Trauma Informed Counseling

Welcome, once again, to Conversations That Matter podcast. I'm your host, John Hanlis, with a special guest today.

We are gonna be talking to Pastor Matt Statler, who is at Sierra Vista Church.

You can go to sierravista .church to find out more about his ministry. But it's an ACBC certified church,

Association of Biblical Counselors. He is a trainer for ACBC.

He has a degree in counseling from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. And we're gonna talk about trauma -informed counseling today.

And my role in this is gonna be to listen, because I don't know a lot about it. I've read Diane Lainberg's book, most of it, and that's about it at this point.

So my journey has just started in understanding this, but Pastor Statler is much farther along in understanding this.

So he's gonna explain it to us, since this is a very new thing that's coming into counseling and coming into evangelicalism in general.

And maybe tell us some things that we should be cautious of. So with that, Pastor Statler, thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule to join us.

Well, my pleasure. And thanks for having me on the show, John. And you just call me Matt. But man, so yeah, this trauma -informed care, this is a buzzword, right?

This is a word that's been really blowing up in popularity, even in biblical counseling circles.

And as a pastor with a full plate, I hadn't really been tuning in much to it.

I have a lot of experience with the trauma, trauma -informed world, secular methodologies for caring for me.

And as I've been counseling people, this word of trauma being triggered, and as I'm counseling folks, this becomes a common thing.

And so I would say first, we wanna understand what do we mean when we say something like trauma or PTSD, right?

So everybody knows post -traumatic stress disorder. My kind of working definition is the whole person's response to intense suffering that can often result in significant life disruption.

As a result, anger, fear, sadness, shame, and guilt are often exhibited as a part of this.

And so when I'm counseling folks who have gone through really hard and intense suffering, we have these cluster of symptoms that the secular world has labeled post -traumatic stress disorder.

And so our society has shifted the language of a actual psychological definition to more of a common use definition, right?

So how many times have you heard someone say, oh, I've been triggered? Or you've heard someone say, that's given me

PTSD, or I don't wanna answer the phone because I have PTSD, or any number of things. And so common vernacular has entered.

And I don't know if I just answered your question or not there. Well, I think I asked my question off air if I'm not mistaken.

I think I was saying, let's define it. Let's talk about what trauma -informed counseling is to begin with.

You are someone, I think it's helpful to mention, I think you told me off air as well, you've been labeled

PTSD, right? Yeah, so I was in the military for 10 and a half years.

I was a cavalry scout. I was deployed four times to Iraq. I have 43, 45 months of deploy time down range and pretty intense fighting.

At a very young age, my dad died of cancer while I was deployed on my first deployment. And I've lost some really good friends through that process.

And near the end of my time, the cumulative effect of not only the suffering that I experienced, but also my response to that suffering led to just a really massive disaster in my life to the point where I wasn't sleeping,

I was having night terrors. I was drinking a lot and really suffering.

I was really miserable to be around. And finally, my wife turned to me and just said, you know what, you need help.

And so I went to the doctors, I went to the psychiatrist and the psychologist there, and they diagnosed me with complex

PTSD, depression, suicidal ideation, alcoholism, and I know

I'm forgetting a few other labels. And so, man, that led to a medical retirement for me.

And I dedicated myself to getting better. So I went to the

VA ready to get better. And so I went, they offered yoga, I went to yoga. They offered acupuncture,

I went to acupuncture. They offered Eastern mysticism and meditation. I went to that.

Like anything that they could do, cognitive behavioral therapy, EMDR, exposure therapy. I mean,

I just, I was willing to do the work to get better. And what that did is it just led me to become more selfish.

I started being very self -centered. I wouldn't help my wife with things.

I was sleeping 12 hours a day. I was on so much medication. And I was, I mean, truly, really miserable and in a hopeless situation.

I had read all the literature on it. One book said, this is my new normal.

And I just need to learn how to adapt and get used to these things. And it wasn't until I got a book on prayer and I started reading through it.

And he had a daily set office hours for prayer. And then also reading a

Psalm. I started reading the Psalms and I really met the word of God in a new way.

And I started reading David, seeing a warrior who had been through intense suffering through combat, through war, plus much more.

And I saw in him, the anatomy of my soul was revealed. And so I began to cry out to the

Lord in the same way that David did through the Psalms. And that process led me to be convicted of my sin.

I confessed and repented. And it really was transformative in my life.

