8.3 million minors in the USA received mental care in 2023, highlighting a ‘Decaying Culture’.

The family unit, social interaction, and politics are a few of the many variables that impact a developing adolescent. When a child’s family unit is broken, social life is in shambles, or the political public square becomes unavoidable, it can have consequences on who they become as their worldview takes shape. As evidenced by previous reports, as well as one published last month, mental health concerns are exploding in the younger generation.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) conducted a July survey that analyzed the amount of counseling, medication, or other forms of mental health therapy minors underwent in 2023. According to the results, 8.3 million youth ages 12 to 17 received mental health care, which The Epoch Times noted “is equivalent to nearly one-third of the adolescents in the U.S. undergoing treatment for mental health issues.”

The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), which is the title of SAMHSA’s annual survey, found that the results were in line with the trend they’ve seen since 2009, namely, that “the percentage of teenagers who receive treatment for mental health has climbed practically every year.” As ET highlighted, “Authorities from SAMHSA said that they considered the increase to be a positive development, highlighting efforts to mainstream and remove the stigma associated with getting treatment for mental health issues.”

The survey included statistics concerning the underage and their use of alcohol and drugs, as well as the rates of suicidal thoughts, plans, and attempts among adolescents. To accompany those statistics in greater detail are countless other studies accentuating what causes children to engage in such harmful behaviors and acts — all of which often lead to mental health issues.

For instance, The Washington Stand highlighted a report from last year “that compared dozens of studies conducted between 1987 and 2022,” emphasizing the way fatherlessness impacts children. In analyzing the results, the America First Policy Institute (AFPI) noted there were “clear correlations between children raised in fatherless homes and developmental challenges ranging from bad grades, anxiety, and suicide to violent behavior, drug use, and criminality.”

Additionally, the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study from 2022 examined 7,111 children “who did not identify as anything other than their biological sex, as well as 58 transgender-identifying children between the ages of 9 and 10.” As the report emphasized, “Children who identified as transgender at this young age were more likely to experience depression … anxiety … conduct problems … and suicidality.” The study also pointed out that trans-identifying children were more likely to have endured “significant psychological trauma” such as “exposure to domestic violence, mental illness, alcohol or drug use in the home, physical or emotional abuse or neglect, sexual abuse, and parental divorce.”

Needless to say, there are many factors involved in the “recipe” of “despair, hopelessness, nihilism, [and] disaffection,” as Marlo Slayback, national director of Student Programs at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, previously shared with The College Fix. According to Slayback, Generation Z is surrounded by a “decaying culture,” which inevitably affects them as they try to navigate through it. But to further break down how this all relates to the most recent findings, Joseph Backholm, Family Research Council’s senior fellow for Biblical Worldview and Strategic Engagement, shared his insight with TWS.

“It’s beyond dispute at this point that social media is harming the mental health of young people,” he said. Especially among the youth, the technological realm is “creating constant comparison which leads to a lack of contentment.” Not to mention, he added, it’s replacing real-life relationships with the appearance of virtual relationships.” But beyond social media, Backholm urged that our analysis should consider that “the way we talk and think about mental health may explain some of this as well.”

He continued, “We have destigmatized mental health in ways that are good, but we have almost glamorized certain mental health ways that make young people want a diagnosis.” Numerous instances prove that “adults are rushing children into mental health treatments in ways that have never happened before.”

“Abigail Shrier does a good job documenting this in her recent book Bad Therapy,” where she “argues that the problem isn’t the kids — it’s the mental health experts.”

It appears, Backholm stated, that “in an attempt to make sure we don’t ignore a child’s struggles, adults may inadvertently be encouraging children to fixate on them which could make things worse.” In addition to that, “if children receive special attention for having a mental health challenge, we inadvertently encourage children to have them, or at least claim to.” According to Backholm, “Mental health challenges are real, but they are also invisible, which makes diagnosing them more difficult and more susceptible to cultural and personal factors rather than scientific ones.” 

From a biblical worldview, Backholm explained how “a sinful world is full of challenges,” and really, “Christians understand why.” Ultimately, “When we live and think the way God intended, in relationship with Him and others, our minds will be better for it.” But the truth is, Backholm contended, “We live in a broken world, and no one escapes the consequences fully.” As a result, we are incapable of living completely as God intended us to live.

