Some of you will be aware by now of some comments made by John MacArthur about mental health and neurodiversity. I wasn’t aware of his comments until I read a response post that Tim Challies put up on his blog. As a specific response to MacArthur, I would recommend reading the article by Adam O’Neill. He is measured, not remotely unkind, but quite clear about some of the deficiencies of what MacArthur said and the trouble his words may cause as they get passed around the internet. In his own words, ‘this article is not an attack on the person or character of Dr. MacArthur, a Christian brother for whom I have much respect and who has been a bulwark of solid reformed theology for many decades. Nevertheless, there are several things within the statement that, as a professional working in Christian psychiatry I would like to address.’ I would encourage you to read him.

This post isn’t really about either MacArthur’s comments or O’Neill’s response. I have nothing further to add to O’Neill’s article (you can go to the publications page on this blog and buy yourself a copy of my book The Pastor With a Thorn in His Side if you want to understand my particular views on this). But it is fair to say MacArthur’s comments are what prompted this particular post. But what I have to say here is not specific to John MacArthur’s comments nor is any of it pointed uniquely at MacArthur. The issue that I am concerned about is one that is always live for pastors, particularly those of us who write blogs, podcast or happen to have platforms of any sort that gain us a hearing.

There can be a tendency as pastors to consider ourselves, or for others to assume that we are, omnicompetent. It shouldn’t take a great deal of observation and time to see that it just isn’t so. There is nothing inherent in becoming a pastor or having a theological degree that makes any of us suddenly able to weigh in on all manner of things. Pastors are fundamentally trained to teach the Bible, to help people understand the Bible and to pastor people by helping them think through specifically what the Bible says about a given thing. If you want to know what a pastor is trained to do, and therefore has some specific competence in, it should be in helping you to read the Bible well and leading by reference to what the Bible happens to say, applying it specifically to modern life as we experience it. If that’s what you are looking for, your pastor is almost certainly the man you want.

Some pastors – indeed, many pastors – might have some prior training in other areas that may well be helpful to you too. This training is not unique to their being a pastor, but may be brought to bear on their pastoral work or public pronouncements in helpful ways. I, for example, have prior degrees and training in History & Politics and Religious Studies & Philosophy. So, if you hear me spouting off about history, politics, comparative religion or philosophy – particularly the very specific areas of interest I had in those fields – it doesn’t mean you have to agree with me, but you probably ought to weigh what I say with the due weight of somebody who has some training, and the subsequent degrees, to prove a level of competence in discussing and thinking through these areas. It is worth remembering the majority of pastors do not have any such training in these fields and so their opinions in these areas should be weighed on the basis that they are no more than laymen proffering an opinion that is no more or less valid than yours if you similarly have no requisite training in the field under discussion and give it less weight than your considered views if you do.

There are also specific experiences and work that pastors might have that give them some reasonable insight into a matter. They may have personally experienced some issue that they then are able, on a personal basis, to offer some insight from their own experience. They may pastor in a particular community and, on the job, learnt a reasonable amount about what people in their particular community are like and the issues that might be relevant for the church in similar communities. Because of their particular experiences, they may well have done a considerable amount of reading about the particular issue or context in order to synthesise what others are saying about the issue with their own particular experiences. This may give your pastor some particular insights.

I, for example, have experienced serious clinical depression and still occasionally face episodes. I am not a medical expert, so my insights shouldn’t be taken as those of a trained psychiatrist, but they are the insights of somebody who has experienced clinical depression and can offer insight from experience. I similarly minister in a deprived part of a deprived town with a dominant South Asian Muslim make-up but also reach middle eastern Iranians and have contact with working class white Brits. Some of my training has some relevance in reaching these different folks – so you can hear my opinions with a bit of authority on that basis – but my experience of ministering here over the past 10 years gives me some particular insights too and I have, unsurprisingly, also done a fairly wide amount of reading concerning why things are as they are and people respond as they do. You might consider me to have some particular heft in discussions about such things.

