Depression and the Mental Prosperity Gospel
It’s been some time now, huh?
I haven’t had the time or, frankly, the motivation to write too much. I was writing a series on evangelicalism and planned on writing more with respect to eschatology, but college, the pandemic, other interests, and some personal issues got in the way. I suppose this could be considered a detour in those writings, but please bear with me as I talk about some more personal aspects of my upbringing.
Current Issues
In the Summer of 2019, I was diagnosed with depression after a series of outbursts that were a bit too much to be considered healthy.
It’s an ironic, almost humorous thing for me to have depression. I’m a very successful person in most areas of my life, but I suppose material gain isn’t enough to fill the void of despair. Some lost their livelihoods in the financial crisis, others lost loved ones in war, but none of that happened to me. Many others live a similar life to me, yet they don’t have these issues. That’s not to denigrate myself or anyone else, but it’s such a peculiar idea. I uphold a weakened form of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, wherein all events/objects have explanations (=/= causes). Yet, somehow, it’s as if my condition is senseless: a brute fact.
Most of the time it’s not an emotional thing, nor is it particularly active. No, it’s a quiet thing.
That all being said, the pandemic hasn’t done much to help me out. The fear you’ll die alone is rather literal in the COVID era, is it not? Upon this foundation, I’ve come to realize that many of my problems were exacerbated by my upbringing, particularly within the world of hipster evangelicalism. That revelation may sound odd, given how much I harp on that world, but please understand that it encompasses everything, not doctrine alone.
My Upbringing and the Mental Prosperity Gospel
The Prosperity Gospel, as many likely know, is a corruption of Christianity wherein God apparently wants you to be wealthy and healthy. It’s easy for the preachers to have private jets, but it’s not easy to hide one’s age.
if God wants Benny Hinn — a leader of the prosperity movement — to be healthy, you’d think He’d do a better job. While that may seem like a cheap jab, it’s actually pretty important. How does anybody take the preachers of this movement so seriously when they’re clearly aging like a normal person? Most people notice this glaring problem and can avoid such teachings, but there’s something more pernicious I’ve found today: the Mental Prosperity Gospel.
Growing up in evangelicalism, I was told God would bless me if I did the right thing and would discipline me if I did the wrong thing. And to be as fair as possible to those who taught such, they clearly weren’t saying what the prosperity preachers were saying. They didn’t tell me God would give me a new house if I prayed enough. No, they said that if I “leaned into God” or “trusted Him with my whole heart” then I’d find happiness. Of course, the aforementioned platitudes were never explained; how do you lean into God? I don’t know, they never say.
On the other side, being disciplined was never explained either. It was this vague, nebulous concept that was never really fleshed out beyond “if you do something bad, God will do something or let something happen to you that will make you regret it!” Sounds a lot like karma if you don’t clarify your terms, and guess what? That’s what it became!
The actual teachings aren’t really that bad on the surface — unlike the Prosperity Gospel — but they are pretty damaging. What went from “you’ll find true contentment in life if you love God” turned into, “if you aren’t happy that means you don’t have faith.” On the other hand, if something bad happened to me, I thought I did something wrong. So, for example, if I got sick on the day of a musical performance, surely my personal sin caused it. If I lied to my parents, I began to fear that God would take away something completely unrelated to my sin! It wasn’t just that I’d face the natural consequences, but that something random would be used against me. Again, what’s so dangerous here is that they rarely taught these things directly, but it’s the logical conclusion of their theology.
There was a point in my life where I genuinely thought that God put an opportunity in my face and took it away from me just so I would realize how evil I am; I had no chance of reaching what was there. No, it was all just a ploy for God to tell me I sinned, yet I couldn’t figure out what specific sin caused it.
Now, let’s apply these concepts to depression. Perpetual emptiness is just a sign that I don’t have faith in God, which means I’m going to Hell. Sadness is thus a sin in this worldview, especially when no particularly traumatizing events happened in my life. I certainly am not alone in thinking such things out of habit. Here’s a message I received on January 10th, 2021, from someone with whom I grew up in Church:
I’m sorry, but therapy is a work around for people who can’t truly overcome their personal turmoil, at least that’s my belief. I know you’re strong enough to do it on your own with God and with the people you already can trust.
I suppose, then, that going to therapy is a further sign that I deserve eternal damnation. How comforting! Notice the dilemma I now face: If I seek help, it means I’m too weak, and if I don’t succeed in helping myself, I’m also too weak. Therefore, the only way I can solve my depression is by doing it alone or with people who have no experience or professional knowledge of the issue. And again, if that doesn’t work out, that means I have insufficient faith, which is necessary to enter eternal life according to Hebrews 3.
The worst part of that exchange isn’t necessarily what was said, but that the sender truly believes it and that they believe it would help me. Telling someone with depression that their illness is a failure of belief only spirals one further into depression.
I’m really not trying to build a system off an anecdote here, but the problem is that this belief can actually be built up in the Church. The person who sent the message is certainly the only person who’s said it explicitly, but the system builds this mentality whether someone wants to say it or not.
What Now?
The best thing people can do is bring up the issue with these evangelical leaders, but I’m pessimistic it will do anything. This theology thrives on empty platitudes, and those feel-good statements naturally lead to the conclusion that mental illness is a personal sin. It’s not that believing in God won’t make you happy, for truly we have peace in God. That doesn’t, however, mean it’s something automatic nor is it something we feel constantly. It’s something we regularly have to strive to achieve, and only with God’s grace may it be reached.
This teaching is blatantly false, but it took me so many years to learn. The saddest part of it all is that I participated in this group; I spread these ideas myself and I have some influence. Please, do yourself a favor, and leave the movement if this is what you’ve learned.
