Religion isn’t cure-all
Q: My daughter is dealing with emotional problems from hanging around the wrong crowd. She is seeing a psychiatrist who is not a Christian but has an excellent professional reputation, but has recommended that my daughter cease going to church for now until the doctor/patient relationship is fully established. This is worrisome to me and I think she should seek another counselor. Our church encourages us to find a Christian psychiatrist more apt to apply Scripture in treatments, but my colleagues strongly advise that we keep the current doctor since religion is not a cure-all. — P.P.
A: Religion is not a cure-all, but the Gospel of Christ certainly is the only answer to the sin problem. When there is a problem related to sin and its consequences, then Christ is the answer. This would call for a psychiatrist with Christian insight and Biblical knowledge to be able to tell the difference. It is not wrong to seek the help of a psychiatrist or psychologist. But it is important to seek one who will not discourage a person’s faith in God. But one should never stop going to church!
The human conscience is often beyond the grasp of a psychiatrist. Humans are helpless to detach themselves from the gnawing guilt of a heart bowed down with the weight of sin. But where humans have failed, God has succeeded.
There are many fine Christian psychiatrists. How helpful it would be for every patient to be counseled by one who knows the functioning of the human mind and knows equally well the message of deliverance through Jesus Christ. Emotions can lie to us, and we need to counter our emotions with God’s truth. This is why the Bible says, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5, NKJV).