Speaking recently at a church conference, popular author and pastor-teacher John MacArthur told attendees that mental illness doesn’t exist. He also implied that children who take medications due to mental health diagnoses are turned into “a potential drug addict” or “potential criminal.”
“The major noble lie is that there’s such a thing as mental illness,” said MacArthur during a Q&A session at a conference on April 20 at Grace Church of the Valley in Kingsburg, California. “Now this isn’t new. You have Thomas Szasz back in the 1950s, who was a psychiatrist, writing a book on ‘The Myth of Mental Illness.’” (Szasz’s book was first publicado in 1961.)
MacArthur continued: “There’s no such thing as PTSD. There’s no such thing as OCD. There’s no such thing as ADHD. Those are noble lies to basically give the excuse, in the end of the day, to medicate people. And Big Pharma is in charge of a lot of that.”
MacArthur’s comments came after Grace Church of the Valley Pastor Scott Ardavanis asked MacArthur why he wrote “The War on Children.”
“The War on Children” was originally slated to be published by Thomas Nelson. However, after El Informe Roys (TRR) published exposés, revealing that MacArthur failed to protect child abuse victims, y excommunicated a mother for refusing to allow her abusive husband back into her home, that agreement apparently fell through. Other Christian publishers also refused the book, so in March, MacArthur self-published the book through his ministry.
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The 84-year-old pastor spoke briefly about the “sin nature” of children and how the entertainment industry has “targeted children.” Then he referenced a book, “A Profession Without Reason” by Bruce Levine. “It’s a book that shows basically – this is pretty shocking to some of you – that psychology and psychiatry are finally admitting the noble lies that they’ve been telling for the last hundred years.”
MacArthur, whose honorary doctorate is in theology, discussed post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, which public health officials informe is more common in military veterans than the general population.
“Take PTSD, for example,” said MacArthur. “What that really is, is grief. You are fighting a war. You lost your buddies. You have a certain amount of survival guilt because you made it back (and) they didn’t. How do you deal with grief? Grief is a real thing. But grief is part of life.”
En un comunicado a TRR, clinical psychologist Philip Monroe, challenged MacArthur’s statements.
“This is an old argument that says since you cannot see PTSD on a slide, then it doesn’t exist,” Monroe stated. “And yet he wants to call PTSD grief. Well, show me grief on a slide? You can’t. In both cases, you can show clusters of symptoms.”
MacArthur added: “If you can’t navigate grief, you can’t live life. But if you clinically define that you can give them a pill, a series of medications, and they end up in L.A., homeless on the sidewalk.”
Dr. Monroe countered these assertions. “(MacArthur) suggests the only reason to get the diagnosis is to take a medication,” Monroe told TRR. “Yes, sometimes a medication can help. But the vast majority of people with these diagnoses do not take medications in great amounts.”
‘Alarming’ advice to parents, says psychologist
MacArthur circled back to children, the subject of his book. He said:
“The most deadly thing that’s been unleashed on children (is) medication. We’re trying to make clear to parents that behavior is essentially the result of choices that kids make. And if you parent them properly, they’ll make right choices.
But if you blame it on some something other than their choices, and you identify them as having something they can’t do anything about but medicate it – you literally are turning your child into a potential well, not only a potential drug addict, but maybe a potential criminal because they never learned how to navigate life in a socially acceptable way.”
After watching MacArthur’s remarks, Dr. Monroe called the pastor’s analysis “alarming.”
“It’s nearly criminal that he says children taking meds turns them into criminals or drug addicts,” said Monroe. “Surely, he can back that up with evidence, right? Or that taking meds makes you homeless. The lack of logic and statistics is alarming.”
X user Shaun Jones fijado that MacArthur’s parenting perspective most concerned him. In the same clip that included MacArthur’s statement about mental illness, he also claimed, “If you parent (children) properly they’ll make right choices.”
Jones likened MacArthur’s claim to the prosperity gospel. “Obviously parents should strive to train their children well, but this guarantee of ‘do A+B to get C’ is bs.”
Como reported earlier by TRR, MacArthur has disqualified elders from ministry due to wayward children.
Yet, last year, when MacArthur’s son, Mark MacArthur, was charged with estafar a los clientes in a $16 million investment scheme and agreed to pay more than $367,000 to the SEC, MacArthur did not disqualify himself.
‘Zero understanding’
Christian leaders and authors have widely condemned John MacArthur’s remarks.
Reformed pastor Steve Camp al corriente on X, “I love my brother John MacArthur . . . but his conclusions here are stunningly unwise, misinformed and lacking biblical footing.”
Alan Noble, a Christian author and professor at Oklahoma Baptist University, fijado: “This is a denial of reality, dangerous, arrogant, and destructive. And shameful. Christians who believe in Truth shouldn’t be spreading falsehood.”
This is a denial of reality, dangerous, arrogant, and destructive. And shameful. Christians who believe in Truth shouldn’t be spreading falsehood.
— 𝐎. 𝐀𝐥𝐚𝐧 𝐍𝐨𝐛𝐥𝐞 (@TheAlanNoble) May 1, 2024
Abby Johnson, a pro-life conservative activist who famously left her past role at Planned Parenthood, habló from her experience recently earning a doctorate. “John MacArthur just publicly proclaimed that he has zero understanding of PTSD or any other mental health disorder.”
She added: “I have my doctorate in Christian counseling and anyone reading this who is struggling, this is NOT truth. This is NOT what Jesus wants for you. He wants health and wholeness for your mind, body and spirit. That often includes therapy and sometimes medication. And that’s OKAY . . . Seeking help is the courageous thing to do.”
Best-selling author Beth Moore referenciado “aging” in replying to a video clip shared online.
“I’ve had several very serious conversations with my daughters and my board concerning my public voice in my aging when filters naturally thin and we’re at greater risk of saying more than we should,” she said. “Please love and respect him enough to sift what should and shouldn’t be publicized.”
She noted her family’s experience with these issues: “There is simply no way he could know, for example, what my husband has endured over being in a fire with his brother when he was a toddler and watching him burn and not acknowledge the reality of PTSD.”
MacArthur associate defends MacArthur
However, Phil Johnson, executive director of MacArthur’s Grace To You Ministries and an elder at MacArthur’s Grace Community Church, defended his boss.
“John MacArthur has a long, Long, LONG history of ultimately being vindicated when he has taken positions contrary to the popular narrative,” said Johnson.
He continued: “MacArthur’s positition (sic) is NOT that angst, mental distress, confusion, grief, etc. don’t exist, but that it is not helping anything by acronym-labeling these as ‘illnesses’ and pretending they are curable by drugs or psychotherapy.”
Johnson concluded: “MacArthur doesn’t hold this view alone or without reason. JM’s opinion is not materially different from the view psychiatrist Thomas Szasz laid out in detail in his 60-year-old classic, ‘The Myth of Mental Illness.’”
Several replies called out Johnson’s defense as inadequate.
Mark West, a minister in Batesville, Arkansas, dijo: “As a Christian, SBC pastor who also serves the Mental Health community I can say factually that this teaching is neither Scriptural nor helpful to the body.”
“It’s the equivalent of an eye saying it doesn’t need hands. It’s ill-informed and divisive.”
Pattern of harming the vulnerable
In the early 1980s, GCC fue demandado by the parents of someone who committed suicide after receiving biblical counseling at GCC. The case was eventually dismissed. But at the time, GCC leaders dijo the church would change its counseling training programs.
Yet, just last year, the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC) removed a pastor at MacArthur’s Grace Community Church (GCC) as an approved ACBC counselor.
The pastor, Bill Shannon, oversees the biblical counseling ministry at GCC. And the move by ACBC came after numerous victims of abuse dijo GCC had a dangerous pattern of protecting abusers and harming victims.
It also came after TRR reported that MacArthur had publicly excommunicated a former member, Eileen Gray, for refusing to take back her child-abusing husband, David Gray.
A follow-up story by TRR revelado that even after David Gray was convicted in 2005 of sexually molesting his children, MacArthur and GCC continued to shun Eileen and support David.
