Depression and Natural Sorrow
Courier-Journal religion writer Peter Smith explores issues of church and depression raised in a recent issue of Christianity Today. He notes something that I believe to be true: pastors and churches are ignorant regarding clinical depression, which only ends up hurting the people we are called to help. Here’s a sample:
Probably the best part of the issue was what wasn’t included — medical-spiritual quackery that tragically misdiagnoses real suffering. Religious leaders do not have a good track record in this area. In a Baylor University survey of Christians who had been medically diagnosed with mental illnesses, one-third of them had been told by their pastors that their problem was spiritual, such as unconfessed sin or demonic possession.
You can read the whole piece here.
I believe the proper approach to Christians with clinical depression is to not view it as a purely physical OR a purely spiritual problem, but to ensure the person receives medical and spiritual care by doctors and pastors who aren’t working at cross-purposes from each other.
HT: Dark My Road
Related posts:
- Book on Lutheran View of Depression now available LCMS World Relief/Human Care is publishing a book by Pr....
- Zoloft as ad-hominem attack If the last acceptable form of bigotry is anti-Catholicism, the...
- When he has tried thy soul with sadness Several years ago, friend and former parishioner Bob Waters gently...
- Hello there I’ve been struggling with a medical problem that was diagnosed...
- Devotion to the Angel of Death I’ve become obsessed with the issue of abortion as it...
That pretty much sums it up. Thanks for the note!
Here's to hoping that more people begin to learn about depression and how it affects one both spiritually and physically. Those of us who know someone going through it or experiencing it ourselves have (usually) already figured this out. However, those who are in denial or are ignorant do not figure this at all. I hope that though pastors, such as yourself, who are aware and educating others on these problems will help Christiandom as a whole learn to deal with the area of mental illness better.
Amen.
I agree, but I also hope that we don't move the pendulum so far to the area of physiology that we forget that demonic activity is not just a euphemism for clinical depression or a primitive way to explain mental illness. We are utterly unprepared by seminary training to deal with supernatural phenomena or manifestations. The Pastoral Care Companion has some helpful suggestions (and even some ritual rubrics) for dealing with demonic affliction – but we have no exorcism rite to be used to exorcise the possessed or to cast demons out of a place or object.
Most pastors have some experience with depression – be it a relative, friend, colleague, parishioner, or even himself. And while most pastors may not have training in matters of depression, I guarantee that even fewer have any training whatsoever in exorcism or spiritual warfare.
I see that need as just as urgent. A pastor who has a depressed parishioner can ask his colleagues at a winkel about it. A pastor who has a parishioner with a haunted house or demonic agitation might be a little hesitant to raise such an issue with his fellows.
I am making an exception to this blog's rule that commenters must submit a valid email address (and, in most cases, their real name). I suspect there may be a reason why this pastor needs to remain anonymous, and I think his comment is a good one.
Determining whether the case is one of depression or some other mental illness, or is a case of demonic influence or possession, is a challenge. There is a good reason why Roman Catholics require a psychiatric evaluation before an exorcism, and the presence of a medical doctor at an exorcism.
I was once severely taken to task by an LCMS pastor at a winkel for suggesting that we should not disregard the possibility of demonic activity in the cases of our troubled parishioners and their homes. The response was vicious and hateful, which has been par for the course in my life in the Missouri Synod. We are, in my experience a loveless denomination: quick to judge, quick to anger, slow to listen and understand. That, sadly, describes myself as well.