Deceptive Diagnosis: When Sin Is Called Sickness

By David M. Tyler

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1885904584
• ISBN13: 9781885904584
• Release Date: January 2006
• Publisher: Focus Publishing (MN)
• Length: 130 Pages
• Weight: 0.56 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.1" x 0.3" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

the truth is here

This book exposes the deception of modern psychoanalysis and the practice of medicating the symptoms with no hope of cure for the underlying cause. The authors are imminently qualified to make these assertions and do so in a very understandable and readable style. Hopefully people who believe they are suffering from mental illness will find out there are alternatives that actually alleveiate the cause while helping with the symptoms.

Book Challenges Churches

The book, Deceptive Diagnosis: When Sin is Called Sickness, explores the major shift in how Christian evangelicals view and deal with sin. The authors, Dr. David Tyler and Dr. Kurt Grady, believe that the Church stopped calling sinful and deviant behavior "sin," and started calling it "sickness" beginning in the mid 1960's. The sexual sinner Apostle Paul wrote about became the sex addict. The thief became the kleptomaniac. The drunkard became the alcoholic. The rebellious child became afflicted with "Oppositional Defiant Disorder." A family in which the husband will not work, the wife will not keep the home, and the children will not obey is no longer considered sinful; it is dysfunctional. The liar became a compulsive liar. The gambler became a compulsive gambler. The "deeds of the flesh, which are immorality impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing" (Galatians 5:19-21) were all redefined using psychopathological words. Tyler and Grady believe the landscape of evangelicalism today is very disturbing. Christians have jettisoned their commitment to the Bible and embraced psychology. Biblical definitions and categories have changed and a new vocabulary has emerged within the Church. Behaviors and attitudes once regarded as sinful have undergone a dramatic change. Sin is called sickness and confessing sin has been replaced with recovering from sickness. The word "sin" has nearly disappeared from our vocabulary. As such, the impact of the Gospel to a non-believer is less pronounced and the need for progressive sanctification in the believer is minimized. Although we try to make ourselves feel better by calling sin by another name, it is always there. It never fully goes away. "Deceptive Diagnosis" claims that in 1946 the federal government took responsibility for promoting American's mental health. Some of the initiatives included the National Mental Health Act (1946), the National Institute of Mental Heath (1949), the National Mental Health Study Act (1955), and the creation of the Joint Commission on Mental Illness and Health (1955). It was believed that American society would be dramatically transformed with the building of new mental health centers, the incorporation of training programs as well as countless locations disseminating mental health principles. On February 5, 1963 President John F. Kennedy delivered a national speech on mental health. He referred to mental health as the nation's number one health problem. In order to confront what was considered a mental health care crisis, Kennedy signed into law the Community Mental Health Centers Act on October 31, 1963. This gave Federal Government backing to the diseasing of America and calling sin sickness. In 1977 President Jimmy Carter organized the Commission on Mental Health. The agency studied the state of the nation's mental heath and concluded a quarter of all Americans need