Mental Illness Is Not a Lie

Responding to one form of spiritualism

Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash

(A six-minute read.)

This is one of those rare moments when I’m going to get dogmatic and direct. I might even come across as a little angry.

But my blood started to boil last week when I heard megastar pastor John MacArthur, who’s been a mighty force within evangelicalism for many decades, unapologetically and dogmatically declare that there’s no such thing as “mental illness.”

In a panel discussion back in April, MacArthur insisted that “there’s no such thing as PTSD, there’s no such thing as OCD. There’s no such thing as ADHD. Those are noble lies to basically give the excuse, at the end of the day, to medicate people.”

He further proclaimed that any parent who medicated their child for these issues ran the risk of turning them not only into a drug-addict but also a criminal.

Thankfully, the response from many corners of Christianity was swift and critical.

This didn’t deter MacArthur, of course. A week or so later, preaching from his own pulpit in California, he doubled down on his sentiments, insisting that what’s often labeled “mental illness” is really just the result of a person’s “character flaws” and their inability to cope with life’s harsh realities.

They didn’t need medication, he insisted again, which would just potentially lead them to “living on Skid Row under a bridge in half a tent.”

He then declared that such people just need to go deeper in their commitment to Jesus, and this would fix their problems (the sermon was appropriately titled, “Christ Is Sufficient for All Your Crises”).

Part of me feels like I shouldn’t even waste my time responding to something like this. I’m guessing most of my readers don’t pay much attention to John MacArthur, or perhaps even know who he is, and he seems to be getting more and more extreme in his public declarations with each passing year (the sign, perhaps, of trying to stay relevant as he gets older).

And yet MacArthur has been one of the most influential voices in mainstream evangelicalism for many decades—and, even more significantly, his sentiments about mental illness, while they may seem a bit extreme to most people, nevertheless reflect what appears to be a growing skepticism among Christians about all the talk about “mental health” and our “therapeutic” age.

I think, for example, of Abigail Shrier’s recent book, Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up, which made some waves. Though I haven’t read the book myself, I’ve read a number of reviews on it which indicate that she betrays a fairly flippant attitude about the whole world of therapy.

And yet the book on Amazon has a 4.5 rating from 706 reviewers—reflecting a growing disdain among many, especially within Christianity, toward the increasing emphasis on mental health and therapy.

Let me make it clear: I have no doubt that there are plenty of people who use “mental illness” as an excuse to be difficult and ornery people—and to live in a perpetual state of victimhood. There can also be a danger that we over-therapize the idea of “sin” and personal agency right out of existence.

I also have no doubt that, by and large, the world—or at least my corner of the world—is over-medicated. There does indeed seem to be a problem with “Big Pharma.”

But, honestly, from where I sit, and in the spiritual communities in which I travel, it seems we need way more knowledge of mental health and we need way more therapy than we currently have.

I feel like Christians—or, again, at least the Christians I regularly interact with—are a lot more prone to just “spiritualize” these matters away than recognize that they have a genuine mental, emotional, and physiological basis.

We are thus a lot more likely to prescribe a Bible verse and prayer than therapy and medication.

We make it a matter of faith rather than a matter of physiology.

But when we do this, we—among other things—subtly (or perhaps not-so-subtly) bombard people with yet more shame-based messaging. We tell them they’re not spiritual enough, they don’t pray enough, they don’t have enough faith, they sin too much, when perhaps it’s just that they got some bad genes through no choice of their own—the result of thousands of years of evil wreaking havoc on humankind.

The reason this is so important to me—and why it makes me, honestly, so angry—is because this is an issue that hits very close to home to me. I won’t go into the details, but I’ll just say that I have loved ones who struggle with mental health issues and those episodes of mental distress can be very frightening, gut-wrenching, and faith-challenging.

And I can assure you: it’s not some sort of “spiritual” malady or the result of a malformed character. And many of these people can’t simply “pray away” the crippling anxiety or recite Bible verses on repeat (and, in fact, sometimes those things actually just perpetuate the disorder).

Instead, I believe God has given us the tools and resources to deal with these things in a wholistic way, recognizing the wonderful—though incomplete—advances in knowledge as to how the human body and mind work.

And of all people, those within my particular faith community—who recognize the wholistic and non-dualistic reality of our personhood, and thus talk a lot about a “health message”—should especially recognize that we cannot just spiritualize our way into better health (physical, mental, or otherwise).

We thus recognize, for example, that we can’t avoid heart disease by only “trusting in Jesus.” We know we need to also get exercise and limit fatty foods.

We should recognize these same types of connections with mental health, acknowledging that we may need more than Bible verses to step into greater mental and emotional wellbeing.

I could say more, but I trust my point is clear.

And I think I’ll perhaps let Alan Noble have the last word on this.

Noble is a conscientious evangelical Christian who is a professor of English at Oklahoma Baptist University. He’s also a best-selling author, having written the book You Are Not Your Own: Belonging to God in an Inhuman World (which I’ve yet to read), and he apparently suffers from OCD.

In a very thoughtful and balanced response to MacArthur, Noble puts it this way:

I’m happy to allow Dr. MacArthur to spend a day in my mind and see for himself whether or not OCD is real. . . .

[T]hese comments by MacArthur are arrogant, ignorant, and dangerous. They are a denial of reality and they bind the consciences of faithful believers who seek mental health services. As a practical result, many people have been and will suffer needlessly, blaming themselves for all their mental affliction and not getting the professional help they need. For years I suffered from untreated OCD in part because I had spent time in a church that taught MacArthur’s false teaching. My conscience was bound so that the thought of seeing a psychologist (even a Christian one!) made me feel guilty. It was only because a wise, mature minister encouraged me that counseling and medication were permissible common-grace goods from God that I was able to get the help I needed. Life saving treatment. And despite MacArthur’s predictions in these videos, I am not “living on Skid Row under a bridge in a half a tent.” I am a better father, husband, church member, friend, and teacher than I was before I sought help.

So let’s not the likes of John MacArthur get away with the lie that mental illness is a lie.

And let’s encourage people to get the help they need—therapy, medication, and, yes, perhaps a little prayer—in order to be the healthiest, happiest, and most loving people they can be.

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Shawn is a pastor in Maine, whose life, ministry, and writing focus on incarnational expressions of faith. The author of four books and a columnist for Adventist Review, he is also a DPhil (PhD) candidate at the University of Oxford, focusing on nineteenth-century American Christianity. You can follow him on Instagram, and listen to his podcast Mission Lab.