AT ISSUE
I read an article in my local newspaper by a self-described Jewish marriage counselor, and he said it was "ethnocentric and self-absorbed" for a Christian to ask a prospective counselor whether or not they are a Christian. Is this person right, or do Christians have an obligation to only do business with other Christians?


OUR INSIGHT
Thank you for a very important and timely question. It is one all Christians deal with on a regular basis, and it is important to think about the issue from a biblical perspective. 

Your question is a complex one because it deals with how we spend our money as Christians, the war of conflicting values in our society, our obligation to business people, and the purpose and power of personal counseling.  Let's deal with the entire issue logically, moving from general to specific principles.


General Stewardship Principles

How you spend your money is of importance to the Lord, and there's a lot about it in the Bible. The Christian principle is known as "stewardship" and implicit in it is the idea that our resources come as blessings from God (Genesis 26:12–14; 1 Kings 3:13; Job 42:12), and we are to be His "stewards." A steward is someone who manages property or other resources for someone else. So, if we are acting on behalf of the Lord to utilize the resources He has given us, we need to be wise.  Luke 12:42-48 is just one of the passages where Jesus speaks about "wise and faithful managers."

So, if the Lord is holding you accountable for the way you invest His money in your life, how will you respond? Will you spend the money he has entrusted to you on lottery tickets, dope and porn? Of course not. But stewardship extends beyond the stuff you can buy at the supermarket, street corner and the Internet. It extends to the marketplace of ideas as well.

So this brings is to a new level of stewardship. That is, do we, as Christians, want to economically support those who have an anti-Christian bias or who pursue politically correct agendas? That is a valid question. Political correctness is a horrible intellectual disorder in its own right, and Christians ought to deal with it whenever we encounter it. Political correctness has become a thinly veiled form of anti-Christian bigotry, in many cases, and that's a worry.
 

Stewardship In Eternal Perspective

Jesus said, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (Matthew 6:21). Is our heart set on doing good and furthering the Gospel, or just acquiring things? That's an extremely important question because it starts us thinking about how our money is used after we spend it. For example, we may think we are just buying a new clock at Wal-Mart, but if it came from China, as so many Wal-Mart items do, our Christian dollars are helping to support a communist nation that suppresses freedom of religion. You may be giving money at church to smuggle Bibles to Chinese believers, but the Chinese government might be using your Wal-Mart dollars to fund the police brigade that is imprisoning believers for having those Bibles.

At the same time, Wal-Mart is using profits to support community programs that Christians would not endorse. Most Christians will shop at Wal-Mart because it's cheap and convenient, but it may not be good stewardship

I'm not just picking just on Wal-Mart; I am speaking about the larger spiritual principles that are in play and which will have eternal consequences. The Apostle Paul had it right when he said, "Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 6:12)." Therefore, the ultimate stewardship question is whether we want to support those who are working toward the Kingdom of God, or those who oppose it.

No, there are no demons in the Post Toasties, as non-Christians would like to interpret what I have just said. But, if we are authentic Christians, we reflect on spiritual matters while we are pushing our shopping cart down the aisle as well as when we are sitting in a pew at church.  Value for money is only one aspect of Christian stewardship. A part of the spiritual battle that Paul spoke about is economic in nature, and since money is power, we do not want to put it into the hands of those who have goals that work against us, or who would use it to repress us. 


Economic Power

It is a tragic thing that we Christians are not more united. There are groups out there who are lobbying successfully for their beliefs, beliefs we would consider damaging to society. They get a hearing because the groups portray themselves as having economic clout.  If we Christians were united, we would have more clout than any other group. That clout gives us the power of the boycott, and with that we could bring more change to society in a week than preaching could bring in a decade. That would be a wise use of Christian stewardship.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. Right now, we Christians should be boycotting the cable companies and broadcast networks (and their advertisers) who are dumping their sleaze into our living rooms. Anyone, liberal or conservative, who believes that what people watch in their own homes has no adverse effect on society, is not playing with a full deck. There were no metal detectors in the schools back when Lucy ruled the airwaves. As television programming has disintegrated, so has society.

On one hand we should be boycotting TV channels because of the sex, violence and the adverse social agenda they present, and on the other hand we should be boycotting them because so much of the programming is trite and boring.  One answer is a system where people are able to choose the programming that enters their home, and this is technologically possible with cable systems. It's time Christians started a boycott to get this kind of service at a fair price.  The "basic channel bundle" only forces us to accept the bad with the good. Sure, there are those who will tell us that if we don't like a program we should turn it off, and we agree. We just want to turn it off before it gets into our homes. That way our dollars do not finance the unhealthy stuff.

