Mental Illness or Spiritual Failure?

My friend is battling cancer. He is a warrior in ways people never want to be, courageously facing multiple medical procedures, doing whatever he can to extend his time with his family for what we pray will be many more years of earthly life.

He is a man of faith. I’m not sure if he has as much faith as Peter, James, and John, but I believe he at least has faith as large as a grain of mustard seed, and Jesus said that is all the faith we need to move mountains (Matt. 17:20). 

But the cancer is still in his body.

Is his faith too small? Is the faith of those who pray for him too weak? Do we not even have faith as a grain of mustard seed?

We do have faith. However, our faith does not allow us to replace God’s will with our own, but it does allow us to more confidently live out God’s will. God’s plans are not thwarted by our passions, however strong our faith. Faith simply does not fix everything we face in this broken world. Instead, faith allows us to go forward in this broken world, filled with the assurance that everything we face eventually will be okay, even glorious.

Most people readily grasp this idea when it comes to illnesses like cancer. But when it comes to so-called “mental” illnesses, some Christians automatically attribute problems like depression and anxiety to a lack of faith or to some other sin. People who would never attribute my friend’s cancer to a lack of faith would have no problem blaming someone’s anxiety or depression on a failure to believe and obey God. 

But physical illnesses and many so-called mental illnesses share a common denominator. They are anchored in the body.

Although the term “mental illness” implies that anxiety and depression and other such problems originate from or are located in the mind (i.e., they are mental), improvements in imaging and research techniques have led to discoveries that a relationship exists between the invisible construct that we call “mind” and the physical, tangible entity we call “brain.” The mind visibly shapes the brain, and the brain invisibly shapes the mind. “Mental” illnesses may be quite physical in nature. At least in this life, the mind (or soul or spirit) seems to be connected to the brain (and to the rest of the body) to such a degree that speaking about the mind’s existence apart from the body has little practical value.

Theologians disagree about whether people are a unified whole (monism) or are comprised of a body and a soul/spirit (dichotomism) or a body, soul, and spirit (trichotomism). Proponents of any of these positions can affirm, with integrity, the brain’s role in contributing to problems such as anxiety and depression and PTSD, so long as the brain is not viewed as an empty container that merely hosts an unconnected soul/mind/spirit during his or her earthly journey.

Practically speaking, real Christians with real faith have real struggles with depression and anxiety and other such challenges, and those issues do not always simply disappear with the application of more prayer and Bible study and church attendance. These Christians can come to doubt their worth or even their salvation. “If I’m really a Christian, how can I be depressed? If I’m really a Christian, why can’t I be ‘anxious for nothing’?”

Many believers suffer in silence because of the ignorance of other church members who don’t understand that “mental” illnesses often have physical and relational roots as well. Some believers, cut off from authentic community, even take their own lives.

Maybe you say, “Amen,” when your preacher proclaims a simplistic solution of having more faith as the cure-all for depression and anxiety and other problems in living. But your “amen” probably is more wishful than truthful if you have overwhelming anxiety or depression or PTSD that now has been compounded by the implication (if not the proclamation) that you struggle because of your sin. 

Should some thoughts and behaviors that are categorized as mental illness be considered sinful? Absolutely. But not all troubling thoughts and emotions and behaviors ought to be considered sin, any more than my friend’s cancer should be considered sin. Universally attributing problematic thoughts and feelings and behaviors to a lack of faith is overly reductionistic and biblically unwarranted. 

The truth simply is more complicated than that.

(Posted by Jim Gant, PhD)

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