Sunday godblogging
Religion in all its many forms - - Posted on April, 30 at 11:02 am by Tim
Andrew Bartlett provides the link for this incredible piece of religion-based diagnosis. The Hillsong pentecostal movement has an opinion on what depression really is:
The bottom line is: depression is a supernatural spirit of destruction straight from the devil, and as such, needs to be treated like an enemy. We must take a strong stand against it and deny it any power in our lives. Depression stems from an underlying root of unbelief in God’s care, His goodness, His faithfulness, or even His ability to get you out of seemingly “impossible” situations.
As Senator Bartlett suggests, if you weren’t depressed before, reading that should do the trick.
Posted in Religion in all its many forms |
April 30th, 2006 at 11:16 am
Marilyn Hickey, who is responsible for that, has one of those early morning evangelical shows. Hideous, and yet perfectly consistent at least.
Which reminds me, I have had the Richard Dawkins “Root of all Evil” show lying around for ages. Might go watch it now.
April 30th, 2006 at 11:25 am
I endured an entire service last year at the Paradise church (for those who don’t know, this is Hillsong’s Adelaide equivalent and the cradle of Assemblies of God in Aust, through Andrew Evans) — strictly work, you understand, I had to write about it — and it was very clear that this is one of their main lines. God and Jesus will never give you any kind of hard time and will make all the nasty things go away, and give you pretty things instead, just as long as you do what we tell you and don’t listen to the politicians, except for the ones we like, and we’ve told you who they are, and just in case you’ve forgotten we’ll tell you again. Now then, here’s our seminar on depression, we’ve called it ‘Depression and the Devil’, isn’t that clever, look, they both start with a D, and here are some books you can buy …
Then someone passed me a bucket, for which I was grateful, but it turned out you were supposed to put money in it.
April 30th, 2006 at 12:49 pm
These people make me sick. My Uncle suffered severe clinical depression all his life. In desperation he turned to the ‘happy clappy joy joy’ brigade, who soon became the recipients of 10% of his monthly income, conveniently paid via monthly direct debit. A small price to pay for salvation and true happiness.
In the absence of treatment, he committed suicide.
April 30th, 2006 at 12:59 pm
As a life long agnostic and long term depression sufferer, it is good to know that they are related.
April 30th, 2006 at 2:00 pm
“Depression stems from an underlying root of unbelief in God’s care, His goodness, His faithfulness, or even His ability to get you out of seemingly ‘impossible” situations.’”
At least one relatively recent Pope, Paul VI, battled re-occuring depression. He must have been very surprised to learn on reaching Heaven, or maybe Hell, it was because he didn’t believe!
April 30th, 2006 at 2:15 pm
I followed the links through. The article wasn’t by a Hillsonger but an American pentacostalist, Marilyn Hickey. Some of her American co-religionists have some unkind things to say about her.
In fairness to the Hillsongers, they’re interested in charisma, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, one of which they see as healing. These days many of the people once healed by Jesus - epileptics and paralytics - are more in the domain of physicians. Depressives - while they can still be treated by medical science - are one of the few remaining areas that can be plausibly addressed by faith-healing.
May 1st, 2006 at 7:05 am
I can’t say I even bothered reading the article. But I am sure that this will be right up your alley!
May 2nd, 2006 at 11:43 am
You missed an opportunity to research the Hillsong site and come up with their Health Care Centre.
What do they do?
‘Hillsong Health Centres have been established with an aim to provide quality health care to our community. We currently have one centre running in Castle Hill, with vision for growth throughout Sydney. At Hillsong Health Centres, we believe in caring for the whole person by providing care through a team of highly qualified and professional medical practitioners, psychologists and counsellors.’
This would seem to indicate that Hillsong have more going for them than you, and Andrew (plus now, LP & saint), are implying. Tell it as it is!