But when I stand up and share my opinion on, say, Bible translations I have no expertise. One thing I very much am not is a linguist. I have a rudimentary (at best) grasp on translation theory and my language skills are pretty limited. I can have an opinion on my preferred translation. I can have opinions on what I consider to be the best translation philosophy as I judge it. But at the end of the day, these are just the opinions of a layman. There is no particular reason to take my opinions as particularly authoritative. The most you can take from my insights on this issue is what I have found, in my experience, to be most helpful in my particular context. You might think I’m a reasonable guy with a reasonable grasp of what is usable and helpful. You might be right. But I am in as good a position to make a judgement on that as you are.

Interestingly, I think most pastors are in the same position as me. They are not really linguists. They are certainly not experts in translation theory. But hardly a pastor I know doesn’t have an opinion on what they consider to be the best Bible translation(s). And that is fair enough. They do have to determine what version to use in their churches after all. But frequently, those who make the loudest noise about this or that translation being the best seem to be among the least qualified to make the judgement on the terms they are making it. I find it telling when most the linguistic experts and Bible translators who are experts insist most of the abundance of English translations we have available are very good, it is usually some unqualified person insisting one is better than another for reasons that they are absolutely sure about but are really beyond their ken.

But there seem to be two problems pastors run into frequently. One is mainly their own fault, the other perhaps not. The thing that is their fault – that I think MacArthur’s latest comments are simply the latest example in a crowded field – is speaking with great authority on areas entirely outside their training and expertise. Time and again, pastors make big and sweeping comments – as though they either have the inside track – on topics about which they know practically nothing. We really need the humility to stop doing that. Pastors should not be presenting as fact, or announcing with any authority, matters on which they do not have the background, training, expertise or requisite knowledge to pronounce upon. Few areas present quite such a ready opportunity for pastors and theologians to do this than in the field of politics and philosophy. Everyone thinks they understand politics and everybody thinks they understand philosophy. My experience is that most don’t and they would be better served sticking to the areas of theology and pastoral ministry in which they have been trained and not jump outside their lane so much.

Now, one might hear that and think I am suggesting that people are not free to say what they want and offer their opinions on anything on which they have no training. That is not what I am saying at all. Pastors, and anyone else, can speak about whatever they want. But I think they would serve people best when they make clear whether what they are saying comes with the backing of years of study and training in the relevant field or this is effectively the layman’s opinion most of their non-theological pronouncements are. When it is the latter, we would be well served if the comments they make are made with a sense of humility that makes clear they are not experts on this area and are speaking outside of their area of expertise on this matter. Pastors are not omnicompetent nor omniscient – they are not experts in everything – and, if they are going to speak on a matter, it would be better if it were those on which they have some authority to speak and, if they feel the must speak outside of their particular areas, to do so humbly as laymen proffering an opinion no more worthy of respect than any person on a bus or mouth down the pub.

The second issue is when their opinions are elevated by others. Even when a pastor has made clear that this is merely their opinion, a layman’s opinion in an area in which they have limited knowledge, some will take pastor’s pronouncements as more authoritative regardless. There is a limit to what pastors can do about this. It probably pays to be mindful that some will do this and to try and mitigate it where you can. But those who listen to their pastor – which is a good, right and biblical thing to do when they are speaking authoritatively – also ought to recognise their pastor is just a bloke. He is not the pope but a guy who has been trained to teach the Bible, help you read the Bible and apply the Bible to life as it is today.

What that means is your pastor’s teaching of scripture and applications of those self-same scriptures ought to be weighed with the authority we might give anyone who has been properly trained in something. Not accepted infallibly, but weighed carefully as carrying more weight than a bloke down the pub’s ‘I reckon’. But their pronouncements on the latest political issue of the day – if the Bible doesn’t speak directly to it – without any prior political training, really are just the opinion of a bloke and nothing more. Similarly, unless they are former medics (and even then, particularly psychiatrists) your pastor’s particular views on personality disorders and mental health problems are really not in any way authoritative. Certainly not more authoritative than your opinion nor more important than any other non-psychiatrist (which is pretty much everyone) you might meet in town. You can extend this principle to any and every area in which your pastor is straying outside of his lane. Not that he can’t offer opinions on whatever he wants – he is just as entitled to do that as anyone else – just that we shouldn’t vest these opinions with any great authority or give them much weight when your pastor has no background in these areas.