I'm wondering if anyone has any experience being both a Christian and suffering from OCD? I've heard accounts of Christians having blasphemous thoughts that only intensify when they fight them. How can you justify the Christian belief that evil thoughts must be fought and the scientific fact that the harder you fight these thoughts, the more shame one feels for having them, the more often and the more intense they are. In this way, Christianity could be considered, for certain individuals, hazardous to mental health. Isn't repression or at least feeling shame for having such thoughts demanded of the individual, regardless of the impossibility of this task? To accept certain thoughts of a demonic or adulterous nature is regarded as a sin, and yet the only way to "cure" yourself of something existing within you is acceptance and love, not the fear that Christianity teaches. Running from these thoughts seems like a trap to me, yet that is what is preached.
Well maybe you should stop listning to your preacher if he is making you feel unwell. I don't think that it is fair to say that christianity should be interpreted in one way just because some one preaches it that way. So if you want to maintain your christianity and not suffer more from this problem why don't you interpret it yourself? it might have a lot more meaning that way. for example you may be comforted to know that by nature humans are sinful and that you need not fear sinful thought because it is inevitable.
As a Christian, you should know that God loves you and doesn't want to torture you, nor to have you torture yourself. You aren't responsible for every thought that enters your head, and especially if you might be OCD, you can't be spending all your energy trying to block these thoughts. First step: leave that screwed up preacher as fast as you can, and find one that's truly filled with the warmth and love of the Lord. Second step: find something worthwhile to do for the Lord, to take your mind off of this morbid self-absorption with sin. Jesus took care of the sin problem for us 2000 years ago. Just trust Him, open your heart to the Holy Spirit. You're saved, so whatever thoughts Satan sends your way don't really matter. Third, get some good professional help.
God (Holy Spirit) and Human Incarnation STATEMENT: - MATHEW 10: 40 Lord Jesus was the human incarnation of the Holy Spirit. The human body of Holy Jesus is like the metallic wire, which was all over, pervaded by the Holy Spirit. Veda says ‘Antarbahischa’ which means that the Holy Spirit pervades all over the body of Human Incarnation. Wherever you touch the wire the electric shock is given. Similarly the entire human body of Holy Jesus is holy. The holiness is the nature of Holy Spirit just like the shock is the property of electricity. As the electricity cannot be separated from the wire, the Holy Spirit cannot be separated from the Holy Jesus. So here the Holy Spirit is the Holy Jesus. Holy Jesus refers this Holy Spirit as His Father. He tells that He was sent by His father as a messenger. Though He and His father are one and the same, He speaks like this for which there is a practical reason i.e., every human being repels with another human being. A man cannot accept another man as God due to Jealousy and Egoism. Bhagavatgita says, “A man will insult Me when I come here in human form (Avajananti mam….)”. For this purpose Holy Jesus wants Himself to be called only as the messenger of the Holy Spirit by the disciples whenever He is introduced to the public. If He tells the truth the egoistic public will not hear even what He preaches and will reject Him. Therefore He is telling His disciples to introduce Him as a messenger only. Ofcourse, the disciples are really the messengers of Holy Jesus. Holy Spirit has taken over the human body of Holy Jesus and pervaded all over the body to preach the divine knowledge to this world. The same Holy Spirit is sending the disciples for the propagation of the Divine knowledge. Both the body of Holy Jesus and the disciples are instruments of the Holy Spirit chosen for different purposes. The Holy Spirit is preaching through the body of Holy Jesus and is propagating the divine knowledge through disciples. Therefore if you respect the disciple you are respecting the Holy Spirit indirectly. Though both the instruments exist like this, the Holy Spirit is present in Jesus and is not present in the disciples. Due to this difference the disciple is an indirect instrument and the direct instrument is Holy Jesus. The disciple propagates the divine knowledge after hearing from the Holy Jesus. Therefore when such disciple is respected, Holy Jesus is respected first and then the Holy Spirit. But among the disciples there may be some person who cannot repeat what Holy Jesus exactly preached. In such a case the Holy Spirit will take over the body of that disciple and preaches (Mathew 10: 20). Such a disciple differs from Holy Jesus because the Holy Spirit resides in that disciple for some time only where as the Holy Spirit resides in Jesus all the time. Holy Jesus is telling that He is the messenger of the Holy Spirit and He is also telling that the disciple is His messenger. He is giving the same status to Himself and the disciple by telling like this. The reason is that some disciple may become jealous in future if He says that He Himself is the Holy Spirit where as the disciple is His messenger only. The difference in the