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God's judgement with people who have mental illnesses

Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2011 6:55 pm
by DRDS
Greetings everyone, this has to do with the salvation (or possible non salvation) status of my friend's mother. She grew up in a Christian home and throughout most of her childhood and early adulthood believed in the Christian faith. But recently she went through a bad divorce and went through some other tramatic things with some of her family, and she's not mentally "all there" to say the least. She was even in and out of a metal institution a year ago because she was admitted there by her parents. Because of that she no longer trusts doctors or medicine so thus she refuses to get treatment. My friend says he talks to her and even I have about Christ and sometimes she accepts it but other times she goes off on a weird tangent that God is some kind of "mystical force" and about reincarnation. So my question is, in God's eyes is she saved regardless of the strange stuff she is saying (which could be due to her mental problems) or if she or anyone gives any kind of hint of rejecting the Christian God or misinterpreting the God of the Bible (ie including strange things like reincarnation) whether it be due to will or even due to illness will God reject them?

Re: God's judgement with people who have mental illnesses

Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2011 9:33 pm
by B. W.
DRDS wrote:Greetings everyone, this has to do with the salvation (or possible non salvation) status of my friend's mother. She grew up in a Christian home and throughout most of her childhood and early adulthood believed in the Christian faith. But recently she went through a bad divorce and went through some other traumatic things with some of her family, and she's not mentally "all there" to say the least. She was even in and out of a metal institution a year ago because she was admitted there by her parents. Because of that she no longer trusts doctors or medicine so thus she refuses to get treatment. My friend says he talks to her and even I have about Christ and sometimes she accepts it but other times she goes off on a weird tangent that God is some kind of "mystical force" and about reincarnation. So my question is, in God's eyes is she saved regardless of the strange stuff she is saying (which could be due to her mental problems) or if she or anyone gives any kind of hint of rejecting the Christian God or misinterpreting the God of the Bible (ie including strange things like reincarnation) whether it be due to will or even due to illness will God reject them?
In the situation, conditions, and circumstances you described – NO – God has not rejected her. There are others who have had or currently have Christian parents with Alzheimer’s who lost all capacity to reason – and, NO, they do not lose their salvation due to this disease that robs them of mental ability. Your friend’s mother may have another issue involved and needs prayer and medicine for. The trauma may have caused her to desire designing ways to escape in order to cope with the trauma.

I would ponder something different if she develops a form of being able to actually read your thoughts such as praying silently for her and she tells you to shut up and stop praying or divines a secret thing you did no one knew about except you. I do not mean that she lost salvation but rather that there is something more sinister at work other than, or in conjunction with mental illness – all due in creating escape mechanisms from the trauma.

Is there a history of mental illness in family such as bi-polar, schizoid, schizophrenia, mania, etc… that develops in older adults at play here? That is a factor that help define effective treatment protocols, even for Christian relatives who have this happen, who no-longer are able to think clearly. Such, I do not think lost salvation either.
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