John MacArthur, Ben Shapiro talk Christian nationalism, Jesus, decline of the American Church

By Jon Brown, Christian Post Reporter Tuesday, June 11, 2024

The war on children

MacArthur also appeared to suggest that many of the problems afflicting young people — including mental illness — are rooted in spiritual problems and failed parenting, and that modern culture is waging a war against children.

Mentioning the young anti-Israel protesters who have wreaked havoc in recent months on U.S. university campuses, MacArthur suggested that such behavior is an example of a deep-seated rebellion that emerges from sin and is enabled in childhood.

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Citing his new book The War on Children: Providing Refuge for Your Children in a Hostile World, MacArthur suggested the culture effectively leads young people into wickedness without firm guidance.

Noting how the war on children begins with the impulse not to have them in the first place, MacArthur said the next step is to abort children and to steep them in cultural toxicity if they are born, which he implied leads to the skyrocketing levels of mental illness in young people.

"If the child survives, let the culture raise him," MacArthur described the common parenting approach. "It's easier for people to take a kid and put him on a drug than it is to turn off the cell phone. It makes no sense. I mean, it's just one thing after another after another [that] leads to the irresponsibility."

In April, MacArthur claimed there is no such thing as mental illness, that post-traumatic stress disorder is simply "grief," and that skyrocketing rates of mental illness among children results from not teaching them personal responsibility. He also suggested medicating children for such things could turn them into drug addicts.

"And the major noble lie is there is such a thing as mental illness," MacArthur said. "Now, this isn't new. You have Thomas Szasz … writing a book, who was a psychiatrist, on TheMythof Mental Illness. There's no such thing as PTSD. There's no such thing as OCD. There's no such thing as ADHD. Those are noble lies to basically give the excuse to, at the end of the day, to medicate people. And Big Pharma is in charge of a lot of that."