TRR also published an exclusive story about Paul Guay, a former pastor at GCC. According to an eyewitness, Guay confessed to MacArthur in 1979 that he had molested his daughter, Wendy Guay. Yet MacArthur retained Paul Guay at GCC, calling him “a faithful part of our staff” in a letter obtained by TRR.
Decades later, Wendy Guay wrote to MacArthur, pleading with him to help her expose her father, who was still pastoring, as a serial pedophile. MacArthur refused and replied in an email, “I’m not sure why all this has become an obsession for you after so many years.”
MacArthur has not responded to repeated requests for comment by TRR about his handling of the Paul Guay or David Gray cases.
In addition, MacArthur’s The Master’s University and Seminary (TMUS) has videos posted on its YouTube channel in which John Street, chair of the graduate program of biblical counseling at TMUS, teaches that a spouse should endure abuse like a missionary endures persecution.
“The abused victim is the key player in reaching and changing the abuser,” said Street in the lecture.
This article has been corrected to clarify that MacArthur has an honorary doctorate.
Josh Shepherd is a reporter and production editor. Julie Roys is the founder and editor of The Roys Report.
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89 Respuestas
Are we surprised? Of course JMac and those around him don’t believe in PTSD and other mental illnesses. They have no problem ignoring or explaining away the suffering of others. It is a well-practiced strategy. Eileen Gray and Jane Doe of Masters College (http://www.marcipreheim.com/2017/09/18/do-you-see-me/), already told us how this system works. Hohn Cho figured it out eventually too.
JMac has created a system that reveres him as the single leading voice. That ridicules and dismisses outside knowledge. That uses fear tactics to persuade (“if you give your kid medication for ADHD they’ll become an addict and a criminal!”). That uses threats of discipline, excommunication, and God’s wrath to silence people. There is a name for a system like this and it’s not “church.”
Did I read that correctly? He’s quoting a psychiatrist – who studies, diagnoses, and treats mental illness – to prove there is no such thing as mental illness?
Anyway, he’s always intimated that psychology- which is the study of the human mind and its functions- is quackery.
Big pharma is to blame? Pharmaceuticals were created for good but obviously can be misused, like every other good thing. “We” demand relief over some suffering. Does everybody on Ozempic need it to successfully lose weight? No! For some, it is an easy fix. However, it was developed as a gift from God, for those who truly need it.
I agree with John MacArthur that “the Bible is Sufficient.”
I disagree with him that “a preacher is sufficient” to speak as an authority on all things.
They give “honorary” doctorate degrees to people like him. Medical degrees are earned through years of actual and arduous study.
IDK. Listening to a preacher over a medical doctor, might be a sign of mental illness?
Debra, I agree with your conclusions, but even in that, I think you’re giving JM too much credit.
First, JM references the only book he can find that was written in the last 60 years. The reason he can’t reference anything more recent is that the most significant scientific and medical advancements in psychology and psychiatric care have only come after that book was written. That conclusions of that book have been completely refuted. Further, if the author of that book had been privy to the information that came out after that book, I doubt he would have written that book.
What John MacArthur is doing here is equivalent to claiming there is no link between smoking and cancer siting material from the 1940’s while completely ignoring everything we have learned since then.
Second, the claim the “Bible is sufficient” is another manipulative tactic used by preachers to bring the Bible along as their accomplice in spreading nonsense. I think you picked up on that, nut I want to add to it.
No one believes the Bible is sufficient in all things, not even JM. He doesn’t believe that the Bible is sufficient in learning how to ride a bike, cook a brisket, fix a car, or treat diabetes. It’s not sufficient for treating physical illness, like mental illness. If the Bible is sufficient, we must look to it alone to find the claims it makes about itself. What does the Bible actually say it’s sufficient for? 2 Tim 3:16-17 says it’s sufficient for “teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God[a] may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
No where does it say it’s sufficient for treating mental illness.
I believe that our world is in desperate need of Christ! I also believe that the medical industry has done some harm to those with mental illness or assumed mental illness. Medical protocol is used to treat the symptom many times and not diagnose the problem by prescribing the same medication to those with mental illness. I also believe there is some truth with what John McArthur is trying to convey. BIG Pharma has profited from the poor, desperate, and sick and used medication as an easy alternative. Do we need medicine? Yes. But we need Christ more!
