There is an array of answers to this question from pastors and theologians.
1) Pastors who present Christianity as therapy and self-help do not present Christianity. They are like the liberals that J. Gresham Machen denounced. Machen said that people who don’t believe the Bible should be honest and stop calling themselves Christians because they have in fact created a new religion that is not to be identified with Christianity. Similarly, the promoters of the American religion of self-help and therapeutic pop psychology ought to be honest: they don’t believe the Bible is “useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness” (2 Tim 3:16) (9Marks Click to open).
Read moreJared Wilson was the founder of Anthem of Hope, a non-profit dedicated to mental health and suicide prevention. Jared was a pastor at Harvest Christian Fellowship in Southern California. He was also an author who wrote the books Love Is Oxygen: How God Can Give You Life and Change Your World and Wondrous Pursuit. He was known for being an outspoken advocate for mental health and talked publicly about his own struggle with depression. Jared Wilson ended his life on September 9, 2019. He tweeted the following at 5:01 PM on September 9: “Loving Jesus doesn’t always cure suicidal thoughts. Loving Jesus doesn’t always cure depression. Loving Jesus doesn’t always cure PTSD. Loving Jesus doesn’t always cure anxiety. But that doesn’t mean Jesus doesn’t offer us companionship and comfort. He ALWAYS does that.”
Read moreConservatives like John Davis, Rod Decker, and Norman Geisler all agree that even though Scriptures do not explicitly forbid cremation, burial should still be the Christian method of laying to rest our loved ones. The overall pattern of Scripture is interment. G. Campbell Morgan favored cremation.
Read more“Some preachers are in their approach toward the runway when, at an altitude of only a few feet from the ground, they get a new thought and —instead of landing —zoom up into the air again. Then, once more, they circle the field, line up with the landing strip, lower their flaps and start to come in for the landing, only to shoot up into the sky instead” (Jay Adams, Preaching with Purpose, p. 66). Haddon Robinson adds that your conclusion should not resemble a crash (Steven Mathewson, The Art of Preaching Old Testament Narrative, 150).
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