Christian reflections on R U OK
CATHEDRAL NEWSLETTER - 12 September 2024
Friends in Christ, today, 12 September, is R U OK Day – the charity's national day of action that seeks to "inspire and empower everyone to meaningfully connect with the people around them and start a conversation with those in their world who may be struggling with life."
Of course, as they say, any day of the year is a good day to ask if someone is OK, to listen, to gently encourage action, or to check back in with a friend who has been struggling earlier.
Now I am not a doctor. Nor have I suffered mental illness. But the longer I go in ministry, the more I realise how serious it is. Some years ago, a friend told me 4 out of 9 in his Bible study group were being medicated for clinical depression! And they were a fairly average group of Christians… But that's reality!
I am glad that the topic of mental illness is talked about more than 30 years ago. But it's still easy to feel like it's hidden away if it impacts your life.
I first began to understand how serious it could be and gain more sympathy when I encountered John Piper's biography of the famous but deeply depressed hymn-writer, William Cowper.
Cowper wrote hymns like 'God moves in a mysterious way' and 'There is a fountain filled with blood'.
But Cowper suffered severe bouts of what today is called clinical depression. He became a Christian in his early 30s in a mental hospital. He attempted suicide several times, before and after conversion. He died with feelings of abject misery aged 69.
Yet he was an orthodox, evangelical believer, who loved Jesus and knew the gospel with crystal clarity in his head. But so often, his heart, caught in black depression, just didn't match up.
When I researched this topic for a sermon on an earlier occasion, I drew several conclusions.
Never assume depression or anxiety is the result of specific sin, despite the feelings of guilt the mentally ill often struggle with. (Reflect on Luke 13:1-5 and John 9:1-3.)
Nor do we assume it’s a failure of faith. Paul’s ‘thorn in the flesh’ (whatever it was, 2 Cor 12:7-9) was not taken away despite repeated prayers. We don’t say he lacked faith.
Neither should we assume it’s a failure of fellowship. Churches can always do better. But it’s simplistic to say that people would not get stuck in their depression we were more loving.
Friends, we can think of depression, anxiety and other mental health challenges as much as a medical as a spiritual problem. So while we encourage biblical thinking and godly conduct in the midst of illness, we also need a theology of medicine.
Medicine is one of God's good gifts (see 1 Tim 4:4, 1 Tim 5:23). So there is no need to reject the medical study and evidence-based treatment of the mind (i.e. psychiatry, including its therapeutic drugs) any more than we would reject bypass heart surgery, or insulin for diabetes.
Of course, the assumptions behind some treatments, like aspects of Freudian psychoanalysis, are questionable from a Christian point of view. But I'm told there is good clinical evidence for the effectiveness of some treatments like cognitive-behavioural therapy in some circumstances. The drugs prescribed by psychiatrists can be useful. People in our own congregations with various mental illnesses have been helped this way. Of course, it is wise to seek careful advice on such drugs. Likewise professional counselling or a support group may be fruitful.
A health professional in my last church tells me that there is also good experimental evidence to suggest that regular exercise 3 times a week is sometimes helpful in treating depression, at least in some forms. Perhaps you could offer to go walking regularly with a friend who is struggling this way.
Christian community is often of incalculable value. For example, John Newton's loyal friendship with depressed hymn-writer, William Cowper, clearly preserved him from even worse suffering. Newton was Cowper's local Anglican Minister. But as well as his teaching and encouragement to trust Christ, his care involved long walks and talks with Cowper, shared efforts in song writing, as well as many letters written long after he moved elsewhere.
As the R U OK people remind us... You don't need to be an expert to reach out – just a good friend and a great listener.
Nor must we think that the presence of intractable depression or doubts disqualifies a believer from being a true Christian. Cowper believed in Christ, but couldn't shake his dark feelings that, in an exception to God's usual rule, he had deserted him. Here a quote from a biographer is helpful:
"Our knowledge of God in Christ authorises us to assert without hesitation that Cowper was mistaken in his belief in divine desertion... We remember the saying of St John: 'If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.' The delusions of men do not change the reality of God's love.
Another poet, writing of Cowper, pictures a boy in the delirium of fever, crying out for his mother, not realising that all the time, she is there beside his bed, caring for him. Likewise the poet imagines Cowper declaring that God has forsaken him, yet waking from his fevered dream in this life to find himself in God's presence.
Warmly in Christ,
Sandy Grant
Dean of Sydney