Prophets, Apostles, and Mental Illness
I have kidded for decades about the fact that in my ministerial years I have met at least 23 of the Two Witnesses. One felt he was both of them, thus the odd number.
I remember going with a minister to a home in Idaho once where the woman heard the voice of God often in her head. She had a young baby so the minister asked me to tend to the baby while he talked to her about her visions and voices. The baby had not had a diaper change in a pretty long time, so I took care of that in the kitchen while the minister tried to help her. Seems she was killing chickens on the farm and trying to resurrect them…without much luck. We never made any connection to the danger and I doubt either of us understood the symptoms of schizophrenia, but I do now. After that, I returned to Ambassador for my last year and was reading the LA Times in the lounge before breakfast. My eye fell on a small article about a woman in a small town in Idaho who was found sitting in her car on a Mountain top waiting for Jesus to return. I knew the name. They found the baby dead on the farm. Or should I say, still dead.
From the Bible we find a man once laid on his right side for 390 straight days and then flipped over for another 40 because the voice in his head told him to. He built little models of Jerusalem in the sand and laid siege to a stone with a pot (Ez. 4). He even cooked his food with human waste (Ez. 4:9) and dug a hole in his own home and squeezed himself through it with his possessions on his back (Ez. 12). His name was Ezekiel. Maybe he was traumatized by the captivity or the destruction of the symbol of all that was holy and stable to him, the temple. He died forever ago and lots of the stuff he said was going to happen embajada norteamericana en peru never really did far as we can tell. I hear a lot of minister types quoting him forester sample resume 2500 years later as if you can read the newspaper and immediately see what Ezekiel was talking about. I guess if they lay siege to a rock, lay on their sides search for brewer players for a year or more and give up charcoal for human waste at cookouts, …well…ewwww. Time to find another church. I know most will say that God told him to do these things….but think about what you are saying. Would you say that about Andrea Yates who God told to drown her kids or Mijailo Mijailovic who killed the Swedish Foreign Minister, Anna Lindh, saying when asked who told him to do it, “I think it was Jesus. That he has chosen me”?
An Old Testament character, Moses, went up into крючки для рыбалки the mountains a few times because the voice in his head that no one else could hear, called him up for a meeting. He said it was God, but when he came back down the mountain carrying , what he said were the rules from the voice in his head, he ordered the murder of 3000 more pretty nice people, men women and children for not patiently waiting for him. And these people had already had a pretty tough time getting out of Egypt doing what the voice in this guys head told him to do. He had friends killing friends and families. Bummer… that was a heck of a lot of drama and walking for nothing. From what I understand, hardly anyone who fled Dodge City, Egypt believing the voices in this man’s head ever made it to the Promise Land. I’m not sure the story really happened, which would be a relief. I just can’t imagine this as a good way to begin their understanding of “Thou Shalt Not Kill.” This same fellow, was pretty sure that the voice spoke to him from bushes in the desert too. Not a good sign in the world of mental health types .
Yet again, an Old Testament figure called Abraham, decides to take his only son, up the mountain and kill him as a sacrifice. Perhaps a weird way to say thanks for the son that he could never have before. But I’d think that was going a bit too far. Reminds me of cutting off the nose to spite the face. Anyway, the voice in his head said to and then decided it was only kidding. The child, who probably refused ever again to go on any “just a campout” with dad , was replaced by an animal conveniently stuck in a nearby bush. What’s the chance of that! I can’t imagine Isaac every quite trusted ol’ dad again.
There was a guy who married a prostitute because the voice told him to. We had to drop the standard laws of marriage for this one, but its ok if you are doing it for God. Man was his wife mad about that! The guy even began to think he was a reincarnated form of the guy before him who talked to the bush. Tons of people obeyed this guy for a time, but usually not for very long. Hosea I think.
The more I think about it, the more I have to admit that voices in the heads of people I never met, and no one at that time could hear themselves, have played a really big role in who gets the final say in religion. What if…Nah.
Paul in the New Testament fell off a donkey when he heard a voice in his head about giving Jesus a hard time in his old job. He even saw a flash of light in his head, brighter than the sun and it was already noon when this happened! That’s pretty darn bright! When people in the Bible light up, it’s ALWAYS brighter than the sun. You’d think more people would notice. The others either heard the voice but did not see the light, or saw the light but not the voice, stood up, or all fell down depending on the story your read in the used entertainer coaches Bible. The voice in
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