So let me try to explain (1) what we are trying to get at by using this book, and (2) what to do with the therapeutic language.
(1) If you read what the watching world says about "born-again" types, one frequent criticism is that they are hypocrites. They talk a big game about morality, both private and public, but when you scratch the surface, "born-againers" are not that different from anyone else.
Inasmuch as this is true (and it often is!), it should humble us--and drive us back to the gospel, asking God to complete the work he has begun in us. And our desire should be for God, beyond transforming the surface of our icebergs (the 10% of our lives that is externally visible), to transform the whole iceberg. This includes the secret corners of our hearts, where much sin lurks unexposed.
And one of the goals is that we would love well--love God with all that we are, and love our neighbors as ourselves--in a way that is genuine, true, authentic, and complete, not merely on the surface. Again, we will not be perfect in this life; but by God's grace (alone!) we rejoice in whatever progress we make.
(2) Therefore, we will need to interpret correctly the language of therapy. Here, for example, is a quote Scazzero uses from a book by Dan Allender and Tremper Longman:
Emotions are the language of the soul. They are the cry that gives the heart a voice.... However, we often turn a deaf ear--through emotional denial, distortion, or disengagement. We strain out anything disturbing in order to gain tenuous control of our innner world. We are frightened and ashamed of what leaks into our consciousness. In neglecting our intense emotions, we are false to ourselves and lose a wonderful opportunity to know God. We forget that change comes through brutal honesty and vulnerability before God.
Now Allender and Longman have not spoken, in that paragraph, about sin, and it may bother us that they have not. We may wish they had. However, though they have used the language of psychology, they are making a biblical point--but it takes some sanctified imagination to "translate" what they write.
Thus "gain[ing] tenuous control of our inner world" means, translated, becoming our own gods--idolatry. Being "frightened and ashamed of what leaks into our consciousness" means that we see rotten fruit coming out of our hearts (which include our emotions), and it reveals that there is sinful rotteness in our hearts (see Luke 7:43-45). "Brutal honesty and vulnerability before God" by which "change comes" is what the Psalmist calls for in Psalm 139:23-24.
We may be more comfortable with language that is more directly biblical. On the other hand, sometimes what is more familiar splashes off of us too easily, without penetrating our hearts. So before we write something off because it doesn't use words we are used to, we do well to listen and try to apply it.
