PHIL'S LIFECOACHING BLOG: Theology of Therapy: Why Secular Social Work & Recovery Programs Always Fail

A MIRACLE: 
WHEN THE MAD MAN MEETS THE MASTER

A Clinician's 5150 Unit Notebook (Part One)

by P.C. Brewer

Power Encounter.  In Mark 5, we read of a power encounter between Jesus in His earthly ministry casting a legion of devils out of an otherwise hopelessly possessed, tormented man (a danger to self and others). Jesus, empowered by the Holy Spirit, performed crisis intervention--His modus operandi here a model for the community of the redeemed today (Zechariah 4:6).


(One might wonder, did Jesus ruin the Gentiles' pig farming business by casting the devils into a herd of swine that quickly ran off a cliff to end it all..?)

There are some things even a pig won't tolerate.

I asked a locked-up man screaming at me in four point restraints, "How many pigs will it take to get you saved..?"  He didn't grasp my point and kept cussing and spitting.  He'd been dragged in by the police on a 5150 Danger to Self / Danger to Others and placed on a 72-hour Hold.  He'd tried to kill his sister who'd 'smoked up all my dope'.

Don't Try to Do God's Work Without God's Power.  Only by the Holy Spirit's empowerment, love and sound mindedness (2 Timothy 1:7) can a suffering-sociopathic-sinner-addict present his 'body as a living sacrifice to God' (Romans 12:1-2)--and subsequently 'put to death the deeds of the body'.  Only the man who is 'crucified with Christ--and who 'lives by the faith of the Crucified One'--and who 'walks in the Spirit' (Romans 8:1)--can live the miraculously transformed life--in Him.

The Failure of Recovery Programs, Social Work, & AA 12-Steps.  Even a tip-of-the-hat-salute to aHigher Power will never cut it.  The Boostrap Fallacy (the 'arm of the flesh': i.e.: humanism's good intentions that pave the road to hell) will always bring a worse condition and a more vicious visitation of evil after each attempt by the Seven Sons of Sceva, Jannes and Jambres, or Simon-the-social-work-Sorcerer.

'Never Chase a Drunk'.  The Drugger-Drunk is enslaved by evil spirits of booze and drugs.  The pot head, drunk, crankster, heroin addict, glue-sniffer, ecstasy, 'shrooms', etc., etc. ad nauseum is too demonically enslaved to be helped by recovery programs--or be chased after by do-gooder case managers or chemical dependency specialists.  The drugger-drunk needs an exorcist not a counselor, a Spirit-empowered deliverer--not hand-holding in a Twelve Step Program.  God, the Holy Spirit, may reach out (because of intercessory prayers offered on his behalf by the redeemed community) to the demonized, spiritually insane sin-bound drugger-drunk.  Only the 'Hound of Heaven' can chase down and tree a drunk.

Clothed & In His Right Mind.  When the Master met the mad man of Mark 5, the power of the living God rooted out the evil presence, the foul, toxic spirits which had held that man in their death grip.  Only the Holy Spirit of God can transform the human personality-body-soul-life and relationship with God and Man.  This healed, delivered man wanted to go with Jesus.  But Jesus told him to go and tell what God had done for him. This former mad man became an evangelist preaching in ten cities.

Demonology.  As C.S. Lewis cautioned, there can be a danger in over-emphasis on demonology, but it is also dangerous to minimize or neglect the reality of demons and demonic oppression and/or possession.  The Christian Life Coach who is trained in both psychotherapy and biblical theology will recognize (by the Spirit's wisdom and knowledge) the presence of spiritual evil in the human personality.

Characteristics Noted in Scripture & In Acute Psychiatric Units.  There will be severe personality change influenced by the toxic idiosyncrasies of the intrusive devil's personality.  Axis II (DSM Personality Disorders) especially Antisocial Personality and behavior will be evident.  But there will be accompanying 'occult cleverness', e.g. the demoniac (as did the demon-possessed girl in Acts who followed the Apostle Paul) knew who Jesus was. Matthew adds, "Have you come to persecute us before our time?" Demons know of their impending doom. Besides supernatural knowledge, there will be super-human strength. I've watched a slight-of-build drug-addicted female prostitute, spouting epithets and an ugly gutteral glossalalia, throw around four stocky male cops.  There will always be 'danger to self' and 'danger to others'. The demonized drugger-addict-sinner will always be self-destructive especially--as this man in Mark 5 was.


Listening to tormented souls scream for up to twelve hours of my shift reveals the hell they are living--en route to eternal hell.

They Walk among Us.  The Chronic Drunk-Drugger-Demonized-Sociopath, in my thirty-years of observation, has never had a power encounter with the Master--never experienced deliverance from evil by the power of God, the Holy Spirit--in the authority of Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.  S/he may hang around in religious circles (e.g. the girl following the Apostle Paul) but will always have a contentious, controversial, anti-social, heretical ideation.


This toxic philosophy will include Naturalistic (Rationalism) and/or Pantheistic (Mother Earth) concepts (antagonistic to Theism) and, even if claiming to be a faux-theist, will eventually reveal anti-Christ philosophies like Evolutionary Theory and/or Marxist-Leninist-Hegelian-Maoist world views.


S/he may spout and promulgate communist or fascist propaganda, and/or will, with a hardened social attitude (albeit moralizing) work at encouraging an adversarial and hateful relationship between ethnic and racial groups--or between genders.


S/he will despise faithful Christian heterosexual marriage.  S/he will ruminate over violent, murderous, evil literature, games, and movies.  

The demonized will mull over paranoid ideas and delusions (jealousy, grandiosity, persecution, ideas of reference, ideas of influence, nihilism, torture, revenge, blood and gore), and incarnate a satanic modus operandi in the lifestyle of the psychopath.  This practitioner of occult mysticism comes to kill, steal, and destroy in congruence with the devil's purposes.  (On a humorous note: This biblical passage does prove that Jesus invented deviled ham.)

A MIRACLE:
WHEN THE MAD MAN MEETS THE MASTER

A Clinician's 5150 Unit Notebook (Part One)

Copyright © 2012 by Philip C. Brewer

All Rights Reserved