Faith--a Mental Illness?

Faith--a Mental Illness?

Actress Candace Cameron Bure is weighing in on the intense controversy surrounding “The View” host Joy Behar’s proclamation recently that it’s essentially “mental illness” to believe that “Jesus talks to you.”

“My initial reaction was that it was a tone deaf comment, but not a surprising one from someone who isn’t a believer,” Bure, who was a co-host on “The View” for two seasons before leaving in December 2016, told Faithwire on Thursday.

But the “Fuller House” star added that she felt, after watching the entire clip, that Behar reasonably explained her position on Vice President Mike Pence, despite Bure’s own disagreement with Behar’s sentiments.

“We understood where she stood with [the vice-president],” she said. “It was important for me to watch that entire clip and not just pull the one thing out that Joy said … there are many people who think the way that Joy does because they aren’t believers and they have no real understanding of God's desire to have relationship with man.”

Bure, who is an outspoken Christian, added that it’s important for Christians to remember that non-believers find the sort of spiritual experience described in Behar’s comments as “foreign.”

“It was a tone deaf comment, also an ignorant one, but you can’t blame her,” Bure said. “For someone who has no concept of the Holy Spirit, that that is a logical response.”

Bure also detailed how she would have responded if she were still sitting around “The View” table, noting that she would have drawn a distinction between a person stating that Jesus “talks” to him or her and someone explaining that he or she listens to the Holy Spirit’s guidance.

“I think I would have clarified there’s a difference,” she said. “There’s a difference when someone claims, ‘Oh, Jesus talked to me’ or ‘I’m listening to the Holy Spirit.'”

And Bure was careful to remind people that the initial comment that sparked Behar’s response came from TV star Omarosa Manigault Newman, a woman whom Bure said is “a reality TV queen” who “knows how to make headlines.”

While Bure said that she genuinely loves everyone at “The View” table, she’s grateful to no longer be doing the show.

“Thank goodness I’m not at that table anymore,” she said through a chuckle. “I honestly love everyone who’s at that table … It’s heated. It’s a hard job. I’m glad I’m not doing.”

As previously reported, Behar’s remarks stemmed from statements made by Newman, a former “Apprentice” star who briefly became a White House staffer before reportedly being terminated.

Newman said in a recent episode of “Celebrity Big Brother” that Pence is extreme and that he “thinks Jesus tells him to say things.”

“It’s one thing to talk to Jesus. It’s another thing when Jesus talks to you,” Behar said in reaction to Newman’s claims. “That’s called mental illness, if I’m not correct. Hearing voices.”

Those to whom the Holy Spirit has spoken--those to whom guidance and encouragement and life have been spoken when they were at the point of failure and death--understand fully the wonder and glory of having a God who is "near at hand and not afar off."

Those who have experienced it can never, will never, give it up; and they also desire to see unbelievers transformed by the wonder of hearing the Lord's voice from scoffers to people of faith.