And the word was so effective in just dealing with everything that I was struggling with.

It was such a hope giving experience. And I started using that to counsel other veterans that were struggling next to me.

And that led me to go off to a seminary, to get called into ministry, went to Southern, concentrated my

MDiv in biblical counseling. And I've been just using the word to counsel those who have been through intense suffering.

And I've been counseled several people who have been sexually abused as children, as well as the sexual abuse that has happened to so many recently, as well as adults.

And so God's word is sufficient. And if I could just tell people that we don't need modern psychotherapeutic methodologies to counsel those who have gone through intense suffering.

And that's what's been maybe a warning sign for me is because so many biblical counselors now are being trauma informed or talking about this trauma.

I would say, yes, let's be wise as to how the body and the soul responds to intense suffering.

But at the same token, let's also recognize that this is a soul issue primarily.

And not a physiological problem. And so that's kind of what has led me to just speak out so much about it.

It's one, I've experienced what the world has to offer. If you read Vanderklok's book,

The Body Keeps a Score, you will see kind of the modern methodologies. And they're just not sufficient.

They're too simplistic. They don't deal with the complexities of the human heart. So that's, and thank you for sharing that.

I know that's personal. You've walked this road of psychology, but I would say the trauma informed approach.

And you didn't find anything there that was helpful. And so you are now,

I'm assuming that experience maybe propelled you into wanting to be a biblical counselor and now certifying others with ACBC.

What, this is my first question, I guess. What is trauma informed counseling?

And the reason I ask is there's a lot of people that I would otherwise consider solid. They would be, they would say they're biblical counselors and yet they're adopting this new term.

Is the term itself, does it have a broad range where sometimes there's a legitimate trauma informed and then there's illegitimate?

Or what exactly are we dealing with when someone brings that up? So that is the nexus of the problem.

This word trauma or this concept of trauma informed, really, I mean, the question is how do people flourish and how do we help them flourish?

So that's the basis. And so this trauma informed care,

TIC, has so many different definitions. It's almost impossible to really nail down a clear definition, but thankfully, the government has helped us and we always have to be cautious when they do.

But according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, they give us a definition of trauma informed care.

And I'm going through what it is here, but one of the parts of the definition is that it needs to be viewed through a sociocultural ecological model.

And what that means is that there's so many environmental factors that influence the emotional, physical, and social wellbeing.

We have to understand the gender, the upbringing, and just every other aspect.

And I would say that the warning here is either there's a shoehorning of secular ideas like CRT or it's just the outflow of that thought.

So I haven't been able to identify whether it's a shoehorning of an idea into this trauma informed stuff or it's just an outflowing of it.

And so a helpful book on this whole topic is by a secular dude, but he's a medical doctor, he's a researcher, he's been in trauma stuff,

Michael Scheringa, and he wrote this book called The Trouble with Trauma. But he gives us this quote, and I just wanna, if it's okay with you,

John, to read it. Yeah, please. But it says, when asked what a trauma informed community would look like,

Sanger, and this is talking about Tarpon Springs, Florida, and the mayor there.

Sanger said, a trauma informed community would be a place where folks understand initially that there is reasons behind behaviors, things do not happen at random, and that they understand that most of the issues, if not all of the issues that we face as a community and in our lives are directly related to trauma.

That's a pretty bold statement for something that is so new.

And so this idea of trauma and trauma informed care has grown to mean anything that's wrong or any problems that we have as a community is a result of trauma.

And so we have all these trauma informed cities that are popping up. And this guy goes on to talk a little bit more about where they're getting this idea, the playbook behind it and stuff like that.

So trauma informed care may have a compassionate spirit behind it. We wanna help people who are suffering, but either it's been weaponized, the neuroscience has been weaponized for this trauma informed care mentality, or it is becoming weaponized.

The first time I ever heard about this, I think was from a guy on Twitter, Kyle J. Howard. And it was a joke to most, well, a lot of people.

They thought he was always talking about everything was trauma. It seemed like a very loose way of using the word trauma because typically trauma is very earth shattering events.

That's how you think of trauma. I lived through an earthquake and almost died and my family's dead. And so that's trauma. But now trauma is like,

I walked in the hotel room and there was a picture of cotton or something. I was offended because I thought it was racist.

It's like, how is that trauma? But it's become, I think what you just said, it's all encompassing from that quote.

