Light in the darkness? What the Church can offer someone suffering with depression

Few pastors in the modern world have as much name recognition as the leader of Saddleback Church in California, Rick Warren. Yet his ministry did not make the megachurch pastor immune from tragedy when he lost his son to suicide in 2013. Warren has since used his influence in the ministry world to raise awareness of mental health problems within the church.

Christianity is a belief system with some lofty boasts, with words like hope, joy, peace, patience, and love among the many fruits it is said to instil in its followers. And yet, Doctor Len Lantz estimates that as many as seven million Christians suffer from depression in the United States alone. Given these positive claims of Christian spiritual fruits, why does one see so many mental health problems, and especially depression, present within believing Christians?

Read more:

Can the Bible teach us anything about depression?

Mental health, stigma and the gospel

Death has lost its sting

Fighting against God

What is Depression?

Life can be stressful and troublesome, and everyone has felt sad, anxious, or stressed from time to time. However, the various unpleasant emotional states people undergo as they deal with the difficulties life throws their way rarely sink to the level of depression. More than an unpleasant emotion, depression is a chronic mental condition. When one’s cherished pet passes away, or one losses one’s job, one may feel upset for a time, but unlike these circumstances, clinical depression is not necessarily connected to life difficulties, and one may remain depressed even under the best of conditions.

People who are depressed may feel a sadness that amounts to hopelessness, and a lack of energy or enjoyment of ordinarily enjoyable things. Frequently individuals might under-eat because food has lost its appeal, or decline to participate in activities they would ordinarily enjoy because those activities no longer bring enjoyment.

While depression may be brought on by stress, it is also a condition that can run in the family. While medicine and therapy can treat depression, there is no clinical cure for depression. It is not like a virus which runs its course or can be killed by antibodies. It is a malfunction within the body itself, linked to nerve functioning and genetics. Bodies do adjust and adapt, and not everyone who suffers from depression will suffer for life, but neither is it guaranteed to go away.

Is depression compatible with Christianity?

Enter a church and one will see Christians with wheelchairs and walkers. Many members take some form of regular medication. Being Christian does not somehow immunise one from all ailments of the body. It is the symptoms rather than the mere presence of depression which seem so intuitively contrary to the sort of hopefulness and peace Christians allegedly possess. Doesn’t God offer joy and love and so forth to his followers? Perhaps. But the way in which people who are depressed experience those feelings will be different than others.

A biblical survey, in fact, will be enough to show that the saints were not immune to mental anguish. As the Psalmist cries out to God “How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day?” he sounds remarkably like a sufferer of depression. The prophet Jeremiah writes an entire book of lamentation over the destruction of Jerusalem, and other saints such as Moses, Elijah, and even Paul express their distress to God. Now, one may reason, these all seem like circumstantial instances of sorrow, not a medical condition. However, recall that stress can be, and often is, a trigger for depression.

If, then, depression is compatible with and persistent within the church, of what use is one’s faith in the face of depression?

The benefits of Christianity

There are two extremes to avoid when considering one’s faith in relationship to physical illness. One extreme would be to assume that enough prayer and faith will cure any bodily ailment. One can see examples within the Bible – David praying for the recovery of his infant child, or Paul praying for the “thorn in his flesh” to be removed – where God made the decision to permit the problem to persist despite prayer. The second extreme is to assume that prayer is futile and that God does not bother with the suffering of men. While everyone will grow old, weak, and suffer death eventually, God has seen fit to answer some prayers with healing. As CS Lewis once observed: “A slow miracle is no easier to perform than an instant one.” The Christian community itself may be a miracle of the slow sort.

The massive interreligious study titled “Religion and Wellbeing” discovered that belonging to and participation in a Christian community brought with it mental health benefits, and also physical health benefits. The study identified a variety of subgroups who benefited most from participation in religious communities – women, the elderly, racial minorities, and the disabled.

Religious community has built-in benefits for those who participate within, including a diversity of skills and talents that various members have to offer to the whole, a shared set of values and purpose, and the fact that people with religious values tend to be generally more open and accepting of others.

For people suffering with depression, the value of community is both essential and complex. Whereas inclusion in the community and physical proximity to other human beings are powerful opponents to depression, people suffering with depression rarely have the energy or willingness to make efforts to participate. Sadly, because they do not take the initiative to invite themselves into participation, they frequently are overlooked and do not receive the benefits of religious participation.

It is here, especially, that the church ought to be vigilant. Depressed people don’t have a great deal of energy, and cannot be expected to volunteer in church events or even speak up during a Bible study. However, being included in these things – even when inclusion means nothing more than being physically present – is still extremely helpful.

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Hope when life is hard

Psychologist Jordan Peterson observes that the value of religion is not that it offers happiness, but rather that it provides a sense of hope which enables one to endure unhappiness. Earlier in this article, reference was made to Paul’s proverbial “thorn.” Paul says, “Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:8-10 ESV)

It was God’s grace which gave Paul strength to endure a trouble that would not go away on its own. Because Christianity offers a hope that exists above this life, a purpose that transcends the physical, and a promise for the future, mental health difficulties such as depression may be endurable, even when painful.

Psychiatry and the Church

Many churches are resistant to mental health institutions. The history behind this church/psychiatry feud is long and complex, but it has also left a number of bodies in its wake. Some people in the psychiatric community do not see much benefit in religion, and religion will occasionally paint psychiatry as denying the power of God or the doctrine of sin. Whatever the case, psychiatrists had been known to discourage religious practice and churches had been known to push people away from psychiatric institutions.

Happily, around the turn of the century, psychological practice in general began to recognise the benefits that religion provided to the lives and mental health of the religious (as mentioned previously in this article). As a result, therapists will frequently encourage their clients to involve themselves more fully in the religious community if they understand the benefits.

Similarly, churches have gradually opened to the possibility of referring people with mental health difficulties to psychiatrists for treatment rather than simply counselling them to pray harder.

While a total truce has not been called between the two groups, the relationship is much healthier than it once was, and I advocate cooperation between the two.

Joel Furches is an apologist, journalist and researcher on conversion and deconversion, based in the USA