When Religion Isn’t Good for My Mental Health

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(Nota bene: The American Psychological Association (APA) has shown that, overall, religion—especially regular practice—improves mental health, as evidenced by studies among hospitalized Presbyterians. What follows is therefore not a generalization, but a focused and careful inquiry.)

Is it God who traps us? Of course not. Let’s say it differently. Is it God who tests us? That’s more theologically documented—but no less problematic. It might be a conversation for another day. Let’s also admit that sometimes, it’s we ourselves who create our own contradictions (yes, let’s say it: maybe it’s our own fault!).

I’m reflecting here from the latest episode of Le Sens des Choses, a series whose main character is a rabbi in Strasbourg. In this episode, the community is handed a piece of furniture looted by the Nazis—a poisoned gift, carrying all the ambiguity of memory.

Léa, the rabbi, wrestles with what troubles her. She searches. What comes to her mind is a biblical passage about Amalek (ʿĂmālēq):

“Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey out of Egypt— how he surprised you on the way, attacking from the rear all those who were straggling behind, when you were weary and worn out, and he did not fear God. When the Lord your God gives you rest from all your enemies around you, in the land he is giving you as an inheritance, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under the heavens. Do not forget.”
(Deuteronomy 25:17–19)

We’re faced with a paradoxical command:

On the one hand: blot out the memory of Amalek (leave no trace of him in history);
On the other hand: never forget what he did.

In Hebrew, it’s even more striking:

מחה תמחה (māḥō timḥēh): “you shall surely blot out”
לא תשכח (lō' tishkaḥ): “do not forget.”

To erase and to remember: a call that seems contradictory—almost impossible to fulfill without tearing oneself apart.

This reminded me of a fable told by Camille (Brigitte Bardot) to Javal (Michel Piccoli) in Le Mépris by Jean-Luc Godard. It’s the story of Martin the Donkey.

— "You don’t know The Adventures of Martin the Donkey?"
— "No."
— "One day, he went to Baghdad to buy flying carpets."
— "Hm."
— "He finds a lovely one."
— "Hm."
— "He sits on it, but it doesn’t fly."
— "The merchant says, ‘No wonder.’"
— "Are you listening?"
— "Yes!"
— "‘For the carpet to fly, you mustn’t think of a donkey.’"
— "So Martin says, ‘Alright, I mustn’t think of a donkey.’"
— "But automatically, he thought of it. And the carpet didn’t fly."
— "I don’t see the connection with me."
— "That’s exactly what I’m saying."
— "Really, I don’t get it."

Of course, the more we try not to think of something, the more we do. And the carpet never takes off.

Both cases involve cognitive tension.

In Martin’s story, the conscious effort not to think of the donkey inevitably makes him think of it, blocking the goal (the carpet flying). In Deuteronomy, the command to "blot out the memory" of Amalek while also "not forgetting" requires two seemingly opposite actions: forgetting (mental erasure) and remembering (preserving memory). It feels like a paradox—because the effort to erase may actually revive the memory, just as Martin’s effort revives the image of the donkey.

Psychological mechanism:
In both cases, the attention directed toward an object (donkey or Amalek) in an attempt to eliminate or control it intensifies its mental presence. This recalls a well-documented psychological phenomenon: intrusive thoughts—like in Wegner’s 1987 studies on the “rebound effect” of thought suppression.

So what if our relationship to faith sometimes works the same way?

What interests me in the analogy between Martin’s fable and the pericope on Amalek is that it highlights a real theological tension:
How are we to obey both “blot out” (remove the influence or legacy of Amalek) and “remember” (retain the memory for moral or pedagogical reasons)?
This tension can become an inner conflict, especially if one interprets divine commands literally or rigidly.

Don’t we sometimes—often?—live our faith in this tension between two poles that God seems to ask us to hold together?

“Love your enemy” and “Be holy.”
“Forgive” and “Stay vigilant against evil.”
“Come out from the world” and “Remain in mission within it.”