It's just everything's now, it's ideological in that it reduces everything down to one substance and that now it's trauma.

And this fits into the power dynamics of CRT and social justice. So, I mean, this is just an on -ramp, it sounds like to the social justice movement, even though it's not coming, presenting itself that way initially.

That's my opinion, but, and you're nodding along, so you agree. That's right, absolutely. This trauma informed approach though, is it, there's kind of a popular label now.

That's what it's become as well. So people, in order to sell books, in order to stand out and try to get attention drawn to them, are there good people that are using this label as far as like, they're doing good work, but they're using the label because that's the popular thing.

Do you know of examples? Yes, so absolutely, you're hitting the nail on it. There are good people who just wanna help people who are struggling and I get that.

And so because this word is so popular, so I did a little research and I said, how can I become trauma informed?

Well, for 300 bucks, I could drive up to Phoenix and spend a weekend and get certified as trauma informed, right?

That's how popular it's become. And I don't know what a weekend for 300 bucks would entail, but I'm assuming it's gonna tell me about the physiological response to suffering and the stress that comes in that.

So I think some people have just adopted this label because they want people to understand,

I get what you're going through and I know how to help you. But this is not an accepted clinical label or a psychological label.

And so it doesn't have a basis in fact, if that makes any sense, it's become kind of, and just,

I don't know if you're familiar with just the whole dynamics of how psychological labels come to being, but this trauma informed care certification, if you wanna call it that, is not a actual label that they have, they just assume the label.

And so, I don't know Kyle J. Howard very well, but I know he's adopted this identity as a trauma informed counselor, coach, or whatever you wanna call it.

And that's just a popular way of saying, I, your trauma is the problem, I'm gonna help you with that problem.

And so there's no solid science behind it. It's kind of how someone says

I'm clinically depressed. Well, what does that mean? Well, it doesn't have even a full agreed upon definition.

Clinical just makes it sound more intense, but the way we do psychological labels is not medical.

So if you know how someone gets labeled with PTSD, it's not because there is an ideology or a particular problem, it's they look at my symptoms and then determine what

I have, right? Whereas in medical science, you go to the cause and the cause has symptoms and you deal with the cause, not the symptoms.

So that whole world is built on some serious presuppositions.

And what I don't want people to not hear me saying is that we don't suffer, right? When we suffer, it has all sorts of an impact on everything else in our lives, absolutely.

But how do we have human flourishing? How do we move forward? Well, that's what I wanna get to is eventually is what do you tell someone who is suffering?

Because we all suffer at times and I wouldn't use the word trauma for everything, but we do experience barriers and difficulties in life and trials as the

Bible calls them. So let's continue on this vein though of the trauma informed and understanding it and so forth for a little bit here.

I read most of, I still need to finish it, Diane Lainberg's book, Suffering in the

Heart of God, I think is the name. And this seems to be the book that a lot of these trauma informed individuals appeal to as she's almost like the matriarch of this movement if you wanna call trauma informed counseling a movement.

And her book is tame, it seems like, compared to some of the things that I've seen people like Rachel Denhollander say and others.

She though, you can see the seeds though for at the very least of what is now becoming popular in her book.

One of those things is when someone has this victim status not to question them, to just kind of accept that as it must be legitimate, it's authentic and it's more than bad manners to question that.

I definitely saw some me too stuff in there. I'd love to get your take on that since I'm sure you're familiar with Diane Lainberg.

And since I think I'm correct in saying she would be the most identifiable perhaps figure and one to be taken more seriously behind this move.

What is your assessment of her trauma informed counseling? So one of the ways that I think is very helpful is to use a grid to analyze philosophical or methodological approaches to the problem.

So one grid is called the six S's and you look at the source of authority, sin, salvation, sanctification, system of change and sparring or apologetics.

So what is the source of authority behind Diane Lainberg's methodology?

Is it secular science? Is it observation? Is it experience? Is it the word?

What is sin? Well, for some, I don't know if Diane Lainberg does but for some,

I think you hit the nail on the head. You never question a victim, right? Is the victim, so the sin is not what we would term the sin as in a biblical sense but sin as in, it is wrong of me to say that a victim contains or has sin in their life if they've suffered abuse or they suffered trauma.

And then how are they saved, right? And what Diane Lainberg and many others have done is well, salvation is bringing them out of the situation, offering them a compassionate ear, encouraging them, loving them, which is all very important.

