of things.
You know, you need to have a
madness about every you do need to be licensed and
They really don't care if you use the
Bible and they don't distinguish between Psychotherapist who may reference the Bible verse
and psychotherapist who may reference tarot cards.
They're perfectly comfortable with both of them provided that the psychotherapist does and says
the sorts of things the state Approves
seeing only members of the
church who's taking money for it and has a standalone ministry.
Absolutely, they can still be doing Christian ministry.
There's no question that Christian ministry can look at like that.
Like you brought up earlier Chris It's perfectly appropriate for Christians to be paid for writing books and
giving talks and all the rest.
Those are valuable things we pay for people to do talking and writing and other circumstances.
There's certainly no reason the Christian should not be paid for that.
So being paid for giving religious instruction is appropriate.
We pay our pastors to give religious instruction and to
see and you're taking money and you're seeing people who aren't in the church.
You're going to have to be even more clear of what you are doing and not
doing.
You're going to have to emphasize the distinction between You being a biblical
counselor and strutting people and how to live and act as a Christian.
Versus what a psychotherapist might do you can do it.
You're just going to have to realize that you need to be even clearer About what is the
nature of your work and what is the end of your work?
Does that make sense?
Chris?
Oh, absolutely and.
A Questioner from earlier who used the alias lamb lamb Lamb lamb
asked did I miss some two of the four points that dr Ed Wilde
was giving about the knowledge of the law for counselors.
I don't know that maybe you'd know.
Did you.
Did I stop you from continuing on a thread there?
I don't think if they are so I'll just repeat them because it is important and these are some of the things we talked about in the book
one.
Every Christian ministry is going to function like a business at some
employees all the rest.
That's going to be something you need to know to.
People involved in church ministry to others need to be aware of how the law is going to affect the person to
whom they are.
Ministering.
You're going to minister people in jail people who've been bankrupt people getting divorced.
So that's another place where the law interacts with Christian ministry.
Understanding that process will allow you to be a good counselor to be properly sympathetic.
I know it's a practical matter how to help the people when you understand the difficulty of divorce and you know,
and I'm talking You will be Understanding about how the church may need to provide help for
taking care of children or financial support or some such.
There are issues where number three the counselee versus the counselor.
Unfortunately, sometimes people are going to sue
their counselor.
We regulate that relationship.
We'll do what their duties there and finally number
for the relationship between church and state.
What is the state going to be doing to us?
How do we know how to live with that?
How do we respond to those difficulties?
That would be the four areas business counselee in the law.
Counselee versus counselor.
Government versus counselor.
Great, and we are going to our final break.
It's going to be a lot more brief than the other breaks.
If you have a question, send it in immediately to Chris Arnsen at gmail .com.
Don't go away. We'll be right back with it.
While.
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They believe churches need to turn to the Bible to discover what to include in worship and how to worship
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Grace Covenant Baptist Church endeavors to maintain a God -centered focus.
Reading preaching and hearing the Word of God singing psalms hymns and spiritual songs.
Baptism and communion are the scriptural elements of their corporate worship.
Performed with faith joy and sobriety.
Discover more about Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey at GC
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We are now back with Ed Wild and we are continuing our discussion on
legal issues and biblical counseling and We have an anonymous listener who
asks.
You probably recall Anita Bryant who in the 1970s
had her acting and modeling career destroyed because she became an
outspoken advocate for Christian schools to have the liberty to hire
Christian employees and to not hire those that were involved in homosexual
activity.
How much of a danger is a church in today when they refuse to
either?
Maintain the employment of somebody who is discovered to be a active unrepentant
homosexual or refuses to hire one.
Okay, that goes
again to the
nature of was
expected to be able
if somebody just showed up.
Let's say that perch and the only person who's there happens to be
somebody who works as a janitor.
We'd want that janitor to be able to sit down with the person.
Give them the gospel pray with them because they walk into a church.
So we expect the janitor and believe me I have nothing bad to say about janitors.
We would not get along in the world without them, but I was trying to figure somebody who's at a church who has the least
obviously Religious occupation there.
I would expect every person who works in the administration of the church to be able to pray with somebody to
Be able to sit down and read the Bible.
The church is making very plain that we expect everybody who's on the property of this church
to also function In a ministry capacity that it's appropriateacity
be an element of
church secretaries or to be janitors or You.
Know any other function of the church even musicians who are involved in the very worship of God.
I know churches that hire and pay Non -believers to sing perform
instruments, and I just think that is absolutely horrendous.
It was acting like that.
Yeah, the church is because if the church is just thinking like well You know like let's say that I pick
somebody to work in the church and the administration is the bookkeeper for the church and he's
an adulterer, but I Will allow him to continue on if he's an
adulterer, but when I found out he's homosexual I fire him.
You're just picking what sins you find acceptable or not that that's not the way a church can function so.
