What Is Happening in the Biblical Counseling Movement?

Note: This is the online version of an essay from the Hanover Review 4.2 on the Biblical Counseling Symposium. Print copies are available here and full digital copies of the issue are available here. More information about the Hanover Review is found here.

This is a common question from outsiders who have observed the lack of unity and conflicts within the biblical counseling movement over the past several years. The complexity of analyzing events within a movement is the personal nature of the issues involved. The biblical counseling movement is also a living organism with many pages in its story left to be written. As a member of this movement, I cannot claim absolute neutrality or objectivity to the issues in these debates and conflicts. Therefore, this essay is my best attempt to outline for outside observers an overlay of the present state of the biblical counseling movement. I will use historical analysis and theological arguments to support my own personal reflections and counsel throughout this essay.

1. Overview of the Conflict

What has been unfolding within the biblical counseling movement amounts to a grassroots conflict over the identity and discipline of biblical counseling. It includes the biblical counseling movement’s central institutions—the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC), the Association of Biblical Counselors (ABC), and the Biblical Counseling Coalition (BCC). It involves leaders that pastors, counselors, and church members have benefited from for years, Heath Lambert, Dale Johnson, Brad Hambrick, Jason Kovacs, and Bob Kellemen.

This conflict has had a number of recent notable public inflection points.

Spring 2024 and the publication of an academic journal by Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary dedicated to defining clinically informed biblical counseling (CIBC) or “Redemptive Counseling.”¹
May 2024 and the public criticism of CIBC in Lambert’s “Priests in the Garden, Zombies in the Wilderness, and Prophets on the Wall: The Current State of the Contemporary Biblical Counseling Movement.”²
October 2024 and the warning of these “New Integrationists” (CIBC) in a plenary session at ACBC’s national conference. October 2024 and Dale Johnson hosting Lambert at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary at a “For the Church” workshop, beginning to question the faithfulness and necessity of the Biblical Counseling Coalition in their toleration of clinically informed biblical counselors.³
Fall 2025 and the release of ACBC’s Journal of Biblical Soul Care volume dedicated to discussing clinically informed biblical counseling.⁴
March 2026 and the Rice Lecture Series debate between Brad Hambrick (“Clinically informed Biblical Counseling”) and Marshall Adkins (“Historic Biblical Counseling”).⁵

The clinically informed position maintains that they are among the faithful stewards of the legacy of biblical counseling and David Powlison, within the positional documents of the Biblical Counseling Coalition.⁶ They also argue that they are advancing biblical counseling in submitting clinical observations and extrabiblical interventions to the testing of the authoritative Scriptures within the framework of offering the counseling and care of Christ found in salvation and sanctification.

The clinically informed position has become a foil to promote a position increasingly labeled “historic” or “classical” biblical counseling, one reflected in institutions such as ACBC, the Master’s University and Seminary, and the counseling faculty of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. This group adamantly believes that the clinically informed position does not stand in continuity with biblical counseling. Some argue that the language of “clinically informed” is unclear and unhelpful. Others argue that it is a departure from the “historical” understanding of the sufficiency of Scripture.⁷ This central tension between the boundaries and identity of biblical counseling has reached the point where even institutions, such as the Biblical Counseling Coalition, that continue to tolerate clinically informed biblical counselors and promote their works are being identified as liberal and theologically compromised.⁸

2. Possible Causes of this Current Conflict

Sadly, I do not have high hopes that the biblical counseling movement will reach a resolution in this current conflict. Private mediation efforts have failed, and public requests are being ignored.⁹ These moments point to deeper existential questions confronting the biblical counseling movement.

“What is biblical counseling?”
“Who is a biblical counselor?”
“What beliefs and practices are within the bounds of biblical counseling?”

These questions are somewhat inevitable in a world where more and more biblical counselors are being trained and sent out to minister in churches and counseling ministries far beyond the original reach of David Powlison and Jay Adams, who both received their heavenly reward in 2019 and 2020, respectively. But the question of interest in this article is, “Why is this conflict occurring? What is at the root of this current debate?”

