Mental Illness and the Church: Guest Post by Jeremy Pierre and the Biblical Counseling Coalition
Note: The following post by Jeremy Pierre and the Biblical Counseling Coalition is re-posted here with their permission. To read the original post, please visit the BCC’s Grace & Truth blog site at Mental Illness and the Church.
Mental Illness and the Church
In light of the passing of Matthew Warren, who took his life, and in light of much discussion in the Christian community about suicide and mental illness, the Biblical Counseling Coalition asked one of our Council Board members, Dr. Jeremy Pierre, to share his perspective on mental illness and the church. As members of the coalition, we pray for Rick and Kay Warren as they find Christ’s hope in the midst of their grief. And we pray that Dr. Pierre’s insights would be helpful to the Christian community.
You can also find two helpful posts related to suicide prevention and grieving a suicide at our BCC Book Review site:
• Paul Tautges, another BCC Council Board member, provides 20 Recommended Resources Related to Suicide Prevention and Grieving a Suicide.
• The BCC Staff interviewed Bruce Ray on his just-released e-book, Help! My Friend Is Suicidal. You can find his insights at The BCC Author Interview Q & A with Bruce Ray.
Toward a Compassionate, Wise Conversation
The pain is unspeakable, I’m sure.
Many are grieving with Rick and Kay Warren over the loss of their son Matthew to suicide. And many are paying attention to something we typically find hard to think about. Mental illness in the church has taken the headlines.
But to have a productive conversation, we’ll need to avoid a couple of unhelpful ways of talking about it. The most obvious one, I think, is to discuss the private state of Matthew’s mind or surmise what condition he suffered from. I imagine those closest to Matthew are suffering enough under the why question, and they don’t need all of us to figure it out for them.
Another unhelpful way to go about this conversation is to lob generalities at the church regarding its failure to adequately care for those with mental illness. I’ve never seen generalities change anything except people’s blood pressure.
Maybe we’re not quite sure what the church addressing mental illness even means, though we’re hitting on some important aspects of it. Swirling around in the discussion so far are two separate, but closely related, issues. The first is the shame of those struggling with mental illness and the pressure to keep it secret. And the second is what we actually mean when we say mental illness—its nature as physiological disease. While we cannot separate these two issues, distinguishing them for the sake of discussion may help us move forward in a productive way.
Continue Reading…
To read the rest of Dr. Pierre’s compassionate and nuanced response, click here: Mental Illness and the Church.
