My question might suggest that I have some uncertainty about the matter, perhaps some self-doubt and that I am setting out to reassure myself and persuade you that my Christian madness is really a most harmless, innocent sort.

So, while I am using the word ‘madness’ to cover social invective, rather than a reference to a delusional insanity requiring immediate therapeutic intervention, I also need to address the issue of whether biblical Christian beliefs are direct contributors to ill-health, such as heightened states of anxiety, obsessive fears, compulsive moral scruples, or poor interpersonal relationships.

• PERSONALITY DISORDERS

So, are Christians generally detached, morose, introspective, or withdrawn and unhealthy in their outlook and wider social relationships? I suggest there is little doubt that some people with predisposing or underlying conditions have become compulsively or excessively religious, in ways that may have prompted their family to believe they had ‘religious mania’ caused by religious pressure. I incline to the view that if their main driver in life had been racing cars (pun unintended); they would likely have developed a fanatical, obsession with that class of vehicles.

I suggest the diagnosis of ‘religious mania’ meant well, but was flawed because it didn’t get to the underlying illness, even if some vulnerable and delicate minds have been harmed by over-zealous approaches that failed to show them compassionate sensitivity.

• EXTREME

Certainly history shows instances of people claiming to be ‘prophets’ and such like, showing wild behaviour, who gathered followings of deluded fanatics, but invariably these movements remained on the periphery of social life, where they became self-destructive or petered out into resigned oblivion.

However, it is clear that Christianity does not confer immunity to serious personality disorders, some of which may be inherited. As for the word ‘madness’, it is a rather archaic, blunt instrument, but I suggest the common jibe of non-Christians to believers that they must be mad, or nuts, or off their heads, or crazy, to use a few common expressions, are intended to show that Christianity is an insult to modern intelligence, rather than advise on our fitness for the local psychiatric hospital.

• JESUS CHRIST

Christianity is built on the person of Jesus Christ, his life, claims, his death and resurrection and their significance. In other words, the central claims of Christ are God-centred. We are not dealing with social reform or philosophy, but with the living God coming into our humanity, living a perfect life, yielding himself up to death to endure the judicial condemnation due to sinners, who have all broken the divine law. That is, all of us, except Christ himself. Then in triumphant vindication of Jesus’ innocence and flawless moral integrity, God raised him from the dead, into which state he will never again enter.

These are large claims, and the issue is, do they lend themselves to calm enquiry that might vindicate their basis in real events and their reasonable explanations given by eyewitnesses appointed by Christ himself, or do such explanations merely point to Christian beliefs being intellectually absurd?

• REALITY

When I look at the history of the Christian church, and of much Christian activity today, I see the wholesome compassion of Christians and the lengths to which they went to help people. The solace and the peace and joy that were given to so many through the gospel of Christ, leads me to believe that Christians are generally psychologically healthy and well-adjusted. Mind you, such health was not the main goal, but an inevitable gain of being reconciled to God.

With their sins blotted out, they have received eternal life, and genuine purpose and a willingness to serve others. They know God, through Christ, the one Mediator. They know that God has created all of reality for his own glory, and they know the high honour of being loved with a boundless and wholly undeserved love. As God’s redeemed children, they are also honoured to share in the out-working of God’s eternal purpose.

• WRONG FOOT!

All this leads me to believe that far from being mad or even slightly crazed, either as a term of social or intellectual invective, Christians, by and large, are healthy, fair-minded, sensitive to others and neither withdrawn nor morose or socially destructive.

What is more, as to the charge of throwing away our intellects, I would say the boot is squarely on the other foot, and that such reactions are based upon spiritual blindness and false assumptions. Indeed, ‘the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God’ (1 Corinthians 1:18).

The truths about the meaning of Christ’s death have always provoked mocking ridicule from unbelievers; there is nothing new there whatsoever. So we urge all such to carefully check the Christian truth-claims. The intellectually defensible nature of these claims is open to any scrutiny, and we would not wish that anyone ever finds out their marvellous and powerful truths when it is too late.

For then there will be nothing but bleak and everlasting remorse, when they will call ‘to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb” ‘ (Revelation 6:16).

Is Christianity, a form of madness? By no means, but the sheer folly of rejecting all that Christ has done to deal with our sin is something to recognise and repudiate. Do make sure you do not have to share in the ultimate folly!