But as Tripp says, it's not just what you suffer but how you suffer that is, causes, is part of the suffering.

And so if I don't look at my heart response to suffering and deal with my heart in that suffering, because I mean, how many people do you know that have been abused grow bitter?

We see that pretty often. So we wanna evaluate her based on these

S's. And so my question really to her and to others is, can the body make you sin, right?

So at the root of a lot of this is, if I'm abused, my brain has somehow changed and therefore

I'm not culpable for my response, even a sinful response to the abuser.

So does the body make me sin? Does sin even exist? And does the

Bible hold me accountable for my sin? And I just think about Joseph and his whole life.

I mean, it was a pretty, if you wanna use the word traumatic experience to be thrown in a pit and then sold into slavery.

And then you wanna talk about abuse power dynamics, look at the situation with Potiphar's wife.

My kids and I just read through that in our Bible reading plan. And you think about that, or you think about David.

So a lot of us kind of condemn David for being back in the palace. But if you think about it, he was on R and R.

David has been through a lot of war in his lifetime. How insensitive was

Nathan to accuse him of sin when he was just trying to get some rest, right?

So all that kind of power dynamic language is great.

I think it's helpful. We see that in Esther with Haman and Mordecai.

But to come back to the main point is, does the body make me sin?

And so is a victim culpable for the sins they commit as victims?

And so for me, if you wanna use my experience, I go to war, I come back and I just start drinking because I can't sleep, right?

I'm having night terrors, I have anxiety, fear, you name it.

And so for me to get, I wake up in the middle of the night with a night terror, I grab a bottle of alcohol and sleep myself into, or drink myself into a coma, right?

So was that sin? Was that the sin of drunkenness? Yes. Yes, absolutely, right?

Is my anger towards the Iraqis who killed my friend, was that sin, right?

That I hated them in my very heart, in my being. I had a murderous intent towards those, and not even the ones that committed the crime, but those other

Iraqis that look similar to the ones that did that thing. Is that a sin? I think most people would say yes, that was racist, that was sinful, right?

And so for me, I had to confess and repent of those things, which enabled healing, right?

Which enabled growth, if you wanna use post -traumatic sanctification, would be a better term.

And so we do have to confess and repent. So let's talk about the abuse dynamic, right?

Or go ahead, you had a question. No, well, I just wanted to back up one of the things you're saying, because I thought of some examples.

Diane Lane Berg has this in her book, but this also recently came out at the last Southern Baptist Convention meeting, where there was an abuse panel.

And one of the things that, like Lane Berg talks about ways that victims cope with their abuse.

So things like, even like pornography, and you'll hear Rachel Denhollanders talked about this, that sexual, and members of the

Sexual Abuse Task Force for the SBC, ironically, have talked about this, at least one of them I know of, that sinning in sexual ways as a response to abuse is also part of being a victim.

And so they treat it differently. If it's a sin, it's in a different category of sin, if it's a sin at all.

This is just the response to abuse. Whereas we would look at it from a biblical standpoint and say, the

Bible's clear cut on this. If you're looking at pornography, or if you're cheating on someone, or having an affair, or whatever, that is sin.

It doesn't matter that you were abused in a way that you're trying to cope with that abuse is to get involved in more sin.

And that's something that you often see. There's also a one -sidedness where men in particular, they'll cite stats.

I think Diane Lane Berg says it's like one in three women are gonna be raped sometime in their life, or it's stuff that's like so out there that they wanna make the issue that they're an expert in, the biggest problem ever.

And maybe that's because they're the ones that hold the solution in their minds, but it's so pervasive.

And it's men that are abusing women. And so if a man like Diane Lane Berg says that even name calling is abuse, right?

Calling someone a name. But there's no mention of what if a woman fails to submit to her husband in a biblical way?

What do we call that? Is there a label? It's not even addressed. And so there's a lopsidedness.

Some sins are amplified, exaggerated, sometimes even made up.

Other sins are minimized, not even categorized as sin.

And so I just wanted to make that point because what you're talking about, that the victim can't be guilty, or they're not culpable.

That's exactly what I'm seeing out there. And maybe that is the heart of this trauma -informed thing is, hey, we got to treat this differently because this really, if it is sin, it's like this lesser sin, if it's sin at all.

And it's like, where do you find this in scripture? So anyway, I made my point. I talked a while. I'm gonna let you make a point you were gonna try to make there.

