1. Introduction 2. The World Is A Battlefield 3. The Church: A Feast for Oppressors? 4. The Many Faces of Childhood Trauma. 5. How do victims communicate? 6. Being a victim of an offense and victimhood 7. Learned Helplessness 8. Victim-blaming 9. God’s solution to sin 10. How Satan uses the Bible to force us to submit to him 11. The Good Shepherd 12. Victimhood as a weapon 13. The Victorious Christian 14. Practical exercise towards freedom. 15. Restore your trust in God. 16. Why God allows difficulties. 17. Church Tribulations 18. Final Victory 19. Afterword
Equality’s Ethics Dilemma
The world is a battlefield, with wounded people everywhere. Everyone handles it differently; some are more wounded than others. As the saying goes, hurt people hurt people. This is a chain reaction that won’t stop. Everyone is guilty of something, and everyone is also a victim in one way or another. Sometimes, bad behavior results from trauma or from carrying the burden of others’ sins. Issues do not arise from nothing. Anger does not come from nowhere. Victims can be unstable and a burden to those around them. Many victims are conditioned to harm others and don’t know any other way. Sin is contagious; like an airborne disease, it spreads easily. Sin is a chain reaction that affects the body, the soul, and society.
Some people are more harmed than others and struggle to find peace and hope. They want to be good and do good, but they can’t seem to break destructive behavior patterns. Others are trapped in abusive relationships or negative cycles, struggling to take care of themselves. They can’t stop hurting or move on. They are constantly triggered and re-wounded. Their scars affect every interaction and every aspect of their lives. They don’t know how to get better, and their behavior leads to new traumatic experiences. Even ordinary, day-to-day confrontations can have a devastating impact. Sadly, many victims are found unlikable for reasons that only further entrench their struggles. In a society where opportunities are equal, equality is often just an illusion. Not everyone can take advantage of the opportunities presented to them. Mental health issues are a real handicap that prevents people from moving forward.
To illustrate the point, imagine placing a plate of food at an equal distance between two people and telling them both have the same right to eat it. If one person is paralyzed and the other has well-functioning legs, the paralyzed person will struggle to reach the meal, if they can reach it at all. If they do make it, the other person will likely have already eaten it. Similarly, many people simply do not have the right cognitive tools to handle tasks that are easy and logical for others. For many with traumatic experiences, even something that appears harmless can be perceived as a danger. The good things presented to them might be difficult to accept or receive.
Some people don’t even know why they are depressed or feel worthless; they don’t understand how they have been wounded or by whom. Emotional damage is so complex that it can take years to understand what actually happened or how they were hurt. Sometimes, all they feel is an anxiety that seems random and misplaced. Our subconscious mind can pick up on things that our conscious mind does not.
No case is less important than another if the result and harm are the same. For too long, people have been evaluated more by what has happened to them than by the harm it has caused, and as a result, many do not receive the help they need. Any human who is broken is still broken, no matter how it happened or who caused it. If someone cannot cope with life, blaming them is hardly helpful and will rarely bring about change.
Just like non-religious people, many religious people across different Christian denominations struggle with how to address those who hurt others or themselves.
Too often, the victim is blamed or held responsible for their own hurt, while wrongful deeds are sometimes covered up.
In society, therapy has become a popular method to help people find understanding, and many Christians seek help there, hoping to gain the tools to heal. This can sometimes be problematic, as non-Christian mental health professionals do not always follow the principles of God and often even discourage faith and Christian virtue. This leaves believers in a place where their inner values and healing seem to conflict. Some therapists will even suggest that Christian faith is the root of their feelings of being trapped. As a result, those seeking help may feel forced to choose between faith and healing. Many who struggle have experienced abuse by professed Christians, so Christianity is often blamed instead of the abuser’s expression of their religion. Nobel Peace Prize winner, bishop, and human rights activist Desmond Tutu once said: “Religion is like a knife: you can either use it to cut bread or stick it in someone’s back.”
His statement is still relevant. Blaming the knife or its existence will hardly change the world. We must hold the person using it accountable.
Although this is not true for everyone, many people seeking help from psychologists become self-absorbed while trying to find solutions to their problems. They are taught to put themselves first and to view anyone who asks for self-sacrifice as wrong. This attitude does not align with Christ’s teachings or with healthy social interactions. Solving past issues by making everything about ourselves, or believing everyone should adjust their speech and actions to fit our needs, would make us terrible Christians. When we have been hurt, our tolerance can become distorted, leading us to unreasonable expectations of others. While it is important to respect and love oneself in order to care for others, balance is needed in any society. If everyone puts their own needs first, conflict is sure to follow.
Countless modern studies by non-religious researchers strongly suggest that people who help others are the happiest. Seeking to make others happy is what brings us happiness, contradicting much of the modern advice that urges us to seek happiness through selfish choices and indulgences. (https://www.forbes.com/sites/traversmark/2021/04/26/happiness-comes-from-making-others-feel-good-rather-thanourselves-according-to-a-new-study/?sh=55a6afeb2fd9 https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/wanting_to_help_others_could_make_you_happier_at_work https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-be-happy-by-giving-to-others/)
For someone who is depressed and unhappy, constantly putting themselves first might not make them happier or more content in the long run. On the other hand, always putting others’ needs first can also be exhausting, so finding the right balance is important. People interact—this is unavoidable—so no one can expect their surroundings to always be customized to themselves and their needs. It is a self-destructive social phenomenon: if others must always adjust to our needs, then logically and morally, we should see it as our duty to adjust to theirs, or else we will exhaust others in an effort to avoid exhausting ourselves. Most of the time, our rights cannot always come first, even if we are struggling mentally.
Life is about giving and taking, blessings and sacrifices. When do we give too much of ourselves, and when do we give too little? Finding the right balance can be difficult. A Christian may be tempted to give too much, thinking it is a duty, and end up “burning the candle at both ends.”
Facts or feelings.
Living by the flesh, according to the Bible, refers to a life governed by sinful, self-centered human nature rather than the Holy Spirit. It signifies rebellion against God and results in spiritual death. “So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so you are not to do whatever you want” (Galatians 5:16–17). Many people silence their needs, thinking it is their Christian duty, and believing their emotions are evil. They equate living by the flesh with acting on their emotions, but this is not always the case.
If you have experienced trauma, finding the Christian answer to healing and dealing with different types of trauma can be difficult because there are so many wrong practices within churches regarding these issues.
Sometimes, feelings are viewed as sinful and therefore suppressed. Many people believe they are serving God by not demanding justice, not fighting for what is right, and pretending not to be affected by others’ bad behavior. The unspoken rule is that the less of an emotional reaction we have, the more tolerant and better Christians we are. This is self-deceptive because it is impossible not to be affected by cruelty. Those who do not react emotionally to their surroundings often lack empathy. If Christians are encouraged not to show feelings, they naturally become less empathetic. Christian virtue emphasizes empathy, so we see two conflicting ideas about how emotions are viewed. Yet, because these unspoken rules about emotions as sinful often manifest in churches, many find Christians unsympathetic or even patronizing. If you are perceived as less “holy” because you don’t control your emotions, you will feel patronized by others who seem to have more control over theirs. This creates an atmosphere of hypocrisy and pretense, where no one wants to address the real issues. If having emotional reactions is regarded as a sin, then no one will want to show their emotions, as it would label them as less spiritual Christians. In such a toxic environment, some Christians become enablers, needing others to remain needy or “pathetic” to reinforce their own sense of spiritual superiority. The victims of such people may feel loved until they realize the Christian showing charity needs them to remain in a state of need for the relationship to work.
In an unhealthy church, our emotions are condemned as sinful, while the actions or circumstances that stirred up those emotions are ignored. This is very common in sect-like environments. There, you are taught to ignore any emotional warning signs and show your obedience, detached from your common sense and your own thinking. Going to any church that handles problems in this way means watching people become wounded and traumatized. They may appear to do good, but they do not.
On the right side of the political spectrum, there is often little sympathy, and sometimes even bullying is used to argue against overweight people, those who are oversensitive, the uneducated, those struggling with poverty, and people of different races and cultures. The attitude of “If you have problems, you made them, and you have to fix them” may seem well-intentioned, but it is also partly ignorant.
