March 5, 2010 by Chaplain Mike
Chaplain Mike reposts this classic iMonk article from June, 2005
UPDATE: I fixed the broken links at the end of post.
I’ve been thinking about the subject of the Christian’s assurance of salvation.
To put my cards on the table, I don’t struggle with assurance of salvation personally at all. I’m far more inclined toward the “wider mercy” view of God’s love than I am toward any apprehensions about whether I am among the elect. My struggles are over entirely different subjects: Does God exist? How can I face death without losing my sanity? Check in with me on those topics and I’ll buy your joe.
I’m interested because I spend a significant amount of time counseling students and adults on the subject of assurance.
February 24, 2010 by Chaplain Mike
A note from Chaplain Mike:
This classic iMonk post from January 2009 brings together a few important issues that Michael has written about over the years, particularly depression, theology, and the search for a church home.
I am going to write rather directly to those of you who feel that you are experiencing some measure of mental anguish, anxiety and depression in regard to theology and, especially, the church.
I have in mind, particularly, those who are tormented about the so-called “Search for the true Church.” I’ll be relating at least some of this to the subject of depression, which has been a major part of the menu here at IM this past week. [Continue reading]
February 17, 2010 by Chaplain Mike
A note from Chaplain Mike:
We will be running some posts from the iMonk archives that deal with the subject of depression. This classic post that Michael Spencer wrote in 2004 tells the intimate story of a father’s depression and a boy who finally understands.
When I was twelve years old, my father bought a small aluminum boat, just enough for two people to use for fishing in the local lakes. He put it in our backyard. It had a tiny motor that sat in our shed. He bought the boat so we could go fishing together, father and son. It was his dream, a father’s dream that I can now relate to as I share ball games and movies with my own son.
The boat never took us fishing. In fact, it never got in the water. It remains there in the back yard, photographed by my memory, waiting for a fishing trip that would never happen. In my tendency to personify objects in my world, I picture that boat as eager and expectant, then confused, and eventually depressed. Its purpose- its joy?- was not to be fulfilled.
January 28, 2010 by iMonk
In our continuing discussion on issues related to the Scriptures, Chaplain Mike re-runs this classic IM post today. (from Dec, 2008)
Hey look! If you read carefully, you will even find another “Bible = loaded gun” metaphor!
Oh. We’re not talking about interpreting the Bible? Well….I am, so deal.
I usually just don’t say anything when I hear Biblical interpretation leave the road and head for the ditches. But doggone it, there’s some fairly basic stuff here that could be very helpful to those of you who genuinely love the Bible.
So in no particular order…
January 23, 2010 by iMonk
Since we’re on the subject of confession, here is a look at the subject from the personal side. Today, Chaplain Mike presents this classic iMonk post that Michael wrote in October, 2008.
Some Christians love to talk about the sins of Obama or gays or the mainstream media, but get really animated when I suggest we need to talk about our own, even if they are listed in the Bible dozens of times.
If the Gospel isn’t grabbing you by the real sins in your real life, just exactly what is the Gospel doing for you? Or you with it?
I don’t like the fact that I can give a really good talk on prayer when I rarely pray.
I don’t like it that I can read Matthew 5:23-24 and, as far as I can recall, never take a single step toward obeying it.
I don’t like that I can sin and then condemn someone else’s sin in almost the same breath.
January 7, 2010 by Chaplain Mike
Today Chaplain Mike asks us to reflect on one of his favorite IM posts of all time, originally posted in 2004, one which leads him to suspect that Michael is, at heart, a son of Luther after all.
The voice on the other end of the phone told a story that has become so familiar to me, I could have almost finished it from the third sentence. A respected and admired Christian leader, carrying the secret burden of depression, had finally broken under the crushing load of holding it all together. As prayer networks in our area begin to make calls and send e-mails, the same questions are asked again and again. “How could this happen? How could someone who spoke so confidently of God, someone whose life gave such evidence of Jesus’ presence, come to the point of a complete breakdown? How can someone who has the answers for everyone one moment, have no answers for themselves the next?”