You're exactly right. So if it's a supra -biblical problem, then it requires a supra -biblical solution.

Right. And that's exactly what we're seeing here is this has become a supra -biblical problem.

So we need a supra -biblical solution. And that's why it's so convenient to say, well, trauma impacts the brain.

So it's a physiological problem, not a spiritual problem, right, kind of a

Gnostic dualism thing happens. And it really becomes a simplistic response.

Well, I just got to deal, learn how to not engage with my triggers or I need to learn these various techniques which scripture doesn't cover.

So, yeah, so you're exactly right with this supra -biblical options.

And so, it kind of goes back to the abuse dynamic language.

And the question is that I am seeing now and we could talk more about,

I think Diane Lainberg, Darby Strickland, who wrote, Is It Abuse?

They have a pretty broad definition of abuse. And if we could just use more biblical terms, like is this sin or is this oppression?

And I think Darby tries to do that in her book as well. But I think one area that, and I think you mentioned it with the

SBC task force, maybe with Den Hollander is, does an abused woman, an oppressed woman, does she have to flee in every instance?

Because that seems to be a pretty common belief is that if she's in an oppressive situation, she must flee that situation.

She does not need to stay for any reason. And if oppression is your husband called you a name, it could be something as basic as that, like a name that wasn't very nice.

That could be the pretext for, I'm taking the kids. And you can't do anything to stop it or else you're supporting abuse.

That's frightening to me that it's, there's a, they would call it empowerment,

I'm sure, but there's a default posturing where the woman is the victim.

And of course women are, they are victims sometimes, but this is like without any facts and without knowing the situation, the woman's automatically already the victim and she's justified in almost any response she takes to abuse and abuse is almost anything.

So it's, how do you even counsel someone like that who's under that thinking, under that spell, really?

You can't, they're automatically justified. They don't have to prove themselves or take account of any of their actions.

And so I would love to get into, what the biblical approach is here, because people do suffer.

We can even take the classic case, if you want, of a woman is abused by her husband and battered a wife.

What do you, you were making a point though first, so maybe you wanna finish up that point about fleeing the situation, but I'd love to get to, okay, so what's the alternative?

How do you approach it? Yeah, so first, yeah, to talk about fleeing, Hebrews talks about,

Hebrews 11, talks about some who fled in faith and some who did not accept release out of faith.

Right, it's in that great by faith chapter. And so it says, verse 34, quench the raging of fire, escape the edge of the sword, gain strength and weakness, became mighty in battle.

Women received their dead, raised to life. Other people were tortured, not accepting release.

So they stayed in faith so that they may gain a better resurrection. And then others experienced mocking, scourging, as well as bonds and imprisonment.

They were stoned, they were sawed in two, they died by the sword, they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, afflicted and mistreated.

The world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and in the mountains, hiding in caves and holes in the ground.

And so anything that's not done by faith is sin. So most often in a battered situation, in a battering situation, some will stay out of fear, which would be sin because they're not staying out of faith and others flee out of fear, which could also be sin.

And so we need to look at that. So how do we counsel someone? Well, first off, the government is given the sword for a reason.

So if it is physical abuse, sexual abuse, and even we could examine what emotional abuse looks like.

Well, we use the sword for a reason, but it needs to be done out of faith, not out of fear, which is hard in these situations.

And so, John, what we're talking about is such a complex and difficult situation when you sit down with someone, when you counsel someone.

And I wanna make this point before I lose my train of thought but the secular world does not have a great track record on counseling abuse and things as well.

So we really should not think of them as the paradigm of virtue or the standard for what needs to happen.

In fact, most people that I counsel, if they don't like my counsel, they'll go to a secular counselor for like post -traumatic stress disorder.

And within a few weeks to a couple of months, they come back to me and get my counsel, right? And so it's kind of an interesting thing that we think, okay, well, how does the secular world deal with it?

Let's use them as the standard. And to be clear, there's over 350 different unique schools of psychotherapy and psychology, 350 different ones.

And they don't agree on anything except for one thing. And that one thing is you don't need faith.

You don't need Christ, right? That's the one thing all these different schools agree on because we see that.

So yeah, so what would a case with a lady or a woman who has been abused?

Well, one, yeah, we wanna look at the safety of her. We wanna look at the safety of her children. We want to see what is going on.