These tensions are real. Perhaps God is indeed asking us to account for these tensions, and to live the whole spectrum they contain.

But is it God who turns this tension into a double bind, an unlivable contradiction? Maybe the issue lies in how we interpret tension and polarity. Tension acknowledges a spectrum—a range of nuance between two poles. It’s not all or nothing. There’s movement. The problem might begin when we demand that it be one or the other, black or white, a ready-made solution, a definitive religious answer.

Maybe it’s our way of receiving the text—our anxiety, our confused need for failure—that twists divine calls into mental traps.

Oh great, here comes the guilt trip.

Is self-blame really the only framework we’ve got left? Why do we keep internalizing every theological tension?

Limits of the analogy

There’s another oversimplification I introduced by linking Amalek and Martin the donkey: this shiddukh reduces the pericope about Amalek to a mental trap, whereas the biblical text operates on several levels—historical, theological, ethical.

The command to "blot out" Amalek points to symbolic and physical destruction (removing a threat and its ideology), while "do not forget" speaks to collective memory, carrying moral lessons. The two commands are not necessarily contradictory if we distinguish their planes (practical vs. memorial).

Different contexts: Martin’s paradox is personal and psychological—an internal struggle against a thought. Deuteronomy’s injunction is communal, situated in a theological and historical framework. It’s not about an individual’s mental state but about the spiritual responsibility of a people.

Moreover, the biblical text does not say, "remember to forget."
That’s our rhetorical simplification.

Theological validity:
The Amalek pericope (Deut. 25:17–19; cf. Ex. 17:14–16) is not a double bind in the strict sense, because the two commands can be reconciled:

“Blot out” can refer to eradicating the influence or ideology of Amalek (physically or symbolically);
“Do not forget” can point to ethical memory: remembering Amalek’s injustice (attacking the weak, Deut. 25:18) to foster moral vigilance.

God is not asking us to tear ourselves apart. He is calling us to hold polarities together without disintegration— to seek a living fidelity, not a sterile self-division.

When we read these calls as contradictions, when we demand of faith that it split us open like Martin stuck on his carpet, it is not God who is at fault. It’s our own inner machinery that has turned the call into a trap.

It is literalism, or hyper-focus (like that of an anxious believer trying to obey perfectly), that may transform theological tension into a psychological snare. It is our interpretation, not the divine voice, that creates the double bind.

So yes—we exaggerate the resemblance ("it’s exactly the same") for rhetorical effect. We simplify the message ("remember to forget") to draw meaning. But these strategies still point to a partial truth: a poor interpretation can make a biblical text into a mental cage.

What if the real challenge isn’t God, but us?
Can we live within tensions (not even those God gives, but those that lead us toward a freer understanding of Him)? Or do we come to religion seeking justification for our own interior division?

So really, it’s our fault again—is that where we’re left?

No. Let’s be clear: we do not consciously invent our inner fractures. We sometimes inherit them—from rigid religious cultures, from anxious teachings, from reading sacred texts without nuance, or from practicing Scripture in isolation.

We mean well. We want to be faithful. And in the very effort, we harden what was meant to stay supple.

It is natural, for a sincere heart, to want to adhere fully to what it reads. It is human to feel guilt when God’s polarities seem incompatible. It often marks a faith that has taken the Bible seriously, but ran out of breath when it came time to interpret.

This desire to “succeed” in one’s faith resurfaces— yet Protestant theology has never ceased to reject it. Because it is always God who initiates, who carries us.

The temptation to build one’s faith as a performance is what forges the mental vice— a far cry from the liberating God we know.

And what if the problem is not that we read poorly out of ignorance, but that we read poorly out of excess seriousness, out of an anxious love?

As Pascal put it, we often approach faith with a geometric mind, trying to resolve tension with mathematical rigor and airtight logic— rather than with a mind of subtlety, which grasps the complex and the nuanced without always being able to prove it.

The Bible speaks of letter and spirit: