Recently I came to realise that my psychological makeup, specifically my OCD, had probably influenced my theology and indeed my vocation quite profoundly.
I'm an evangelist, which is a word which means different things to different people, so I'll tell you what it means to me. Being an evangelist means that my principal concern as a Christian minister is for people who don't follow Jesus, and that communicating the gospel or 'good news' to people who haven't heard it a thousand times already is the most important thing I do. My faith has been nurtured in evangelical churches, and it's probably fair to say that evangelicals place a greater emphasis on evangelism than other Christian traditions. That's partly because we emphasise conversion and making a personal decision to follow Christ. In Baptist churches we practise believer's baptism, which means that we only baptise people who have made that personal decision for themselves (which is why we don't baptise babies).
Another emphasis of evangelical Christianity is the authority of the Bible, and the Bible has some pretty scary things to say about what happens to people who don't decide to follow Christ in their lifetime. Although the concepts of heaven and hell which have come into popular culture (fluffy clouds and harps; flames and devils with pointy sticks etc.) bear little relation to the biblical account of the afterlife, there does seem to be some kind of separation, with some people entering the Kingdom of God and others left outside where there is 'weeping and gnashing of teeth'.
Many evangelical Christians have responded by emphasising the importance of telling others the good news of Jesus Christ so as to save them from eternal torment in hell. This is quite a psychological load to bear. They have to tell non-believers about Jesus because otherwise the non-believers will go to hell. Hence people standing on street corners with megaphones and boards saying 'repent, for the end is nigh'. Strange as it may seem, they're doing it because they don't want to see others suffer. (Unfortunately, it can have the opposite effect).
To approach this from a mental health angle, people with OCD (at least in my experience) take on too much responsibility for the people around them, believing that if they don't do X, Y or Z they will hurt others. Fear of contamination is quite common for people with OCD (hence all the hand-washing) and in my case I was scared that I would give other people my nasty germs and make them dangerously sick. Clearly a good level of personal hygiene is a good thing; washing your hands so often they start to crack and bleed is taking it too far. These days excessive hand-washing isn't a problem for me, but my fear of hurting others centres on driving. I go over a speed bump or a pot-hole and I'm terrified I've hit a person. It's a speed bump, Emma, you saw it coming. Yes but what if...? OCD is all about what if. What if I don't [insert crazy compulsion here]? I might hurt someone!
When you look at some evangelical attitudes to evangelism in this light, you can see there might be a danger of some unhealthy thought patterns for someone with OCD. What if I don't tell that person about Jesus? They might never believe and go to hell! That would be awful! And it would be my fault! Crazy as it might seem, that was what drove me when I started out as an evangelist. I felt a terrible load of responsibility. And I'm not sure this kind of thinking is restricted to people with OCD. I've often heard people express feelings of guilt or anxiety around evangelism: "I know I should - I don't want people to go to hell - but evangelism is so hard!"
It certainly is hard if we believe that God has given us this level of responsibility. But I'm not sure he has. There are a number of reasons for this, but the most important one I find myself coming back to again and again: the character of God. Shane Claiborne put it well when he wrote (in The Irresistible Revolution, a book which changed my life) that he doesn't worry about hell because he knows how much he doesn't want people to go there and that God is infinitely more loving and kind than him. And as well as being infinitely gracious, loving and kind, God is also a missionary God, constantly reaching out in love to the people he created. He sends Christians out to share the love of Christ but it remains his mission, and he is ultimately responsible for it. Would God allow the eternal destiny of everyone I meet to rest entirely on my shoulders? I don't think so.
I was just about to publish this post when my OCD kicked in. What if I'm utterly wrong? This post could inspire some Christians to become lax in their evangelism, resulting in eternal damnation for many people. Which would be terrible. And it would be my fault. At this point I remember a very helpful piece of advice our tutor in pastoral psychology gave us. He told us to put a sign on the inside of our toilet doors saying: 'There is a redeemer, and it's not me'.
I was just about to publish this post when my OCD kicked in. What if I'm utterly wrong? This post could inspire some Christians to become lax in their evangelism, resulting in eternal damnation for many people. Which would be terrible. And it would be my fault. At this point I remember a very helpful piece of advice our tutor in pastoral psychology gave us. He told us to put a sign on the inside of our toilet doors saying: 'There is a redeemer, and it's not me'.
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