Loving the Lord Your God With All Your Mind [matt]

I love reading the stories that emerge from the mess that is the Old Testament. They are not the dolled-up, moralizing, theologically imbued tales you are filled with as a Sunday-school attending adolescent. They are peculiar, offbeat, full of men and women whose actions and faith are almost as off-kilter as their relationships with the strange and moody Yahweh. And one of the strangest of them all is a man named Saul, whose bewildering actions make 1 Samuel an entertaining but perplexing book.

When Saul is first crowned king it is a complex day. The people are getting what they want, yet it is also against the will of God. A problematic beginning to be sure! But it only gets worse. In 16:14, Saul recieves a “black mood” (according to the Message) that can only be soothed with some comforting music from a lyre. Later, in chapter 18, he throws a spear at David twice while prophesying! It goes on to describe his fear of David and his willingness to give his daughter Michal to David as a bride with 100 Philistine foreskins as a trade. He does all of this in a matter of a few verses! He goes on to kill priests, hunt David like a wild animal while disregarding his duties as king, use a medium to contact a dead prophet, and ultimately ends his life in battle. It’s a strange, sad tale.

The story of Saul is tragic. It is frustrating to read about this man’s outlandish behavior and bizarre moods, and realize that they didn’t seem to warrant any extra grace for him. When we move into the New Testament, it is not much more help. A young man throwing himself into the fire is cured of his demons and leaves the narrative. Another who is violent, naked, and choosing to live among the dead is released from a legion of demons and quickly moves back into “normal life.”

These stories do not help. I am not questioning their historical reliability when I say this, but only wish to state that they bring more questions than answers to the table when it comes to mental health and its relationship to faith. Are our only two options when working with somebody with any sort of mental disorder to diagnose them with either demon posession or an evil spirit from the Lord? How do we call somebody to love the Lord their God with all of their mind when we don’t have any real understanding of how their mind works?

I find the beginning of an answer in 1 Samuel 21:10-15. This is where David pretends to be “crazy” to escape the wrath of Achish, king of Gath. Gath’s response is to complain that his men have wasted his time by bringing a crazy person to him, and complete disgust at the fact that this obviously deranged person is even in his home. Saul on the other hand is continually followed, respected, and called into account when he strays from the Lord. He has a role in the community and retains his humanity where other nations obviously would strip him of it. His otherness does not cause the community to alienate him and that is as good of a starting point as we can ask for here. Israel is again set apart from the surrounding nations in the way it humanizes the sick. They do not do this perfectly, but compared to the surrounding nations, perhaps they can still be a light of sorts.

But these answers are only the tip of the iceberg. There are too many questions and this writer has neither the exegitcal skills, mental health awareness, or the guts to go much further with answers. Instead, I have questions. I have written on this subject before, and do so again because it has much to do with my vocation and I continue to realize that the church has done little in the way of seeking real answers that deal with the complex relationship between psychological problems and theological issues. So, without any more ado, here’s my questions:

1. What does spiritual growth look like for somebody with a low IQ? And if you say IQ doesn’t matter when it comes to spiritual growth, then the question is Why do we do most any church thing that is spiritual growth related in a classroom setting (a.k.a., following an educational model)?

2. If a believer commits sins of different kinds (murder, theft, rape, homosexuality, attempted suicide, etc), but it is proven that their mind is warped in such a way that they don’t know any better, how does the church call them into account? Is it still a sin?

3. Is there still a role for things like evil spirits when the church tries to explain mental health issues? If so, how do we decide if somebody is demon possessed and needs to be freed (like the cases in the Gospels and Acts), or has been afflicted by God (like the Pharoah or Saul in the Old Testament)?

4. When people are living with other issues, ranging anywhere from ADHD to bipolar to depression, should these issues effect how we help them along in their transformation as disciples of Jesus?

I ask all of these questions out of nothing but concern. These and many more questions like them pop up every week and this is just a small way for me to hopefully start some sort of helpful conversation. Anwers to any of these questions, or just more questions to add to these, will all be helpful.