The first interpretation that could be offered is that the current conflict is the result of theological drift within the movement. Heath Lambert offers this interpretation. In his words, the Biblical Counseling Coalition is more interested in “accommodating liberal positions than advancing conservative theological positions.” He also says, “The only way to stop the drift is to identify those responsible for diluting faithfulness and remove their influence from leadership in the organization.”¹⁰

Is the clinically informed position a Trojan horse for liberal theological positions, resulting in theological drift on the same scale as the mainline denominations in the early 1900s? Is it akin to the Baptist Union in England during the Downgrade controversy? That question will be answered according to your definition of “liberal,” but an honest answer is “no.” As I pointed out two years ago,¹¹ the faculty of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary is still within the conservative side of broader evangelicalism. Clinically informed biblical counselors are not challenging the virgin birth, the exclusivity of Christ for salvation, or even the historicity and inerrancy of Scripture. No clinically informed biblical counselors have been deposed from the ministry for heterodox theological views. Our squabbles do not even register as significant issues within any major Reformed or evangelical denomination. Rather, they are often interpreted as uncharitable infighting among the last people who should struggle to get along. It should also put a check in the spirit of any biblical counselor that not a single conservative Reformed or evangelical denomination has supported any biblical counseling confessional statement, nor have they affirmed any theological positions on doctrines such as the sufficiency of Scripture, common grace, or general revelation. Rather, the only biblical counselors receiving attention from major headlines for scandalous behavior are biblical counselors who have mishandled abuse cases on the non-CIBC end of the biblical counseling spectrum.¹²

A second interpretation is that biblical counseling is facing an institutional problem. Maybe the root of the issue can be identified with an organization such as the Biblical Counseling Coalition, the Association of Biblical Counselors, or anyone else that is influencing and producing these wayward biblical counselors. At this point, another problem arises. You have people with degrees in biblical counseling pointing at other people with degrees in biblical counseling and saying, “You are not a biblical counselor.” With no biblical counseling “pope” and very few “Jay Adams Purists,” no one leader has a rightful claim to draw the boundaries of biblical counseling outside of their own institutions that dispense biblical counseling certifications.

This point may explain why the Biblical Counseling Coalition has come under fire in recent years. This coalition represents an interdenominational group of leaders from respected institutions within the movement. Being on the council board gives a leader a “seat at the table,” a hand of fellowship, and the opportunity to influence other biblical counselors. It is as close to an institution that can govern the identity and boundaries of biblical counseling as may ever exist. Thus, allowing clinically informed biblical counselors to remain on the council is a current source of frustration among those who hold to a “historic” biblical counseling position.

Here, it is worth admitting that there have been several fumbles from the Biblical Counseling Coalition. Over the past several years, a few articles have been published that raised my eyebrows and provoked the thought, “That was a bad idea.” At the same time, I do think it is fair to acknowledge that evangelicalism is currently wrestling with issues related to the place of women within the church, abuse, and trauma. But the root of this dynamic issue is not wayward biblical counselors but rather the contexts in which biblical counseling is taking root within the larger evangelical world. I may never choose to join Austin Stone church in Austin, Texas, but I should not be surprised when biblical counseling begins to adapt to that particular ministry context.

This reality goes back to the issue of boundaries and cooperation. Biblical counseling is being practiced within Southern Baptist, Independent Baptist, Bible Church, Calvary Chapel, Reformed Baptist, Presbyterian, Dutch Reformed, and nondenominational churches. If biblical counseling that centers upon the authority and sufficiency of Scripture, the priority of the local church, and the centrality of the gospel for transformation takes root within a context far removed from Jay Adams, how much doctrinal and methodological input does that particular congregation or Christian tradition have back into the biblical counseling movement? Furthermore, how does biblical counseling maintain its identity as the movement continues to grow and serve these various ecclesiastical contexts?

I will argue that this question reveals the true root of the present conflict within the biblical counseling movement. But to explain this point, we need to return to Together for the Gospel (T4G), April 2018.

3. The Day the Movement Split

The day is April 12, 2018, and 12,500 pastors, leaders, and church members have descended upon Louisville, KY for preaching, fellowship, and a stack of free books only Mark Dever could assemble. This is the height of the Young, Restless, and Reformed movement and New Calvinism. T4G brought together members from churches across the spectrum of Reformed theology, from John MacArthur and Grace Community Church, to David Platt and McLean Bible Church, John Piper and Bethlehem Baptist Church, Ligon Duncan and PCA pastors, and Mark Dever and the 9Marks constituency—all Together for the Gospel.

This moment captures a spirit of Reformed and evangelical cooperation unrivaled among churches, denominations, and organizations that usually operated within their own silos. This spirit was also reflected within the Gospel Coalition, an organization founded by D. A. Carson and Timothy Keller to facilitate similar opportunities for cooperation among pastors and churches that share an affinity for Christ-centered expositional preaching and the doctrines of grace.

Together for the Gospel and the Gospel Coalition provide an important context for the biblical counseling movement as it entered the 2010s. Having unified Baptists, Bible Church, nondenominational, and Reformed leaders into cooperative organizations, it was James MacDonald who approached several key biblical counseling leaders with the question, “Why do I have to choose between your ministries?” In 2011, Bob Kellemen recounted that members of biblical counseling organizations “are choosing to work together and to learn from one another.” The Biblical Counseling Coalition’s formation was the vision of James MacDonald and Steve Viars from Faith Lafayette to see “churches, para-church organizations, and educational institutions” partner together by promoting “excellence and unity in biblical counseling.”¹³ Early BCC leaders such as Brad Bigney and Garrett Higbee were transparent in their efforts to reverse the combative stigma associated with Adams and his approach to counseling, asking for pastors to give biblical counseling “a second look” through the cooperation and resources of the Biblical Counseling Coalition.¹⁴ Significantly, the Biblical Counseling Coalition was launched as biblical counseling’s version of the Gospel Coalition.

Returning to the KFC Yum! Center in April 2018, the platform of preachers presented a window into the current leadership of the biblical counseling movement. Behind these well-known pastors and ministry leaders were biblical counseling ministries. Deepak Reju led Dever’s counseling ministry at Capitol Hill Baptist Church. Jeremy Pierre led Al Mohler’s biblical counseling program at SBTS. Pat Quinn led DeYoung’s counseling ministry at University Reformed Church in East Lansing, Michigan. Reju, Pierre, and Quinn are all still council members of the BCC. John Piper, John MacArthur, and David Platt also had biblical counseling ministries within their respective ministry contexts.

Racism is not the ultimate culprit of the recent biblical counseling wars, but the vision of big tent cooperation among conservative churches did not survive the fallout of the commentary that year of David Platt, Ligon Duncan, and others concerning race issues in America. The slogan, “Black Lives Matter,” had been growing in cultural prominence, and many African American Christians had begun to voice the opinion that, although accepted for their views of Scripture and theology, they did not feel the same support from their white brothers and sisters in drawing attention to matters of social justice. From Platt’s comments of “why is this gathering so white?” to Ligon Duncan publicly asking the T4G audience to forgive him for his racial blindness, a fault line had revealed itself that sadly tested whether Reformed, evangelical, and conservative Christians could truly be together for the gospel.¹⁵

From all accounts, many of the T4G speakers maintained their personal relationships even after the final biennial gathering of T4G in 2022. But their public cooperation was over, particularly for the independent Baptist, Bible Church, and dispensational crowd that followed John MacArthur. 2018 would be MacArthur’s final time speaking at Together for the Gospel. That same year, Grace Community Church would revoke an invitation to host TGC’s October West Coast Conference over concerns of doctrinal issues related to social justice.¹⁶ In 2019, news hit the internet of a contested panel discussion from the 2019 Shepherd’s Conference involving John MacArthur, Phil Johnson, and the three main architects of Together for the Gospel: Mark Dever, Albert Mohler, and Ligon Duncan.

In this panel, Dever, Mohler, and Duncan unexpectedly found themselves on the hot seat concerning why they did not sign the recently produced Statement on Social Justice & the Gospel.¹⁷ While the whole discussion is significant and foreboding for cooperation within conservative evangelicalism, the interaction between Johnson and Mohler is particularly important in revealing the dispositional differences to disagreement between the two camps.

Mohler: “Part of our challenge right now is that there are people who will agree upon every point of our theological system who are not seeing the other issues the same way. This requires a different kind of apologetic argument.”

Johnson: “It does but I go back to what you said about incremental changes that promote that kind of liberalizing tendency and realize that at both The Gospel Coalition and Together for the Gospel I was hearing some rhetoric I first heard from Jim Wallis and Sojourners (Evangelical Left leaders) 20-30 years ago. . . . What I’m asking is, ‘do you not see that our most conservative end of the evangelical movement is becoming a little more susceptible to that?’”

Mohler: “But Phil, you’ve known me for a long time, you know that the answer to that question is ‘yes,’ but I’m not going to be forced into a situation before thousands of people in which I have to say that I’m going to do it your way. Sorry. I’m just not. And if that is a test of fellowship amongst us, this will be a good time to find out.”¹⁸

Two comments are noteworthy concerning the longstanding consequences of these events. First, as mentioned earlier, the coalition-building efforts of the 2010s between large sections of conservative and Reformed evangelical Christianity appeared to be collapsing overnight. Personal friendships were maintained, but the partnerships between the increasingly “anti-woke crowd” and larger evangelical institutions were over, except for one crucial area: biblical counseling.

The first “rumblings” within the biblical counseling movement over the identity and discipline of biblical counseling align perfectly in timing with the greater rifts experienced among the leaders of Together for the Gospel and the Gospel Coalition. As the MacArthur camp began to narrow the boundaries of institutional cooperation, those within the MacArthur tree of biblical counseling began to express concerns about more evangelical and nondenominational biblical counselors. Some, not all, left organizations such as the Biblical Counseling Coalition and stopped partnering with biblical counselors identified as “compromised.” The biblical counseling movement and the Biblical Counseling Coalition are the last remnants of 2010s-style “big tent” cooperation, explaining in a growing tug-of-war over the discipline of biblical counseling and the title “biblical counselor.”

