Jay E. Adams

Jay Edward Adams is a Reformed Christian author who received his doctorate in preaching but is most known for his book Competent to Counsel, in which he states that any Christian is more competent to counsel than any secular psychologist. He has published more than 100 books, which have been translated into 16 languages.

A native of Baltimore, Jay Adams now resides in Spartanburg County, near Woodruff, South Carolina. He is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University, where he majored in Greek and received the A.B. degree. He earned a B.D. from the Reformed Episcopal Seminary, the S.T.M from the Temple University School of Theology in Homiletics under Andrew W. Blackwood, and the Ph.D from the University of Missouri. He also did graduate work at the Pittsburgh-Xenia Theological Seminary and held a post-doctoral fellowship in Psychology at the University of Illinois under O. Hobart Mowrer.

Dr. Adams has pastored multiple churches all across the East Coast and has taught at colleges. He is the founder of the Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation, and has edited The Journal of Pastoral Practice, the Foundation's quarterly publication. Adams is also a frequent lecturer at ministerial conferences both in the United States and abroad. He has taught in England, France, Holland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, N. Ireland, South Africa, Canada, Brazil, Guatemala, New Zealand, Austria, North Korea, and China.

Jay Adams advocates the counseling method known as Nouthetic Counseling, which he claims is practiced in the Bible. This counseling process is unique to pastoral counseling because it seeks to counsel man solely from the Bible. Nouthetic Counseling advocates three main steps: To confront, to have concern, and to lead to change. Schools to adopt the Nouthetic approach to counseling include Central Baptist Seminary, Bob Jones University, The Master's College, and Westminster Theological Seminary.

Jay Adams was born January 30, 1929, in Baltimore, Maryland, son of Joseph Edward and Anita Louise (Barnsley) Adams. He married Betty Jane Whitlock on June 23, 1952, and the couple had four children: Holly, Todd, Clay, and Heather.