John MacArthur doubles down on his mental health comments. And he's still wrong.

MacArthur misses something really pretty simple, and it's not that difficult to see if he's willing to look.

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While John MacArthur’s initial comments claiming that PTSD and OCD are not real and are simply a “noble lie” got a lot of attention last month, what has gone unreported is the fact that he doubled down on them last week.¹

And guess what: unfortunately he’s still wrong.

Before we get to the new comments and the doubling-down, I want to make one thing clear: I am not on a mission to cancel John MacArthur. I said it before and I’ll say it again: he has done a lot of good. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t wrong on this issue and shouldn’t be called out on it in love. That’s what I’m aiming to do.

The reality is that MacArthur has a lot of followers and a lot of clout in the evangelical and reformed camps, so being wrong on such an important issue is dangerous.

And he is definitely wrong.

If you need a recap of what MacArthur said last month and my initial response, which was quite thorough, you can read it here or below. In fact, I’d encourage you to read that first and then come back.

Why John MacArthur is drastically wrong on mental health.

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OK, let’s get into the new comments.

Last Thursday, MacArthur joined TheBlaze TV’s Allie Beth Stuckey² for a wide-ranging interview on his new book. The last segment (about five minutes) of the nearly hour interview addressed his controversial comments. In essence, Stuckey give MacArther the floor to explain himself. I’m going to include a full transcript of his response at the end just like I did in the first article in an effort to be transparent. I’m not trying to take anything out of context.

Here, however, is my summation of what MacArthur is saying. And it’s an argument I’ve heard before and address in my book:

• The brain is different from the mind. And the mind is where issues like OCD and PTSD reside. The mind is also more akin to the spirit. So when psychiatrists and doctors try to treat a mind issue with medication, it’s fruitless. In fact, treating the brain for a mind issue does a lot of harm to the brain when that happens. You can’t treat mind issues by medicating the brain. Instead, you need to turn to Christ for mind issues.

Here he is in his own words from Stuckey’s program on May 23:

• “The brain can be sick, the brain can be damaged, you can have a tumor, you can have encephalitis, you can have a brain problem. … The mind is something completely different. The mind is transcendent. You can't fix the mind with a chemical. You can wound the brain. And that's what's coming out.”

• “So what I was saying was, is there post traumatic, post traumatic stress? Of course. Is it a brain syndrome? No. Is there ADHD? Are there kids who have trouble paying attention? Trouble sitting still? Yeah, I was one of them. Is it a brain problem? No. What about obsessive compulsive problems? Is that a brain disorder? No.”

• “And what he basically says, is that the psychology and psychiatry has been trying to deal with mind problems with things that alter the brain. They don't fix the mind problems, but the emotional issues, but they do negatively impact the brain. That's all I was saying. If you want to solve your mind problems, you've got to find love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self control. Those are spiritual virtues that are available in Christ. Don't turn to chemicals turn to Christ.”

I’m not going to belabor my response, because it’s actually pretty simple. In my book on faith and mental health, “Finding Rest,” I explain that mental health disorders are both physical AND spiritual. The problem, though, is that the world wants to make them all a physical issue while the church wants to make them all a spiritual issue.

Both approaches are wrong.

Instead, you need a balanced approach. You have to treat any mental health issue with both physical and spiritual measures.

The people like MacArthur say, “No, it’s only a spiritual [mind in his words] issue that can be solved by turning to Christ.” The people that MacArthur rails against, on the other hand, say, “No, it’s only a physical issue that can only be solved with medication.”

Friend, what I want people like MacArthur to see (and those who agree with him) is that we have to treat both the brain and the spirit (mind). In fact, in my book I talk about the three-legged stool of mental health. Did you know there’s actually a THIRD component to mental health? It’s body! And you have to be addressing ALL THREE in order to keep your mental health in balance.

Here’s my final point, and I think it’s really important for MacArthur and those who believe like him to realize: I can never actually address the spiritual (mind) issues unless I address the brain issues first. As someone with diagnosed anxiety and OCD, I take medication to bring my “normal” level of anxiety from an eight down to a four. At a level four, I can do the spiritual work. I can’t when I’m at a level eight. I physically can’t. My brain is all over the place.

In other words, my medication — which treats my brain — allows me to do the necessary spiritual work to renew my mind.

Listen, I don’t deny that I have spiritual issues like pride, and fear, and trust that I need to be constantly working on. But until I get my physical symptoms under control, until I address the imbalance and issues going on in my brain, I can’t do the important and necessary spiritual work.