The impact of this recent retreat of MacArthur, Grace Community Church, and the Master’s University and Seminary upon the biblical counseling movement should not be surprising. I have expressed the opinion that John MacArthur is the most overlooked voice in the second generation of the biblical counseling movement. He contributed articles to CCEF’s Journal of Biblical Counseling,¹⁹ and his work Our Sufficiency in Christ²⁰ outlines a very common biblical counseling articulation of the sufficiency of Scripture from Psalm 19. The Master’s Faculty, under the leadership of John MacArthur and Wayne Mack, produced one of the first true textbooks in biblical counseling, Introduction to Biblical Counseling, including contributions from David Powlison.²¹ The Master’s Seminary has trained for decades both pastors and biblical counselors who would establish the backbone of the biblical counseling movement and institutions such as ACBC.²² From personal experience, students of third and fourth generation biblical counselors sent out from institutions such as Southern Seminary (Mohler’s seminary) or Southeastern Seminary would often land in places populated by MacArthur-esque Bible churches with biblical counseling ministries that had been operating since the 1990s. Losing the confidence of Master’s trained pastors, biblical counselors, and churches after 2018 was a blow to the unity of the biblical counseling movement I am not sure many leaders anticipated.

Second, the Johnson/Mohler interaction reveals the exact issues that are currently at play within the biblical counseling movement. The issues at stake in biblical counseling involve (1) threats and concerns of theological compromise, (2) how to understand and respond biblically to cultural issues, and (3) the nature and extent of cooperation between different institutions with different responses to these issues. Mohler’s comments are prescient—the problem within the biblical counseling movement, and particularly the recent hostility toward the Biblical Counseling Coalition, is between people who agree in principle upon conservative evangelical doctrine, and even share similar understandings of the nature of biblical counseling, but are not seeing other issues (trauma, abuse, and clinical information) the same way. That is why conversations within the biblical counseling movement tend to stall over the claim of misrepresentation. Many of these biblical counselors were also trained under the Powlison-tree, but disagree on trauma, abuse, and the role of secular or clinical information in biblical counseling. Therefore, they must have different articulations of biblical counseling (“I would never counsel that way,” “I don’t think that is biblical,” or “David Powlison would never have agreed with that approach.”). Underneath this issue the true source of the current conflict within the biblical counseling movement. The dispositional differences between evangelicalism and fundamentalism.

4. Evangelicalism vs. Fundamentalism

The word “fundamentalism” suffers from functioning often as a pejorative without a defined meaning. It is commonly said that a “liberal” is anyone to the left of me, and a “fundamentalist” is anyone to the right of me. Christian fundamentalism finds its origins within a series of pamphlets promoting the fundamental doctrines of the faith during the fundamentalist-modernist controversies at the turn of the twentieth century. These original fundamentalists were an interdenominational coalition of revivalistic evangelicals, dispensationalists, and Reformed churchmen defending conservative theological positions on the supernatural elements taught within Scriptures (the virgin birth, the resurrection, etc.) against theological moderates. After the 1920s, conservatives began to divide over the growing realization that they were becoming unwelcome minorities within their own mainline denominations. At this point, what options were left for conservative and orthodox Christians? Either continue to work for reform as minorities within increasingly liberal theological institutions, or leave. Increasingly, fundamentalists chose the latter.

George Marsden summarizes this new fundamentalist identity in the following quote,

Having made this move themselves, fundamentalists began to make separation from such denominations a test of true faith. The change in terminology was gradual; but by the 1960s “fundamentalist” usually meant separatists and no longer included the many conservatives in mainline denominations . . . . By this time almost all fundamentalists were Baptists and most were dispensationalists.²³

David Powlison is one of the greatest champions of biblical counseling in the tradition of Jay Adams. He also studied in-depth the historical context of Adams and the biblical counseling movement, including this tension between fundamentalists and the appearance of the neo-evangelicals in the 1960s. It cannot be overlooked how Powlison describes Adams’s theological and ministerial posture in the academic prose of his dissertation. A lifelong Presbyterian, Adams’s teaching reflected an affinity for the major tenets of Reformed theology—predestination, the doctrines of grace, and the Reformed confessions. At the same time, intellectual honesty required Powlison to name Adams’s fundamentalist inclinations that reflected his counseling methodology and engagement with his opponents, including a “separatist style of disengagement from both the wider Christian counseling community and the culture at large.”²⁴

