The Flu: A Sure Sign You Don't Love Jesus

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Before you start commenting just bear with me, as I understand how ludicrous the title is, but that's the point. Can you imagine walking up to a friend and telling them you have the flu only for them to respond: "Well, the flu is usually a sign that you are not right in your walk with God." I personally know that when you walk into Church with a cold most people comfort you and instead say something like: "Oh, I had that last week! I hear it's going around. I hope you feel better."  Yet mental illness, of any kind, is considered a reflection of the individual. 
The idea that mental illness is a purely spiritual affliction is one that dates back to Biblical times and is carried on into modern times. Mental illness and epilepsy were often seen as demonic possession or a punishment from God in the early Church and Middle Ages.[1] Thus, as God’s living representatives on earth, the Church saw fit to punish those afflicted by mental illness. Martin Luther argues that suicidal, “persons do not die by free choice or by law…they do not wish to kill themselves but are overcome by the power of the devil…Magistrates should treat them quite strictly.”[2] Those who gave into melancholy, or depression, by ending their life were severely punished after death to set an example to others. The deceased victim’s body was often drug through the street, dismembered, and refused a Christian burial. The suicide victims’ family was then refused their property and it was acquired by the Church or local magistrates. This made suicide a lucrative and powerful tool for the Church to use to enrich itself and condemn other sects of Christianity. Catholics, Calvinists, Lutherans, and Anglicans all used suicide as evidence of the false teaching of one another in the hopes of dissuading would be converts.[3]
            It was not until the Enlightenment that mental illness was viewed as a medical illness instead of a spiritual illness. The works that bridged the Middle Ages and the Enlightenment often straddled the world of religion and science. Clergyman Robert Burton gives the causes of melancholy, in 1621, as either supernatural or natural, both of which could be divided further. Spiritual causes included: from God, the devil, evil spirits, or by witches. While natural causes could be old age, heredity, imprisonment, poverty, a blow to the head, overheating, and even too much garlic and onions.[4] Burton is a good example of how little the Church has changed when discussing mental illness. On the one hand, they discuss the medical and scientific reasons, as if not wanting to appear backwards and medieval. On the other hand, they make sure that spiritual reasons are listed first and foremost so as not to be seen as betraying their faith.
            These historical examples demonstrate how far we’ve come in our medical understanding. The Church, and society, no longer punish and condemn epileptics, the autistic, or handicap, so why are the mentally ill still seen as “less than Christian,” or punished by God? We no longer strip women naked and look for moles and skin tags as a sign of where the devil has suckled. We know their causes and consider them natural, although sometimes bothersome, parts of life. Yet the Church often sees fit to say with certainty that mental illness is a spiritual affliction without researching the medical causes. How long will this generation have to wait for the Church to recognize mental illness as a legitimate illness? Because next time my mental illness is seen as reason enough to call into question my relationship with God you can be dang sure that person better not sneeze.




[1] Aristidis Diamantis, et al., “Epilepsy During the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the Enlightenment,” J Neurol 275, no. 5 (May 2010): 692-694, accessed August 25, 2017, http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00415-009-5433-7. See also Georges Minois, History of Suicide: Voluntary Death in Western Culture, Trans. Lydia G. Cochrane, (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), for an excellent breakdown of early Church history and mental illness.  
[2] Martin Luther, Table Talk entries DLXXXIX, DCCXXXVIII, in The Table Talk or Familiar Discourse of Martin Luther, tr. William Hazlitt, London: David Bogue, 1848, pp. 254, 303; entry 222 (April 7, 1532), in Luther’s Works, American Edition, vol. 54.  Ed. and trans. Theodore G. Tappert, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1967, p. 29. https://ethicsofsuicide.lib.utah.edu/selections/martin-luther/.
[3] Minois, History of Suicide: Voluntary Death in Western Culture, 68-69, 73, 113.
[4] Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, (Philadelphia: E. Claxton & Company, 1883): 81-84. https://archive.org/details/anatomyofmelanch00burt