Tommy Galloway’s new book, Cure for Common Christianity (self-published), presents a strong warning against “microwave messages, economy meal values, and burger believers who want it their way. We’ve found ourselves catering to everybody to please them when the Gospel is not really to please people, it’s to save people.”
He continues, “Christians have strayed from their purpose and allowed the worldly system to get into their mind.” I’m with him . . . until he dubs this “mad Christian disease” and argues that one of the results is depression. “People have got to understand that depression is real. There are Christians that are depressed.”
As someone who is diagnosed as clinically depressed, I’m offended that the author apparently believes I’ve “allowed the worldly system to get into [my] mind.” In fact, a lot of so-called “worldly” behaviors can be explained—and effectively treated—bio-chemically. I thank God for Cymbalta which has virtually eliminated my depression! (And a friend who was tormented by “demonic voices” was immediately “exorcised” with Haldol.)
Galloway’s dignosis is dangerously close to the youth pastor who claimed an autistic teen was demon possessed—and is charged with abusing him (click for story). So, here are a couple articles that deal with the psychological dynamics of the Christian life:
Keith Drury asks, “Can genetic engineering create Christ-like characteristics?”
Is depression a spiritual or bio-chemical problem? Yes.
What do you think?
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August 6, 2007 at 11:46
I might further add that, while the Gospel is for restoring our relationship with God, it is also for glorifying God. Perhaps the author eludes to such at some other point in his book; I’m not familiar with the work.
Depression is real and, with my own limited knowledge, most often related to a chemical imbalance. And thus, as you rightly point out, can be treated with supplements or prescriptions, allowing many people the ability to live out mostly normal lives.
Again, though, my own knowledge about this is quite limited.
August 6, 2007 at 22:42
I am clinically depressed and have been since I was in elementary school (I wasn’t treated until college). I have come to accept the fact that I will be on anti-depressants and actively cognitively fighting my depression for the rest of my life.
The reality is that there are a handful of people who believe that every sickness is a result of sin. They can usually track even a simple cold back to a rebellious thought or undone deed.
Another reality is that there are an even bigger handful of people who believe that mental illness are sin. It’s easier to write those off because they are “invisible” and often involve the soul, or at least the part of us that lives underneath our skin, inside the body.
Those of us who know and live the presence of mental illness have to be the voices and the islands of sanity in this judgemental religious world. We must be the ones who speak up for chemical imbalances and screwy serotonin levels.
As long as people can hear our truth and honor our journeys, we are providing an alternative. The “you are sinning” people will fade a bit under our stories. Our experiences will speak truth to those who suffer along with us. And we will be lights in the dark world of mental illness; evidence that we are still the beloved, regardless of our imperfection.
August 7, 2007 at 08:33
It is sad that he would further this misconception that depression is somehow a spiritual failing or flaw. I know that in my own life such an attitude has acted as a stumbling block, hindering my ability to cope with my depression and compounding the grief I needed to address. To say that Christians should not be depressed is to say that we should not get sick either; we live in a fallen world, and are as susceptible to emotional and psychological pain as physical suffering(if not more so, “Our battle is not against flesh and blood…”). We live in a tension of the already and not yet, that of God’s ideal in heaven and the reality of the consequences of sin in the world. It would be nice if we all had our mansions and restored bodies now, but I think some accept an imperfect physical/material reality and try to compensate by holding to a redeemed spiritual and emotional reality, which just the same has not yet fully arrived.
August 7, 2007 at 08:33
It is so disappointing that the same Christian who will take an aspirin for a migraine headache finds taking drugs for depression (or any pschological disorder)a lack of faith or worse.
We live in a broken world and our bodies and brains and minds have been affected. There is a place for medicine in all areas.
August 7, 2007 at 13:13
If you are looking for a balanced discussion on Psychatric Drugs and christianity, may I suggest St Annes Public House? The current audio is dealing with this issue.
http://www.stannespublichouse.com/newdraught/
August 7, 2007 at 23:32
I’ve had some serious bouts with depression, with medication and without. I’m prone to it. It runs in my family. So I suppose there is some chemical imbalance behind it. Depression is real. (Is anyone saying it’s not?) But I think it’s too complicated a condition to attribute it to a single side of everyone’s nature or nurture. Perhaps some happy and optimistic people are chemically imbalanced too. It’s just that we don’t consider that a problem. So what’s “normal?”