That’s the really important part here. John MacArthur doesn’t, can’t, or won’t recognize that reality. And it makes me sad. Really sad.

I think the answer here is pretty simple: In order for those with legitimate, debilitating mental health disorders to treat the mind as MacArthur calls it, they so many times have to treat the brain first.

And that’s not voodoo science, Big Pharma, or something else sinister.³ It’s simply using a common grace, medication, God gave to us. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

Is Jesus the answer? Absolutely. I have to turn to Jesus every single day. Can he do miracles? Absolutely! The problem with MacArthur, though, is that he has determined that Jesus can only help someone with a mental health issue in one particular way — and in doing so he believes Jesus couldn’t possibly use medication to do it. That sounds pretty prideful. It sounds pretty limiting of God.

And it’s just plain wrong.

UPDATE: After publishing, I found that MacArthur addressed his comments from the pulpit on May 5th, 2024. His argument was a much longer version of what he told Stuckey. You can watch and read it here.

The only thing I’ll point out is that MacArthur adds that, “Mental illness is a term that is really not identifiable by any objective means. You can’t see it in an MRI or an X-ray or a CAT scan or a surgery.”

But that’s just not true. Brain scans do show mental health disorders. You can see that here, here, here, here, and here.

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Below is the full video of the MacArthur interview, followed by the relevant transcript. I’ve also made this post free for everyone and opened up comments.

So just to sum it up, with a couple of clear, foundational truths: The brain can be sick, the brain can can be damaged, you can have a tumor, you can have encephalitis, you can have a brain problem. That's clinically manifest. That can be diagnosed. And that can be treated with medication and surgery for the brain. The mind is something completely different. The mind is transcendent. You can't fix the mind with a chemical. You can wound the brain. And that's what's coming out. Now in psychiatry. You go back to Thomas Szasz back in 1957, I think when he wrote the book, “The Myth of Mental Health,” he wasn't saying that people don't have problems. What he was saying is they aren't brain problems. So you can't use some kind of chemical as if it were to fix the brain. The big deception was there's a chemical imbalance in the brain. We all heard that for decades and decades. “Take this medication, and it'll fix the chemical imbalance.” Well, they're now admitting that that was all a useful lie, that there's no way to define people's difficulty in dealing with the issues of life as a brain the problem. It's a mind problem. That's very different. So what I was saying was, is there post traumatic, post traumatic stress? Of course. Is it a brain syndrome? No. Is there ADHD? Are there kids who have trouble paying attention? Trouble sitting still? Yeah, I was one of them. Is it a brain problem? No. What about obsessive compulsive problems? Is that a brain disorder? No. But part of the cultures bent is to say, hey, it's not your fault. It's not your fault. You've got a disorder. You got a dis or you can have a brain disorder. But that's not what they're talking about, like PTSD is really grief. It's horrendous grief. It's survival guilt. It's having watched your buddies blown to pieces. You can't you got to deal with that grief, by putting a chemical into your body that will alter your brain. That's what's becoming the issue now. And there are lots of psychiatrists who are being honest, for the first time. There's a there's a book that's very helpful. It's called “A Profession Without Reason” by Bruce Devine. And what he basically says, is that the psychology and psychiatry has been trying to deal with mind problems with things that alter the brain. They don't fix the mind problems, but the emotional issues, but they do negatively impact the brain. That's all I was saying. If you want to solve your mind problems, you've got to find love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self control. Those are spiritual virtues that are available in Christ. Don't turn to chemicals, turn to Christ.

Jonathon M. Seidl is the bestselling author of the book, “Finding Rest: A Survivor’s Guide to Navigating the Valleys of Anxiety, Faith, and Life.” He himself has been diagnosed with clinical anxiety and OCD.

1. Or at least “underreported.”

2. Full disclosure: I helped start TheBlaze in 2010. I was its first writing hire and served as managing editor when I left in 2015. I didn’t work with Stuckey when I was there.

3. Let me be clear: Does overmedication happen in this country? Absolutely! Do some lazy doctors take the easy route? Absolutely! But that doesn’t and shouldn’t dismiss all cases of mental health disorders and the good the medication can accomplish. We have an opioid crisis in America, but that doesn’t mean that everyone who complains of pain is making it up. It doesn’t mean we stop prescribing pain medication altogether. We can have discussions about the best way forward and reform, but we can’t dismiss mental health issues out of hand or say they are only spiritual. We just can’t.