Evangelicalism has a long track record of compromise when it
comes to psychology and psychotropic drugs. In these days of confusion even
'ministries' once oriented toward Biblical counseling have been compromised.
Recently I was listening to an Evangelical radio station and
was struck by the interviewee's statement that not only can Christians take psychotropic
medications, in some cases it would be sinful not to.
I'm used to hearing such mind-altering drugs endorsed and
supported but this argument took it a step further. This counselor argued that
when Paul says to 'Be anxious for nothing' the imperative suggests that not
only should we not be consumed with worry but that in order to defeat such
anxiety we may indeed be called to take medications... in order to attain that
state of non-anxiety.
I realise that many if not most readers aren't going to agree
with my stodgy old fashioned hostility to the pseudo-science of psychology,
however I would hope that all would sit up and take an alarmed note with regard
to what this man is saying.
He's saying that we are commanded to defeat anxiety.... by
any means necessary it would seem. Divorcing the issue from faith and
spirituality he turns to drugs and chemicals in the brain. It's startling to
see Materialism entering the Church. In their zeal for social relevance and
respectability it would seem that some Evangelicals are (in the name of
'science') abandoning forms of mind-body dualism, something essential to a
Christian understanding of anthropology.
Of course the monistic tendencies of Dominionism (which now
dominates the Evangelical movement) might also being playing a part in how this
is playing out in some intellectual circles. It is at the very least something
to contemplate.
And what purposes do these drugs serve? Well, they help to
suppress certain proclivities and inclinations. They effectively sedate the
person, albeit in a controlled sense and aid that person in shutting out
certain patterns of thought.
In other words maybe six shots of whiskey is a problem but
two or three is fine. And like whiskey, these drugs solve and fix nothing. They
heal no one. They suppress but never solve. They are escapism, a pill form of
drink and drugs that are being utilised for the same reasons people take
illicit drugs, hit the local bar or sit home in the dark with a bottle.
The science is bunk. Taking even a basic psychology course at
a university will reveal just how bogus and subjective the entire field is.
But this ship has sailed. I remember almost twenty years ago tearing
a floor out while listening to an Evangelical radio station. I was stunned to
hear the pastor on the radio say that if you go to a church that denies the
role of psychology, that dismisses medication and its importance, then get out
of that church. It's not a church but a cult. They went on to speak about
schizophrenia and just how many pastors they knew who heard voices and in some
cases saw things that aren't really there.
For me it was something of a watershed moment. I had been
concerned about the issue but the fact that such statements were being made on
a mainstream Christian radio station filled me with dread and alarm.
Tim LaHaye was victorious. Some will remember that long
before his 'Left Behind' science fiction series he was known for being a proponent
of psychology and for introducing psychological tests and categories within the
Church. It was controversial back in the 1980's. I remember that too. But by
the late 1990's the battle was over. LaHaye and the Evangelicals had won and
the only people resisting them were a handful of Confessionalists and stodgy
old Fundamentalists. I used to chuckle when some of the Fundamentalists would
decry this sort of thing as modern day witchcraft. I thought that was taking it
too far. However the more I consider what modern science is and what's
happening in the realm of the mind, conscience and the possibilities of AI and
virtual worlds... I'm not so sure.
Leaving aside general questions about Christians and science
and technology, I think it safe to say we're on the cusp of a new era in terms
of the Church and psychology.
Of course this counselor's very existence (as are all such
'ministries') is subversive to the Church. It's a blatant denial of Sola
Scriptura and certainly the Sufficiency of Scripture. It denies that the New
Testament gives us what we need in order to be whole and complete. It takes
authority out of the hands of church Elders and the Scriptures and places it in
the hands of so-called professionals who earn this status by means of worldly
licensure and attainment. The world's standards become normative within the
Church and Scripture is relegated to secondary status. It may be retained as
helpful but wholly impotent in terms of addressing a person's problems.
What were once rightly viewed as spiritual issues are now
entangled and trumped by false and heretical views of conscience and
physiology. The monistic orthodoxy of our day decries the old view as gnostic
and medieval.
This issue is one of the 'elephants in the room' when it
comes to modern Evangelicalism. This is one of the big issues in which
Evangelicalism represents not only a departure from historical understandings
but has utterly turned its back on the Scriptures and their authority.
If you take a stand on this issue you will immediately be
ostracised and suspect. I remember in the 1990's attending an OPC and raising
this issue with the pastor. To my astonishment I learned that probably a third
of the congregation was on some kind of psychotropic medication... for anxiety,
depression or something else. This was a Confessional Presbyterian
congregation. I was literally stunned.
The LaHaye model had already won but its victory wasn't open
yet. That would take a few more years.
But now, this new way of thinking... that you might be in sin
if you don't take medications... this
is something new and bears watching.
Evangelicalism isn't just in trouble. The train leaped off
the cliff decades ago and it may have already smashed into the bottom. It's
just a case of some of the cars in back haven't yet realised what has
happened... and what's about to happen.