Make everybody a minister, and then you don't have to worry about it.
And I'm assuming that you're saying that you know they're not actually given an office as a minister
or you're just.
Not at all.
But we expect everybody who is working for the church to be able to do just basic
Elements of church ministry praying for people reading with them all the rest.
I don't mean elevating everybody to being an elder in the church or some official pastor.
You're right.
Thank you for catching me on that great.
Well, that's a very Extremely important piece of advice for people that
might not have ever thought of that before because to tell you the truth I never thought of that either.
But thank you anonymous and anonymous you have won a free copy of legal issues and biblical
counseling.
Thanks to our friends at new growth press and thanks to our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible book service
CV BBS Calm will be shipping it out to you at no cost to you or to iron
sharpens iron radio.
Let's see we have CJ in Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York and
CJ says what do you think?
Qualifications should be put into place Before someone in leadership in a church
will recognize someone as a biblical counselor and give them that
activity and role to be responsible for.
CBC it's not the only biblical counselor.
I think it's important that people who are going to be involved in short formal church ministry
have appropriate and adequate Education and understanding of what they're doing.
If we have somebody who has a poor education in Christian theology for
instance in the pulpit It's possible that that person can inadvertently take positions
about which are Contrary to what Christians
believe they can accidentally if you will say something about the nature of God or the nature of
Christ.
You know given we get things begin with the Trinity which can be very difficult to discuss.
And so not because they want to be a heretic, but because they're poorly educated they have a problem.
We wouldn't let somebody I have a friend of mine who's a North Carolina. Who's just opening up a car
repair shop and He's being very careful to find men or women to do the work who have
education and how to repair a car.
We should have at least as much concern with people who are dealing with the human soul
and things as critical as The Bible that they have a proper and full
understanding of such things as we do with somebody who would work on a car or I had somebody come out to take a look at what my
washing machine the other day because I'm not mechanical the man had better experience and education that I didn't he could
tell me what I needed to do.
So we should take Human souls and the gospel as seriously as we take washing machines and dryers.
Well, I know that you have to leave a little bit early.
So I want you to now summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our
listeners regarding the topic of your.
Absolutely invaluable book.
Need to know about the law, but it is
a great and any aspect
Interacts with the law because it's a place or interacting with the government.
It's unavoidable.
I've known too many Christian ministers and people in church leadership.
Who believe that trying to be careful of such things and understand such things?
He is not.
It's completely appropriate to understand how this work.
Understand how anything else going on in your church works.
If you need to fix the lighting in your church you hired an electrician.
It's appropriate to know these things and Since the culture is running so contrary to what we want
to do It's necessary for us to be even more careful in these matters than perhaps we needed to be usual
Previously states.
I hope that we can do more
on it.
I also want to end with saying thank you to Masters University.
They gave me a very nice place to conduct this interview.
I would not be interrupted.
I want to say thank you to my law partner Michael obering because he was very
generous and saying like, you know It's worth our time for me to take a couple hours out of our workday for me to do this.
I'm gonna say thank you to you Chris to all the people who participated and I hope that this has
been a blessing to you and to the rest of the people.
Well, I know it's been a blessing to me and I'm quite confident.
It's been blessing to everybody who's listened.
I want to give your website for digital media law.
It's digital media law calm.
Digital media law calm.
Do you have any other contact information that you cater share?
Okay.
Yeah, that would be.
In fact if the person wants to find me if you just go to the California bar website, it has my
Telephone it has you know has my contact information on there.
If somebody wants to contact me if you want to ask me about the law in Texas or Oklahoma I probably can't help a whole bunch because
I'm not a lawyer there.
ADF is a great resource if you need something in particular about First Amendment work.
My partner and I do do First Amendment work and we can appear in federal courts around the country if that would be something that would be
useful and.
And thank you for the opportunity of speaking with the people in your audience Chris.
I really do appreciate it.
You've been very generous and kind.
Oh my pleasure.
And just so our listeners know when they're searching for you.
My guest's name is Edward C. Wilde and that is spelled with an e at the end.
Thank you so much Ed and I look forward to having you back on the program soon and frequently
God willing.
Well, if that's going to depend upon you so.
But thank you very much.
I hope that someday that I can come back myself.
Oh great.
Well, I will.
I will send you out a calendar of dates.
Great.
Thank you much.
Well, I want to thank everybody who listened today and I want to remind you All
of a couple of things.
Please if you are interested in purchasing jewelry or having custom -designed jewelry for the
Christmas season for a loved one or perhaps yourself, please go to royal diadem
calm royal diadem calm and Mention that you heard about them from Chris Arnson of iron
sharpens iron radio so that we can receive 100 of the profits from that sale.
Again, thank you all of you for listening, especially those who took the time to write in questions.
I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior.
Then you are a sinner.