“We’re trying to make clear to parents that behavior is essentially the result of choices that kids make. And if you parent them properly, they’ll make right choices.”
What if the child is not one of the elect, but reprobated by God and never given irresistible saving grace, which is what is needed, according to JMac’s Calvinist soteriology, to come to faith in Christ and receive salvation?
Is the reason that one of John Piper’s sons has abandoned the faith due to Piper and his wife not parenting correctly?
How hypocritical of JMc. “If you train a child properly, he will make the right choices.” I guess his fraudulent son wasn’t trained well…….or could it be the son has agency to choose? Or what if his son has an undiagnosed mental illness? JMc would clearly deny such a thing as personality disorders as in Narcissism, Borderline, or Sociopathic disorders. Don’t treat depression? Bipolar Disorder, schizophrenia? How unbelievably ignorant and dangerous.
In his theological system, his fraudulent son isn’t among “the elect”. And moreover, was decreed by God to cheat people. Yet he will be eternally punished for God’s decree.
Does anyone else wonder about the name of his ministry being “Grace to You”? He’s always seemed so lacking in it. Can anyone confirm that his “Dr.” title is honorary? So many religious leaders illegitimately take this title. I wish there was more push-back on title-taking because some people will view leaders as more credible with the word “Dr.” in front of their name — unfortunately to their harm. I can see some with narrow worlds taking JM’s views on psychological matters as gospel.
MacArthur graduated in 1963 from the new Talbot Theological Seminary at Biola in Los Angeles with an MDiv. He was granted an honorary Doctor of Divinity from Talbot in 1977.
Classic malignant narcissist. the expert on everything & on a mission to convince the world of his superiority.
No, Beth Moore. Just no to your comment on self-control “thinning” with age. It doesn’t “thin” like hair
. Many, many people mellow & gain wisdom & understanding as they age. Not everyone feels the need to castigate & correct, well, everyone else in their sphere of influence, especi. Many listen more they speak. Many gain humility. Many repent of the errors they made. Macarthur does not demonstrate love. Despite other talents he may have, he is nothing.
I Cor l3:I If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
Beth Moore means dementia. When people are developing dementia, their verbal filters tend to fade. They will say whatever is on their mind, for good or ill. His handlers might need to keep him away from the microphones if he keeps saying crazy things.
So he is going full on Pat Robertson then. The mask and veneer of civility, decency, and piety comes off, exposing the REAL person underneath. A Rabbi from Nazareth said something about what the mouth speaks reveals what the heart is full of. The dementia forces the mask to drop (as they are no longer capable of holding it up).
What next? Will he say that there is no such thing as cancer or diabetes? Mental illness can be over diagnosed a times but that does not mean that it doesn’t exist.
I recently read David Powlison’s chapter in “Psychology and Christianity: Five Views”. Powlison is a descendant of Jay Adams’ nouthetic counseling and slightly more accommodating to psychology than Adams and MacArthur. Slightly. It’s a fascinating read. This strain of Adams-style Biblical counseling interprets the Bible to be something like a panacea. It’s not their interpretation of certain Bible passages, though that’s part of it; rather, it’s their interpretation of what the Bible IS. To them, it is almost like a book of magical spells that cure every type of mental and emotional malady.
What is difficult to wrap my mind around is that the truth contained in Scripture DOES bring comfort to people, and yet it is not ritualistic or incantational. But many Biblical counselors truly treat it in this way though I doubt they would ever admit it. I think it is almost like a prosperity gospel that substitutes mental and emotional health for wealth.
I see MacArthur as someone like a magician with a secret book of magic spells. If you follow the advice he gets from the book, and do and say what he tells you, it will rain on the crops.
I think the actual message of the gospel as understood by the original writers and readers leaves open a great deal more complexity and room for the effects of sin in the world and the possibility of inquiry into the world that leads to solutions to problems that may not be recited from the pages of Scripture.
Thank you for your interesting thoughts.
Let me add to your thoughts. First I like your link between the prosperity gospel and JM. That is exactly what he does, but he goes further. He confuses his own ideas with the written word of scripture. He literally can’t tell the difference between the Biblical verses and his own commentary as found in the JM study Bible. Listen to any sermon he preaches, he intertwines his own ideas with Holy Scripture elevating his exigences to authoritative and inerrancy that he claims to reserve for God alone.
