by Philip Browning Helsel, Pastoral Psychology (15 August 2008)
The ancient Scriptures of the Judeo-Christian tradition portray a God whose behavior is erratic, unstable, and often cruelly violent. The attempt to understand, and even come to worship, this God has often required a sacrifice of the intellect. This article explores the behavior of this God in light of the diagnosis of Bipolar I in the Bible, exploring the characteristics, causes, course, consequences, and curability of Bipolar I through God’s purported activity. The value of the treatment is heuristic in that it provides an opportunity for a sustained engagement with a description of Bipolar I that will be accessible to those from the Judeo-Christian tradition. At the same time, it playfully makes space for alternative images of God that move away from the cruelty and violence often implicated within the tradition.
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