Indeed. Why are we, after all that confident talk of “new life,” “new creation,” “the power of God,” “healing,” “wisdom,” “miracles,” “the power of prayer,” …why are we so weak? Why do so many “good Christian people,” turn out to be just like everyone else? Divorced. Depressed. Broken. Messed up. Full of pain and secrets. Addicted, needy and phony. I thought we were different. [Continue reading]
December 11, 2009 by Chaplain Mike
Today’s Guest Post is from IM First Officer Michael Bell…
As you know iMonk has been running posts lately on the subject of mental illness and how the Bible views it. Here are some interesting thoughts and reflections from Michael Bell, someone who has experienced forms of mental illness in his own family.
I have been following with interest the posts that Michael Spencer has been making concerning mental illness and demon possession. You see, I have had first hand experience with both, in two very different settings. Here is a look at the first. [Continue reading]
November 29, 2009 by iMonk
I am continuing reposting the 2005 series on Mental Illness.
Is there mental illness in the Bible? This question seeks to move us toward the question of mental illness and the Gospel.
The focus of the Bible is Jesus Christ. When we talk about anything else as it is presented in the Bible, we must be aware that no matter important it might be to us, it is not the main concern of the Bible itself.
For example, I may desperately want to have the Biblical teaching on parenting, but I must start with the admission that the Bible is not a book on parenting. As it shows me parenting, and as I learn from that presentation, I am still on the road to Jesus Christ and the Gospel. So if we find mental illness in the Bible, we should expect that the portrayal of mental illness will not answer all of our questions, but will serve the purpose of the ultimate presentation of Jesus Christ as our salvation. [Continue reading]
November 16, 2009 by iMonk
I am continuing to repost my 2005 series on “The Christian and Mental Illness.” This post, “Is Mental Illness Demonic?” has been edited considerably from the original. This post will deal with some controversial ideas. I am not pretending to have the last word on any Biblical text or any person’s mental illness. My primary point is that we do not have to abandon a compassionate response to mental illness in order to uphold the authority of the Bible.
Is it the Christian view of mental illness to categorize mental illness as the activity of demons and/or the result of sin?
This question really goes past a discussion of mental illness into questions of Biblical interpretation that have increasingly troubled Christians in the past century. The seeds for this controversy were sown as Protestant Christians expounded the doctrine of Sola Scriptura in their confessions. In order to keep Biblically authority sufficiently high to battle liberalism, words and concepts were applied to the Bible that have become more and more troublesome when the Bible interacts with secular ways of seeing the world. These claims for the sufficiency and inerrancy of the Bible inevitably come into conflict with the vocabulary and truth claims of science and medicine. [Continue reading]
November 10, 2009 by iMonk
This is the second in a series I did in November of 2005 on Christians and Mental Illness. Looking back at the comments that this post prompted, it’s apparent that many Christians are deeply suspicious of any model of dealing with problems of mental and emotional health other than using the Bible. This is a more mediating view for those who believe we can benefit from some of the scientific approaches used in contemporary psychiatric treatments. There remain large issues between secular psychology/psychiatry and religion. This is one layperson’s view. I am not a trained therapist of any kind. Talk to your doctor and your pastor if you have questions for yourself.
Because the Bible is authoritative in Christianity, it is often difficult to come to terms with forms of knowledge that ignore the Bible, and especially difficult to deal with systems of knowledge that threaten to transcend or neutralize the Bible. In America, this tension did not fully dawn until the fundamentalist-modernist controversies of the early twentieth century. While Darwin continues to get most of the attention, it is more likely Freud who has created the most perplexing tensions for Christian believers.
Psychology does not appear to be an immediate frontal assault on the Christian view of truth. Many Christians, especially in more moderate communions, have been open to psychology as a way of compassionately understanding human beings. More recently, however, psychology has met with sterner opposition from many evangelicals, who have become aware that the discipline was atheistic, even religiously hostile, from the outset, and that its ways of explaining, understanding and helping human beings have potentially dire consequences for the Christian view of truth. [Continue reading]
November 9, 2009 by iMonk
I did a five part series on this topic in November of 2005. I’m going to rerun those 2005 posts over the next few days.