One right-wing commentator with a large following once said, “Facts don’t care about your feelings,” to which another responded, “Feelings don’t care about your facts.” Both statements hold some truth, but neither facts nor feelings alone can heal the broken; both must be combined. Although human emotions are not always perfectly calibrated, they help us process and evaluate information. Dismissing feelings is therefore deceptive, or at best, self-deceptive. When people shut down their intellect, they act on instinct like animals do. The same thing happens if we shut down our emotions because emotions are also part of our intellect. Without emotions, we act more selfishly and on instinct. This is evident in psychopaths and narcissists, who have little regard for others’ feelings and sometimes even reject their own. They are destructive and create a hostile environment everywhere they go. There would be no ideal world without feelings, and “facts” can never be detached from them. God created the human body so that intellect and feelings work together to form a being “in His image.” God is a God of facts, law, and order, yet it was His feelings for man that saved us and revealed God’s perfection as a leader. His choice to save mankind was an expression of His love. His throne consists of both mercy and law. Mercy and sympathy go together. “The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love. The Lord is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made” (Psalm 116:5). God has compassion for mankind and praises those of us who have compassion for our fellow men: “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy” (Matt. 5:7).
Surprisingly, it is impossible to keep God’s law without engaging our feelings. The Bible says, “And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might” (Deut. 6:5; see also Mark 12:30). It is through love and admiration—our emotions—that we worship and connect with God. We are saved by our emotional response to His love.
God says, “I will put my laws into their minds and write them in their hearts.” This illustrates perfectly that both the heart and the mind are needed for faithfulness (Heb. 8:12).
When God judges the guilty who refuse to change their ways, He does so to protect the innocent. His anger can be aroused by injustice, which in turn prompts God to intervene when He sees suffering. God has a law, and although it is the foundation of His reign, emotions are the foundation of the law. Stealing is forbidden because it hurts and harms another person’s emotional well-being. To be happy and excel, we need emotions, and when we have emotions, we need protection from them being damaged. This is the foundation of God’s moral laws, ensuring that one person’s happiness cannot legally be built upon another’s misery. Our emotions are part of our intellect and our ability to tell right from wrong. There is no true intellect without emotions. If emotions are separated from facts and reason, they become uncontrolled and untamed. In contrast, if reason operates without emotions, it cannot properly distinguish right from wrong. Relying only on emotions or only on facts are both forms of living “by the flesh” and can result in sinful behavior (Rom. 8:1). If we assume that living by the “flesh” is the same as having emotions, we may begin to fear our emotions and treat them as sinful. Many Christians make this mistake. They believe that hell is waiting for them if they “feel too much.” If we understand that “living by the flesh” means detaching feelings from facts as much as detaching facts from feelings, it might help us see the term differently. As Paul said, “If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have charity, I am nothing” (1 Cor. 13:2).
If you hit another person, it is the receiver’s pain and hurt expression that helps us understand the action is wrong. This is how we learn right from wrong from infancy. Before we understand words, we understand good and bad interactions by reading emotions and observing others’ reactions to our behavior. This is also where early trauma can create challenges later in life. If we receive toxic feedback, many of us learn the wrong emotional language. Inconsistency in responses can create uncertainty. For example, if a mother praises her child for doing something one day and then gets angry when the child repeats it another day, it confuses the child. We may not remember these early years, but the emotional language we learn can stay with us forever. Babies and toddlers can recognize fear, joy, hostility, and many other emotions by simply looking at someone, even before they can talk. For instance, a baby may comfort their mother. Emotions are an essential part of our growth and intelligence.
Emotions work together with facts to help us be the best people we can be. However, the pain of others does not always give an accurate understanding of who is in the wrong. If you hit someone and harm them, it may indicate the action was wrong, but the feelings of the wounded must not be separated from the facts when trying to understand the situation. Hitting and afflicting someone in that way is not always wrong. A person who is wounded is not always in the right.
If you get angry and hit someone who is trying to kidnap a child, the action is justified, even though the recipient feels pain and appears hurt. Therefore, you cannot always say that hitting someone is wrong simply because the recipient is harmed or upset. In one situation, the feelings of the other person may indicate the action was wrong, but in another, they do not. This principle applies to all kinds of “facts.” Sometimes anger is wrong, and in other cases, anger is justified. You cannot claim as a universal fact that anger or hitting is always wrong. In the example above, if one man’s anger had not been aroused and he had not punched the other, a child would have been kidnapped. So, the true victim is not always the one who suffered the most, but the one who acted with the right motives and intentions.
The struggle people have with bureaucracy is its inability to independently evaluate each situation. One law may help one person but harm another, and many fall through the cracks. Sometimes, the very laws created to protect end up harming the innocent and defending the transgressors (Isa. 10:1-2). This happens because bureaucracies lack the ability to use emotions when interpreting and applying the law. We see the same kind of unfairness in large companies, where employees who interact with customers have no trust or authority to make decisions based on their perceptions. This is why the service offered by many small business owners is often better and more personal. God’s law is structured differently. God forbids the addition of interpretive laws to His own, since these prevent the principles of His law from being properly kept. Too many interpretations remove personal evaluation, responsibility, and growth. Jesus repeatedly confronted the Pharisees and scribes over their additional laws, which they believed complemented God’s law but actually complicated it. Because there was no longer room to evaluate the fulfillment of the law in each situation, God’s law often seemed unfair or misplaced. For example, was a man who carried his bed on the Sabbath after being healed the same as a man moving his bed from one house to another unnecessarily? According to the Pharisees and scribes, there was no difference. They did not consider the context or the man’s intentions. God’s law said not to carry a burden on the Sabbath, but their additional interpretive laws defined healing someone or carrying a bed in that situation as a burden. Jesus kept the law’s original intention. The man carrying his bed for the first time in nearly forty years, praising God for deliverance from his illness, was not disrespecting God’s law. Jesus had many such confrontations with the Pharisees because he fulfilled God’s law by interpreting it in a broader and more compassionate context than they did.
God even states that too many laws and regulations cause people to stumble and fall (Isa. 28:13). There must always be room for independent evaluation within a firm set of moral principles. If there are too many laws, it becomes almost impossible to achieve this.
Human emotions are not sinful. Emotions cannot be removed, and sometimes they reveal the truth when the apparent facts do not.
God’s solution to harm and hurt is not to remove emotions, but to address what is causing them to be damaged or wrongly adjusted. Christians who think they give God glory by treating the existence of emotions as a sin may be fooling themselves and others. No one who is told to subdue their emotions feels free, not even as a Christian. This is why God wants us to worship, sing, and rejoice in Him. Our feelings bind us to Him and help us experience joy as Christians. Even in science, what we consider facts are not always God’s facts. When God wanted to save Israel from the Egyptian army, He overruled natural laws and divided the Red Sea so they could cross and be saved. When they were starving, He created a miraculous rain of food from heaven. When Joshua needed daylight to win a critical battle, God made the sun stand still. Christ silenced storms and turned water into wine. Many things may appear unchangeable or factual in nature, but God puts human salvation and well-being above these laws. By making people feel seen and loved, God is willing to perform miracles. Although His moral laws are unchangeable, God’s other laws can be temporarily altered when circumstances threaten the people they were meant to bless. When the disciples needed Jesus, He walked on water to reach them. Jesus said, “Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment” (John 7:24).
The intent of the law determines how it should be upheld. Jesus addressed this when the Pharisees added many extra laws to God’s Sabbath commandment. They allowed circumcision and even permitted saving an ox on that day, but they claimed Jesus was not allowed to heal a man on the Sabbath. The purpose of the law was to bring people to a special weekly rest and to connect them with God. Their additional law forbidding healing undermined this intention. Christ’s healing brought the man rest from his troubles and was fully in line with the true purpose of the law. While the Pharisees tried to create the illusion that they kept the law and that Christ broke it, the truth was the opposite.
Christ uses God’s laws to save and protect, while those who abuse them use the laws to control and divide. People who are hurt and wounded should not be told that their feelings are a problem or that they need to be silenced.
Even out-of-control feelings send a message. When a person goes to the doctor and says their arm hurts, it helps the doctor determine what is wrong. In the same way, people’s expressions and feelings reveal where emotional harm exists. By allowing people to express their feelings, we can identify the problem, help solve it, and, if possible, bring healing.
It is therefore Christian to consider people’s feelings, to allow the expression of feelings, and to have feelings ourselves. Every church should have people who understand and can interpret emotional language, since they will often encounter traumatized and wounded people seeking God’s help among them. Often, these individuals have tried to get help everywhere else first and are still hurting and desperate.
People who are traumatized and wounded often have a different emotional language than those who have faced fewer challenges in life. Failing to understand this emotional language barrier can cause unnecessary friction and division.
Although we are responsible for ourselves, some people do not know how to take care of themselves. Healthy coping mechanisms are best learned and taught in the early years of life. What seems easy to some is very hard for others. What one person does instinctively, another may not have learned; instead, they may have developed a different set of instincts. While one child learns social and developmental skills, another, living in a constant state of fight-or-flight, acquires survival skills that may not translate well into a more stable society.
To give a simple example, let us say we have two families, knocked back to the Stone Age, living in their caves, having to start from scratch.
If one family is under constant threat from wild animals and competing tribes, their lives will revolve mostly around defense, making weapons, training for war, and living in fear. They will have less food and fewer opportunities for innovation, and they will experience health issues tied to constant stress and a poor diet. Constant alertness can even lead to paranoia.
Another family, without these threats, can focus on building a good home, forming relationships, growing food, innovating, and enjoying life. If you bring the two families together, there will be a clear difference in how they interact, what they value, and their temperaments. The less threatened family may feel that the other family is too intense or out of touch with reality. Their behavior might not seem to fit the situation. The stressed family’s communication style might seem less friendly, more defensive, and less likable. The healthy family could appear less empathetic, more ignorant, and more judgmental. The family that has progressed might wonder why the others did not make the same innovations or progress. They, too, may be tempted to think the other family is less intelligent or lazy.
The family living in peace will also feel that all their success is due to the work they put into building their house, their infrastructure, their water system, and their crops—and in many ways, it is. What they may not realize is that their success, compared to the other family, is also tied to their freedom from threats. If they, too, had lived under constant threat, their focus and time would have been spent differently. The friction between the family that believes they are better and the family that seems less approachable leads them to dislike each other and become divided.
Translating this “stone-age parable,” we often see a similar situation in the world today, where some people fail and others succeed.
Opportunities in society may appear the same, but if someone grows up under constant threat or with significant mental challenges, they will not have had the chance to develop in a healthy, progressive way because they are focused on survival. We often see children from troubled homes struggle in school—not because they are less intelligent, but because they are accustomed to conflict as a way of interacting. Their alertness and defensiveness foster distrust toward others, making it hard for them to be accepted by those from harmonious homes. As a result, they often find friends among others who also struggle. Distrust breeds more distrust, and so the destructive cycle continues. When two teenagers turn sixteen, one from a troubled home and the other from a well-functioning home, they no longer have equal opportunities in an equal society because their development is at different stages, yet they are expected to handle the same decisions and opportunities. One has spent their life learning skills that are now seemingly useless and must learn in adulthood what others learned as children. Being set back and denied these opportunities, they fall behind and are labeled as failures by society. They lose self-confidence, believe something is wrong with them, and doubt their abilities. Providing extra time and free education is often seen as unfair by those who view equality only in terms of numbers and appearances. In this view, benefits and rewards are distributed regardless of background. Ultimately, this creates a “survival of the fittest” society in which those who struggle are left behind.
The God of the Bible is a strong defender of those whose backgrounds give them fewer opportunities to succeed, and He repeatedly instructs those who are successful to help families that struggle. This is important for the overall success of society. “He that oppresseth the poor reproacheth his Maker: but he that honoureth him hath mercy on the poor” (Pro. 14:31). “He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor” (Psa 72:4).
Many recognize that the prosperity gospel is questionable, but they may practice an unspoken mental prosperity gospel in their everyday lives. This mentality suggests that the fewer issues you have, the closer you are to God. However, God says, “The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit” (Psa. 34:18). When God explains the reasons behind the fall of Sodom and Jerusalem, He highlights how those who struggled were treated: “Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy” (Eze. 16:49). “Strengthen the hand” means to help others find the strength to cope in life, to give them respect and assistance. When people do not have equal backgrounds, their opportunities are unequal, and God expects the stronger to help those who struggle to succeed as well. These are God’s principles. It is not about race, but about each individual’s life experience and family background. Paul compared the church to the human body, illustrating how all its parts are important for the body to function. The same illustration applies to society as a whole. If a neglected or sick part is left untreated, it will affect everyone. “And those members of the body, which we think to be less honourable, upon these we bestow more abundant honour; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness. For our comely parts have no need: but God hath tempered the body together, having given more abundant honour to that part which lacked: That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another” (1 Cor. 12:23-25).
Can socialism reduce mental health issues and help achieve equality?
Some might mistake these principles for the Bible favoring socialism or socialistic structures. It is not unusual for people who have suffered trauma or have mental health issues to dream of a socialist utopia where wealth is distributed to the less fortunate. At first glance, this can seem like a good way to address the social differences that arise because so many suffer from trauma and mental health challenges.
