Our theology–or, more accurately, our perception of it–helps to determine our response to mental illness. Consequently, we must ensure our unexamined religious assumptions do not rob us of compassion or persuade us to premature and unwarranted judgment. Let me give some examples.
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\nSometimes our theology helps us treat the mentally ill with special kindness. In my experience, for instance, church members treat those with Down Syndrome quite tenderly. This may be in part because we believe those with pronounced congenital mental handicaps were more valiant in the premortal existence and are already secured a place in the Celestial Kingdom–associating with them allows us a taste of the divine.<\/p>\n
Matters, however, are murkier with respect to the clinically depressed.<\/p>\n
For reasons I will explore in a moment, the depressed, even in the Church, are often ashamed of their affliction–rather like lepers of old. This is both tragic and ironic because those who most need empathy sometimes find themselves even sadder because of the treatment they receive from those who should, and often want to, help. I think, for instance, of a well-meaning church member who tells a clinically-depressed friend: “oh, just cheer up.” The intent, of course, is noble; the effect, however, may be to elicit guilt, frustration, and withdrawal. <\/p>\n
Part of the problem, I think, is that our desire to help sometimes outstrips our knowledge. If each of us were completely transparent, I think we would find that many Church members do not believe in clinical depression. That is, many of us still believe emotional state is always a matter of choice–“clinical depression” may make it harder to be happy, but happiness is still a personal decision. Many years of medical research, however, indicate this is not the case. Just as there are some folks with thin blood, or missing limbs, or weak hearts, or fatty livers, there are some people whose biochemical makeup prevents them from being happy. For them, the idea of “just perk up” is rather like the idea of a lame man “just jumping up.”<\/p>\n
In fairness, these are difficult issues with no easy answers one way or the other. Mental illness is complex precisely because it lies at the intersection of the physical and the mental–almost, we seem to think, at the intersection of the physical and the spiritual. We have, for the most part, abandoned the idea that physical illness follows sin. We have not, however, been able to leave behind the idea that there is some connection between mental illness and personal righteousness; this may be because mental state is too closely connected to that place inside of us where accountability lies–the two realms are not easily separated.<\/p>\n
Despite the thorny intellectual and philosophical thicket which surrounds mental illness, however, I would suggest that the best course of action is to err on the side of compassion and empathy. We need to strive, as individuals and as a Church, to assure that these people know we do not think anything is “wrong” with them, that we do not think their affliction is their fault, and that they are welcome and loved among us. It is true that, in some instances, we may be wrong. The scriptures do teach that, in some cases, misery follows wickedness and there are probably some people who feel depressed as a consequence for wrong decisions–even then, though, don’t those folks need mercy and compassion even more than those who are ill? Furthermore, we ought to remember that, just as financial blessings do not always follow righteous living, temporal happiness sometimes eludes even the most valiant. The Savior, after all, was also “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” Sometimes grief follows wickedness, but sometimes it follows righteousness. Especially when dealing with the mentally ill, we would probably do well to assume the latter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Our theology–or, more accurately, our perception of it–helps to determine our response to mental illness. Consequently, we must ensure our unexamined religious assumptions do not rob us of compassion or persuade us to premature and unwarranted judgment. Let me give some examples.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/92"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3390\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}