Can Jesus Cure Shell Shock?

Can Jesus Cure Shell Shock?
Tuesday 03 August 2010

by: Matthew Harwood, t r u t h o u t News Analysis
Many Christians believe faith in Jesus Christ can cure almost anything: alcoholism, cancer, homosexuality, even the Son of Sam. But can it cure post traumatic stress disorder in troops returning from Afghanistan and Iraq? The Army Reserves' top chaplain for military policemen believes so, and published his prescription on the Army Reserves' official Web site for everyone to see, in an act a watchdog organization argues is unconstitutional and dangerous when soldiers continue to kill themselves at an alarming rate.
In a nearly 11,000 word essay, "Spiritual Resiliency: Helping Troops Recover from Combat," Command Chaplain Col. Donald W. Holdridge of the 200th Military Police Command at Fort Meade, Maryland, argues belief in Jesus Christ and Bible reading, particularly King David's Psalms, can help cure a soldiers' PTSD. "Combat vets need to know that most of these [PTSD symptoms] do fade in time, like scars," writes Holdridge, a professor at the Baptist Bible College, as the Army Reserves banner hangs from the top of the Webpage. "They will always be there to some degree, but their intensity will fade. What will help them fade is the application of the principles of Scripture."
The tone of Holdridge's essay only gets more unapologetically evangelical as the chaplain's initial wading in a Christian sea slides into more brackish waters, evangelizing soldiers with PTSD that their service was part of a larger theological plan and dangerously merges church and state. "Military and law enforcement personnel bear the additional burden of contending with evil by acting as an arm of the state to punish those who have no respect for human life (Rom.13:4)," he writes. "It is messy business, but necessary in a fallen world. If the military member knows Christ as savior, they can be assured that Jesus is with them until the end of the age (Mt.28:20)." (If this doesn't seem offensive or incendiary for a military Website to publish this, replace "Christ as savior" with "the Prophet Mohammed" and "Jesus" with "Allah.")
read more here
http://www.truth-out.org/can-jesus-cure-shell-shock61984

I have a lot of problems with this article. It comes off as someone trying to minimize the reality of healing thru faith but at the same time points out another problem, the evangelizing/proselytizing in the military going on today.

Many find no harm in Chaplains out there trying to find recruits for their denomination but they forget the job of a chaplain is not to get butts in the pew but to help people in times of need. At least that's the way a lot of Chaplains view their ministry. I know because I believe that way but I have also heard a lot of Chaplains complain about what's going on. There are some soldiers seeking spiritual help and finding that if they are not a member of the denomination the military Chaplain is, they are not being taken care of for what their need is. It becomes recruitment sessions instead.

The truth is Christ can heal PTSD and families if they understand what the true message of the Gospels are. That is, Christ is the Son of God, came to earth to deliver a message to us that God loves us. This keeps getting forgotten about along with the fact that Christ didn't come to minister to the gentiles. He came for the Hebrews. Had it not been for the conversion of St. Paul, gentiles would have been shut out of the message and salvation. Read about the life St. Paul had before Christ opened his eyes on the road to Damascus by taking away his vision. He was called Saul of Tarsus and was a Christian hunter. Yet while much of the Bible is forgotten, there is much to be learned from it beginning with the Psalms and the accounts of David. If there is not a clear image of PTSD there, then nothing is.

Christ left behind one "church" and the people decided to do it all their own way. Now we have so many different teachings based on the same Bible it's hard to count all of them or keep any of them straight.

If you have faith, you also need to know what it is exactly you have faith in. Do you believe God loves you and there is nothing He won't forgive and that Christ even forgave the people who hammered the nails into his body? Then you know you can be forgiven and you are loved. If you believe in a God that sends bad things into your life like hurricanes, tornadoes, crimes, fires and illnesses, then no, faith won't heal you. How could it if you think God did it to you?

This is the kind of struggle we all have to go through no matter what group you belong to. We all wonder if God is out to get us or God is watching over us. It all comes down to how you view God. Christ can not only heal PTSD, He can prevent it because it all comes down to what your perception is on life. If you believe you survived something because God was watching over you, then you are not about to feel abandoned. If you believe you've just been judged and God is punishing you then you are not about to be feeling forgiven.

The job of a Chaplain is to be there to help other people see that they are loved and cared for and to help them understand there is nothing they cannot be forgiven for. The hard part is getting people to forgive themselves for whatever they feel they need to be forgiven for. Sometimes they need to change from survivors guilt into survivors blessing before this can happen but that's the job of a Chaplain supposedly fully able to understand the basic message of what Christ came to give. We're loved.