According to Powlison, the biblical counseling movement represents a “case study” in “secessionist” politics.²⁵ This impulse to secede from corrupted institutions predated Adams’s leadership within the biblical counseling movement. Adams’s “social style and ecclesiastical vision had been forged in the tumults that attended militant, separatist Presbyterianism.”²⁶ In 1958, Adams was appointed executive secretary of Home Missions for the Bible Presbyterian Church. His role included “articulating standard separatist arguments,” calling “dissident pastors” within “compromised” denominations to “consider the Bible Presbyterians” their new home.²⁷ These years spent developing his prophetic voice, preaching jeremiads against “compromised” institutions, prepared Adams for his leadership role in the grassroots growth of the biblical counseling movement in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1979, Adams even refers to his counseling approach as a form of “biblical separatism.”²⁸

This biographical sketch informs the fundamentalist theological impulse reflected in the recent biblical counseling debates—separatism. Separatism is best described as both dispositional and theological convictions concerning tolerance of perceived errant beliefs. The issue revealed itself in a collegial interaction in Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism. In this work, Al Mohler (referenced above) makes an appearance representing the position of “Confessional Evangelicalism” as Kevin Bauder (President of Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Plymouth, MN) articulates the “Fundamentalist” position.

Bauder presents the classical fundamentalist belief that ecclesiastical fellowship must be based upon doctrinal unity. To fellowship or cooperate with those who deny or compromise the Gospel is compromise itself. This demand for doctrinal unity also extends to “the whole counsel of God” (maximal Christian fellowship) and those who are deemed theologically compromised.²⁹ Theological fidelity requires separation from “Christian leaders who will not separate from apostates,”³⁰ also known as “second-degree” separation. Bauder reflects upon the importance of doctrinal unity among organizations in the following quote,

A difference should not preclude cooperation or common organization when it is sufficiently incidental that both sides can feel comfortable expressing their views without the other party feeling that an important aspect of the faith is being compromised. Sometimes, however, a difference is sufficiently serious that it cannot be ignored. When that happens, conflict becomes inevitable at some level. Under such circumstances, greater harmony and outward unity may be maintained by separate organizations.³¹

Mohler proposes a more nuanced approach to theological differences amidst unity, employing his well-known model of theological triage.³² Centered upon the Gospel and allowing room for theological disagreement, he draws attention to the efforts of evangelicals such as Carl F. H. Henry, Harold John Ockenga, and Billy Graham to establish an “evangelical platform that minimized denominational differences—those pesky second-order doctrines—and established a common ground based in a primary identification as evangelical and only a secondary identification with a denomination.”³³ According to Kevin Vanhoozer, the evangelical movement has been defined by a tendency to “flatten out Protestant differences by locating identity in a common experience, spirituality, or ministry rather than a common confession (i.e., a definable set of doctrines).”³⁴

Truly, this arrangement would not satisfy fundamentalists. It did not satisfy fundamentalist Carl McIntire, who once said of Billy Graham’s ministry and methods, “If you don’t maintain obedience to separatism, you are not good.”³⁵ Bob Jones Sr. also was not satisfied with Billy Graham’s evangelistic methods and associations either and considered Graham a “flaming liberal.”³⁶ If institutions such as Bob Jones University and Central Baptist Theological Seminary are training biblical counselors alongside Southern Seminary in the Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism, and Ministry, should we not expect the issue of separation to rear its head as an issue for the biblical counseling movement?

5. Biblical Counseling and Separation

Identifying this separatist impulse allows for an accurate identification of “fundamentalism” within the current landscape of the biblical counseling movement. The camp protesting clinically informed biblical counseling—the Master’s University and Seminary, the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors, First Baptist Jacksonville—are not fundamentalists in the traditional sense of the term. But as the heated discussion between Phil Johnson and Albert Mohler reveals, Christians with separatist impulses tend to have less tolerance for diversity of opinion on doctrinal beliefs and practices than evangelicals. They are more naturally inclined to withdraw themselves upon encountering ideas and perspectives that disagree with their own.

The presence of fundamentalism in biblical counseling is not surprising. Returning to Powlison, biblical counseling began as a “separatist” approach to counseling. In Powlison’s words, Adams was “the builder of a sectarian, parallel system of thought and practice” in his conflicts with both secular psychologists and Christian integrationists.³⁷

At the same time, Powlison himself betrayed this separatist cause within his broad relationships and influence, including among evangelicals. By 2018, Powlison was clear that CCEF was committed to the purposes and vision of the Biblical Counseling Coalition in Mohler’s style of evangelical engagement and cooperation. Powlison reflects that the Biblical Counseling Coalition exists to foster “fellowship between ministries”:

We need each other. We need to know each other. The gospel of Jesus Christ generates both healthy unity and healthy diversity. On a foundation of common core commitments, other Christians open our eyes to different emphases, insights, problems, skills, experiences, personalities, questions, and concerns. Different ministry settings and demographics change the way that biblical wisdom lands. Same core commitments—different applications. Such normal differences prove fruitful when each of us recognizes, “Not everyone is just like me, and not everyone ministers in the same context I do. I can learn from you.” When we operate in isolation, we tend to lapse into tunnel vision. But knowing people in other ministries generates friendships and helps us to represent others fairly.³⁸

It is largely through Powlison’s influence that the conviction that churches, pastors, and church members can address the problems of life with the counsel of Scripture has taken root within the broad spectrum of evangelicalism. David Powlison served as a board member of the Gospel Coalition and reflected that ethos of big-tent cooperation, even among nonbiblical counselors.³⁹ Tim Allchin observes,

David Powlison—the man who shaped modern biblical counseling more than perhaps anyone after Adams—maintained a cooperative spirit with voices across the Christian counseling spectrum. He considered Eric Johnson a dear friend and endorsed the usefulness of his work. He brought Johnson, Philip Monroe, and Diane Langberg to speak at CCEF conferences—not treating them as threats to biblical counseling but as brothers and sisters worth learning from (while still acknowledging differences). Powlison participated in CAPS events and modeled a posture of friendly dialogue with a broader group of Integrationists counselors, one in which he could hold firm convictions about sufficiency while engaging those who disagreed with genuine respect.⁴⁰

But these points raise an interesting question. If biblical counseling began as a “separatist” approach to counseling, what happens if the “separatist” counseling approach loses this fundamentalistic identity? What happens when biblical counseling takes root within a more tolerant and broadly evangelical environment? What happens when biblical counseling appears to be losing that “militant” edge and antagonism against her enemies? The current biblical counseling conflict happens.

6. The State of the Conflict

Here, it is important to take a step back and remember the nature of this conflict. The current biblical counseling conflicts are not doctrinal disagreements within local churches and denominations being litigated within church courts. As time passes, they are becoming less and less institutional debates. The Association of Certified Biblical Counselors continues to marginalize and push out dissident voices to reflect the homogeneous ethos, temperament, and theological convictions of independent Baptists, dispensationalists, and Bible church leaders, as evidenced by the signatories of The Sufficiency Statement.⁴¹ The Association of Biblical Counselors (ABC), the Biblical Counseling Coalition, and the Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation (CCEF) are continuing to resource and support successful biblical counseling ministries among a broader evangelical audience.

The root of the conflict over the name “biblical counseling” and questions of identity, boundaries, and gatekeeping is the fundamentalist impulse to practice “second degree” separation. Many separatist-type biblical counselors are quite content to operate within their ministry silos. But for some, something still eats at them. They are unable to practice separation with a clean conscience if those identified as theologically “liberal” still call themselves “biblical counselors.” The Biblical Counseling Coalition represents the exact thing they cannot tolerate—cooperation and fellowship with “compromisers.”

What is the solution? They (evangelical biblical counselors) are not real biblical counselors. They are an infection, a zombie-virus.⁴² They are not historic biblical counselors.

For the sake of transparency, let me clarify that my own theological and ministerial dispositions lean in the direction of institutions such as ACBC. Some ACBC counselors have been my greatest influences in counseling, and there are many within ACBC that I trust to offer sound, biblical counsel. In this way, their fundamentalist and biblicistic impulses serve them well to offer theologically sound counsel and stand against the tides of secularism and theological compromise. There are reasons why Reformed Christians have often found themselves side by side with fundamentalists in the throes of theological controversy—a high view of Scripture, concern for theological fidelity, and a conviction to stand upon the truth regardless of the potential fallout.

The problem is that some of the loudest voices currently advancing “historic biblical counseling” (which one could call “The New Fundamentalists”) are reflecting the worst tendencies of separatist and sectarian fundamentalism.

Who are the New Fundamentalists? They respond to growth and advancement first and foremost with suspicion. They are quicker to record a podcast or write a blog than reach out to a friend or mentor they’ve known for years to ask for clarification. They share the impulse to draw tighter and tighter circles within their group to know who is “in” and who is “out.” They are masters at discerning slippery slopes and reading between the lines of what people really believe and do in the counseling room. They impute to their “foes” the worst caricatures of anything that has been loosely associated with the side they oppose. They view charity amidst disagreement as compromise. They are the noble martyr, the voice of reason crying out from the walls, the only one willing to go down with the ship and lay down their life for the crisis of their own making.

The New Fundamentalists follow the playbook of old school fundamentalism of cloaking social gatekeeping and sectarianism under the guise of doctrinal fidelity. There was once a better day, they mourn, when biblical counseling was pure and clean. Its leaders and institutions were united in their understanding of biblical counseling. But then, the zombies came.⁴³ Clinically informed biblical counselors strayed outside the safe and pristine garden of biblical counseling. No one listened to our cries and warnings. The only thing left to do was leave, separate, and pray that those they claim to love would see the error of their ways.⁴⁴ On the way out, they accuse clinically informed biblical counselors of being “zombie-infected,” “false prophets,” “wolves,”⁴⁵ “parasites,” “liberals,”⁴⁶ “deceived by Satan,”⁴⁷ and “wicked idolators.”⁴⁸

The problem is that there is too much counter-evidence for many within the biblical counseling movement to find this narrative believable. It requires believing that they—historic biblical counselors—are the true heirs of David Powlison, rather than the institution and faculty he established as his lasting legacy at CCEF. It runs in the face of other eyewitnesses who can testify that biblical counseling has never been a “unified” discipline or movement as the story demands in order to explain the theological drift and, therefore, a recovery of a “historic” approach to biblical counseling.⁴⁹ They claim they could never consider going back to the term “nouthetic” counseling as a more accurate label for their counseling approach,⁵⁰ even though that is exactly what Jay Adams did—after resigning from CCEF’s board in the mid-1990s⁵¹ and founding the Institute for Nouthetic Studies to preserve his works and legacy.⁵² Greg Gifford even awkwardly acknowledges that ACBC switched from certifying nouthetic counselors to biblical counselors in 2013 after the Association of Biblical Counselors was using the term “biblical counseling” and certifying biblical counselors for eight years.⁵³ Dale Johnson and ACBC are free to disagree with Jay Adams or David Powlison, because “historic biblical counseling” is not actually strict adherence to “nouthetic” counseling, but a living tradition that just so happens to align with their views of Scripture and the issues at the center of this current biblical counseling conflict.⁵⁴

Concerns over hostile and overzealous polemics within the biblical counseling movement are not new, and they were originally associated with the camp closest to Jay Adams and “nouthetic counseling.” As the leader of a renewal movement, Adams’s engagement style was direct, polemical, and combative. But nouthetic counselors have often struggled to delineate between friends and foes, resulting in friendly fire between those who share the same convictions but reach different conclusions concerning “faithful” biblical counseling practice. Moreover, leaders within the camp have expressed the concerns that our criticisms of “outsiders” or integrationists have not always sought to honor our opponents and represent their positions with respect and integrity.

In 1987, John Bettler addressed the “next generation of biblical counselors” with the concern that, in our zeal to reveal the differences between biblical counselors and integrationists, “many biblical counselors have been unfair to their enemies, often unfair to the text of Scripture, and also unfair to the enormity of problems that counselees bring.”⁵⁵ In 1997, David Powlison and Ed Welch reflected upon the weaknesses of the “nouthetic counseling” position, commenting that “[we] have sometimes been poor at distinguishing the enemy from brothers and sisters with whom we disagree,” and “[our] criticisms have frequently picked on the worst of the integrationists and then suggested that they are typical of all integrationists.”⁵⁶ In 2013, Powlison shared his endorsement of the organization’s transition from the National Association of Nouthetic Counselors (NANC) to the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC), the largest certifying organization within the movement. He also used the opportunity to identify the “negative connotations” associated with the label “nouthetic.” By the 2010s, the “nouthetic” position was associated with a failure to address the lack of “humility, kindness, listening, and grace” within their own camp. From Powlison’s perspective, this situation was improving, but the stereotypes were historically warranted. Nouthetic counselors had “fulfilled the negative stereotypes.”⁵⁷

The launch of the Biblical Counseling Coalition was an attempt to overcome those stereotypes and bring unity to a movement filled with ministries operating in isolation unaware of one another. After a decade, the Biblical Counseling Coalition appears the most successful in giving previously certified “nouthetic counselors” the opportunity to ditch the label “nouthetic” and claim “biblical counseling” for their own. Along the way, the negative stereotypes and failings Powlison previously associated with nouthetic counselors have returned.⁵⁸ The “historic biblical counseling” position appears destined to become a recovery of the ethos of old nouthetic counseling without a “David Powlison” figure to rein them in. Therefore, the identification of the New Fundamentalists with recent references to the return of “neo-nouthetic counseling” appears appropriate.