A major influence is that most young people have been taught in schools and universities that God does not exist, they evolved from monkeys and therefore there’s no meaning or purpose to life. They have no hope. God’s commandments have been jettisoned: homosexuality, gay marriage, transgenderism, and abortion are acceptable. Christians who hold to God’s standards are bigots, homophobes, and worse.

The true history of the world is no longer taught even by our Bible Colleges. Due to the acceptance of evolution, they have abandoned Genesis, its creation account, and the worldwide flood of Noah’s day. Fortunately, God’s Word, the Bible tells us that this would happen in the last days before Jesus’ second coming.

“Knowing this, first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these, the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.” 2 Peter 3:3-6

Christians know how the story of this world ends. Jesus in his Olivet Discourse, given in three of the Gospels, provides a lot of detail as does Revelation. In the O.T. the revelation given to Daniel was for the end times. Three times Daniel was told, “Go your way, Daniel, for the words are shut up and sealed until the time of the end.” Daniel 12:9

Daniel, like no other book, reaches all the way back to Israel’s beginnings and outlines the whole sweep of Israel’s history of crisis and covenant discipline, reaching its glorious resolution in the kingdom that has come on earth as it is in heaven. Daniel is the key to organizing the whole of scripture around the main themes of kingdom, covenant, and mystery. But it is Jesus’ Olivet prophecy in particular, and the emphasis He puts on one centermost event (abomination of desolation), that becomes the key that opens not only Daniel but also sets all the prophecies spoken concerning the coming day of the Lord in clearest covenant context.

We must remember that the NT revelation of the mystery of the gospel is built around Christ’s first coming, His departure, and His return to Israel, specifically to the Mount of Olives from whence He ascended. He must return to the place where He was crucified under the placard that said, “This is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.”

Why end the age just there, in that physical locality? Why has God constructed the end of the age around an ancient land dispute that is divinely calculated to plunge the nations into an insoluble crisis from which none will be able to extricate themselves? (Zech 12:2-3). Why would God bind together the issue of the mystery of the gospel with the mystery of Israel?

Part of the answer regards His deliberate intention that both comings would be surrounded by an element of mystery is to elude the pride of self-reliance (Mt. 11:25-26), just as Paul warns in Ro. 11:25. Just as the mystery of Christ’s twofold coming so deeply searched and tested Jewish hearts, just so, the mystery of Israel is designed to test and sift the hearts of the nations, even gentile believers.

But there is one important difference: The mystery of Christ’s cross and twofold coming was not only hidden from Peter and the disciples (Mt 16:22; Lk 18:34); it was hidden even from the angelic powers (1 Cor 2:7-8). Not so the mystery surrounding the Lord’s return.

Those well-marked days will only come “as a thief” upon the unregenerate church and the unbelieving world, but not upon the faithful children of the light (1 Thess. 5:4). We know this because Daniel’s prophecy is clear that the vision will be unsealed and known to the wise at the time of the end. They will be doing great exploits, instructing many, and turning many to righteousness. A countless number will be saved out of, “the great tribulation (Rev 7:14).

But the larger answer to the question has all to do with the completion of an ancient covenant promise. It is the age-ending climax of the “everlasting covenant” that forms the framework of the future. In the larger context of God’s eternal purpose in Christ, this is what defines how and why the age ends just as the prophecy of both testaments so fully describes.

Reggie Kellie of Mystery of Israel (www.mysteryofisrael.org) says, “Towards the goal of seeing the big picture, I believe the Lord Jesus Himself has given us the key to establish what I like to call a “plumbline of simplicity” that will align and pull many of the strands together into a coherent clarity. The object will not only be to know what is most important to know, but how best to show others how to make the case from scripture without getting bogged down in details, in a way that will equip others to equip others.

If observed, God has given us an amazing, and now especially timely, provision to equip the body, not only to escape the manifold forms of end-time deception but to have the Lord’s own, personally commended key of interpretation that will enable them to “instruct many” and “turn many” to righteousness” (Dan 11:32-33; 12:3, 10).

Much of the back end of this post is extracted from an article by Reggie Kelly The Olivet Key to Daniel’s Prophecy of the End