The late 19th century American pragmatic psychologist and philosophy William James once stated, when examining the broad scope of religious experience, that ultimately all religious experience fell within two types.  The first type of religious experience, which he termed ‘normal,’ was for religion to serve as a wall or moat around the believer in tough times to keep trouble away.  The second type of religious experience, which he termed ‘sick,’ was where the believer lacked any sense that the world was whole or right in the first place and that it was only through a personal relationship and connection with God that one could be made whole or healthy in the first place.

It is noteworthy that I found this quote in a book about the lifelong struggle of Abraham Lincoln with melancholy.  Melancholy is, after all, what the 19th century called depression, which was recognized in the culture of the time as providing both great burdens of gloominess and pessimism along with notable insights of wisdom and creativity.  As someone who (probably unsurprisingly) has struggled with melancholy since I can remember, a tendency that runs through both sides of my family and for which my life has greatly aided in developing within myself, it is a subject of considerable personal interest to me.  I do not pretend to speak about this subject as an impartial or unbiased observer, but rather as someone with a deep personal stake in the matter.

Nonetheless, it is my contention that William James was precisely wrong in his labeling of these experiences of faith as ‘normal’ and ‘sick,’ though very accurate when it came to his division of religious experience into two types.  Fundamentally, all mankind either comes to God in search of justification for how one already is, or in search of wisdom and guidance and instruction on how to live.  The first is to come to God (or one’s religious belief, like secular humanism) already convinced that one is 100% right, merely digging in the Bible or some other ‘holy’ text (like the New York Times or Koran or Darwin’s Origin of Species) in search of proof texts and justification for what one already believes and practices.  The second is to come to God (whatever one views as the ultimate authority) in search of the right way to live in the realization that one is in need of wisdom, mercy, salvation, and guidance.

The fact that most people behave in the first way rather than the second may make it ‘normal’ in the mathematical sense (which is the only way in which ‘normal’ has any meaning whatsoever–as an expression of the statistical distribution of a given population), but does not make it healthy as opposed to ‘sick.’  Objectively speaking, mankind does need guidance, mercy, and wisdom from outside because way to live properly is not within ourselves automatically.  To be sane or healthy is to recognize reality and respond appropriately to it, requiring that we counteract our mental filters and overcome our blind spots in perspective.  To believe that we are wise and powerful beyond measure, and that we have need of nothing outside of us is to be narcissistic, and therefore insane.  To recognize that we are not whole and to seek that wholeness is not insanity, but rather accurate insight into our true state and the desire to do something productive and useful about it.

Rather than labeling such insight as ‘sickness,’ let us rather appreciate such sound mental health, for it takes far more courage and mental strength to admit and confront one’s demons (literal or metaphorical) than it is ignore or deny them.  It is not without reason that in the twelve steps of recovery the first one is admission.  We must admit what we truly are, and what we struggle with, before we can overcome it.  We may, if we are wise, admit this to ourselves because most other people cannot be trusted with such information about our weaknesses and vulnerabilities, but it must be admitted nonetheless.

At the heart of Christianity lies a set of challenges that requires earnest self-examination and repentance.  The first step of faith in Christianity, at least a genuine one, is to recognize that one has fallen short of the standard of God’s law, that one is in need of mercy (a pardon for our death sentence for sin) and to be reconciled with our Creator.  The true Christian therefore begins with the self-knowledge of one’s corruption, imperfection, wickedness, sin, folly, and error.  This is the starting point, not the ending point, but it is a necessary place to start.  One cannot be made whole without realizing that one is lacking completeness and making the effort to seek restoration and wellness.  We do not seek medicine or treatment or cures unless we first see ourselves as sick.  But if we are all sick to begin with, it is impossible to become well without treatment, and therefore only those who seek that treatment are sane or reasonable.  It takes more strength to admit weakness than to deny it or to cover it with the false appearance of strength.

This does not mean that one necessarily ought to admit one’s weaknesses to everyone.  After all, there are many wicked people in this world, children of the evil one, who seek to exploit their knowledge of the flaws and errors of others for blackmail or extortion purposes, to insure and harm.  Nonetheless, if one is already being attacked with lies and half truths about one’s character, the only way to effectively deal with such libel and slander is to lay out one’s conduct in its open and honest light.  If people are already being induced or influenced to believe nasty lies, one has nothing to fear about admitting the truth, and one completely disarms attempts to extort or blackmail.  If someone is willing to admit the truth and pay the price of an honest admission of our foibles and imperfections, they will not be willing to pay the price to preserve the pleasant illusions of perfection.  The truth will set us free from many things we hold dear–few things are more precious to us than our illusions and pretense and self-deceptions, but if the choice is to be candid and honest or to suffer character assassination, the better option is to be honest and sincere and to let the chips fall where they may.

To seek religious experience as a wall or a moat to protect one from unpleasant self-discovery is to use religion in service of a lie.  To do so is to show one’s obedience and service to the father of lies, and to make one an enemy of the truth and to anyone great or small who believes and speaks the truth and lives a life of sincerity, genuineness, and integrity.  In order to live such lives of integrity painful self-examination is required on a frequent (perhaps even daily) basis.  A soul must have many dark nights before it can be made pure, and before we can be reconciled to God and our fellow man.  To do so requires that we tear down those walls that protect us from the truths we so desperately wish to deny or cover up.  And that requires us to recognize that we are ‘sick’ so that we can be made well.  There is no other way to become that which we were designed and created to be.  ‘Tis a pity it is so, but ’tis so.