Imagine you’re a 14-year-old boy. Puberty has knocked you sideways, and you have so many confusing feelings. Rage. Horniness. Depression. Anxiety.
Sexual fantasies about one of your Christian school classmates. One of your MALE classmates.
Your pastor says same-sex attraction is perversion, a sinful choice. So does your Sunday school teacher. Your youth pastor. Your coach. Every Christian school teacher agrees. So do your parents.
You can’t tell anyone about this perverted desire, this secret sin. Instead, you reduce your sexual fantasies to graphic drawings you hide under your bed. Maybe your mom will find them when she’s cleaning your room and the truth will set you free. But she scrawls I am so ashamed of you across the top of the stack and orders you to ignore this sinful urge.
You wobble under the weight of who you are, but you are crushed when you realize it can never be. So you decide to end your life.
Only your parents discover you with the loaded pistol they keep to defend the house. They convince you not to pull the trigger, and they rush you to a staff pastor at church.
To the staff pastor’s credit, he realizes this situation needs more than prayer and Bible study, his standard counseling tools. He recommends a Christian gay conversion therapy program in another state.
But your parents have sat in the same pew for over a decade. They have heard the pastor repeatedly proclaim that Bible reading and prayer are the only tools Christians need to fix every problem. Psychotherapy and secular counseling use scientific tools and liberal expertise that make Christians question their Bibles. They decide to double down on family devotional and prayer times.
Plus, they send you for weekly counseling sessions with a staff pastor who goes through the Bible and hammers all the ways God says homosexuality is wrong. At the end of every session, you pray that God will rid you of this sinful urge.
You never get the professional help you need. Your life is littered with a failed marriage, estranged family, lost jobs, and little friendship. In your forties, you finally succeed in ending your life.
Christian Nationalists believe the Bible contains everything God meant for humans to know. Including the keys to mental illness.
They do not endorse secular therapy methods and are suspicious of psychologists and psychiatrists who do not profess to be Christians. They genuinely believe every problem can be solved by Bible reading and prayer.
These tools undergird counseling centers like Onward Christian Counseling Services, a business operated by House Speaker Mike Johnson’s wife. (See “Promoting Stable and Flourishing Married (Heterosexual) Families HERE.) Christian Nationalists believe their interpretation of the Bible must undergird all forms of therapy.
This is why the state of Texas replaced trained public school counselors with untrained chaplains. It is why religiously-affiliated addiction programs bring in unqualified counselors to read the Bible and pray with clients instead of creating addiction treatment plans. After a lifetime of dysfunctional behaviors and choices, I was in my 50s before I was deconstructed enough to seek secular therapy.
It is why Christian Nationalist Republicans offer thoughts and prayers after every mass shooting: They believe the scourge of gun violence is divine judgment on a nation that has rejected the One True God. Potential shooters wouldn’t bow to their mental health issues and kill people if they had access to Bible reading, prayer, and Christian fellowship.
Jesus makes it clear over and over again in the Gospels that fear and anger are serious dangers that Christians must be alert to and overcome. Fear and anger are basic human emotions that everyone experiences, just as Jesus himself did. At every turn he preaches against violence, warns about the dangers of fear and anger, and admonishes his followers when they are inclined to harm others in any way.
Source: The National Catholic Reporter
Many Christian Nationalists do not endorse pharmaceutical mental health interventions. They view their ubiquity as a weakness of faith, a reliance on man-made substances when the Bible is all a person needs to be whole.
How could Christian Nationalist views on therapy impact YOU or someone you love?
All mental and emotional health programs could have mandated Bible reading, prayer, and religious indoctrination provided by untrained, uncertified “counselors.”
The mental and emotional health components of welfare programs could be provided by untrained, uncertified “counselors” who offer Bible reading and prayer as a remedy.
Federal and state funding for secular professional therapy programs could be cut.
Psychiatric and mood-altering drugs could become harder to access.
All public schools could have taxpayer-funded chaplains in place of trained guidance counselors.
More people could choose to end their lives when Bible reading and prayer fail to address their issues.
Treatments for female issues like postpartum depression and premenstrual syndrome could be restricted because it is a woman’s God-given responsibility to suffer for Eve’s sin. Suffering might bring her closer to God.
All homosexual, bi-sexual, non-binary, and trans teens could be forced into conversion therapy.
How can Texas schools possibly get away with installing chaplains as their counselors (especially untrained ones)? There's this little Constitutional thing called separation of church and state. Are any parents pushing back against this?
How did these chaplains pass the necessary tests to get certified if they are untrained in counseling?
As a public school teacher myself, I have questions!!!
I am not shocked. I have struggled with depression and anxiety my entire life. I have been in in-patient facilities to treat my depression and I take meds for it. Someone once told me my depression was caused by demonic possession. It's always fun to admit to someone you have depression. On one hand, there are people who act like it's a choice to have it and on the other, there are people who think people with depression need to be exorcised.