Do you think cable companies would change their programming policies if two or three million Christians called them up next Thursday and canceled their service? You bet they would! It's all about money to them, but it ought to be all about spiritual principles to us.



What About the Plumber?

Economic clout could make a difference nationally, but what about locally? Should you only deal with a plumber, electrician or merchant who displays the Christian symbol of the fish in their yellow page ad?  The answer to this question goes back to a spiritual principle the Apostle Paul spoke about in 1 Corinthians 8. He talks about whether it is wrong to eat the meat offered to idols in that passage, and he settles on what we might today call a "don't ask, don't tell" policy. That is, you were free as a Christian to eat meat whether or not it was offered to idols. But if someone asked if it was offered to idols, and it went against their conscience to each such meat, they were free to refrain from eating it.

Likewise, if you do not know a trades person or merchant is a drug addict, into pornography, or is a thief, for example, you can deal with him or her without harm or foul from a spiritual point of view. However, if you do know the electrician is into immoral activity, or your real estate agent is a Mormon, or if your dry cleaner is an anti-Christian bigot, or your car dealer belongs to the ACLU, then you'd be doing the right thing by not spending your money with them. We want to support people who support our values, not those who would take our money and use it against us.

In these cases, it's not about boycott or bias. It's simply a matter spiritual discernment, which is biblical. It's also about free association, something that is still part of the U.S. Constitution. 
 
What is the best way to find someone to supply you with the basic products and services in life? I suggest you contact another Christian, particularly one who is discerning, and get a referral. When you can get the best product or service at the lowest price, you have done a good thing. If the person supplying the product or service is a Christian, it's a bonus. 

In an ideal world, Christians would be supplying the best of all products and services, but anyone who has been a Christian more than a week knows it doesn't work that way. There are many unscrupulous people who are using their alleged faith as a con, and that's never nice.

When you select a Christian trades person or merchant, does it make a difference if they are Baptist or Catholic?  No, the only thing that counts is that they are members of the household of faith, regardless of the "brand name" with which they identify.  If they are born into the family of God (John 3:3), it's all good.

What I have shared so far applies to exercising our economic power as Christians on both a global and local basis. Selecting someone like a counselor is a whole new kettle of fish, however. 


What About the Counselor?

A counselor will be dealing with your soul, and you need to be careful who you open yourself to. Therefore, selecting a counselor is not like selecting a trades person or merchant. Readers of these relationship pages know I have my own mantra when it comes to selecting a counselor. I say, "Select a state-certified counselor who is a Christian." 

Of course, if there is some kind of emergency (like threats of suicide or violence), any counselor will do, but you need to find a Christian counselor as soon as the emergency has abated.

As I have said before, I do not think Christians should go to their pastor for counseling and they should not go to secular-minded Psychologists or Marriage and Family Therapists (MFT, formerly known as MFCC).

Why not get counseling from a pastor? Even those with a few classes in counseling will normally approach your issue solely from a theological point of view rather than balancing it with a human-reality point of view. Virtually all are unable to blend the two concepts and therefore cannot really deliver the therapeutic service you need. Simplistic answers to complex human problems almost never help.  And anyway, a good pastor is busy being a pastor and should not have the time available that effective counseling requires.

Why not get counseling from a secular-minded MFT? Sadly, like other helping professions, many Psychologists and MFTs feel they have god-like powers to help people deal with the issues of life, but they have not had a personal experience with the Lord. Thus, they are severely crippled when it comes to working with Christians because the Christian worldview is alien to them. They think they understand, but they don't.

Our faith is foolishness to non-Christians... as the Apostle Paul said, "People who aren’t Christians can’t understand these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them because only those who have the Spirit can understand what the Spirit means. We who have the Spirit understand these things, but others can’t understand us at all”(1 Corinthians 2:14 NLT). In counseling, above all, we need to know that we are understood.

So, is it "ethnocentric and self-absorbed" for a Christian to ask a counselor whether or not they are a Christian? No, it is an essential question to ask for the reasons I have given. Don't ask it at the first meeting, ask on the phone before you make an appointment. If the question offends the counselor, it is a clear indication he or she is the wrong counselor for you.

It is a real plus if the counselor you engage attended a regionally accredited Christian college or university for their training, and it is perfectly legitimate for you to ask about the academic qualifications of a prospective counselor when you ask about their worldview. 

Does it matter what Christian denomination they belong to if they are a Christian? Not at all, but they better be able to explain what John chapter 3 means to them in personal terms, or you should keep looking until you find a state-certified counselor who can.


- DLH