Second, you are correct, scripture is there for comfort through mental health challenges, not to cure, treat, or eliminate those challenges. Yet, unlike other physical illnesses, JM and his like want to use the Bible (just as you say) as a magic book of spells. This is where your link to the prosperity gospel crowd is spot on.
This pastor is exhibiting medical ignorance in its purest form. Many times the symptoms of PTSD, Depression, and more appear years AFTER the traumatic personal experience has happened. If the person expresses suicidal tendencies to another person/family member it is by the Grace of God to save the person and restore them to a whole person.
I agree with the premise that the psychological issues are actually spiritual issues. The problem is society has produced chemicals to treat spiritual conditions. Fine label your symptoms as “OCD or ADHD.” A lot of these issue are exasperated by technology. Technology is the funnel that streams these conditions. Social media has complicated attention spans.
I believe it is grief and not ptsd. Losing my brother, my father, friends in the military and other people I love. Their loss or a painful situation is not the premise for ptsd. Therefore I now need medication to cope. That is a manmade solution to problems that only the Gospel can repair. I’m not denying suffering or pain. . However I’m denying cultural claiming what is the solution. We often forget the cosmos is satanic. Therefore our response must be biblical not chemicals. Are chemicals ordained to treat spiritual conditions?
The reasons for PTSD cover a very wide range, and isn’t only about “grief and loss”.
David – I agree that PTSD covers a very wide range of traumas. PTSD (or probably more correctly labeled C-PTSD) is common among victims of child and intimate partner abuse. Considering JMac’s past behaviors towards these victims, his statement about PTSD is disturbing to say the least.
I don’t understand why some christians believe this premise.
I find no support in the Bible for the idea that mental illness (PTSD, schizophrenia, bi polar, OCD, etc) is not a physical illness (like blindness, epilepsy, or diabetes). Science clearly has shown mental illness is a physical illness of the brain.
Notice how John MacArthur doesn’t reference any scripture to support his “ideas”.
Without Biblical or scientific support, what foundation is there for Christians to stand by this premise? I am curious.
You are correct. When fMRI and rs-fMRI reveal physical changes in the brain of people with various psychological disorders, it is physical illness. Likewise, advances in neuroscience, brain biochemistry, and pharmacodynamics in the past 50 years, shows that MacArthur and his mini-me Phil Johnson’s use of a 60 year old book is a pitiful attempt at hand-waving.
The reason MacArthur doesn’t reference any scripture, is because he has none to support his ideas. It is a badly misinformed and outdated opinion by an increasingly dementia-addled (which can also be mapped by fMRI) pastor who should have retired long ago (or never took the pulpit in the first place).
So bizarre.
The brain is an organ. As with all our organs here between Eden and New Earth, it does not fire nor operate optimally. Why would it be okay to take medication to help a heart but not a brain?
This is well stated, and I thank you.
Under-educated people seem to think that the brain is the same as the mind. They also fail to know that the physical organ called “the brain” can be injured by trauma. But then again, I wonder if he realizes there is such a thing as trauma.
I think he suffers from UIS (Unacknowledged Ignorance Syndrome).
Also – we see Costi Hinn sitting there next to him. He only nodded his head during part of the video, but I guess he doesn’t mind associating with John Mc.
Sorry, but respectfully, it’s not about being “under-educated” as much as it is what source is doing the educating? If the source is corrupted, then the education transferred by said source will be corrupted to that same degree.
Peter Breggin and his wife are very educated in the field of psychology, but hsve been exposing the con and corruption for decades.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NMWX6a5gF_w
Andrew Kaufman is another highly trained in the field of forensic psychology, but is exposing the chemical corruption both in causality and in treatment of said mental illness.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/EwSc1r507c0n/
Just to to be clear, neither of the videos you presented suggest the Drs referenced support JM’s claim that there is no such thing as PTSD, or mental illness. They appear to be taking issue with different aspects of pharmacology treatment.