So asking a lot of questions, maybe encouraging her in her faith in order to be able to flee by faith or to stay by faith.

So I have counseled both cases, right? Some women, their solution is to just get out of an uncomfortable situation.

My husband is lazy and he drinks a lot and I just don't wanna deal with him.

So I'm gonna take the kids and I'm gonna go, right? And it's abuse because when he comes home he doesn't give me a kiss on the cheek, right?

And I'm asking him, well, how are you acting out of faith in this, right?

Well, it's not because I care about him, I wanna change him. It's no, he's offensive to me, so I'm gonna run.

And then the same token, I've had to counsel a woman who's staying for long periods of time with a very abusive husband.

And I've had to tell her, I said, you are staying out of fear because every time he comes back, after doing something or the next morning, right?

He'll make breakfast and he'll bring flowers or any number of things that he does to try to make up for his abusive behaviors, offensive behavior, which was a sin against her, right?

So yeah, so let's classify sin as sin and then let's figure out how do we respond to that?

Do we respond out of faith or do we respond out of fear? So that's kind of maybe a really broad general way, but I think each situation is very different and there's not a one size fits all response to each of these and I think that's a wisdom issue.

So yeah, each situation is gonna be different. Could we take a hypothetical scenario if that's okay?

So we'll just do the one that I gave you already, maybe put a little flesh on the bones, but you have a woman who's battered.

Husband comes home every day after work and beats her and expects her to mind the kids, make his meals, stay there.

I mean, I'm giving you the stereotypical caveman husband image and she has lived in this, let's say, for a year and they go to the doctor and they explain away she lies, about a bruise that she has or...

She comes into your office and she says, Pastor Statler, this is what's been going on.

What do I do in this situation? And let's say that both of them claim to be Christians and make it that the scenario.

This is a, they've been attending the church. I couldn't see the husband being like intimately involved, having that behavior, but let's say that he's at least in attendance and lives a different life when he is at church and has tried to pull the wool over everyone's eyes.

What do you say to her? What's the first thing that she needs to do? Yeah, so it's sad that you've used that illustration because I've counseled cases like that.

So she comes in and she says, this is what is happening. First, I'm going to be very compassionate towards her.

I'm going to express my sorrow over the pain that she's experiencing.

We're gonna talk a lot about how is she responding to it?

What does she do when this happens? Does she have a safety plan? Is there someone she can call or text?

Or is there a code text message that she can send when this happens?

What is surrounding it? And I would just really try to comfort her in this.

We would look at the safety of her children. I would try to find out why she is staying in this situation for so long.

Is it out of fear? Does she just not have a support system? Does she need information about some of these wonderful shelters that are available to women?

So I would have that on one end. And then I would tell her that we also need to confront her husband for this because he's gonna be under church discipline in this scenario as well.

Typically, I'm not going to counsel both of them for marriage counseling. I'm gonna counsel him in particular for his abuse, for his anger, for whatever is manifesting there.

So we have that. We get her a safety plan, encourage her faith, talk about maybe it is time for her to flee for safety.

If this has been going on so long. We look and see what repentance really looks like because there's a difference between worldly repentance and godly repentance.

I've had two scenarios where a husband has cheated on his wife. One, he comes in, he's like begging her to stay with him.

He cries, but then that next night he's out with prostitutes, right? And another one comes in really stoic.

He says he's sorry, he will never do that again, right? He says all these things and they've had a great marriage for the last few years and there hasn't been any more infidelity.

So we can't base off of just the emotional side of things when it comes to repentance.

And so, yeah, he would definitely be confronted. He would be under church discipline pretty quick as well.

Now, one of the things that would shock, I think a lot of the people on that abuse or trauma informed counseling is you would wanna restore the relationship, right?

It's not like, in even that scenario, as bad as that is, the goal would be eventually that they would come together again as husband and wife in a functional marriage, right?

Yes. Yeah, especially, so yeah, so let's say this is 100%.

The man is an angry man, maybe a drunk, maybe addicted to something, or he's a slave to some type of substance.

And let's just say that the woman is completely in the innocent here, right? Let's, for our scenario case, that man would definitely need to get counseling.

I would likely be the one counseling him, at least in our church. And we would be working through this process.

And yeah, the goal is always going to be towards restoration. Now, if after six months, eight months of counseling and this guy is not repentant, he's gonna be fallen under church discipline inevitably anyways.

