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In the NewsLast week, the CNN website published an article titled "Religious OCD: 'I'm Going to Hell,'" a description of a condition present in some religious people that keeps them from the joys of their faith and causes them to dwell in fear of personal sin and punishment from God.
The condition, called both "religious obsessive-compulsive disorder" (religious OCD) and "scrupulosity," is a subset of the more general obsessive-compulsive disorder. The article's author, Elizabeth Landau, explained that OCD "involves unwanted thoughts ('obsessions') and accompanying behaviors called compulsions that patients use to reduce anxiety." In the scrupulosity form of OCD, Landau said, "the obsessions have a religious or moral underpinning."
Wikipedia describes scrupulosity as "a psychological disorder characterized by pathological guilt about moral or religious issues. It is personally distressing, objectively dysfunctional and often accompanied by significant impairment in social functioning. It is typically conceptualized as a moral or religious form of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) ...."
Landau cities Jonathan Abramowitz, a psychology professor from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He pointed out that people with religious OCD often believe their thoughts are "morally equivalent to actions." He noted that "scrupulosity [effectively] means 'fearing sin where there is none.'" And, he said, scrupulosity sufferers are "walking around with this black cloud of 'I'm going to hell.'"
Landau also tells the stories of two women, one Jewish and one Christian, who became obsessed in childhood with fears about religious shortcomings and developed compulsive religious rituals in unsuccessful attempts to counter those fears. Their compulsions interfered with their family and other relationships, and they were frequently ridden with anxiety. Later, as adults, both sought and received therapy that helped them deal with their religious OCD in healthier ways, thus improving their lives, their outlooks and their ability to experience the blessings of their religious faith.
One of the things they had to confront was their fear of uncertainty. Abramowitz believes that "faith is about being comfortable with your beliefs even if you can't have a 100 percent guarantee about things like hell, whether there is really a God or what it means to be faithful enough. You're taught to have faith, even though you cannot have scientific proof."
For purposes of today's lesson, we think it is important to move beyond the discussion of scrupulosity as a diagnosis. It is, perhaps, an extreme form of religious conscientiousness, but many Christians, without reaching such dysfunctional extremes, still wrestle with matters of a tender conscience and seek to know at what point devotion to God goes beyond what God asks of us.
In her article, Landau mentioned that some historians have suggested that certain giants of Christian history, including John Climacus, St. Ignatius of Loyola and Martin Luther might have been afflicted with religious OCD.
But, at least regarding Luther, TWW team member James Gruetzner comments, "As I recall his history, the times when he might've been what we consider excessive today were when he was in his late teens and his 20s -- more reflective of the emotional and spiritual development of a person becoming an adult than of any significant psychological (or mental) problem. Certainly it did not interfere with his functioning in society. I don't think it's at all uncommon -- or particularly worthy of labeling as a mental problem -- for adolescents and younger adults to be rather intense in some aspects of life. ... some of the examples in the article were of teens who seemed to have outgrown it."
Gruetzner added, "I tend to see a lot of the pop psychology as forgetting that people are on a continuum and, in most cases, not necessarily stuck on one place. Those who do get stuck at an extreme would need to seek special help, while most people, as part of growing up, are better helped by Christian friends, especially the older-and-wiser. How to do each as required -- identifying and encouraging special (professional) help when needed, or just providing help as a friend -- may not be clear at all times.
More on this story can be found at these links:
Religious OCD: 'I'm Going to Hell.' CNN
Scrupulosity. International OCD Foundation
The Big Questions
1. To what degree -- if any -- is Christianity a matter of dos and don'ts? How hard should we work to stay within those boundaries? What should we do, if anything, about inadvertent failures to observe the dos and don'ts?
2. Is "pious devotion" another term for OCD behavior? Defend your answer. If you are disciplined in your devotional life, might others interpret this as OCD behavior? Is this a fair characterization?
3. In terms of practicing our faith, is it possible to be obsessively conscientious? If not, why not? If so, can the matter of being saved by grace be, in addition to redemption, a deliverance from obsessive conscientiousness?
4. How should the expression "Let your conscience be your guide" be adapted, if at all, for people who are following Jesus? When you let your conscience be your guide, whom should you rely on to test your conscience?
5. Who should decide whether a person's fervent prayer and devotional life is normal or obsessive-compulsive? How can the church help in this decision?
