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Sin and How it Manifests in Your Health

Author: Dr. William Backus

Throughout November’s C.S. Lewis year two fellowship, we set our sights on the seven deadly sins. It’s not a popular topic. If we speak of sin anymore, it’s either in a historical context (look what they believed when this book was written, when this person lived, etc.) or in a decadent fashion (Devil’s Food Cake, anyone). When we look at health and wellness, sin never even enters the picture at all.

William Backus’ work proposes that a lot of our psychological and emotional problems are less the result of illness (mental or otherwise) and more the consequence of sin in our life. This focus has both its strong and its weak points.

Let me start with where it didn’t work, or at least not fully. Backus does acknowledge that some mental and emotional problems are not the result of sin or even the consequence of a person’s actions, but the result of chemistry. However, he doesn’t address this fully enough, and often his prospect can be simplistic. Yes, sin results in behavioral issues, for sure. But as someone who knows people with mental problems and has their own OCD/anxiety diagnosis, I also know that, as with any other disease, mental and emotional issues can be chemical – a result of how the body is built or how it is misfunctioning. Just as you wouldn’t blame a cancer patient for the thing that is literally killing them, would you tell a schizophrenic that the voices in their head are the result of their sinful ways? Again, as I said, Backus acknowledges that the argument is more nuanced, but only in passing. In this way, the work is both a little dated and a little insulting, perhaps even harmful to the Christianity Backus’ is espousing.

But – let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater just yet. I still rated What Your Counselor Never Told You fairly high, despite its “when you have a hammer, every problem is a nail” approach. Backus does have some interesting studies, and even something that he provides in appendix that he calls the sin test. It is true that our temptations, or proclivities towards one type of sin over another (for example, greed) do seem to have their carry-on baggage. Backus provides plenty of real-life examples of people who come to him with a problem they want to discuss and address through therapy (including boredom) and how, through a Christian approach and perspective, they realize that the root cause is not someone or something else, but their own sins. There is something to be said for this, although as I indicated, it is certainly not the case in every aspect, and would require a careful, educated counselor to note the difference between medical need and proclivity towards a particular type of bad behavior (read sin).

Image by Engin Akyurt from Pixabay

The sins themselves are divided along traditional lines – those seven deadlies I mentioned. Backus takes us through all of them: pride (the root), envy, anger, greed, sloth, lust, and gluttony. Along the way, he showcases examples of real patients and talks about the more subtle issues. For example – is anger always a sin? Is sloth just another word for laziness? Is gluttony all about eating, or about something more?

Backus gives advice on dealing with each type of sin, and the advice is mostly sound. If only he had acknowledged more stolidly the medical side of therapy and the necessity not to be “Job’s comforter” and always presume that someone has brought negative results on themselves. A simple introduction could have fixed this, and I know it’s a point I keep returning to, but it is where an otherwise powerful, thoughtful, and helpful book lost a lot of its push.

Nevertheless, Backus gives us a solid view of sin and its effects. How we sin impacts everything and everyone, and our tendencies can be easily tracked. Backus breaks down the common misconceptions and presents solutions to the problems. He even provides his sin test (which shows you where your own proclivities are most likely to cause common problems, like depression) for readers to try out, and he talks about the results when he ran it with a group of people. Backus makes us think and takes us away from the easy and comforting solutions to make us go further in and examine the ramifications of what we do and how we ultimately hurt ourselves. Recommended.

– Frances Carden

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Frances Carden
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