And at some point he's going to be treated as a tax collector and a Gentile. He's gonna be treated as an unbeliever.

And so in that scenario, if he is continuing to treat his wife in the same ways, then in some sense,

I think he's abandoned the marriage, right? And it's really case by case and dependent.

And so for the wife, she has to decide, am I leaving this situation out of fear or am

I leaving the situation in faith? And that's just the complexity of it.

But yeah, my goal always is to try to get this to be a restored relationship, et cetera.

But there is a reason why the

Lord has given us these instructions. And funny enough, I had a recent conversation.

I guess funny is not the appropriate word. Interestingly enough, I had a conversation with a spouse who is looking at, do we separate?

Do we separate or divorce, I guess is really what it would look like.

But, and we have this passage in 1 Corinthians and I thought it was really interesting how he said it in chapter seven.

All right, let's see here. So if the unbeliever leaves, leaves, let him leave.

A brother or sister is not bound in such cases. God has called you to live in peace.

So there's a mechanism for peace when the unbeliever chooses to depart, depart the marriage either through abuse or maybe unrepentant, continual adultery, et cetera.

And so because of the hardness of our hearts, because we live in this fallen world, there are mechanisms in scripture that instruct us on how to handle it.

John, to be honest with you, I think a reason why this is so complicated is because so many churches do not practice church discipline appropriately or well, or even at all, or do membership.

And it really muddies the water when dealing with abuse cases. Because then you don't have a basis upon which to declare someone to be

Gentile tax gatherer and treat them in a different category than you would have. So yeah, that's a good point,

I think. So no, that's all good. Your point is that there is a standard.

Scripture is sufficient to deal with these matters. Even the complicated ones, we have principles to work from.

We're not left hanging and in need of, as Diane Langberg says, professional help.

Professional being psychological. And that's what I've, see,

I don't even know if you're with me on this completely because I've talked to other ACB counselors and I don't know, maybe

I'm wrong on this, but I've thought, you know, there can be some data gathering functions in psychology where we can look at stats that psychologists have put together or just behavioral patterns where you're like, oh yeah, that's a true, now they don't always get it true, but that's a true reflection of human behavior here and maybe that's something to take into account.

But it can never be, we can never take their assumptions because their assumptions are built upon anti -Christian ideas.

And then their solutions are going to be influenced by those assumptions.

And so like, I guess in the middle somewhere, I see like, okay, I can see maybe where that can be a help to know that this study was conducted.

And of the 50 people in this study who received, I don't know, a certain treatment, 25 of them reacted this way.

Like that kind of stuff I find kind of interesting, but you don't need it though, is I guess my point is that the scripture is still sufficient.

I don't actually technically, like I'm not relying on that to help me in my position or your position as a counselor.

So, I don't know. I'm so glad you brought that up, John, because, yeah, no, because that's something

I really want to address is, so a lot of the responses, okay, well, we have the science, we have these studies that prove such and such, right?

And some people will say it's common grace is kind of the language, the theological word we talk about.

The problem is they don't take into account the noetic effects of the fall.

So our thinking, our minds are influenced by sin, whether we're believers or unbelievers.

And so because of the noetic effects, we do not interpret things without bias, right?

We have a presupposition, I think is kind of the Vantillian direction. So when

I read a study, I am going to interpret it. All facts are interpreted.

There are no bare facts, right? And so the science that we have, the literature that we have or the observations, even the observations that we make are interpreted observations.

And so it's always gonna be these interpreted facts. And so really the only true thing that we can rely on is revelation from God directly, which is the word, right?

And the spirit guides us into all truth and we know that dynamic, but we don't have that in the science.

And so the reason I brought up this secular dude in his kind of conversation about trauma is because he has gone and he's looking at all the science and he is trying to understand why do beliefs become facts?

And he uses beliefs generally. And his argument is they are looking for a solution and they found a useful fiction in order to use it to accomplish the end that they desired, right?

So we have a problem that we can't solve. We need more money for it. Let's go ahead and use this thing, right?

Sort of like if I need to go to war with a country, I'm gonna find reasons to go to war with them.

And so we have these no bare facts. All of our facts are interpreted.

So yeah, so these studies are interesting, but they are interpreted studies based on a lens, right?

A lot of our science is based on evolutionary thoughts, right?

There's conversations about lizard brain, even the flight, fight, freeze response is based on all these various evolutionary concepts.