Confronting the News With Scripture and Hope
Here are some Bible verses to guide your discussion:
Psalm 119:1
Happy are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the LORD. (For context, read 119:1-8.)
Psalm 119 is in praise of God's law (Torah). The psalm is a good example of how important a certain -- and dare we say {ITALIC}healthy -- level of scrupulosity can be: It helps provide order in a chaotic world. Psalm 119 is an acrostic of acrostics -- 22 stanzas of eight lines each, each stanza in turn beginning with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet -- in alphabetical order -- and each of the eight lines in each stanza begins with the same letter of the alphabet. (Not surprisingly, this is more apparent in the original Hebrew, but if you look at Psalm 119 in the NIV, CEB or NASB Bible, you'll see the actual Hebrew letter as a heading over each eight-verse block.)
Additionally, each of the 176 lines in this psalm (except for vv. 2, 37, 90 and 122) uses one of the eight synonyms for God's Torah: law, decrees, precepts, statutes, commandments, ordinances, word, promise. In that regard, although we have chosen to quote verse 1 above, we could have chosen almost any verse from this psalm as a sample.
Questions: When have you found the repeating or habitual religious structures, such as rituals, formulaic prayers, daily devotions, weekly church attendance, etc., helpful in maintaining spiritual order and blessings in your life? When have such things gotten in the way of hearing God's new word for you?
How meticulous are you in your life of prayer and devotion? Do you use a printed guide? Do you follow an outline from a book or other source? What do you think are the advantages to the way you approach prayer?
Matthew 11:28-30
Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (For context, read 11:25-30.)
Many of the common people who heard Jesus carried the burden of an uneasy conscience. Many of them had been taught by the Pharisees and some rabbis a strict and legalistic interpretation of the 613 commandments stated in God's laws given through Moses. These interpretations created a body of requirements much larger than the original laws themselves. It was such a formidable mass of regulation that only a full-time legal specialist could hope to know -- and fulfill -- them all.
The result was that the common people often unknowingly violated one of these interpretations. For the most sincere and devout in their attempts to be faithful to the laws, a guilty conscience must have been a common experience. Some people may have been exhausted in their efforts to satisfy the demands of legalism.
Perhaps it was to such people that Jesus addressed the words above. We who are overwhelmed with responsibilities may hear these words as a call to find relaxation in Jesus. But in the original setting, Jesus' invitation was not addressing the work-burdened. For that matter, he was not addressing the sin-burdened either. He was speaking to those who were trying to live holy lives under the enormous burden of keeping all of those rules the Pharisees had laid on them. They were the "law-burdened."
In comparison to that, Jesus' burden is light. He didn't come to do away with God's laws given through Moses, but to fulfill them by giving them the ultimate interpretation. In fact, his interpretation could be boiled down to two: "Love the Lord with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself." Jesus didn't mean that God's laws had no value. But he likely meant that the scrupulous attempt to reduce every law to a restrictive set of behaviors missed the point.
He was addressing those who had felt inward moral disapproval, not because they were intentionally doing wrong, but because they were trying to do right but were under constant judgment by an impossible -- and man-made -- standard. To paraphrase Jesus, he was saying, "Come to me, all you whose consciences bleed because you cannot achieve everything you believe is expected of you. And I will give you healing and inward peace."
Note that Jesus did not offer a life with no yoke at all. Freedom is preserved within protective boundaries, and a {ITALIC}healthy conscience is one such boundary.
The yoke of Jesus' day was a wooden collar made for two animals so that they could pull together as a team. The yoke of Jesus is not one he imposes on us, but one he wears with us. His words might be rephrased as "Become my yoke-mate, and learn how to pull the load by working beside me and watching how I do it. The heavy labor of life will seem lighter when you allow me to help you with it."
Questions: In what ways do you find Jesus' "yoke" hard to carry? In what ways do you find it light? In what ways do you feel that Jesus is helping you "pull" your load? Whom besides Jesus do you rely on to help bear this burden or yoke?
Luke 22:19
Then he took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me." (For context, read 22:14-20.)
Luke 24:30
When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. (For context, read 24:28-35.)
In the Luke 22 reference above, the gospel writer describes Jesus' actions at the Last Supper, in what became for his followers the institution of the Lord's Supper, or Holy Communion. In the Luke 24 verse, the gospel writer uses some of the same vocabulary to describe the resurrected Jesus sharing a meal with the two disciples he had joined on the road to Emmaus.