7. Where the Movement Stands

Unless circumstances change, I am not optimistic that reconciliation is coming within the biblical counseling movement. ACBC continues to platform individuals who are adamant that clinically informed biblical counseling is not part of the discipline or movement of biblical counseling. The next battle in that camp will continue to follow the playbook of separatist fundamentalism. In their minds, a crucial step has been won in promoting the perspective that clinically informed biblical counselors are “neo-integrationists.” Next will come the test of faithfulness within the camp. ACBC counselors who do not stand in agreement with their assessment of CIBC and are unwilling to practice “second-degree separation” from not just clinically informed biblical counselors but also clinically informed friendly ministries (the Biblical Counseling Coalition) will be forced to pick a side. And that is already happening.⁵⁹

On the other side, I see two realities. Most clinically informed biblical counselors and their adjacent ministries stopped listening to the New Fundamentalists six months after the initial barrage of criticism began in the Summer 2024. At first, there was bewilderment. But after it became clear that dialogue and conversation were pointless, most clinically informed biblical counselors have moved on. Clinically informed biblical counselors and their evangelical friends are building thriving ministries that are offering God’s counsel and care to people who have never heard of David Powlison or Jay Adams. In their minds, it is better to put their heads down and plod ahead faithfully rather than give the New Fundamentalists more fodder for their social media campaigns.

But this reality raises another important issue. It is a critical time within the church and society. The biblical counseling movement is no longer confined to small independent Baptist churches that liked Jay Adams but is now coming face-to-face with the extent of human brokenness across a wide variety of ecclesiastical contexts. Pastors and church members are confronting major issues that require the best minds within the biblical counseling movement to come together and dialogue about how Scripture and theology intersect with complicated issues—trauma/abuse, perversions of human sexuality, therapy culture, and the decreasing mental health of the rising generation. There are concerning trajectories of feminism and activism within evangelicalism that are entering the biblical counseling movement and need to be addressed, or at least discussed. Personally, I have benefited from having face-to-face conversations with people who were able to clarify their views and acknowledge that they shared similar concerns that may not always be articulated in counselee-facing ministries.

But the New Fundamentalists have entirely poisoned the atmosphere for these discussions and dialogues to occur. Clinically informed biblical counselors have published only two pieces from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, in addition to one debate, which were met with an avalanche of blogs, articles, journals, podcasts, videos, webinars, interviews, plenary sessions, breakout sessions, an academic colloquium, and countless tweets attacking and discrediting their position. Within this environment, there is little public discussion of ideas advancing biblical counseling out of fear of becoming the next target of these self-appointed “prophetic voices” and “anti-zombie hunters” lurking in the shadows online. Until these New Fundamentalists demonstrate the humility to rectify the quarrelsome environment they have cultivated, and good-faith dialogue is restored, the biblical counseling movement is destined to split into a “big tent,” cooperative-evangelical form of biblical counseling and fundamentalist biblical counseling.

But what about the name “biblical counseling”? Here is my suggestion. Let the Biblical Counseling Coalition settle the matter. The BCC is the most widely represented biblical counseling organization in the world. They have a confessional statement crafted by many of the movement’s key leaders, including David Powlison. Thus, “biblical counseling” is whatever the Biblical Counseling Coalition decides. If the confessional statement needs revision in light of the clinically informed debate, then revise it. Since several clinically informed biblical counselors have been council members for years, their removal at this point would require a substantial explanation to the movement instead of an unexplained disappearance from the BCC’s website to appease critics and silence controversy. Biblical counselors desperately need clear and vocal leadership from their professors, mentors, and leaders if biblical counseling is to continue to exist as a movement. If clinically informed biblical counseling is within the biblical counseling movement, let the Biblical Counseling Coalition decide, and let’s be done with it. If the New Fundamentalists do not like this decision (and they won’t), well, “nouthetic counseling” is right there for those who truly want “historic biblical counseling.”

This article will not satisfy everyone. But this answer best summarizes how I would answer the question, “What is happening in the Biblical Counseling Movement?”

Author

Jared Poulton
Jared Poulton serves as Executive Director of the Institute for Reformed Biblical Counseling. He is a Minister of the Word and Sacrament in the URCNA, pastor of counseling and teaching at Cornerstone URC, and visiting professor of biblical counseling at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary and Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary. He holds a PhD in biblical counseling from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is the author of Van Til’s Counseling Movement: A Critical Analysis of Jay Adams and Biblical Counseling (Hanover Press, 2026), and a cohost of Christ and Counseling. Jared lives in Hudsonville, Michigan, with his wife and four children.
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What Is Happening in the Biblical Counseling Movement?
On Zombies, Heath Lambert, and Gatekeeping in the Biblical Counseling Movement

What Is Happening in the Biblical Counseling Movement?

1. Overview of the Conflict

2. Possible Causes of this Current Conflict

3. The Day the Movement Split

4. Evangelicalism vs. Fundamentalism

5. Biblical Counseling and Separation

6. The State of the Conflict

7. Where the Movement Stands

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