status may bring jealousy. Therefore He is maintaining the equal status so that no devotee becomes jealous of Jesus in the future. Due to jealousy the disciple may slip from Holy Jesus. When He says that He is only the messenger, this shows the humble and submissiveness of Holy Jesus. He wants His disciples to be humble and submissive to the Holy Spirit through out their lives. For this purpose He sets Himself as an ideal. The Holy Spirit present in the human body of Holy Jesus is the essence of true and infinite knowledge as Veda says “Satyam Jnanam Anantam Brahma….” Humbleness and submissiveness are the fruits of the Divine Knowledge. Therefore the humbleness and submissiveness are the qualities of the Holy Spirit itself. This means whatever Holy Jesus speaks is the statement of the Holy Spirit only. At Thy Lotus Feet His Holiness Sri Dattaswami Anil Antony www.universal-spirituality.org Universal Spirituality for World Peace
Certain forms of Christianity can be considered toxic and hazardous to mental health--in fact, a form of mental illness. Any version that teaches people they are responsible for any thought that comes into their head, or must actively struggle to keep such thoughts from ever arising, is a good example. This is different from wilfully revelling in antisocial fantasies and giving consent to them as serious wishes. If thoughts are compulsive/obsessive, the last thing a person could do effectivley to counter them is to get anxious about them and struggle. Just let them pass without consent, and realize you aren't responsible. That this would even be an issue suggests to me that we aren't far from the Dark Ages.
Okie what are your thoughts on people preaching about Christ? Personally i think it is only useful for some one to read it and interpret it themselves.
I guess it depends on what you mean by "preaching". I enjoy a good sermon, which is basically a lecture in which a minister tries to illuminate Christian ideas and/or relate them to new contexts. Some people are better auditory learners than visual learners, so for them the sermon format, delivered orally, has advantages. But if by preaching you mean the kind of "this is the truth and you'd better believe it" harrangue we sometimes encounter on street corners or even from pulpits, I find those people obnoxious and ineffective--particularly when they try to inflict their typically ignorant beliefs on unwilling bystanders. If people want to hear them, fine, but when it is imposed on a captive or unwilling audience, it's offensive. And this can be true of written communications, as well. In our community, we had a preacher who wrote a regular column in the local newspaper pushing traditional Christian beliefs, atacking evolution, gays, abortion, etc. The column attracted lots of letters to the editor, mainly attacking just about everything he said. I wrote a few of them myself. So from a freedom of speech standpoint, no harm done, but I found him offensive nonetheless. Another example. A family member dying from cancer has been getting some well-intentioned but nutty letters suggesting that the disease may be the result of demonic influence, sin, or insufficiant faith, and sending along prayers to combat these things. I found them outrageously offensive, as did the patient. I prefer to try to live by Christian principles myself, and to hope they set an example others might benefit from. You mention reading "it" for themselves. Do you mean the Bible or Christian literature? I doubt that the average person can understand the Bible without knowing the historical background that produced it, and that requires reading other books. I'm one of those heretics Christian evangelicals call "Borg again Christians"--heavily influenced by the writings of the liberal Protestant scholar, Marcus Borg, famous for his line "the Bible should be taken seriously, but not literally."
thats exactly what i meant by preaching. I was general sorry. i mean everything, history, the bible, outlawed christian texts, the development of Christianity amongst different cultures, the more info the better.
The kind of OCD you're describing is called scrupulousity, where the person with OCD has uncontrollable blasphemous thoughts which are at odds with his personal belief system. That is the fundamental problem with obsessive OCD, it puts the imagination at odds with the moral center and causes internal conflict. Sometimes (as in my case) the thoughts are not of a blasphemous religious nature but are of other things such as harming other people. The Church also takes a dim view of obsessive thoughts like of that type and that was one of the major things that caused my break from the church in my early teens. The church matra of 'an evil thought equals an evil act' doesn't sit wellwith someone who is not in control of those thoughts. You come away feeling evil. I agree whole heartedly that Christianity is hazardous to mental health, so I cut my losses and left. You can't really fight obsessive thoughts. The only way I've found is to embrace the thought and let it run its course. When you do that, it looses its hold over you and becomes harmless. But as you said, that's at odds with the Christian doctrine. If you get to a point like I did the only option you have is to leave the Christian community and find a social group which is more accepting of the condition. It may be an extreme choice but for some its the only choice available.
