A neurotic relationship with God
As I draw to the conclusion of the book I’ve been reading entitled: Mad, Bad or Sad? A Christian approach to antisocial behaviour and mental disorder, this will be the final quote:
Page 200:
To progress in spiritual maturity we must understand our own psychological makeup. As the ancient Greeks used to say, ‘gnowthe se auton’ – ‘know thyself’. It is possible to have a ‘neurotic relationship with God’, to see him as we want to see him, ‘in our own image’ as it were.
I think we have all come across folk who appear to have a distorted relationship – or view – of God, or perhaps even recognised such traits in ourselves. I think this may legitimately be extended to perceptions of the Biblical text.
It comes as no surprise to me personally that those who have had a troubled relationship with a human father, may be prone to project this in some form in their relationship with the heavenly Father.
What has intrigued me most whilst reading this book is the concept of the interplay between damaged personalities – or minds – with their faith.
An interesting example of this would be the Borderline Personality. This disorder is characterised by an ever changing distortion in self-image and identity. If we flawed humans have a tendency to view God in our own image, then imagine how unstable and variant the Borderline Personality’s perception of God would be.
Black and white thinking is also a characteristic of this disorder and it would not be difficult to see this working itself out in Biblical interpretation.
Intense – real or imagined – abandonment fears are also prevalent and the psychiatric world would look to the sufferer’s interpersonal relationships for verification. However, when a sufferer is a Christian, this could equally play out in their relationship with God.
Impulsiveness, coupled with a tendency to self-damaging behaviours, has obvious implications in the realm of Christian self-control.
I could easily go on, but will stop there.
It seems obvious to me now that damaged personalities and minds could potentially permeate a persons faith, leading to a distorted or damaged faith. I’d always recognised the potential impact on faith of an illness such as the Bipolar Disorder, and the propensity for periods of religious mania or apathy.
Those of us with a keen faith plainly understand that our faith is not a ‘bolt on’ or additional aspect of ourselves, but does in fact constitute the very core of our being, permeating all aspects of us. In view of this, the interplay between personality traits and faith seems self-evident to me now.
I have a swathe of books ordered around this subject and may well blog further as I explore this.
Tags: Christian Life
February 27th, 2011 at 3:03 pm
Hi! I’m glad to have stumbled upon your blog. I think that the great thing about God is that he is all-powerful and can overcome anything, including the “flesh,” which is what I would call these obstacles. As we see in Romans 7, however, one can be battling with the flesh on and off for a long, long time—but that doesn’t mean that God can’t rescue.
It also deserves noting that psychologists agree that there are only 2 disorders that we have found evidence that they are genetic. They are schizophrenia and bipolar II disorder.
The book sounds interesting—I will put it on my list! I am a Christian psychology major and future counselor who is also seeking answers to these questions. You can visit my blog: http://toe-thumbs.blogspot.com/
February 27th, 2011 at 7:46 pm
Not being horrible or raging, should listen to the prospective of the patients. I can talk as a patient with schizophrenic type disorder and come from a difficult childhood background. There are still many other factors that could help to cause schizophrenic problems than purely genetics.
One thing is clear that I know allot of other patients that believe in God and attend church, even if their thinking is distorted, no fault of their own, to me having faith is better than having no faith at all, because of illness, for me and others find comfort in the bible?
Myself found wandering in and out of church for last 14 years, but one day found the Gospel through a friend and committed myself to understanding the bible, by large part doing this understood my heavenly father what is expected with my relationship with God, so cancelling out what learned any bad relationships.
Wednesday will become baptised by immersion and come part of a fellowship with my brothers and sisters in Christ, which finally died in Christ. That very clear from getting involved with a fellowship that we are all sinners, we forgive each other for our own failings and sins, than saying you are doing it wrong all the time not forgiving even if some one struggling to understand the their own difficulties, even if behavioral and a clinical diagnosis and the labeling can be self defeating for the patients life.
PS big fan of your blog. Rich
February 27th, 2011 at 7:52 pm
Thank you so much for that comment Rich, I found that personally uplifting.
I’m so excited to hear of you upcoming baptism.
Praise God!
February 27th, 2011 at 9:28 pm
Thanks ;o)
I think you can go a long way of healing yourself by trusting in God and making an effort to understand God word and share in fellowship, but for me not a cure.
Some of these labels are so serous the patient basically gives up the will to live or function, as so unhelpful in recovery, stigmatising by society, no rights of independence, speech in law. It is common down side to mental health diagnosis when comes to personality disorder and psychosis.
Looking forward to my Baptism, was a change in my life when found the Gospel, I think the bigger change going to happen when buried into the water.
God Bless
February 28th, 2011 at 3:48 pm
Congrats, Rich!
God bless.