And so, yeah, so we need to recognize that just because there's science behind it.

And just to add to that, a lot of the studies about the brain being changed because of trauma are cross -sectional studies, right?

And so based on very subjective responses to a questionnaire and then they do a one point in time exam of the brain.

And then when they look at the brain, they say, oh, look, the amygdala is smaller, right?

And therefore trauma affects the brain. Well, that doesn't tell you anything. Correlation is not causation.

And so we see that in this whole neuroscience world. Well, yeah, there's more studies coming out.

There's more efforts being made, but they are all interpreted. And I would even say, so I've been in some of those

PTSD studies, right? So on my second deployment, after my second deployment,

I came back, they had us do like a computer questionnaire, do some exams, they scanned our brains and then went to war again, came back, reported some stuff and then they scanned our brains again.

The problem is I had two deployments prior to that, right? And so if something had happened to my brain, then it wouldn't really show anything in the study.

And so we just have a lot of that and it would be unethical to take a young child who's not been through any hard things, scan their brain, place them into a hardship and then scan their brain again to see if it, so we're limited by ethics in this, praise the

Lord that we are, but that's what we have. So there's just not enough evidence that it does.

And even if it did change the brain, does that absolve us from our responses?

Yeah, the ethical dimension is where the wheels really come off the most. And I think you're right that these assumptions that we bring to the table can affect the way that we even read raw data because it's not technically,

I think what you said is true, it's not technically raw data, all things are interpreted. That said though,

I mean, God gave us special revelation, He also gave us natural revelation and there are people, for example, the observation that your adrenaline picks up and your heart beats faster and you can do box breathing to slow your heart down.

I'm sure you learned all that when you were in the military. I mean, these are true physiological things that can help, tools to help in the midst of crisis, but they're not,

I guess what I'm saying is for soul care, when the word of God is sufficient for this, when He's given us a special revelation, first, that natural elevation is never gonna contradict it.

And secondly, it's all you need. It's not, and I think that's the thing I find most offensive about this trauma -informed approach or at least the version of it that's become popular, that there's this assumption that you're just not equipped as a pastor.

You let the professionals come in and I'm like, well, what do you mean? All we have is the word of God on this topic.

Is that just not enough? I mean, did God not know things about the people He made?

Like that's such a brazen, prideful challenge, and yet people don't see that.

And I want them to see it. I want them to see that these attacks, most recently I told you

I wouldn't have you, I wouldn't ask you to comment on it, but this recent attack on Grace Community Church, and I don't know all the details of the case, this

David Gray case, but I can see behind it though is this spirit of, well, it's

ACBC, it's, you know, I think that NANC, I don't know if AC, wasn't that before, predated

ACBC? Yep. New Thetic Counseling in general, Jay Adams, it's all of these things, it's complementarianism, it's this patriarchal setup that Grace Community Church has, it's elders being in charge, it's all these theological things rooted in scripture that end up being the target.

And the occasion for making them a target, of course, is this case, but it's not about the case as much as it is attacking these things.

And so that's my rant, but I appreciate you. We should be careful, right? I mean, we know we mess up,

I mean, we make mistakes and we always wanna do better, right? Yeah, no, absolutely, yes,

I agree. Biblical counselors could get things wrong because we're fallible humans, as you said. We all have sin, and so we don't have all the facts sometimes, we can interpret things in the

Bible wrong or we can apply the Bible wrong, which is why it's important to know the Bible. But anyway, yeah,

I could go on for a while, but I appreciate you weighing in on this and just given of your time, I'm sure it's limited as a pastor to inform us about this.

I think it's been very beneficial. And if people wanna know more about your ministry, they can go to sierravista .church.

And you're in, I think you said south of Flagstaff, right? South of Tucson, I'm on the border with Mexico.

Oh, wow, wow, right now too in the news cycle, I know that's a scary place. So I'm in Cochise County and I live like about half a mile from the border and there is 15 to 20 undocumented folks being picked up every day that I come to work and back, so.

Oh my goodness. Well, you have your own challenges then in addition to the counseling.

But if people wanna come, if they're in the area, they can get the ACBC certification through your church.

And if they need counsel, they can go on the church website and then book an appointment. Do you do Zoom or is it all just local area stuff?

Because I have such a long wait list, I'm just doing in -person. Gotcha, gotcha. Well, I thank you once again for giving me some of your time with that long wait list and God bless you,