Book Review: On Satan, Demons and Psychiatry by Ragy R. Girgis, MD

On Satan, Demons, and Psychiatry: Exploring Mental Illness in the Bible

Ragy R. Girgis, MD  (Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 2020)

Thumbnail: "Mental illness is not moral weakness" - an important argument, imperfectly executed.

I come to this text occupying the same overlap from which Dr. Girgis writes: where Christian theology meets psychiatry.  He is a psychiatric clinician and researcher, striving to translate his scientific language for Bible-based Christian believers like himself, while I am a Christian theologian and multi-faith hospital chaplain, working as a spiritual care resident in acute and tertiary psychiatric care.  

While not a biblical theologian (political and applied theology is my field), I have found in caring for patients that biblical language is relevant and helpful - for them and for me.  The language of "demons" can be illuminating when, for example, we are trying to reconnect to a loved one, inexplicably lost in clouds of paranoia, or major depression, or refractory schizophrenia, or dementia.  However, most of us understand such language as metaphorical - it simply helps orient us to the play of invisible forces that disrupt the relational currents in human connections.  JK Rowling, in the Harry Potter series, depicted "Dementors" as predatory, dark, cold pits of despair personified; the films managed to visualize them with gut-chilling effect, sucking the colours of heart, joy, and self out of their victims.  Based on my own experience with a loved one's depression, and moreso since my clinical experience, she got it right.

Furthermore, it can be hard to square our scientific understanding of mental illness with the subjective, emotional experience of loss, anger, or resentment; the pre-scientific language of the Bible provides images and, more importantly, theological context for dealing with the functional and relational challenges posed by symptoms of mental illness. 

However, Ragy R. Girgis's book is not addressed to those believers who consider the "demons" of psychiatric illness metaphorically.  He is writing explicitly for a Christian population very different from my own progressive context: he - admirably - wants to challenge and modify an attitude among certain Christians that finds the existence of "serious mental illness inconsistent with a Christian worldview [emphasis mine]."  In other words, like the lepers of biblical times, the mentally ill may be considered as unworthy or somehow not right with God; even, as tainted by evil spirits. Can this actually be a problem, in 2020?  

In my own circles, perhaps not, although I've met many patients who doubt their own worthiness, mentally and spiritually burdened as they are.  And yet the public's willful ignorance and fear around mental illness is very real.  As a seasoned occupational therapist once told me, so many of our patients lack the supports of friendship, acceptance, just the simple freedom to be who they are because the people closest to them frankly wish them to be different, to be "easier."  The layers of sorrow go deep.

Thus, On Satan, Demons and Psychiatry attempts a noble and urgent project: to speak the language of the kind of conservative Christian who pits science against faith (Girgis is not that kind), whose religious priority is individual salvation (Girgis is that kind), and who may be inclined to read Scripture literally.  His mission is to convince such readers that mentally ill people are part of the biblical record -- not only the "damned" but also major characters in both the Hebrew and Christian testaments: King Saul, Nebuchadnezzar; several of Jesus' healings and more importantly, what they taught about God.  The author argues, successfully, I think, that the biblical writers simply used different, pre-scientific language to describe behaviours and afflictions that existed then as now.  

Girgis is clearly not a trained theologian - there is no indication here that there are many ways to understand God's power, to understand the mission and message of Jesus' teaching, death, and resurrection.  The author's job is obviously not to survey all those ways, but it matters to know which "Christian worldview" he represents - contrary to his unequivocal tone, there is no monolithic christology that speaks to all Christians.  

He is, however, an earnest student of scripture.  Girgis's theological approach seems to attempt to soften the more black-and-white views among some believers; but as a progressive, non-denominational Christian myself I was impatient with some of the christological claims  -- especially the Jesus-is-God equivalence,  and the emphasis on individual salvation. Astonishingly, Girgis insists that the Bible was written not for "groups of people" -- contradicting (at least) all the Hebrew prophets and most of Paul's teaching -- but for individuals intent on their own salvation, the exact opposite of my reading. In addition, oddly, he assures us that he isn't attempting to change the reader's view of the stories' meanings, only to propose that if we consider the characters through a lens of mental illness, we might understand more about mental illness.  This is a repeated, circular disclaimer that undermines his own conviction. 

And finally, this is a manuscript in desperate need of an editor.  This project was a labour of love, but it reads like a graduate thesis, not a mature argument. With my professional interest in spirituality and mental health, I was compelled to dig for nuggets in this book. But it is easily thirty per cent longer than it needs to be, and there are frequent, inexcusable repetitions of entire paragraphs, for example the opening paragraphs of several chapters; the summary of chapters in the Introduction is far too detailed -- verbatim paragraphs cut-and-pasted into the chapters themselves -- then it is largely repeated in the Conclusion's summary.   You won't read it for its crisp prose.

But for an audience resistant to theology that permits of science and grace, or an audience that wants to damn what it fears, Dr. Girgis might be a reassuring guide to the instruments of God's healing work in the 21st century.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the author and/or publisher through the Speakeasy blogging book review network. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions expressed are my own.