rich w
-
10:55:24 am on December 17, 2008 | # |
A few years ago I bought a book from a second hand shop called “why christians crack up”. I’ll be honest with you: I still haven’t read it. However, what feels important here is that it sung with enough penetrating truth that I wanted to read it. Having been brought up a christian and having been in some way part of uk christian-sub culture ever since leaving home, I can testify (as i’m sure many of us can) that christians are often highly strung and do indeed crack up.
Whilst the book continues to daunt me with it’s drab 70s cover and small type, I read this article in the NY Times and it seems to be hinting at the same phenomenon:
‘In a paper published in the August issue of The Journal of Anxiety Disorders, Chris Miller and Dawson Hedges of Brigham Young University estimate that as many as one million Americans may suffer from a moral-anxiety-cum-mental-illness known as “scrupulosity disorder.” They define it as obsessive doubt about moral behavior often resulting in compulsive religious observance — and they warn that it can lead to depression, apathy, isolation and even suicide.’
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/14/magazine/14ideas-section3-t-008.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
I was very much trapped in this mindset and only by some twists of grace did I slowly escape into a faith more confusing but more balanced.
And whilst I think headspace is a place which at its best heros balanced christianity, I am increasingly tuned in to notice this odd phenomenon in christians/sermons/churches: depression, huge feelings of inadequacy, guilt, “we must work harder”, “we are such bad christians”, “i had a period away from the lord but now im back” (you can get away??), denouncement of faith, and on and on for ever…
I’m struggling to formulate any big point but what I mean rests somewhere between – “oh my goodness this is a big problem for christianity in the uk and could be part of the reason churches are heamoraging” and “what a strange irony that the whole basis of our faith is the removal of guilt yet we often, in its outworking, entrench guilt deeper in our souls”
zaphodbartfast 11:49 am on 20 December, 2008 | # |
i think that this inevitably happens when we don’t get a good grasp of god’s grace and instead strive for God’s unachievably high standard by religous adherence. reading Terry Virgo’s book “God’s Lavish Grace” is highly recommended. Also listening to Rob Rufus sermons on grace is helpful. As the human heart tends towards legalism, guilt and condemnation and religous rules, I find it increasingly necessary to refresh myself on the understanding of grace again and again.
bidgood 7:42 pm on 1 January, 2009 | # |
Robert Farrar Capon’s ‘between noon and three’ is also fabulous on the primacy of grace in christian understanding.