The society God created in the Bible was not socialist in structure, with the government overseeing the distribution of the fruits of others’ labor to those less fortunate. While God is charitable and asks the same of His people, His charity is meant to be a developing experience for both the giver and the receiver. By giving those who are successful the opportunity to notice and respond to others in need, God helps them develop humanitarian skills that reflect His image. Being directly involved in how their means and hard work are used, they learn responsibility and experience a unique happiness that comes from interacting with and helping others. This process leads to growth and purpose for the giver, while the receiver also learns to take on more responsibility. Both giver and receiver gain a sense of value. When help comes from a person rather than a government institution, the recipient experiences love and appreciates the hard work and value behind the gift. Government programs, on the other hand, operate by rules that may end up aiding the wrong people, neglecting the truly needy, and distributing assistance evenly among families with very different circumstances. This can result in rewarding the dishonest and punishing the honest.
When people are directly involved in their acts of charity, it inspires self-worth and character development in the receiver. If done well, without placing a long-term burden on the giver and with an understanding of the sacrifice involved, the receiver will learn and try to become independent or even become a giver themselves. Those who are managing life well and those who struggle need to see and learn from each other to build a strong, developing society. Doing something for others is, in part, the meaning of life. Selfishness is a negative spiral where you can never have enough and never feel satisfied. In governmental socialism, the personal benefit described in the Bible is lost, as people become dependent on a faceless, emotionless government that takes money regardless of the situation of both the giver and the recipient. This approach halts character development for both parties and creates a selfish and exploitative society.
The wise biblical approach is disappearing in the West, where human connection is being replaced by antisocial institutions. Occasionally, when a major catastrophe occurs, people come together to help one another through difficult situations. They rescue each other from floodwaters, search for survivors in earthquake-stricken houses, feed and clothe those in need, and care for children displaced by disasters as if they were their own. We have this capacity for compassion, but we need this mentality in everyday life as well. We are all each other’s responsibility. We are all each other’s extended family. This should not be visible only during a crisis or disaster.
For many Christians, it is easier to travel to the other side of the world to help someone in poverty than to assist their immediate neighbor. However, our God-given responsibility is to care for those God has placed in our midst, and we will be held accountable for how we treat them. God did not accuse Sodom of neglecting a faraway nation, but of failing to care for those living among them.
God’s system is not socialism. Instead, God gives the power and responsibility to love and care for each other to the people themselves. He wants to empower our charity and social skills, benefiting both the giver and the receiver, and creating an open, warm society where everyone gets a chance to restart if they have failed, while still feeling valued and respected. God wanted all His people to own property, to belong, and to have a place to provide for themselves and to work—a property that the government could not take away, even if they did not pay taxes. If a family lost their property, society was to restore it to them in the next generation. According to God’s laws, owning land that cannot be taken away, regardless of circumstance, is a human right. In the Bible, the year in which property was to be returned was called the Year of Jubilee. Those who were in economic debt and working in slave-like conditions, without property, were to be freed and given back their generational property so their family could have a second chance (Lev. 25:8-13).
The government was never meant to own people’s land or their rights to it, nor to redistribute the fruit of others’ labor. In fact, God strongly opposed Israel’s request for a king because of the taxation required to form a larger governmental body. The more taxes there are, the stronger the government becomes, and the less freedom the people have. In such a system, the government ends up owning the people, forcing them to work for the government to keep the system running. This was never God’s intention for society (1 Samuel 8:10-18). We must not confuse governmental socialism with God’s humanitarian welfare system. Socialism focuses on economics, while God focuses on people’s mental development and character through social interactions. Even those who succeed need character development. Happiness and material wealth are not the same thing, even though many are fooled into believing they are. Human value, love, time, and charity are true wealth, and a socialist society cannot redistribute these, only the illusion of them.
Socialism results in people feeling less responsible toward their fellow human beings.
Even in the highly praised, wealthy Northern European social democracies, most people have lost the ability to care for others and are often considered unsociable, even toward neighbors and strangers. If someone is poor, it is viewed as the government’s responsibility to provide assistance, and individuals feel free from any personal obligation to help a fellow human being. When they see others struggling, they are more likely to report the situation to the government than to offer help themselves. This creates an informant society, where people have no idea whether the person they reported actually received help or was punished. Sometimes, what people need most in difficult times is grace, not government surveillance and evaluation.