I hated being depressed, it’s intensely painful, but I wouldn’t trade the spiritual transformation that came of it for anything and I probably couldn’t have really learned those lessons in any other way. Sometimes suffering can teach us important truths about life and about faith in God. The medication decision is not a simple issue. Antidepressants are not aspirin, Jimmme. They’re powerful drugs that can have serious side-effects and cause other long-term health problems. Many people might be better off avoiding them if they can.
Some people compare medicating for depression to a diabetic taking insulin. Your body doesn’t supply enough serotonin for you to feel “normal,” the logic goes, so take a pill to get it back in balance. But the pills aren’t serotonin. They alter your brain chemistry to try and produce the desired balance and that’s a much trickier and imprecise process than simply supplying the body with a missing hormone (insulin) or taking a pain reliever.
I don’t mean to defend Galloway’s writing. I haven’t read it. But it isn’t clear from James’ critique that Galloway is saying that a worldly attitude is the cause of all depression. That’s obviously wrong. Medication has its place. But it would also be wrong, in my opinion, to dismiss the significant role that spiritual conditions can play in depression. Christians accusing others of not believing that depression is real because it may have spiritual causes makes me wonder why they think the spiritual part of us is any less real than the chemical makeup of our brains. Cause and effect run both ways, I think.
While I wouldn’t argue against the use of medication in treating depression, I would have serious doubts about any reasoning that implies that medication is all that’s needed to treat it in most cases. It would be a shame to try to argue, for example, that John of the Cross’ experience of a “Dark Night of the Soul” was only a chemical imbalance in his brain. There’s got to be more to it than that, just as there is more to life the Gospel than the pursuit of happiness.
August 8, 2007 at 01:02
I heartily second Eric’s recommendation of the St. Anne’s Public House issue. I just listened to the whole thing and it’s excellent. If you are short on time, at least listen to tracks 08 and 09 (The interview with Dr. Peter Breggin). Thanks, Eric!
August 8, 2007 at 07:35
Okay, the youth pastor who tried to exorcize the poor autistic boy: he’s the one with “Mad Christian Disease.” He and all the other Christians who can’t accept that there is a physical reality to this fallen world: that our bodies aren’t any more perfect than our souls, and that a redeemed soul does not beget a redeemed body…yet! That day will come, but it’s not here yet.
August 8, 2007 at 10:33
One online resource on this topic that I’ve found useful is the Christian Depression Pages. The site hasn’t been updated in a while, but has lots of good content about Christian attitudes towards depression.
August 8, 2007 at 13:31
Every comment so far seems to focus on depression. As someone who wouldn’t pay any attention if I was diagnosed with depression (I feel depressed sometimes, but that is not what I am, it is a temporary feeling, and I believe 50% of psychiatry is one man’s arrogant attempt to tell me what I think)... I would like to get back to “microwave messages, economy meal values, and burger believers who want it their way.”
There are two boundaries to that, in my seldom-humble opinion. On the one hand, church is not entertainment for the masses. For that you go to a theater. Church is a corporate body of people who have some common beliefs with the purpose of developing our relation to God. Scripture means something, it is serious.
On the other hand, criticism of “catering to everybody to please them” has its own pitfalls. The Gospel is what it is, but no human is THE authority on what it all means, what we are called to, how we should live. That is why we have so many churches relying on the same Bible. No church has to cater to me, but what I find in Scripture has a place in the life of my church, even if its not what the next person finds in it.
When a pastor lives in a mansion, that is allowing the worldly system into the church. If Cymbalta works for one Christian and not for another, I don’t recall that the Gospel takes any position on it.
August 8, 2007 at 20:45
While I do not contend with personal depression (while my family might argue this point), my wife, her brothers, my son and daughter do (and her late mother as well). It is a real condition. That it is treated is the key. We have found that differenet things work for each of the parties. We live in a fallen world, we have not and cannot achieve perfection. By the Grace of God through the Power of the Holy Spirit in the Truth of Christ we look to the time we will be perfect. I equate an unwillingness for believers to not understand the sufferings of those with depression with those who don’t accept you as a believer without following their (not God’s) legallized system. God through the Holy Spirit guides us to maturity in Christ. Without His all is for naught. If God gives us a means to work through earthly depression we need to look to that. I pray that those suffering may find Peace in Christ and help where needed most.
August 8, 2007 at 22:15
It should be noted that Pastor Galloway was never suggesting that depression was ‘mad christian disease’ in the book. I do understand how one could come to that conclusion based on the article alone, but if one reads the book then that the misunderstanding will quickly be cleard up.