Jesus christ 'may have suffered from mental health problems', claims church of england

[CelticViking]

JESUS CHRIST 'MAY HAVE SUFFERED FROM MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS', CLAIMS CHURCH OF ENGLAND


A SUGGESTED sermon produced by the Church of England for clerics attempting to tackle the stigma of mental health pulls no punches.


Written by the Rev Eva McIntyre on behalf of the Church’s Archbishops’ Council and the Time to Change mental health campaign, it suggests John the Baptist, St Paul, St Francis and other figures from the Bible may all have been mentally ill.

It even asks followers to consider accusations made in the New Testament that Jesus "had lost his mind".

It reads: "Many of the people we read about in Bible stories might today be considered as having mental health issues.

"For example, ‘Would Jesus’ family maybe on occasion have said, ‘Cousin John is a bit odd, bless him!’ when John the Baptist took to his eccentric style of life?

"It has long been thought that King Saul, in the books of Samuel, was displaying mood swings that suggest he had bi-polar disorder and some think that St Paul’s Damascus Road experience was the result of some sort of breakdown or psychotic episode.

"Even Jesus was not immune to accusations about his mental health: there is a story in the gospel that tells of his mother and siblings attempting to take him home because they are afraid that he has lost his mind.

"Many of the stories of the Saints, too, have led people to discuss their mental health. "For example was St Francis suffering from a mental health title?"

Acknowledging how shocking these ideas might be, Ms McIntyre, a member of the General Synod, adds: "Some may find these suggestions disturbing or offensive even.

"Perhaps we need to ask why it would be so terrible to think that some of our most inspirational forebears might have experienced mental health illness.

Read more here

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/...rch-of-England

[Anusiya]

Peter according to today's standards would have been diagnosed bipolar.

[Libertas]

The Church of England have mental health problems or at least common sense problems.
They are undermining their own religion.
LOL

[Onur]

Imho, the people who believes that mambo-jumbo after 2000 years are suffering more severe mental issues than Jesus.

[Breedingvariety]

Of course he did. Any great man suffers mental health problems according to mumbo jumbo of now-a-days. We live in superstitious times of psychology.

[Kazimiera]

Whether he had mental health problems or not is totally irrelevant now. And what does it matter anyway?

[Drawing-slim]

...

[Teyrn]

Christ was both human and God so why wouldn't he experience psychological distress? The scriptures make it very clear that he was prone to the same weaknesses as the rest of us- only that he was sinless.

i.e. he got hungry, thirsty, tired, he wept, was happy, sad, wroth, etc.

[Útrám]

Other than the new testament, what do they have to infer from?
There are no contemporary documents of a secular nature.

It's an arduous task to reconstruct a character from old religious writings put down by politically/religiously motivated authours who lived in a time of strife, and in addition this has all been blurred with time.

The bible is a compilation of books, written and edited by many. Various quotes attributed to the messiah contradict other supposed quotes by him, some of his supposed deeds are vaguely and even palpably hypocritical.

[Teyrn]

Largely the Synoptics and John form the basis of Christ's personality. If he suffered from "mental health problems" it's because he saw the plight of the people around him- not the high and mighty but the lowly- and he knew that he was ultimately to die a grisly death.