OCD and the Death of the

Christian

For better or worse, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) has tumbled into
popular culture as a label for our uptight and detail-minded acquaintances. Many
of us know someone who is OCD about his schedule or his budget or keeping his
silverware neatly stacked. But clinically speaking, OCD extends beyond mere
personality quirks to include mental and behavioral patterns that can lock arms in
a vortex of bondage.
A person with OCD typically finds himself the host of intrusive thoughts fears of
contamination, of committing the unpardonable sin, of embarrassing himself in
public that kick up intense anxiety and refuse to leave. These sticky
thoughts, as Mike Emlet calls them, are considered obsessions and make up half
of the OCD equation. The other half, compulsions, involves the behaviors we
usually associate with the disorder: repeated hand washing, counting stair steps,
checking locks, and so on. Compulsions offer the prospect of relief from
obsessive thoughts. But they almost never deliver. In fact, more often than not,
they only make things worse. (Are you sure your hands are clean? Better scrub
again.)
Body and Soul
So what causes OCD? Researchers have offered a variety of explanations. Some,
for example, have suggested a link between OCD and abnormal levels of
serotonin, a chemical that relays messages from one neuron in the brain to
another. Others have pointed to genetics and certain environmental factors. But
despite these leads, no one has been able to identify an airtight physical
explanation. And should such a discovery one day appear, our collective
understanding would only shuffle up to the edge of a black and yawning chasm:
the human heart.
We are embodied spirits, complex tangles of clay and ether. Our worship, rightly
ordered or no, stretches like a spinal cord through our existence, never seen but
always felt, always directing, always present. So when dealing with a mental
disorder such as OCD, we would do well to consider the whole person in our
diagnosis, soul as well as body. And I think Colossians 2:2023 offers a promising
way forward.
The Elemental Spirits
Paul begins this passage by reminding the Colossians that they have died with
Christ to the elemental spirits of the world (Colossians 2:20). What are the
elemental spirits? Though theories abound, it appears that in Colossians the
elemental spirits are varying ranks of evil powers that exercise dominion over the
material world. At one time, the Colossian believers were enslaved to these
spirits, bound by a record of debt (Colossians 2:14) because of their trespasses.
But God canceled this debt at the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities,
Paul writes, and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him
[Christ] (Colossians 2:15).
But the Colossians, it seems, had forgotten that. Paul continues in Colossians 2:20,
If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were
still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations? Paul isnt encouraging the
abandonment of all moral restraint here. He has specific regulations in mind: Do
not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch (Colossians 2:21). These regulations concern
things that all perish as they are used (Colossians 2:22), things like food and
drink that lack any intrinsic power to sanctify or defile the consumer. As Jesus
warned the Pharisees, There is nothing outside a person that by going into him
can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him (Mark
7:15).
Although these prohibitions find their source, not in God, but in human precepts
and teachings (Colossians 2:22), Paul admits they are attractive: These have
indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism
and severity to the body (Colossians 2:23). A spartan lifestyle holds a certain
allure, but it can actually distract from the pursuit of holiness. In Pauls words,
severity to the body is of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh
(Colossians 2:23).
OCD and Self-Made Religion
What does all of this have to do with OCD? Quite a lot, actually. I think that
inColossians 2:2023, Paul gives us vocabulary for understanding why the cycle of
obsessions and compulsions is so ensnaring. Now, please understand that I am not
discounting the important role that medication can play in managing OCD
symptoms. Nor am I claiming that the mere presence of obsessive thoughts and
the temptation toward compulsive behavior necessarily involves sin. I merely
want us to see how the gospel addresses the fear, anxiety, and guilt that often
underlie the surface behaviors.
Lets try an example. I have personally struggled with OCD to one degree or
another since high school. One of my regular fixations has been truth-telling: in
my worst moments, Im scared to death that I might somehow tell a lie and lose
the respect of those I care about. So, for instance, when I would take a class that
required a reading report, I would spend long stretches of time on my assigned
readings, scanning and re-scanning lines I worried I had missed the first time
through. It was torture.
What was driving me in those moments? On one level, I wanted to be an honest
student. That was a good thing. God tells us in Ephesians 4:25 to speak the truth to
our neighbor. But I suspect that wasnt really what I was after. I wanted
omniscience. I was afraid of the deceitfulness of my heart and felt the only way I
could achieve rest was to know infallibly that my eyes had processed every
scratch of ink on the page in front of me.
But God never expects us to be omniscient. He knows our frame. He remembers
that we are dust (Psalm 103:14). Hes actually very happy with reasonable
approximations when the situation calls for it. So in my repetitive reading, I was
choosing to submit to someone elses definition of truthfulness. In Pauls language,
I was submitting to regulations: Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not read the next
sentence. I was bowing before human precepts and teachings: my own, not
Gods.
These precepts had an appearance of wisdom to me. Who doesnt want to be
thorough, after all? The extra time it cost me seemed a worthy sacrifice in the
quest for integrity. (Never mind that it was frightfully unloving to my wife who
wanted us to have more time to spend together.) I was treating my body severely
by whipping myself up into a froth of exasperation. But I never found the rest I was
after. My regulations were of no value in stopping the indulgence of my fearful
flesh.
OCD and the Death of the Christian
What, then, was my true hope? What is your hope, believer, in moments of mental
anguish? It is, quite simply, that you have died and been raised with Christ. You
have died to the elemental spirits of the world with their blackmail and their
bullying. Your deepest fears have no hold on you, even if you feel like they do.
[Y]ou have died, as Paul goes on to say in chapter 3 of Colossians, and your
life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you
also will appear with him in glory (verses 34).
So look to Jesus. Look at him in his triumph over the rulers and authorities
(Colossians 2:15). Look at him as the hiding place of all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge (Colossians 2:3). Jesus has the soundest, most well-adjusted mind there
is. Look at him as the place where the fullness of deity dwells bodily (Colossians
2:9). Look at him as the head of the church (Colossians 2:19), the firstborn of all
creation (Colossians 1:15), the one in whom all things hold together (Colossians
1:17), the forgiver of our trespasses (Colossians 2:13).
Thats where your life is. Thats where you are.
OCD doesnt define you. It doesnt define your friend or your husband or your
daughter or your mom. As Paul says in Colossians 3:910, [Y]ou have put off the
old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in
knowledge after the image of its creator.
You have put off the old self with its practices. Even its illogical and repetitive
ones.