This very readable book sets out to discuss what creates sound mental health and what prevents it. But this not a technical account based upon medical or psychiatric data. Rather, it explores how we experience the world from the standpoint of truth and reality, because how we attempt to make sense of the world will affect our mental health more than anything else.

As such, the book is as much about spirituality and a strong relationship with God as about the complex workings of the human mind. It forms the last part of a trilogy addressing mental health issues from a biblical perspective.

Reality and Truth

Gordon begins by stating the importance of understanding reality in terms of the experience of truth – God’s truth. This, together with receiving the Holy Spirit, brings personal peace and heals any mental distress that a fractured world causes us.

Secular academic theories of psychology and psychoanalysis tend to ignore the God who created us and so can offer little to help us. If belief in a loving Creator who has offered us the free gift of salvation is relegated to an optional add-on, then our minds will continue to find our world a frightening and disorientating place to live.

This is especially true in the current age when God is shaking everything and judgment is coming upon the world in increasing measure. The loss of the fear of the Lord and ignorance of the power of sin adds to our problems and does nothing to create a sense of true security which is vital for good mental health.

If belief in a loving Creator who has offered us the free gift of salvation is relegated to an optional add-on, then our minds will continue to find our world a frightening, disorientating place.

Battle Over God

The book describes in detail how we got to where we are now, by examining various philosophical and religious challenges to the Judeo-Christian faith which have unfolded through history. The author traces the historical battle over faith in the God of Israel from the Enlightenment through to the modern and postmodern eras. We no longer seek the answer to our misery and distress in the word of God. Scientific diagnosis has become the only thing that matters.

Added to this, the political correctness of secular humanism and the new absolute truth of there being no absolutes reign largely unchecked and do nothing to help our mental wellbeing.

Gordon explains at length the difference between Greek and Hebraic thinking. He contends that the dualism of Greek thinking is unhelpful in creating a coherent mental picture of who we are as human beings and how we can have a personal relationship with the one who gave us our minds in the first place. The mind/body disconnect of Greek thinking fails to deal with the causes of stress and mental illness. As such, our modern methods of defining and labelling mental problems - and even treating them with sincere medical practices - fall well short of addressing the real problem.

But the fault does not lie entirely with medical practitioners and psychoanalysts. Institutional churches and academic theologians have played their part too by the way they have confounded the understanding of the word of God and departed from Hebraic thinking. The authority of what God has told us has been devalued and discarded in favour of humanistic ideas and fleshly practices.

Our modern methods of defining and labelling mental problems - and even treating them with sincere medical practices - fall well short of addressing the real problem.

Victorious Living

Gordon’s whistle-stop tour of the philosophical/religious and political developments in the Western world occupies two lengthy chapters which may prove quite heavy-going at times, but are worth persevering with, as eventually the discussion opens out into several pages of the precious clear waters of healing through forgiveness and repentance.

The final chapter is packed with insights for victorious living and provides plenty of material that can be meditated on regularly and fruitfully.

The positive message of the book is that once we realise that a spiritual understanding of mental illness is needed, and that answers cannot be found in secular psychiatric and psychological services, then we can not only be transformed ourselves but help in the transformation of others.

‘Get Real: Canny Christian shrewdness for sound mental health’ (182pp, paperback, e-book) is available for £8.50 from Amazon. Also available on Kindle.