This section is not intended to be an assertion that Calvinism leads necessarily to mental health disorders like depression. That was certainly the case for me and others. However, I also know several Christians who found hope in Calvinism during their own dark times.
Nevertheless, having felt the despair into which I believe this worldview leads, when looked at as a whole, I feel compelled to at least throw up a warning flag to others.
I’m not the only one who has been led to dark places by this worldview.
The Dark Side of Calvinism
Edwards’ Uncle
Here is an account of an episode during the First Great Awakening, when Calvinism reached a fever pitch, from the New England Historical Society.
The revival took a dark turn in 1735, when some New Englanders were unsettled by the revivals, but not converted. They became despondent over their inevitable damnation, and at least two took their own lives. One suicide was Jonathan Edwards’ own parishioner and uncle, Joseph Hawley. The revival cooled for a while.
Is this the result of Good News? How many suicides do we have recorded in the preaching of the Good News in the book of Acts?
LM Montgomery
I recently learned of the sad news that the author of Anne of Green Gables, L.M. (Maud) Montgomery, likely died by suicide at the age of 68. In 2008, her granddaughter revealed a note indicating suicide, long concealed by the family, left at her bedside when she was found dead in 1942. I have also learned of the role that Calvinist theology played in her depression and that of Ewan MacDonald, her Presbyterian minister husband.
“Montgomery’s journals tell of her husband’s ‘constitutional recurrent melancholia’ (13 Sept. 1919), rooted in his conviction that he was among the damned; that he had no way out of hell; and that his position at the head of a church was cruel and unfair to his congregants.” … “The damnation and hellfire niggling at Ewan’s mind often kept him out of the day-to-day work of parenting and running a household. On the worst days, he couldn’t get out of bed.” …
Ewan’s depression took its toll on Maud… “‘I do regret one thing keenly, and that is that almost all the years of my boys’ childhood which should have been my happiest years I have been so unhappy and worried over Ewan’s malady’ (10 Feb. 1925).” – Kate West
“The Reverend MacDonald often told his wife that he wished she and their children had never been born, since they were also not of ‘the Elect,’ and all of them were going to Hell when they died.[59] MacDonald refused to assist with the children or the housework, and was given over to erratic, reckless driving, as if he were deliberately trying to get himself killed in a car crash.[59] Montgomery herself was driven to depression by her husband’s conduct, often writing that she wished she had married somebody else.[59]” – Wikipedia
Montgomery seems to have been skeptical of Calvinist theology, but you can sense the residual fatalism and dark view of God’s character which manifests itself in her journals.
“This is a terrible life—but it seems to be my predestined lot—I must bear it for the sake of my children” (10 Oct. 1934). “To think that I was once so happy in and proud of my two little boys. Too happy—I loved them too much and God has punished me for it” (27 Aug. 1936).
For a substantial list of first-person accounts of the dark side of Calvinism and the fruits of the teaching of Eternal Conscious Torment (ECT), see this page on Tentmaker.
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