Counselling and Deliverance - Rodney W Francis
I'm not sure this book has been 'properly' published, but the author is apparently still in ministry, and having a brief glance at his website suggests more recent versions of the book have been updated and may have been published eventually. This copy has been sitting on my shelf for ages, inherited from a pastor who retired, and I recently decided to have a look at it.
It's fairly straightforward over-all, being a chapter by chapter breakdown of elements and areas of Christian counselling. Certain phrases and topics seem a little dated now from our 2022 perspective (maybe they will have been updated in more recent editions), but other phrases and topics were good reminders of the attitude we should take when talking with broken people. "I believe that only certain types of character and personality are responded to by those with very sensitive personal problems. For example, heavy handed, authoritarian kind of counsellors will do more harm than good...The counsellor must be able to put himself in the other person's shoes. What if it were you sitting there with a desperate need?" (page 62). Even chapter titles point to this attitude, with back to back chapters entitled 'Guard Against Judgmental Counsel' and 'People Are Very Sensitive!' trying to make the point explicit. For a book from this time period, author Francis has a fairly nuanced take on homosexuality as well, addressing it only once (pages 39-40) yet highlighting how we need to avoid condemnatory language and attitudes as we engage with people who face those desires.
Although most of the book is centred on counselling, there are places where author Francis addresses deliverance as well. In opening his section on spiritual warfare, Francis argues that: "The Church in general down through the ages appears to have failed to come up with a balanced stand on evil spirits. The pendulum has swung back and forth to the two extremes of either (1) everyone has them, or (2) no one has them. Both are wrong." (page 27) He then goes on to address areas such as generational curses, witchcraft and Eastern mysticism, taking a stance that even martial arts can lean too far away from Christianity: "One Christian brother I know was very interested in Tae Kwon Do, which is supposed to be free of evil spirit manipulation. He wrote to Christians in Korea checking it out and was told that thousands of Christians there are involved in it. So he joined. After a time a real spiritual blockage began to manifest itself and the brother lost his liberty and joy in Jesus. It caused him to evade facing Spirit-filled ministries and his attendance at Christian meetings fell away. Finally he came for help and the spirit of Tae Kwon Do was renounced and broken. Immediately liberty and joy were restored and the man is going on with God. He resigned his position in that marital art and has never been back to it since." (page 29). Although stories like that may seem bizarre to some, testimonies are powerful, and it pays to at least consider them. We in the West often do forget that there is a spiritual realm, and therefore can get ourselves into areas that will not help our spiritual walk.
Elements like the ones I have mentioned made me feel like this was a worthwhile book for me to read in this moment. A few short phrases have jumped out, and will be ones I add to my own reflection. However, the dated-ness of some other elements and straightforward nature of the book means aside from reference it will probably not be a book I revisit.
Completed 31 March 2022.
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