Blame it on the Brain!?

An recent article at Fox News reporting the recent delcarations by the National Institutes of Mental Health that 46 % of all Americans will development a mental illness, caused me to once again ponder the issues of sin, psychology and Biblical answers.

Where do I even begin? When I was an elementary student in the early 1980s, the school counselor recommended that my parents put me on a regular intake of Ritalin. It seems I was not performing up to par. I was easily distracted and could not stick to a task for very long. Now I am 31 years old ... I am still not the most disciplined person. It takes a lot of work to excerise discipline and self control, especially for an 8 year old boy who had an overactive imagination. Did I need drugs to control by chemically "imbalanced" brain? Did I need someone to help me discipline myself for life?

Please don't misunderstand me! I understand that there are some situation in which legitimate, physiological concerns must be addressed by qualified medical professionals. However, this does not change the clear meaning of God's diagnosis and subsequent prescription for what ails the human condition.

What God has called sin, modern "doctors," have labeled sickness, disease, and (when they have no quantitative evidence) disorders. See for example:

Stealing (Eph 4.28)= Kleptomania
Worry Phil 4.6,7 = Anxiety
Laziness (Ecc 9.10) = Attention Deficit Disorder
Homosexuality (Rom 1.26,27) = Sexual Orientation
Fear (1 John 4.17,18) = Phobia
Selfishness (Rom 12.3-5) (Phil 2.3,4) = Depression
Drunkenness (1 Cor 6.9-11) (Eph 5.18) = Alcoholism

And so on and on the list goes. There are of course many dangers in creating excuses for sin. The greatest danger, as I perceive it, is the failure to offer any real solutions, a lack of hope. For example, when a drunkard is told he has a disease and will always have this disease, there is no hope. Sure, he is relieved from responsibilty, he is released from the consequences of his actions, and is given a formula to attempt to control the disease. But in reality, he is left with no hope.

When we call rebellious action what God calls it - sin - there is a solution, there is hope! Jesus came to "save his people from their sins" (Matt 1.21). "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners" (1 Tim 1.15). There is an answer for sin. It is repentance and faith in Lord Jesus Christ. When we simply seek to mask the evidence and reality of sin, we are blocking God's call of repentance to the individual. When we tell a homosexual struggling with the guilt and shame of his sin that his lifestyle is a result of an innate sexual orientation, we are redirecting his God-given sense of guilt and shame away from the path of real hope, namely repentance and forgiveness.

By the definitions provided by the National Institutes of Health and the American Psychological Association, all humankind has a variety of mental disorders. I prefer simple recognize the problem of sin and declare the only true prescription, repentance and faith in the Lord!

Grace to You!

Further Resources
Articles from the National Association of Nouthetic Counselors
Blame it on the Brain, by Ed Welch

(I anticipate the response to this post will be varied and emotional. Let's try to interact on a rational, biblical level)