A therapeutic church is an atheist church

> The question, that is, is whether the work of therapy is synonymous with the work of the gospel; whether the task of the counselor is one and the same as that of the pastor.

> Answer: It is not.

Historically, the pastor is a jack of all trades: Spiritual, psychological, social.

The therapist is more of a specialist.

For example, you can expect a therapist to be a confidential emotional councellor. You can hope a pastor is, but ultimately they're not paid to be your personal support, but the support of a community.

> [...] If the gospel is interchangeable with counseling, then people should stop attending church and hire counselors instead. Why not go straight to the source? Why settle for second best? If a minister is merely a so-so therapist with Jesus sprinkled on top, then parishioners can sleep in on Sundays, drop Jesus, and get professional therapy as they please, whenever they wish. I promise you, if what you’re after is twenty-first century quality therapy, neither Holy Scripture nor the Divine Liturgy is the thing for you.

If you can afford a therapist, go for it!

If you cannot, religions partly fill the gap.

After ending therapy, I have found that good friends who listen are entirely sufficient.

Not everyone has good friends who listen, either.

> A therapeutic church does not speak of sin, judgment, guilt, shame, wrath, hell, repentance, punishment, suffering, crucifixion, deliverance, salvation, Satan, demons, exorcism, and so forth.

I know there is a spiritual truth in that dimension. But I'd rather summon the gospel according to Jesus in Luke 7,22: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.

Professionalizing aid is always in danger of loosing purpose in exchange for "l'art pour l'art". But if one is serious about helping than this is the way to go. Like Christian hospitals that embrace modern medicine, there's nothing wrong in church counselors being open for advances in psychology.

Went into this hoping it was about real secular churches, as an exmormon - I miss the community of going to church, but as an agnostic (believe in afterlife, but as energy we live on somehow, and consciousness is weird, or we're living in a simulation and get recycled, but I don't believe in a God, unless it's:

- A: unaware of our existence: i.e. we're living inside a bigger organism's brain or something (the whole universe is a brain?) or.. - B: A programmer outside our universe and still not aware of us on a personal level, just running a simulation, it could even be a simulation of a universe, and real conscious life popping up wasn't supposed to happen, but did.

Got off on a tangent about my beliefs, but maybe it's nostalgia it feels like even before church the 80s and 90s was a friendlier time even with people across the aisle politically.

Then I started church and many of the people there were opposite me politically but we got along as 'brothers/sisters in the gospel', I left the church in a time when I was inactive so not missing much, most of my friends from youth have left the church - even the ones I'd never think would leave.

I know secular churches exist, but I always felt humanism and compassion for others really needs to be a religion unto itself, with some self-help and growing opportunities (think TED talks), and community outreach.

TLDR: As exmormon, and even before I was mormon I felt more connected w/ the world and neighbors, or members of the church and I guess there's more loneliness in the world, I really don't have any close friends except my wife/in-laws and they're not that close (well, my wife is lol), and my kids. It'd be nice to have more ways to create connections like you get from church and scouts without it being some piousness competition and shaming.

Atheistic church imho doesn't look that bad to an agnostic ex-mormon, and this person is trying to argue against a church 'losing god', when I'm thinking that's a feature not a bug.

This is not a consistently held view of Christians