Just as people on a physical level … are better served living consistently with the truth and recognizing life as it is, so on a spiritual level Christians are better served living consistently with a biblical worldview rather than professing one worldview but at times seeking to live by another.

Call me schizophrenic, but I think the 1991 hit comedy “What About Bob?” teaches some valuable lessons when carried over and applied to Christian life and ministry.

To derive the benefits from such a comparison, one must obviously be sane and reasonable enough (i.e., without possessing a phobia of being labeled insensitive) to admit that while schizophrenia at times has given us cause for good laughs, schizophrenia itself is no laughing matter.

The movie tells the ironic story of a likable and classic schizophrenia patient named Bob Wiley who develops a relationship with his psychiatrist Dr. Leo Marvin. The twist in the story reaches a climax when schizophrenic Bob, after combining and applying his schizophrenic behavior and the orders given by Dr. Marvin himself, pushes his psychiatrist to the point that Bob ends up being seen as the sane one (even becoming a psychiatrist and successful author himself) and poor old Dr. Marvin is institutionalized after being diagnosed as the psychotic and crazy one. Regardless of the irony, through Dr. Marvin’s resulting demise, it must still be admitted that given the choice, schizophrenia is no way to live.

Schizophrenia is recognized as a “disintegration of thought processes and emotional responsiveness” which commonly manifests itself in such things as “delusions, disorganized speech and thinking… and significant social or occupational dysfunction.” Schizophrenia occurs when life is recognized to be one way, but a person lives according to a different even false view. (1)

Just as people on a physical level (cognitively, emotionally, actively, and socially) are better served living consistently with the truth and recognizing life as it is, so on a spiritual level Christians are better served living consistently with a biblical worldview rather than professing one worldview but at times seeking to live by another.

Consider how often we, as Christians living in this world between the time of the cross and Christ’s second coming, profess a biblical worldview, but then…

· Look to some present or future point in life, experience or sanctification when things will settle down and become consistently and enduringly “normal” so we can just relax, enjoy, and coast for awhile, if not forever?
· Live among one another with the unspoken assumption or socially accepted contract that everyone’s life including our own will be perfect and either sin or problem free, and if and when this doesn’t occur, or news begins to leak suggesting something otherwise (falls, failures, catastrophes, etc.), then we respond at times as though something completely unimaginable and certainly “upsetting to our apple carts” has occurred?

· Labor and give ourselves so much to our personal or family comforts, pleasures and longings rather than considering and giving ourselves in service and ministry to our neighbors …as if we can continue to do so without consequence to ourselves, our families and to our future?

· Live in up, either neglecting or failing to take Christ’s commands and our responsibilities seriously, or storing up and refusing to heed Christ’s warnings as though this life were all there was?

· Lay our trust and hope in things other than God and his Word in matters pertaining to health, security, prosperity, and happiness?

These are just to name a few examples where Christians recognize truth but then live inconsistently with what we know to be truth. Just as with schizophrenia, Christians are better served cognitively, emotionally, actively and socially by living consistently with a Christian worldview. Unlike the movie and sometimes to our chagrin, things do not always work out well for those with schizophrenia and schizophrenics are not always determined the sane ones in the end.

I remember the time I was confronted with one of the most critical applications of this truth. It came in seminary when I had a professor who held up the Scripture and asked the question “If this is the Word of GOD as we believe and proclaim it to be, then what does that say about how we should respond to it and apply it to our lives?”

Though there was no need for a verbal response in answer to this question and though this point was not completely foreign to me, it did make a significant positive impact on how I view Scripture and its relationship and application to our lives. No longer could I in good conscience profess it to be one thing, but live myself as though it was something less (…though I admit I do not always live up to this principle.) No longer could I believe it to be one thing in my life but present it to others as anything less.

As Christians, when considering all the harmful effects that result from schizophrenia, should we not be all the more careful in faithfully acquiring, practicing and espousing a biblical worldview?

An additional lesson for pastors is also derived from the movie. It wasn’t just the patient (Bob) who suffered from schizophrenia. The psychiatrist whose job it was to treat patients and who considered himself an “expert” in the field also was found to suffer from (or in the end was driven to) schizophrenia. After “dealing with” a patient, after “thinking he could outsmart” the patient, after “witnessing” the patient pass himself off as sane and others confirm him, and after “questioning himself” whether he was the one that was crazy or not, Dr. Marvin ended up himself forsaking and living inconsistently with the truth.

We are reminded by this that no human lives above the law and no one succeeds apart from the truth. We ourselves, as pastors, must always be careful in examining ourselves that our life and doctrine is consistent with God’s truth and be willing to admit, correct and repent when it not so, and when times arise wherein our view of truth may not seem sufficient to handle or deal with the people we are called to serve, we must give ourselves more fully to and perhaps look even deeper to the truth rather than abandoning it and being ourselves found crazy.

As one in the Old Testament proclaimed “To the Word!” and may it be the working, not just professed, paradigm of our lives!

Questions for Self Examination:

1. Do you believe Scripture comes from God, and to what extent does your life, ministry and preaching reflect this?

2. Does it frustrate you or concern you to see people in your church profess one worldview but live by another?

3. Are you equipped pastorally or as a Christian friend to help others see where they are doing this and why the results are not as good?

4. Where will you turn when others are lifted up as sane and you are deemed crazy for living according to the truth?

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Tim Muse is a Teaching Elder in the Presbyterian Church in America and serves as Senior Pastor at Brandon Presbyterian Church (PCA) in the Jackson, MS suburbs. He blogs at Christian Word Bearer where this article first appeared; it is used with his permission.

[1] Taken from Wikipedia. Disclaimer: I do not profess to possess perfect knowledge of the mentally challenged, nor by this article do I intend in any way to insult or discredit them, for we are all made in God’s image and valued by him, though our deficiencies may be different.