The Problem with ‘Passion for Jesus’

TRIGGER WARNING - this blog contains discussions of spiritual abuse and severe mental health challenges. Proceed with caution and reach out to a qualified mental health professional if needed.

When I first came to Canada in 2009 I was almost immediately introduced to and then submerged in the teachings of the now disgraced former leader of the International House of Prayer in Kansas City (also known as IHOPKC), Mike Bickle. One of Bickle’s most famous emphases and the name of one of his books was ‘Passion for Jesus’. I didn’t know this language at the time, but it was essentially a manifesto for a modern-day expression of a severe ascetic, monastic lifestyle of extremely rigorous spiritual disciplines and self-denial. As a still vulnerable and impressionable 18-year-old who had only just escaped from a life of meaninglessness, addiction to video games and general lostness, this message of radical commitment to what really mattered in life, that is loving Jesus with every ounce of who I am, was deeply attractive. Millions of young people flocked to his teachings and devoted themselves to this very severe life of ascetic ‘passion for Jesus’ which involved arduous hours of Scripture reading, self-flagellating prayer and rigorous fasting. As this movement spread literally all over the world through Bickle’s books and online teachings, many people thought ‘What’s not to like? Young people giving themselves devotedly to Jesus in huge numbers.' Things were not as they seemed, however.

As I have written about on this blog before, when I was 20 years old in 2012 I had a catastrophic mental health breakdown that threw me into about a decade of crippling and life-threatening mental illness. This happened while I was serving as a youth pastor at a church in Ontario. Prior to the breakdown my days all looked roughly the same: all day was spent doing three things - 1. Working at the church, 2. Spending time with my fiancé Claire, and 3. Virtually every other waking minute was spent in severe, arduous spiritual disciplines as I had been taught by Bickle and Co. My breakdown ended up being the development of a very severe case of religious and moral OCD. Researchers don’t yet know exactly what causes OCD, but they think it is a combination of genetic predisposition, childhood trauma and circumstantial factors. Although I cannot prove this scientifically, I am quite confident that I know why I developed such severe OCD which nearly killed me and destroyed by life for the next 9-10 years. There were certainly multiple factors in my case, including childhood trauma and difficult current circumstances, but I think the main factor was that through my spiritual disciplines I was pushing myself to such an extreme mentally, emotionally and physically that something in my psyche snapped. I actually think it was likely my own mind protecting itself against what I was doing to it, a kind of self-defensive mechanism. The upshot of this was needing to leave my job as a youth pastor which I loved and valued, a decade of suffering which included self-harm and suicidal ideation, and near equal suffering for my wife Claire who had to look after me for those ten years to her own detriment.

Why am I telling you all of this? In the immediate aftermath of my breakdown in 2012, even before I had been able to benefit from any professional mental health support, I felt God say to me something to the effect of ‘It is good that you want to be radically devoted to me David, that pleases me greatly. But your life also needs to be healthy. I don’t want you to be radically devoted without being healthy or healthy without being radical, you can have both.’ The problem here was that Bickle’s communication and that of IHOPKC in general was replete with messaging like ‘Don’t let people steal your fire,’ ‘People are going to try and talk you out of this radical devotion, but you need to stick with it no matter what,' ‘Your parents and your family won’t understand, but you need to hold the line,’ ‘Don’t give in to the lifestyle of excess and endless indulgence of our contemporary culture, God is calling you to never go back to that.’ As you should now be beginning to see, despite its own protestations to the contrary, IHOPKC was a cult and Bickle was engaged in mass spiritual abuse, even of people who had never physically been to Kansas City. In the midst of all of this spiritual abuse, it took me about 9 years to de-program myself from this insidious messaging and really believe that God wanted me yes to remain dedicated to him and to spiritual disciplines, but also to live a life of health and well-being and care for myself.

Today as I write this in 2025, I am mentally well, still absolutely given to Jesus and still committed to a life of biblical devotion and spiritual disciplines. But I have needed to learn a whole new way of relating to myself in my attempts to be committed to Jesus. Rather than a self-flagellating style of self-destructive spirituality, I now treat myself well as I give myself to God in Christ. Contrary to the abusive rhetoric of Bickle, who has now been exposed as a sexual predator, being cruel to myself does not help me love God more, it cripples my ability to love God and other wells. I didn’t ‘lose my fire’, I kept it and I got my life back, and that from Christ’s own healing touch in my life and mind.

Part of what I am trying to encourage in this blog overall is that we need to be thoughtful and careful and wise and discerning in what we teach in the charismatic movement. On the surface it does seem good to encourage millions of young people to be radically devoted to Jesus. But we need to stop, think critically, consult the Scriptures and the tradition and ask questions like ‘What effect is my teaching having on the people who hear it?’ We can’t just rush headlong into things like ‘Passion for Jesus’ without stopping, thinking critically, and seeking the Spirit’s discernment. Bickle’s teaching was so insidious and clung to me so tightly for so long that it wasn’t until the unfathomable bravery of the Jane Does who exposed him in 2023 that I finally was able to break entirely free from his clutches. I and millions of other people around the world owe those Jane Does a huge debt of gratitude. They endured denial and abuse as they came forward so that people like me, who have suffered and nearly died at the hands of this abuse, could finally be totally free. We all need to be more like these women. I thank God for them and for my wife Claire who selflessly cared for me for so long in such dire circumstances, along with many compassionate and highly skilled therapists.