Is there anyone who says pharmacology medication for mental illness is without side effects, varying degrees of efficacy, or other issues? If so, I haven’t heard that.
Lastly, the same criticisms have been raised by Drs about cancer treatments and rheumatological (auto immune) treatments, just to name a few. If this is your standard, then neither cancer nor rheumatoid arthritis can exist either, along with many other diagnosis.
In reality this is nothing more than a logical fallacy, non sequitur, the data (medication side effects) doesn’t support the conclusions (no such thing as the conditions they are created to treat).
Correct. ALL medications have side effects, even simple analgesics like aspirin and ibuprofen or antacids like Tums or cough drops with menthol as the active ingredient. The only question is whether not the side effects are severe enough to warrant not taking the medication.
Second, that book MacArthur and his mini-me pit-chihuahua Phil Johnson reference was written over 60 years ago. We have learned much more in the fields of neuroscience, brain chemistry, pharmcodynamics, etc. since then. When MRI, fMRI, and rs-MRI reveal structural changes in the brain indicative of neurological and psychological disorders as bipolar syndrome, that tends to destroy their arguments.
Honestly, their attitude towards psychology is no different than that L. Ron Hubbard’s cult of Scientology.
This is what you get when you decide that you can interpret the Holy Scriptures on your own, from the point of view of a post-modern, Western individual. Even if he denies postmodernism, it’s the water we all swim in, like fish. We have to interpret the Scriptures from the framework of, and hints we have from those members of the early Church who left a record (or successors) of what they preached and taught.
Nothing surprising to me in this news. For MacArthur and his followers, his position on this is not a bug but a feature. He’s deeply involved in the biblical counseling movement, and one of its basic premises is that psychology is all bunk and all mental problems are the result of sin in some way and the only therapy needed is the Bible and its teachings, etc.
All he is doing here is saying the normally somewhat quiet part out loud.
It’s incredibly harmful, as others have pointed out. There will be people who don’t get proper treatment because they are listening to him.
He may be getting old and the social filters may be dropping away, but he has never had many of those to begin with. Also, he runs a fairly authoritarian organization. I would even say it has some of the marks of a cult of personality. So his handlers are not going to be able to rein him in on this. I expect we’ll hear more stuff like this from him in the future.
We can quote scripture untill we are blue in the face about, many subjects like these, first Christ himself set up a distinction betweeen when to see a Doctor or a pastor, when Jesus was talkingt o sinners, he was accused of joining into their sin but he just said ” the sick need a doctor, not thoes who are well” I am sure that would follow in the mental aspect also. Luke told Paul what Timothy to do to ease up his stomach ailments, did he heal him as a pastor? no! he was told to drink more wine, which has in itself antibiotic substances that counteract stagnet water issues, it was a Doctors orders so to speak. so you see here Paul turned to the advice of a physician. And in the mental aspect many Christia Doctors study the human Brain and mental issues. Now Johhnymac says its greif, true , but to what extent, If its driving the person to threaten his family members, which is way out side of his normal actions, then medication needs to be given to level the person out untill, some other kind of diagnoses it found.
Enabler-in-chief Phil Johnson proves himself to be as ignorant as MacArthur about this, which is of course to be expected from someone like Johnson with his decades-long history of spiritual abuse, lying, and other ungodly behavior in covering for his boss with the same attributes.
Does anyone else wonder why neither JM or Johnson reference Holy Scripture to support their claims and their theology on mental illness? Why don’t they reference verses that tell us mental illness isn’t real? Why don’t they reference verses that tell us mental illness isn’t a physical disease?
How can one claim the “Bible is Sufficient” yet never once reference the Bible to support a theological belief? Why does it seem that he relies entirely on fringe dr’s and scientists, and not the Bible to support his claim? Isn’t he one to say that we shouldn’t let science dictate our theology on the creation? Why isn’t it the same for mental illness?
https://www.amazon.com/Grace-Afflicted-Clinical-Biblical-Perspective/dp/0830845070
Mr MacArthur – tell that face to face to any veteran who has nightly nightmares about the horrors of war or what they saw on the battlefield, then ask yourself is PTSD real? You also lambast wives who leave their abusive husbands. I used to support you, now I brush the dirt off my sandals as I leave your house…
How many women and children have PTSD as a direct result of John MacArthur’s horrible response to child and intimate partner abuse? How convenient of him to deny a mental condition that he is causing.
