Paul's Passing Thoughts

It’s hard for me. That is, keeping trending spiritual matters on the back burner while I am in RN school. From time to time, I am asked to comment on the incredibly stupid things said by the likes of John MacArthur and John Piper when they are trending. Now that I am a nurse (LPN), it is especially true considering MacArthur’s recent comments about mental health. I am hesitant to comment because their overall silliness is a distraction from the fact that these guys don’t even know what the gospel is. As a nurse, I am taught to address the most urgent first. And sadly, even though John Piper routinely states that “Christians” still need to be saved, the statement I just wrote is somehow outrageous to many people. Lack of societal critical thinking much?

Recently, MacArthur restated a longtime mantra in the biblical counseling movement that there is no such thing as mental illness. His statement is trending because many newcomers to church are unaware of the contemporary history of the Neo-Calvinist movement that has completely taken over the American church. By the way, that true history is pretty scandalous. Perhaps it is time to revisit that true history at TANC 2024. Do you realize that we are still contacted by many Churchians who want information on what the New Calvinist movement is?

As someone who was heavily involved in the genesis of the biblical counseling movement, and now has the perspective of a nurse, this trending item is overly tempting to address over school priorities, so, here I go. Yesterday, A comment by a reader of our blog kind of pushed me over the edge on this, so you can thank him as well.

First, I must credit myself with something. I’m fairly good at not commenting on things where I have limited knowledge. I fancy myself as someone that is fairly good at staying in their lane. No doubt, the father of the biblical counseling movement, Jay Adams, brought some very important facts about counseling to light. However, I always stopped short of Adams’ contention that mental illness is a lie. In addition, please know that Adams’ very successful counseling construct was at odds with Protestant orthodoxy, a contradiction he was comfortable with. Another fun fact follows: Adams’ hugely successful construct was developed by principles he learned from a secular psychologist, which led to a huge revival in the church. In other words, there is no huge dichotomy between how the world works and spiritual matters. I witnessed this revival firsthand in the early 90s. By the way, to the degree that you want to know details about the biblical counseling movement and the Neo-Calvinist movement, you can find information at tanc.online. There is also a free library link on that site.

So, is mental illness a lie? Can someone be ill regarding mental status in the same way that someone is physiologically ill? Yes, absolutely. In nursing, best practice is always a present reality because healthcare knowledge is mutable due to ongoing research. Nurses, especially RNs, are expected to be in perpetual research mode. The Neo-Calvinist biblical counseling clowns have been calling mental illness a lie since the 90s when Biopsychology and knowledge of the Limbic system were very limited. In other words, feelings, emotions, and mental status have a physiological source; the Limbic system of organs. I want to parenthesize something here: I want to exempt Jay Adams from my “clown” reference because I respected him greatly and always will. I believe Adams’ strong rhetoric at the time was necessary to make important points because church people are intrinsically unable to think for themselves. And, if you knew Jay, and I did, you know that he wasn’t arrogant and was very open-minded. He invited a nobody into his home and listened to me thoughtfully for hours. Can your Calvinist do that?

I am not going to write a term paper on this today, but suffice to say that many physiological system disorders have psychological side effects. A heart defect can cause excess troponin levels, which in turn can trigger anxiety and an overall feeling of dread. This is one example among myriads. Very necessary medications that control system disorders can cause depression. So, yes, there is a direct connection between physical wellbeing and mental/emotional wellbeing. Many system disorders (physiological) can cause hallucinations (mental), for example. To make a strong dichotomy between the physical, mental, and even spiritual is plainly ignorant. And it works both ways; traumatic experiences that affect the sympathetic and para-sympathetic systems can begin with mental perception and have a profound impact on other physiological systems. For this reason, I reject what MacArthur stated concerning PTSD.

In regard to prescribing Adderall for adolescent behavior issues, this is not considered best practice among nurses. Adderall has nasty side effects, and in most cases, the benefit does not outweigh the risk. Doctors who consider the big picture before prescribing Adderall to a child are not hard to find.

This paragraph will address dementia, and some forms of Parkinson’s disease. These system disorders can be linked to severe mental and emotional behavioral disorders. Anti-anxiety, anti-depressants, and anti-psychotic medications are only part of the overall nursing care plan. There are many interventions other than medications, but medications are a vital and necessary part of the care plan. These medications have replaced cages, straitjackets, bed restraints, lobotomies and other medieval healthcare practices of the past and given opportunity for many other long-term interventions.  Without these medications, caring for dementia patients at home would be impossible. About 20 years ago, many states closed their mental health facilities and consequently, most of those people ended up in long-term care. The aforementioned medications have made that doable as a PART OF THE OVERALL CARE PLAN. MacArthur’s assertion that these drugs are used from the same standpoint of aspirin to cure a headache (an accusation that healthcare completely conflates the physical with the mental) is misinformed and spoken from the standpoint of complete ignorance.

As a nurse, even if I agreed with MacArthur that there is no such thing as mental illness, it would be more than fun to pay his biblical counselors to come and help me on a behavioral unit. I would love to take some patients off all of their meds and watch so-called biblical counselors treat these people with Martin Luther’s Theology of the Cross doctrine, which is what the biblical counseling movement is based on. However, this is not a challenge that the biblical counseling movement would take me up on because an investigation will reveal that the movement is confined to certain zip codes defined by upper-medium income and a narrow segment of society. Nurses deal with the full spectrum of society and are not able to select realities that fit their ideology. Oh, and by the way, calmness from an ideology that views life as worthless and blames God for everything is not proof of a successful counseling construct.

Hence, MacArthur needs to stick with what he does best: propagating a false gospel at pricy venues like Palm Springs and Alaskan cruises. Furthermore, MacArthur’s heroes like Martin Luther and the Puritans could have used some contemporary medications to help them with their well-documented depression and anxiety. And, a little bit of Haldol could have saved a lot of Quakers and accused witches from being hung, drowned, and burned.

John MacArthur et al need to stay in their lane.

paul

Dear Churchgoer,

If you listen critically, otherwise known as the lost art of critical thinking, and carefully to everything that is preached on Sunday morning, and then ponder all of the logical conclusions thereof, you will find that sermons bring up far more questions than they answer. Hence, this is why churchgoers live in the religious realm by pithy truisms and rarely know why they do anything.