Martin Luther once wrote about a false “theology of glory,” which offers an incomplete picture of the Christian life, salvation itself, and — crucially, for the purposes of this website — also a flawed perspective of how we’re to look at suffering.
In response to the erroneous “theology of glory,” Luther instead proposed a “theology of the cross.”
Now, as the distinction relates to this website’s purpose, let’s get right to it.
A theology of the cross focuses on Christ’s injunction that we die to self and that, on this earth, troubles will inevitably accompany the Christian life and therefore we can’t expect that Christ will exempt us from any of the diseases (including brain disorders like depression, anxiety, PTSD, OCD, etc) that are part of the human experience.
Basically, it’s an ancient rebuke to the health and happiness gospel that has somehow sneaked into even evangelical circles, particularly in the way the community often dismisses things like depression and anxiety.
A theology of the cross understands that we live in a sin-sick world, full of pain, full of suffering, full of anxiety and that it is the grace of God that will get us through. A theology of glory is basically the idea that the more you do, the more faith you have, then the more relief God will provide. And that’s just not what scripture tells us.
So hopefully this is helpful for you to understand that it is not your fault if you get cancer, or if a calamity happens, or if there’s suffering- that is part of living in a sinful world. We rely on the grace of God to get us through, and one day we will be in the new heavens and the new earth, where all sin will be done away with, where God will wipe away our tears. So, for now, we live the theology of the cross. We look to Christ, we understand there’s suffering and pain, but one day it’ll all be removed. Hopefully, this is encouraging.
The great site Mockingbird pits it against one of most discouraging mindsets that’s utterly pervasive in the church today.
A window into understanding this is to look at the ways people talk about painful experiences. If someone has just undergone a difficult and unwanted break-up, for example, they often say things like ‘well, it wasn’t a good relationship for me anyway’, or ‘but I’ve really learned a lot from this whole experience’. This kind of thinking is rationalization – it basically tries to make something sound like a good thing that is in fact a bad thing. It is a strategy for avoiding having to look pain and grief directly in the face, and for not having to acknowledge that we wish life were different but are powerless to change it. This is what a ‘theology of glory’ looks like. A theology of the cross, by contrast, accepts the difficult thing rather than immediately trying to change it or transmute it. It looks directly into pain, and ‘calls a thing what it is’ instead of calling evil good and good evil. It identifies God as ‘hidden in [the] suffering’.
I’ve often called the “Theology of Glory” something like “Victorious Christian Living,” which tries to talk people out of their suffering by beating them over the heads with selectively picked passages like Paul singing in prison, while ignoring that Paul spoke of his personal experiences in much bleaker terms, for example in 2 Corinthians 1 (“We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself.” ) and the fact that Scripture is full of laments (over 33% of the Psalms) and cries of despair and suffering from God’s followers.
This Victorious Christian Living mindset (or, as Luther calls it, “Theology of Glory,”) is everywhere – your local evangelical church might say it doesn’t preach a prosperity gospel, but what happens when something deeply painful happens and that pain persists and you’re in a long spell of despair?
Well, in an attempt to “encourage” you, Christians will try to talk you out of that despair by continually reminding you that, “ahem, by the way, remember – you’re a Christian and you’re supposed to be joyful and we have a hope and we’re to be a light.”
What they don’t get is — all that “encouraging” actually discourages us. It makes us feel guilty.
We think: “If that’s what Christianity’s about, and I’m still locked in the pain of depression, intense anxiety, PTSD” etc, then how can I even be a Christian?”
It’s a terrible and lonely place for a Christian.
In his enormously helpful book cataloguing Charles Spurgeon’s depression and his own, Zack Eswine writes: “Suffering one form of depression makes the addition of others harder to bear….if someone struggles already with biological or circumstantial depression, they are more vulnerable to spiritual sorrows. It is hard enough to get thru the day without adding the displeasure of God to the trauma that already trounces us.”
So your pastor or Christian friend or Generic Christian Worship Song will leave you with a “Hooray, positive, snap out of it, Resurrection” message that seems entirely disconnected from your life, your suffering, and urges you to get out of it by thinking you’re way out of it.
There’s no empirical data on this (Harvard doesn’t really research this phenomenon), but I really don’t think that works.
The wisest man in the world said so in Proverbs 25:20:
“Singing cheerful songs to a person with a heavy heart is like taking someone’s coat in cold weather or pouring vinegar in a wound.”
So this type of “encouraging” is like ripping off a freezing man’s warmth in the middle of a blizzard.
Not exactly helpful. In fact, downright cruel.
And yet the “encouragers” do it, unwittingly and with good intentions, all the time.
Now…
Of course, Christianity is about the hope of the Resurrection through salvation in Christ, and that is the utterly beautiful thing that sustains and helps us through this mess.
We should celebrate that. But we shouldn’t ignore that while salvation is here, Resurrection isn’t, that while glory is ahead, the cross of this earth remains.
Songs of joy and sadness are equally true.
In his book on the resurrection, Hope in Times of Fear, Tim Keller strikes a nice balance between the reality of the Resurrection and the Cross.
“Cross alone as an isolated paradigm could lead to an attitude of asceticism or even masochism and pessimism, while resurrection alone could lead to triumphalism, what Luther called ‘a theology of the cross’.”
In other words, focusing solely on the tribulations we’re promised on earth denies the hope of the Resurrection, but focusing entirely on the hope of the Resurrection denies the inevitable tribulations and pain of the earth.
Christianity is far more realistic than it’s usually preached, far more honest about our experiences than you’ll find on an Instagram meme, and far more connected than many “encouragers” who say they want to connect and encourage, but instead, unwittingly, discourage.
We have to look both at this world honestly and the hope of the next one, as promised in the Bible on both scores. At chronic pain, as well as the relief we’re absolutely promised when we’re “raised in glory” after being “buried in brokenness.” (1 Corinthians 15:43).
Yes, chemo might be a little easier if you know it’s going to end in four years, but that doesn’t make it easy to go through.
And, in the same way, anxiety and depression and all these other conditions are still utterly brutal and punishing even though we know that, one day, we’ll have restored brains — free from disease.
I want to finish by saying something that I’m a total broken record on: You’re not alone in your battle with both the pain of “mental disorders” (which are really brain diseases). Tons of Christians (including church leaders and pastors themselves) experience this totally human and physical disease, but perhaps you feel alone because Christians hide it from each other because of fear that we’ll be judged and “Hey, everyone else at church looks so happy, something must be wrong with my Christianity.”
Sure, we do have a peace that passes all understanding (absolutely on that — it’s impossible to explain), but we also have depression and anxiety and PTSD that passes all understanding, as well.
Unless you correctly understand that those “mental conditions” are physical diseases.
Thankfully, ones you can get help for.
And to that, I always end by directing you to these links — only you and your doctor will know what’s best for you, but medication has been a life-saver for me, therapy utterly crucial, and of course, I know without God’s grace, I wouldn’t get through any of it. It’s no different from any other disease!
So be wary of a theology of glory that talks about the cross only as means to an end, and denies the reality of your disease and the cross that we bear while on earth.
And here are the links.
If you struggle with depression, anxiety, or any other such disorders — for readers in the United States…
Find a psychiatrist here.
Find a therapist here.
For readers, internationally, seek help from a local resource.
For salvation, Christ and Christ alone.
