Manifestation and Mental Illness: A False Gospel?

Let’s start with a lie.

Just a little one. The smaller the better! Because if a lie is little, then it may be easily disguised as the truth. If you wrap it in the right lingo, baptize it with enough ceremony, and speak with an air of authority then maybe no one will question it. It sounds Christian, so it must be gospel. But whose gospel? When it comes to our theology of mental health, the Church has bought into the lie of “Spiritual Illness” which is actually just a baptized form of a pagan ideology.

The Lie of “Spiritual Illness”

Mental health is a personal topic for me. My mother suffered a traumatic mental breakdown when I was young and used alcohol to cope when she was lucid. My wife suffers from trauma-induced anxiety and depression. As for myself, I have suffered from intrusive thoughts, chronic anxiety, and recently began experiencing suicidal urges. But at least I have the church! Right?

Not really. In fact, Christians have barely helped at all. Now that’s not to say Christians have been silent on the matter. Oh no, they’ve had plenty to say. Christians tell me the gospel should fix my mental health struggles, but when the struggles don’t go away, they usually switch tactics. I’ve been told it’s a sin problem. I’ve been told it’s a matter of belief or that I should read my Bible more. I’ve even been accused of being demon possessed. Twice! Weird, right?

Actually, such responses are more common than you might think. Dr. Kate Finley, a professor at Hope College, identifies this sort of thinking as a “Spiritual Illness view of mental disorder.” The idea either explicitly or implicitly blames a person’s mental disorders entirely on a spiritual deficiency. In other words, you haven’t been healed because you lack faith; it’s your fault. This sort of talk can be devastating for someone suffering from mental or emotional trauma and is far too prevalent among Christians. Dr. Finley notes one study published in 2020 which revealed that 31% of Evangelicals had been taught the Spiritual Illness approach at their church.

The Roots of Manifestation.

But this lie of “spiritual illness” is really just another version of Manifestation. If you haven’t heard the term “Manifestation,” then congratulations: you’ve escaped the internet. It’s experiencing an explosion in popularity, spreading across social media and championed by numerous celebrities. Manifestation is based on the Law of Attraction, a system of belief which connects your lived experience with your state of mind. If you believe rightly, then good things will happen. According to Roxie Nafousi, a bestselling author on the subject, Manifestation is about believing you deserve something better.

Explaining her views on an episode of the “Girls Gotta Eat” Podcast, Nafousi centers the act of Manifestation within a spiritualistic framework for one’s relationship with a personified universe. Such an assertion runs directly contrary to the Bible, which envisions the universe as a created “thing” placed under the feet of the Savior who formed it and died to redeem it.

The Need for Gospel-Centered Mental Health

Religious clergy are considered “frontline responders” in the area of mental health, offering us a marvelous opportunity to fulfill the Great Commission. But mental health is hard to understand and hard to empathize with. What do we do when someone accepts Christ as their savior but doesn’t seem to get any better? How do we explain the problem to them, our critics, or even to ourselves? We look for ways to make sense of what we see, sometimes stumbling into theological myths in search of easy answers (2 Timothy 4:3-4).

So many people come to us searching for healing and hope, which we have in the gospel. But our gospel must be the gospel of Jesus Christ, and not the gospel of Manifestation. The stakes are too high for us to settle for anything less than Jesus. The spiritual illness view of mental disorder certainly offers us an easy answer but lacks biblical mooring. It is a lie steeped in false doctrine, a lie I’ve heard too many times.

So many Christians don’t know what to do with us. Believers with mental disorders are a confusing paradox of hope and anguish. We might have questions that make other Christians uncomfortable or problems that may defy traditional categories and solutions. Loving us isn’t easy because we’re not exactly easy on the eyes. But then again, neither was Jesus. With so great an opportunity to proclaim the gospel to both believers and unbelievers, we must be sure to preach the correct gospel, centered around a Savior who was “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Is. 53:3 ESV).