Psychology is not a science and cannot make trusted medical observations. It cannot make verifiable, repeatable, controlled experiments on humans, who are vastly more complicated than we know. And it completely ignores how the soul can have physiological impacts on a person’s body. Anyone who has been helped by psychology, it was despite the system not because of it. All you need to do is look at recent studies showing that meditation or placebo-effect are just as effective as drugs to back this up. The best doctors or counselors will use fact-based medical observations with the total soul care the Bible offers to truly help people.
All, first, please note JC Ryle offers no scientific evidence or biblical verses that support his claims.
Second, regarding the “soul” and medical care, no discipline of medicine considers treating the “soul” or anything spiritual, psychology/psychiatry is not unique in that they are focused entirely on physical condition/illnesses. Further, the Bible offers NO support for the idea that mental illness is not a physical illness. That is why he didn’t include any verses, there aren’t any.
Third, Psychology/Psychiatry ARE science and DO make trusted medical observations. They DO make verifiable, repeatable, controlled experiments on humans. For example, Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) has hundreds of studies, peer reviewed research, that show repeatable controlled experiment on humans. These experiments have demonstrated that CBT is effective for several disorders/conditions and that the efficacy is statistically significant. Note that this is just one of hundreds of studies, and CBT is just one of many therapies that show benefits that are verifiable, repeatable, controlled experiments on humans. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3584580/
In addition, to further support the connection between a psychology/psychiatry diagnosis and a physical illness, we can look to PET scans. The following link illustrates the physical nature of PTSD as compared with the normal brain. With a quick google search, anyone can find examples of PET scans showing other mental illness diagnosis as compared to normal brain activity. https://news.yale.edu/2017/07/17/new-ptsd-study-identifies-potential-path-treatment
I don’t believe these PET scans are showing the “condition of the human soul,” but I do believe that they show evidence of physical ailments that psychology/psychiatry are working to treat.
Simply put, J. C. Ryle’s claims are unsubstantiated, lacking both biblical and scientific evidence.
Former Grace church elder/pastor Hohn Cho investigated, validated the Eileen Gray wife and child abuse case eventually pleading with Jmac to set things right. When Jmac told Hohn to “forget about it”, he just summarized his entire theology in three words. A modern pharisee who is self righteous, self indulging and self preserving whose theology is quickly to be forgotten when he needs to give an account. A false teacher not because of a false theology but because of a false life.
In my personal opinion, John had completely lost his spiritual leadership when he pronounced Eileen a non-believer and excommunicated her, he has no moral ascendancy after continuing to cuddle and support a wife and child abuser who is serving life in prison and certainly not the medical expertise to speak on the subject of PTSD, OCD, ADHD.
Hi Phil, “given time, truth reveals itself”..John’s words. After twenty years, What John did to Eileen Gray is now known to the world. Yes, twenty long long long years later have ultimately vindicated Eileen and exposed the hypocrisy and lies amongst the pastors/elders at GCC.
Churches should be aware of their pastors who belong to the cult of Jmac, because of his teaching on women and to cover up scandals such as seminary/campus rape and protect pastors who are guilty of wife/child abuse. Time to check on your pastors.
Thank you Julie for exposing the false lives of the likes of Ravi and now Jmac, victims can find consolation knowing that their stories can now be told.
Caiaphas MacArthur has ridiculed prosperity preachers for their lifestyle, yet he has 3 mansions himself.
He has condemned those who copy sermons yet he has not credited “ghost writers” of his own books.
He has fabricated stories concerning Martin Luther King Jr., and his own football accomplishments when he was young, yet calls people out who lie.
Seems like he’s always accusing others of things he does.
So….. in light of the fact that his manner of speaking involves little emotion, he is always so calm and matter of fact when he speaks, etc. it has made we wonder for the past few years if he himself is on meds. I’m not saying he’s mentally ill, but there is something that is just not right about his demeanor ( besides the arrogance , smugness and other off-putting traits. )
( Phil Johnson – Any info you can share about this? )