Several times a week, I have to read folders containing psychological evaluations of prospective students. They are often quite daunting and detailed. The stories range from ordinary to nightmarish and disturbing. I must read and review the psychiatric evaluations and counseling histories of all students who are seeking admission to our school. After reading, I make a recommendation as to their appropriateness for us. In some cases, I do an additional interview, and make an evaluation based on the interview and the information. [Continue reading]
October 25, 2009 by iMonk
My wife’s journey to Catholicism has inspired some fun around here. Here’s a post from August 2008 that generated a hundred comments at the time. Surely worth another go around.
My wife sent me an email this morning.
I keep forgetting to tell you that there’s an obligatory Mass this week (for the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.) St. Ann is celebrating Thursday at 6:00 p.m. and St. William Friday at 6:00 p.m. Assuming we are going to the waterpark Thursday, I’ll go to church Friday.
Now if you don’t know what this is all about, you should stop by Wikipedia and get educated.
For our Roman Catholic friends, here are the Days of Obligation:
* 1 January: Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God
* 6 January: the Epiphany
* 19 March: Solemnity of St. Joseph, Husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary
* Thursday of the sixth week of Easter: the Ascension [Continue reading]
October 20, 2009 by iMonk
I shouldn’t have reposted my post on “I Want My Sermon On The Mount Back.” It was a bad post, and I’m retracting this repost. The original is intact and these comments are here, though closed.
1) I’ve had a brutal week. Good friend in Markey Cancer Center with leukemia. Conflicts at work. Finals. Denise and I traveling on different nights and barely seeing each other. Constant worry about my family.
2) I was leaving for a day at Georgetown College and I wanted to run a repost. I saw the Frame critique and read it twice. I remembered the older Horton/WHI piece and just thought “Similar topic. Post it with an intro.”
3) Several of you contacted me and said the post wasn’t timely. Appeared to be piling on. Even with a brief clarification, you were still right. I’m clearly in Horton’s corner on the issues that Frame is going after. I was just too tired to pay attention to my conscience.
4) I can’t always devote the time to thinking about what I post that I should. 5 classes a day. Real ministry. Trying to have a marriage, get rest and have some kind of inner life. I get a bit rattled. I need an assistant. I keep telling Denise that when I sell a million books…..
5) Dr. Horton: My apologies. It was a hasty and opportunistic post. I’m better than that. I’m sorry.
October 6, 2009 by iMonk
This is most (not all) of an IM essay written during the early years of this web site (2001 I think.) My children were up to their ears in Ham/Hovind videos and I was feeling very alone in my own reading of Genesis. Things are better now, though the seeds of young earth creationism have borne their inevitable fruit. Hopefully, it will encourage some of you to continue thinking about these issues.
The Roots of My Problem
I have been reading creationist materials since high school. I bought The Genesis Flood when I was a very young Christian. I was converted in a fundamentalist church that contained very few college educated members, but they were aware of the challenge posed by the teaching of evolution. Darwin’s theories were skewered and preached against, in traditional fundamentalist fashion, by preachers who had never read Darwin or sat through a college biology course. [Continue reading]
August 30, 2009 by iMonk
Not a piece on atheism, but an honest recounting of doubt and faith in my life. From 2002.
Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!”- Mark 9:24
Let’s start with bugs.
Bugs have always….well…bugged me. They bite me. Wasps hate me. Mosquitoes swarm around me. Gnats head for my ears and eyes like some bad remake of “The Birds.” There are a thousand varieties of bugs that all seem dedicated to devouring me. When I was a kid, my friends called me “bug eyes” because of this curse. Now, I can go for a walk and look up to see a swarm of bugs like a cloud over my head.
Is this right? I mean, even if there is a curse on creation, didn’t mosquitoes always drink blood? Aren’t they designed that way? So why would God make the little bloodsuckers? Why make wasps that sting? Why make me in such a way that bugs want to appropriate my body for their own purposes? Sure, the wonders of biology speak of intelligent design, but wasn’t there some way to do this to the glory of God without eating, stinging and killing me?
It’s one of those thoughts that hit me a few dozen times a day. One of those thoughts that make me wonder if God is real, or if I am a fool to believe that God created and runs this universe of mosquitoes and gnats. [Continue reading]