We suspect that Luke uses the same words deliberately, for he understood that in the presence of Jesus, certain actions and words (i.e., "rituals") become the markers of our spiritual lives. Luke says as much, for he says that after the meal with Jesus, the two believers sought out the 11 disciples and "told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread" (v. 35).
Questions: How can we be faithful in our worship so as to recognize Jesus' presence, without fixating on ritualistic acts for our salvation? What litanies or religious practices have been most helpful to you? Where do you see Jesus in the midst of your church's practices?
Galatians 2:16
... yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law. (For context, read 2:15-21.)
For those of us who want a guarantee that if we just do certain things perfectly correctly, all will be well with us spiritually, it's good to hear these words from Paul. We are justified by faith, not by works.
Questions: Apply this verse to your own life. What does it mean to you? How do faith and works come together? Where do you draw the line between faith and works in your life of faith? Where do you observe others drawing that line?
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. (For context, read 5:11-22.)
When Paul advised that we should pray without ceasing, we doubt that he meant we should fixate on praying to the point of compulsion. Rather, he likely meant that being in touch with God regularly is important to the spiritual life and for discovering God's will.
Questions: How can we tell what is a sign from God and what is not? How does salvation come into play? How practical is it to seek to pray without ceasing? Do you tell people you are praying for them all the time whether you are or not? What form does prayer take when it is a constant presence in your life? What are the markers (that others might mistake for OCD behaviors) in your prayer life?
For Further Discussion
1. Respond to this, from a TWW team member: "[Until] reading the [scrupulosity] article, I have never considered that one's religious fervor could be considered OCD. Yet, I know in my own journey as a younger Christian that, while I do not see it as OCD, legalism and expectation from the evangelical subculture made me feel that I was not spiritual enough because of my personal struggles. It did produce anxiety, and I guess I was 50 years old before I could ever relax in grace."
2. Respond to this, heard in a sermon: "Faith is not synonymous with certainty; it is synonymous with commitment. Christian faith is not saying, 'I know the truth'; rather it is saying, 'I am entrusting myself to Christ.'"
3. Discuss this, from a TWW team member: "I have had a chance to work with two individuals with religious OCD or scrupulosity, as it is called. These have been hard conversations, and I have actually had to encourage these two to attend church less and help them think that not everything is spiritual. Many moments in their lives were taken as spiritual signs, and the overarching focus was typically on hell and sin. Tough conversations, so this topic hits a few ministry moments for me."
4. Comment on this, from TWW team member James Gruetzner, as quoted in the "In the News" section above: "Those who do get stuck at an extreme would need to seek special help, while most people, as part of growing up, are better helped by Christian friends, especially the older-and-wiser. How to do each as required -- identifying and encouraging special (professional) help when needed, or just providing help as a friend -- may not be clear at all times."
5. In the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, that old statesman tells of living at a boarding house in England in his younger years. There was another boarder, a single woman of 70, who lived up in the garret. As a young woman, she had lived in a convent somewhere in Europe and intended to become a nun, but for some reason, the country did not agree with her, and she returned to England. But she vowed to live as much like a nun as she could. Accordingly, she had given all her estate to charity, keeping only a small amount to live on, and then she regularly gave away even much of that, living on a watery gruel. She was so saintly that the owners of the house let her live there for free, actually deeming it a blessing to have her in the house. Every day, a priest came to hear her confession. Her landlady wondered how the old woman could possibly have anything to confess daily, and asked her about it. The woman said, "Oh, it is impossible to avoid vain thoughts." What observations would you make about this woman?
Responding to the News
It may be that the uneasy conscience is more prevalent among those who attend church regularly than among the population at large, for we are people who really try to understand what it means to live righteously. The burden of undeserved guilt often comes to those who really try to do what they understand as right.
It would be good for us to consider how we use the words "must," "should," "ought" and the like, both with ourselves and when speaking to other Christians, as in statements that start, "To please God, you must ..." or "As a Christian, you ought to ...."
Of course, there are some things that Christians must, should and ought to do, but our reliance on such words to describe our religion may be a cue that we have allowed things to get out of balance in our spiritual lives, and that we have forgotten about grace, mercy and "come unto me, all you that are weary ...."
Closing Prayer
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