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eligion was a natural and obvious enemy to the materialist philosophers, being diametrically opposed in its beliefs as to the nature of man. And it was soundly attacked.
It was Karl Marx, a materialist to the core, who called it the "opium of the people." Sigmund Freud was another strong opponent. In his 1928 book, Future of an Illusion, he called religion "the universal neurosis of humanity." He also called religious ideas "illusion, fulfillments of the oldest, strongest and most insistent wishes of mankind."
Then there was G. Brock Chisholm, a Canadian psychiatrist and co-founder of the enormously influential World Federation for Mental Health, whose plan for the future of psychiatry as announced in 1945 should have given religions cause for alarm: "To achieve world government, it is necessary to remove from the minds of men their individualism, loyalty to family traditions, national patriotism, and religious dogmas."
Given such virulent anti-spirituality at the core of their belief system, it is little wonder that a 1986 survey published by the American Journal of Psychiatry found that 95 percent of psychologists and the majority of psychiatrists acknowledge that they are atheist or agnostic, compared to the 90 percent of the general public who do believe in God.
The infiltration of psychiatric principles into religion began in the 1920s and increased rapidly during the 1950s, where certain "progressive" divinity schools like the Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California began adding "Pastoral Counseling" courses into their curriculum. The establishment of the Academy of Religion and Mental Health in 1954 launched programs such as conferences on psychological testing for ministerial selection and "clinical" (i.e., psychological, pastoral) training for clergy.
In the last 20 years or so, we have seen the greatly increased presence of psychiatry in religion. The late 1970s brought us an explosion in chains of "Christian" psychiatric clinics, which offer psychiatric drugs to their patients, presumably as adjuncts to the Christian religion. One of these chains, Minirth-Meier, began when Frank Minirth announced to both the president and academic dean of Dallas Theological Seminary, "God is calling us to teach psychology in Dallas." 15
And increasingly, churches have been duped into becoming referral institutions for psychiatrists. Whereas once a parishioner would turn to his spiritual leader when in need, now he was being told he was mentally ill and needed psychiatric, not spiritual, care.
By 1991, a Christianity Today survey found that 29 percent of its readers had received counseling for themselves or a close family member within the last three years, and that they were three times more likely to receive it from a psychiatrist or psychologist than from a pastor. The results of a similar survey in Today's Christian Woman were even higher--38 percent. 16
In case you think that psychiatry has your family's best religious interests in mind, read the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV), psychiatry's official catalogue of mental disorders.
Under the category "Other Conditions That May Be A Focus Of Clinical Attention" is listed a disorder called "Religious or Spiritual Problem," which, of course would require psychiatric--not spiritual--counseling:
"This category can be used when the focus of clinical attention is a religious or spiritual problem. Examples include distressing experiences that involve loss or questioning of faith, problems associated with conversion to a new faith, or questioning of spiritual values that may not necessarily be related to an organized church or religious institution."
For thousands of years, it was the pastor who ministered to the spiritual needs of his congregation. Families depended on his guidance for moral leadership. Today, even while they have denigrated religion, more and more frequently psychiatrists have supplanted his authority and taken it for themselves.
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