Collective mental health
In many countries around the world that have endured dictatorships, corrupt governments, war, famine, and similar hardships, people have struggled for generations to become self-sufficient and prosper. Many of these areas remain impoverished for generations, paralyzed and unable to use the resources within their reach to rebuild their society and lift themselves out of poverty. Where war and corruption continue to threaten daily life, people may become apathetic. This is a threat response that occurs when “fight or flight” is not possible. When everything you live for is gone, motivation and meaning disappear, which makes it difficult to move forward. If people remain in a state of victimhood and do not unite to stand up for their rights, they become helpless prey. New leaders often take advantage of this, as people stuck in victimhood are easily subdued by various forms of dictatorship.
Likewise, many households are war zones, and the children who grow up in them can be compared to “war veterans.” When they are cast out into society, they are expected to act, behave, and handle opportunities just like anyone else. When they fail, they are usually blamed. Despite all this, a well-functioning family should not be punished for being well-functioning. If the solution was to attack those who function well with jealousy, financial punishment, or adversity, it would not elevate those who struggle to success. Instead, it would drag everyone down. Those who are functioning well should be examples and sources of inspiration, not targets of hatred. However, because the well-functioning often look down on those who are not, tension and contempt are created, which helps no one. God rewards those who do good and succeed with even more blessings, making goodness desirable. At the same time, He demands that they use their position and advantage to help those who are left behind. In this way, God does not bring the successful down; rather, He blesses them and lets them know that with success and blessings comes the responsibility to help others. Keep in mind, success here does not necessarily mean financial wealth, but also peace, love, courage, talent, and knowledge. This approach is meant to lift everyone up, not bring everyone down. God teaches us that society will not prosper just because one family prospers. Society depends on the strong helping the weak, or the weak will eventually undermine society for the strong. Everyone depends on one another for greater peace and prosperity; everyone is connected, and everyone’s well-being is everyone’s business. You can be as good as you want and teach your children to be good, but if the troubled child from down the street harms your child, your prosperity will be affected, and you may even start to live in fear, which will drain you and change you. You may follow all the traffic rules and never drink and drive, but you might still die because another driver did. Ultimately, society’s prosperity depends on people helping each other. Otherwise, others’ despair and struggles will eventually come back and affect you through a chain reaction.
Individuals in society come into conflict with one another all the time. For many, it is difficult to understand the stress, intensity, or apathy that can result from growing up under constant pressure and adversity.
Pull yourself together or indulge in every desire?
Many religious people believe that telling others to “pull themselves together” is the solution, while ignoring deeper issues. In most cases, this approach hurts and even further harms those they want to change. They call it a “truth pill,” but when truth is combined with cruelty, it does not have the desired effect. Truth is not only words; it is words combined with actions and emotions. On the other side, many liberals seem to support any form of self-indulgence, thinking that if people can follow every impulse and feeling, they will somehow be cured of all their problems. Some teach that following one’s feelings and sexual desires will create a utopia where all negative feelings disappear. In this view, criticism is seen as the only threat, so any criticism must be silenced. This rarely leads to utopia, and it never has in the past. Those who disagree are blamed. They do not want to examine whether following one’s desires really is the way to heal emotional damage. Seeking to satisfy every desire does not cure mental health issues and is extremely self-absorbed.
The Bible’s take
The majority of the Western world believes the Bible is outdated. For Christians, however, it contains life-saving lessons. Although “mental health” is a modern term not found in the Bible, Scripture does address mental health issues on an individual level and considers their broader impact on society. God does not ignore these concerns, and He provides answers—though even Christians often overlook them.
The Bible offers something no psychologist can: a Father who loves us, a source of hope, value, and a defender. God does not just listen; He acts on our behalf. His care is not just words, leaving us to handle everything ourselves.
• Does the Bible offer an answer or a cure to help us avoid being held back by our wounds and by the wounds others act out on us?
• Does the Bible provide guidance for handling mental health issues, and if so, how? How can we break the chain reaction so that not only do we avoid falling when hurt, but also prevent our pain from harming the next person we encounter?
• In what ways can God help us heal, without us becoming self-absorbed or selfish in the process?
• Can a victim truly rise and become strong as a warrior for what is good?
The words of the prophet Micah can serve as an anthem for every Christian who has been wounded or has stumbled: “Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the LORD shall be a light unto me” (Micah 7:8).