Part One

“Mad” and “Madness”

As you read through the King James Version, you will read the related English words “mad” and “madness.”  People in general don’t use these words any more or they use them in a completely different way than both the King James Version and historic Christianity.  In 1863, William Smith in his Bible Dictionary writes:

[M]adness is recognised as a derangement proceeding either from weakness and misdirection of intellect or from ungovernable violence of passion; and in both cases it is spoken of, sometimes as arising from the will and action of man himself, some times as inflicted judicially by the hand of God.  In one passage alone, John 10:20, is madness expressly connected with demoniacal possession by the Jews in their cavil against our Lord; in none is it referred to any physical causes.

It will easily be seen how entirely this usage of the word is accordant to the general spirit and object of Scripture, in passing by physical causes and dwelling on the moral and spiritual influences, by which men’s hearts may be affected, either from within or from without.

Smith’s assessment of madness, as you can read, sees it as a spiritual problem and not a physical one.  In other words, that’s not “mental illness,” to which it would be referred today by Darwinistic or Freudian psychology.

From the Will and Action of Man Himself

When you delve further into Christian (and societal) thinking from an earlier era in the United States, as does Smith above, you see a distinction between “demoniacal possession” and “insanity,” “deprivation of reason,” and his “derangement proceeding . . . from weakness or from ungovernable violence of passion.”  Furthermore, Smith says that it arises “from the will and action of man himself,” if not “inflicted judicially by the hand of God.”  Calmut’s Dictionary of the Holy Bible by Augustin Calmut (1823), reads concerning “madness”:

The epithet mad is applied to several of persons in Scripture as 1. to one deprived of reason, Acts 26:24, 1 Cor 14:23.

2. one whose reason is depraved and over-ruled by the fury of his angry passions, Acts 26:11.

3. To one whose mind is perplexed and bewildered, so disturbed that he acts in an uncertain, extravagant, irregular manner, Deut 28:34, Eccl 7:7.

4. To one who is infatuated by the vehemence of his desires after idols, and vanities, Jer 1:38.–  or

5. after deceit and falsehood. Hosea 9:7.

None of the Calmut’s definition includes mental illness or psychological disorders.  Has society, science, and theology come upon something true and helpful that these previous generations did not?  Or, are the modern and postmodern view apostate or heretical?  I believe the latter.  Premoderns told the truth about the troubles and the true conditions of men.

Four Occurrences

Christopher Rufo

Four occurrences intersected to direct my thoughts to write this essay.  First, I recently watched the following youtube presentation by Christopher Rufo of the Manhattan Institute on “The Cluster B Society.”

Sermon on the Mount

Second, I’ve started preaching the Sermon on the Mount and this came to my attention in this focus of Matthew 5:3-4:

3 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

Ultimate fulfillment comes from poverty of spirit and mourning.  Society goes opposite of these and others following in Jesus’ sermon, that cause the insanity, derangement, and deprivation of reason.  The absence of the comfort promised equates to madness and what our culture calls “mental illness” and psychological disorder.

Adams and the Bobgans

Third, I read many years ago the work of Jay Adams and then Martin and Deidre Bobgan.  They unmask the depravity of modern psychiatry and psychology.  This seems like a major tool of Satan that has infiltrated in a major way and taken over the thinking of churches.

Ryan Strouse

Fourth, in reading reports from Bible Baptist Theological Seminary it sends out through email, I read work from Dr. M. Ryan Strouse on this subject (here and here).  Apparently, coming soon is a 350 page Primer on Biblical Madness.  I think it will be good.  His father, Thomas Strouse, the dean of the seminary and pastor of the church, was my main seminary professor.  This got on my radar, because I hear more overuse of the psychological terms than ever.

The Sinfulness of Sin

Everyone sins.  The psychological disorders eliminate the sinfulness of sin.  Sin becomes no longer sinful.  It becomes permanent, even an imbedded trait and elevating sin as a useful trait.  This is what Paul calls in Philippians 3:19, those who “glory in their shame.”  This also hardens and then destroys the conscience, making souls beyond salvation, speeding them to their eternal destruction.

David wrote (Psalm 51:4):  “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight.”  Sin is against God.  It falls short of His glory.  Sin damns people to Hell.

Today churches cooperate with justification and making permanent sin by diagnosing it a psychological disorder.  This undermines the sufficiency of scripture, which is far above an earthly so-called wisdom.  May we return to a biblical understanding of these important doctrines.