(Some) Evangelicals Claim ‘Good Christians’ Can’t Get PTSD

(Some) Evangelicals Claim ‘Good Christians’ Can’t Get PTSD November 30, 2013
On a Veteran’s Day broadcast, two of America’s most influential televangelists claimed that good Christians can’t get PTSD. Kenneth Copeland, who is famous for  pitching a fit when a senator tried to investigate his nonprofits and for inspiring a measles outbreak, said, “Any of you suffering from PTSD right now, you listen to me. You get rid of that right now. You don’t take drugs to get rid of it, it doesn’t take psychology; that promise right there [in the Bible] will get rid of it.”
Copeland’s guest, conservative revisionist historian David Barton, agreed, adding, “We used to, in the pulpit, understand the difference between a just war and an unjust war. And there’s a biblical difference, and when you do it God’s way, not only are you guiltless for having done that, you’re esteemed.”
Barton believes that anybody who behaves “biblically” during war can’t get PTSD. Unfortunately, there is a logical flip side to this statement: someone whohas PTSD must have not been biblical in his actions, and thus he is ultimately responsible for his own PTSD.
Understandably, a lot of people are upset by Barton and Copeland’s assertion. Even the staunchly conservative  Gospel Coalition (TGC) and America’s largest Protestant denomination, the  Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), made no bones about their distaste for Copeland and Barton, the former calling them “profoundly stupid,” the latter “callow and doltish.”
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