Comments on: Calvinism under a Cloud?

By: RS

RS — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 17:31:03 +0000

Actually Jim, that is the hard day’s work for me. My ‘light’ reading this week was the Edwin Sandys volume from the Parker Society.

By: JD

JD — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 22:58:58 +0000

Richard,
Glad to have you back with some light reading material. The type of book that makes a ‘good’ read after a hard day’s work.

By: RS

RS — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 06:16:21 +0000

Some excellent points there. The nature of the sources and the prevalence of church-going in the period make it impossible to set up a control group.
I should mention that the author considers Erich Fromm’s paradigm singularly helpful, which should give us some idea of where he is coming from in terms of presuppositions etc.

By: Marty Foord

Marty Foord — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 23:31:32 +0000

Hey Richard, I haven’t read the book but I would want to test the hypothesis rigorously using sources properly. For example, anyone who did research on 21st century evangelicalism would think that we have a greater problem that Puritanism because depression and anxiety is rife: many believers are medicated and many Christian books abound about it. But is it the type of evangelicalism that is the cause? That is a complex question.For example, a Christian person prone to depression will naturally talk about their Christianity from a negative perspective, but this doesn’t mean Christianity is the cause, it’s more being affected biologically.

So we need ways to test how prevalent depression was amongst Christians in the 17th century, find direct links (which is complex due to causes and effects), and that these links do arise from a certain theology.

Having said all that, the church (in my experience) is a place where mentally ill people tend to congregate for a whole variety of reasons (not least because believers accept them, and that God calls those who aren’t much in the eyes of the world).

Just my 5 cents worth.

Blessings, bro.

Marty.