The happiness gap.

God bless the Archbishop of Caterbury for naming the three false gods of our age: wealth, education and therapy. And the greatest of these, to mimic St.Paul, is therapy.

In a keynote address at Amsterdam 2000, the world's largest conference of preaching evangelists ever, Dr. George Carey said that therapy is fast replacing traditional religion. "Christ the Saviour" is becoming "Christ the Counsellor."

Denouncing Western culture as beset by a "reign of sin" caused by an obsession with an unholy trinity of wealth, education and therapy, the normally circumspect archbishop attacked even his own Anglican clergy for preaching sermons that emphasise therapeutic methods over Christian salvation.

"Western culture today is obsessed with three alternative saviours -- therapy, education and wealth, among many others -- none of which can provide lasting healing for our broken world," he said. "Our society is fascinated with the healing of the mind and body. Its unspoken assumption is that if we can but keep in tune with the well-being of our inner selves, all will be well."

Speaking to 10,000 evangelists from 185 countries at a conference organized by American evangelist Billy Graham, Dr.Carey said that while there was nothing ostensibly wrong with many therapeutic practices, "therapy can easily fail to face up to the reality of sin in our lives. When therapy replaces faith and when therapeutic techniques are seen as the total answer to humanity's deepest needs and longings, another idolatry is introduced."

Too often the result is that the Gospel is replaced with a focus on "my happiness, my needs and my desires," he said. "Listen to many sermons today and this therapeutic approach is uppermost--missing is the appeal to a holy God and His call to us to turn to Him in repentance and faith."

Amen, I say.

Nowadays, therapy's hold on our daily lives goes well beyond the consultingrooms. Fromitsmass proselytisation which began with Phil Donahue in the 1970s to Oprah, its very language now permeates every aspect of our culture.

Unfortunately, few seem to be paying much attention to the results. Few seem to mind its penchant for excusing selfishness and other generally appalling behaviour. Take, for example, supermodel Naomi Campbell who recently claimed her rudeness was caused by suffering from "low self-esteem."

As a modern-day sop, therapy feeds on anguish and proliferates itself with such self-help books as John Gray's Mars and Venus series which attempts to give lovelorn men and women a common language. In the end, however, it's only more psychobabble, making Gray rich and readers lonelier than ever.

"We are all victims in need of healing and closure," is therapy's maxim.

In most cases, the victim hopes it will provide the consolation that religious faith once offered. Nor does it require the necessary precondition that faith and a happy life demands--responsibility for one's actions. Too often therapy makes its enthusiasts victims in their own dramas. Too often it pampers souls with self-indulgent (and occasionally preposterous) notions. Too often it encourages childishness and egotism by blaming others for personal failings and wrongdoings.

And typical of all false gods, rather than being a path to enlightenment or a prelude to turning away from the material and cultivating the transcendent, therapy often becomes an emotional cul-de-sac, one of the most pernicious of our time.

"In the last days, difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God; holding to a form of godliness, while denying its power. Avoid such men. For among them are those who make their way into households and captivate weak women, weighed down with sin, led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth" (2 Tim, 3:1-7).

How's that for a description of contemporary culture? Is this familiar portrait not a direct result of Dr.Carey's unholy trinity? Despite our lavish lifestyles, medical advancements and emotional wallowing, Western man seems more stressed and unhappy than ever before.

Today, as we drown in a sea of knowledge, selfishness and unrealistic expectations, a 25-year-old is ten times more likely to suffer depression than in 1950; violent crime has increased exponentially; compulsive behaviours, including eating disorders and addictions, are at epidemic levels and at least 20 percent of us will suffer from a serious mental illness sometime in our lives. Despite therapy!

For some of this, therapy can help. But only if it points us back to God, the Way, the Truth and the Life.

Anything else is snake oil!