Depression, Music and The Charismatic Movement

So your back to depression not being a medical condition, and it being conviction of sin.

I can't see one bit of truth in this statement. And actually I have seen the opposite.

This is your description of someone who is depressed?
lies
whoredoms
covetousness
gossips
disobedience
rebellions
pride
????????????????

So this is how you treat sick people? This is what christians think of sick people?
Make up reasons why their illness is sin.
This kind of garbage disappoints me in what christians don't mind doing.

 

Good point. Clinical depression (not to be confused with other forms of depression) is a legitimate and serious medical condition that needs to be treated. Likewise with D.I.D. (Dissasociative Identity Disorder, formerly called multiple personality disorder).

As far as bipolar disorder, I lost a good friend to the disease last year who committed suicide. He was a deeply comitted born-again Christian who struggled with the disorder for all of his adult life. About 1/5 of all people with the disorder end up taking their own life.

You do not "recover" from clinical depression, DID or bipolar disorder. Anyone who thinks that these disorders can be "prayed away" or that a person can just "think" it away, or that it's caused by an evil spirit, etc etc etc, it not only guilty of misapplying scripture, but are guilty of dismissing their brethren who suffer from these serious conditions.

Getting to the topic of the OP, I fail to see what the issues of Depression, Music and The Charismatic Movement have anything to do with each other.

 

I don't see how any part of the OP could be studied, or proven to be either true or false, anyway. If we are trying to fight the "charismataic movement" I think there are better arguments against it than this thread.

 

As Bill pointed out, bipolar disorder is a different disorder than clinical depression. Bipolar disorder is not common enough to explain the unpopularity of boring churches or the popularity of charismatic churches.

I don't think we can accurately diagnose Saul as bipolar from the biblical account.

 

I'm with ya, Mark! I have seen the very thing happening in every church I have pastored except one!

Bro. David

 

Here's a description of bipolar disorder (also called manic-depression) from the Mayo Clinic web site. http://www.mayoclinic.com/invoke.cfm?id=DS00356

Bipolar disorder
By Mayo Clinic staff
Overview

From high to low. From euphoria to depression. From recklessness to listlessness. These are the extremes associated with bipolar disorder, which can be a serious and disabling mental illness. The condition is also known as manic-depression or manic-depressive illness — from manias on the one extreme to depression on the other.

Bipolar disorder affects more than 2 million American adults, or about 1 percent of the population age 18 and older. It often begins in adolescence or early adulthood and may persist throughout life.

Its causes are elusive, and there's no cure. The flares of bipolar disorder may last for weeks or months, causing great disturbances in the lives of those affected, their friends and their families. Left untreated, the condition usually worsens. But it can be managed with medications and other therapies.

***********************************************
A question I have is what did the people living 2000 years ago think was the cause of any disease? Probably "evil spirits" would have been near the top of the list.

 

I can't believe that you would start a second thread to spread your sinful deciet. I pray that God not allow you to experience and then follow your own advice about what you are shooting double-ought buckshot at.

 

Here is what I started
to post in the thread that got zapped
-----------------------------------------------
Mark Osgatharp: //Paul gave us the promise of God that
if we would not worry about anything,
but by prayer and supplicaton with thanksgiving make our requests
known unto God, concentrate on good things, and follow his
example of obedience to God, we would experience the peace
that passes all understanding. I have been depressed and
regardless of what any of you assert, when you have depression
you are not having the peace that passes all understanding - the two
are anti-thetical.//

The scripture that was quoted in the opening post (OP):

Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication
with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding,
shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

My conclusion is that Bro. Mark does not know the meaning
of several* words in this passage. If he did, then he would agree with
those who see that 'depression' and 'the peace of God, which
passeth all understanding' are NOT antithesis to each other.

One is the word 'keep'. This is a military term refering to the
place where one puts stuff so it won't get stolen and the person who
makes sure the stuff is still there. The 'peace of God, which passeth all
understanding' is direct from Christ.
The 'peace of God, which passeth all understanding' is what keeps our
hearts and minds. Hearts do not have clinical depression.
'The peace of God, which passeth all understanding'does not
have clinical depression.

One looses the moral highground when one begin to think that
they are better than the other or suffer more greatly or think
that they are somehow better than another cause they did or didn't
do some earthy thing. I know a story of a man who chewed off the hand
at the end of his arm to escape a trap - i have twice as many hands as
he does

Mark Osgatharp: " ... depression itself is a malady of the spirit,
not the brain.

I respectfully disagree. On second thought i DON'T respectfully disagree.
I think your error will cause a lot of unncessary pain in the world.
I think you are making up rules you cannot tolerate and those whom you
have the rule over cannot tolerate. And you need to be stopped dead
in your tracks. BTW 'dead in your tracks' is just a
poetic phrase underlining 'stopped' and should be understood on the
spiritual level not the physical level.

BTW, i do believe there is a depresssion NOT CALLED 'CLINICAL DEPRESSION'
which is a spiritual malady. But we are talking 'clinical depression'
here - which is NOT the opposite of 'God's peace'. In fact, i think it
is wrong to say that 'the peace of God' is the opposite of
'clinical depression'. Do you know how you tell if something is
'chemical depression'? You can cure it with the meds.

BTW, when i suffered with clinical depresssion half a life-time ago i
found out something interesting. The part of the brain that is clinically
depressed is the language censor center. You have a part of your brain
that sends off sylables, another that intercepts the stupid ones
and let the goods one go on to direct the voice box. So if you will
shut off the language censor center and just babble, then you will not
be as likely to have your clinical depression get worse. How about that,
we damn the carismatics for teaching people how to 'talk in tongues' yet
they are teaching their people (well most don't realise it) how to
avoid clinical depression. BTW, there is no advantage in this regard
if you think in tongues to then speak in tongues.

JGrubbs: "There is a big difference in someone who is depressed or sad
about some event in their life and someone who suffers from
clinical depression, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia."

Amen, Brother JGrubbs -- Preach it!
Since i was treated for clinical depression just past the Lithium stage,
medical science has developed an understanding of these conditions.

What used to be 'blue' is now split up into areas of psycitiary:
depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, split personality disorder (SPD),
attention deficit disorder (ADD), etc. Each is a different chemical
imbalance that needs to be corrected. And backwoods preachers that
don't know at all about this stuff are advising thier church members to
do stupid things like not getting their broken bone set?
------------------------------------------------
Note * - I just discussed one such word

Note that I had spoken of the Carismatics
(The unknown tongue talkers) and various
clinical brain illnesses which were formerly
lumped together as 'depresssion'.

 

Nevermind...

 

"The sad part is, this religious fix for conviction doesn't really do any ultimate good at all. All it does is gives a temporary relief from their pain, after which they dive right back into their lies, whoredoms, divorces, wrath, perversions, worldliness, covetousness, gossips, disobedience, rebellions, pride, etc."

You have a point there. My experience with charismatic churches is that it gave a mental high and I was twice as depressed a half hour after church was over...

 

I've wondered if split personality disorder was a form of demon possession but I guess it's just the brain's/body's way of coping with tremendous psychological and physical abuse suffered by the person in the past. It is interesting how it usually happens to those who were severely abused.