Not a Disease To Be Treated

We have been entrusted with the message of the cross, a message that can bring life, love, and forgiveness to the human heart and bring people a life-giving relationship with a real and living Lord. But that concept, unfortunately, is foolishness to some.  1st Corinthians 1 captures this errant view:
18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
19 For it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, And bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent."
20 Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.

There are many who don't understand this, who wonder why we don't rely on ourselves, rather, we choose to surrender to Someone greater than ourselves.  And, I believe we have that responsibility to live the life - actually, to allow the life of Christ to be expressed through us.  As Jesus taught, we are to take up our cross daily and follow Him, dying to self, surrendering to Christ, and being determined to appropriate His truth and His power.

+++++

In Acts 26, we see where the apostle Paul, as he stood before King Agrippa and Governor Festus,
declared:
22 Therefore, having obtained help from God, to this day I stand, witnessing both to small and great, saying no other things than those which the prophets and Moses said would come--
23 that the Christ would suffer, that He would be the first to rise from the dead, and would proclaim light to the Jewish people and to the Gentiles."
24 Now as he thus made his defense, Festus said with a loud voice, "Paul, you are beside yourself! Much learning is driving you mad!"
25 But he said, "I am not mad, most noble Festus, but speak the words of truth and reason.

It could be considered rather astounding at some of the comments that people make about religion, illustrating a misunderstanding and/or an outright hostility to people who wish to practice their faith.

William Briggs has written a piece for The Stream, in which he summarizes some of the ways that people attempt to provide psychological analysis about people who practice religion.  He writes:

There is a trend in academia to seek materialistic explanations of religion, particularly Christianity. The efforts assume that belief in God and the desire to worship God are groundless. It follows that acts oriented toward the supernatural are in error, may lead to harm and must be rooted out.

There are “God centers” in the brain, some say. These centers can be “treated” with magnets, claim others. Religion is “child abuse” is another common trope. Lack of education, sheer mental incapacity and, as we shall see, indoctrination are put forward as plausible explanations for why many still “cling” to religion. Some researchers even suggest rancid smells drive people towards traditionalist principles.

He takes particular aim at a recent Salon piece called, “The sad, twisted truth about conservative Christianity’s effect on the mind,” by Marlene Winell and Valerie Tarico, who assert that Bible-based Christianity is “toxic.”

Briggs states that:

Winell and Tarico also insist it is a “requirement for success as a sincere Christian” “to find a way to believe that which [sic] would be unbelievable under normal rules of evidence and inquiry.” The authors thereby declare that believing in Christ is irrational, that Christians consider it a virtue to believe in this way. That Winell and Tarico are describing extreme fideism, a very minority view in the Christian tradition, is apparently of no concern to them.

The authors make a place for religion, but only religion drained of the transcendent. They deride “variants of Christianity” that are “literal,” have “a view that humans need salvation, and a focus on the spiritual world as superior to the natural world.” But the authors applaud sects that have thrown off all this superstitious stuff, namely “liberal, progressive Christian churches with a humanistic viewpoint, a focus on the present, and social justice.”

He says that:

The authors’ secular progressivism is even more on display when they say that “humanity has been going through a massive shift for centuries, transitioning from a supernatural view of a world dominated by forces of good and evil to a natural understanding of the universe.”

Their enthusiasm for this great “transitioning” is obvious as they pine for society to officially designate transcendent religion as mental illness. To hurry that day they offer “Religious Trauma Syndrome” as a candidate diagnosis. They explain that “religious trauma is uniquely mind-twisting” because of a “system” which “demands deference to spiritual authorities no matter what they do.” Of their psychological neologism, they say, “It is our hope that it will lead to more knowledge, training and treatment.”

I was reminded of the incendiary comments of the former governor of Minnesota, Jesse Ventura, who said, according to a Baptist Press article quoting his comments to Playboy magazine, “Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers." The article also said:

Anti-religious comments by Ventura surfaced not only in the Playboy interview -- in which he also said of organized religion, “It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people's business. ... The religious right wants to tell people how to live" -- but also in Ventura’s attempts to explain himself Sept. 30.

In a late-afternoon news conference, Ventura said he expects the controversy to subside. "I think all the religious leaders will forgive me because I think that's what religion's about -- forgiving," he said, the Star Tribune reported.

Ventura also said, "I haven't started any wars throughout time. Has religion?"

And, then, as Eric Metaxas brought out on a recent Breakpoint commentary, "New research published in 'The Journal of Sexual Medicine' suggests that homophobia, not homosexuality, is the psychological disorder."  He takes issue with lead researcher Emmanuele Jannini’s "willingness to label homophobia as 'the real disease to be cured,'" which Metaxas says,

...shows just how quickly we’re moving down this path. But we can respond: First, there are a lot of problems with how this study is being analyzed, even by its authors. For example, should it surprise us that those who show animosity toward people in general also show animosity toward gay people? Bad psychological traits probably don’t discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.

He continues...

Secondly, and more importantly, a “phobia” is “an irrational and debilitating fear” of something, and Christians don’t feel this way about those who identify as gay, or they certainly shouldn’t. Ours is a rational stance based on human flourishing and God’s created order, not “irrational animus.” It’s entirely possible to object to sin, refuse to dignify it, and still love those caught up in it. In fact, that’s what Jesus commanded us to do.

I looked up a passage in John 10, where Jesus was teaching and the religious leaders thought that, as verse 20 relates, Jesus had a demon and was "mad."  Paul was challenged that he, too, was "mad." So, it's not really surprising that there would be those in our day who think that our deeply-held beliefs and the practice of them is some sort of madness.  But, Paul said he spoke words of truth and reason.

So, to the natural person, the words of truth, the teachings of Jesus and the Bible, do not make sense and are seemingly foolish, because they cannot be explained according to the ways of man or the ways of this world.  We are called to be counter-cultural, walking as people who are not of this world.  That's not going to make sense to people whose minds are blinded and whose eyes are shut.

But...that can change, and that's a powerful message that we have to share.  Even though we may be ridiculed, and people who misapply the truths of Scripture are characterized as the "norm," we can be encouraged to regard God's Word as truth and live out that truth in a compassionate and compelling way.  In so doing, we can provide evidence of the risen Lord in our lives - an occurrence that doesn't make sense to the worldly mind, but provides the capacity for a new life, for transformation.

Christianity is not a disease to be treated, and the beliefs that we practice are not a sign of mental instability.  Actually, in our humanity, yes, we are weak, but Paul teaches that in human weakness, we can know God's strength.   We serve a God who treats a devastating, life-threatening disease - it's called sin, and He provides the antidote by which we defeat its power in our lives.