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Christianity Today, March, 2009 |

COVER PACKAGE

The Depression Epidemic

Why we're more down than ever—and the crucial role churches play in healing.

Dan G. Blazer | posted 3/06/2009 10:23AM

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Christian teaching about sin and its reverberating effects frees the church from surprise about the disordered state of human affairs. We can acknowledge the effects of sin both within and without. We can look at wrecked reality squarely in the eye and call it what it is.

And thanks be to God, who raised the One who entered fully into our condition, breaking the power of sin, death, and hell, that we not only can name wrecked reality, but also lean into it on the promise that Christ is making all things new.

Those who bear the marks of despair on their bodies need a community that bears the world's only sure hope in its body. They need communities that rehearse this hope again and again and delight in their shared foretaste of God's promised world to come. They need to see that this great promise, secured by Christ's resurrection, compels us to work amidst the wreckage in hope. In so doing, the church provides her depressed members with a plausible hope and a tangible reminder of the message they most need to hear: This sin-riddled reality does not have the last word. Christ as embodied in his church is the last word.

Dan G. Blazer is J. P. Gibbons Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University Medical Center and author of The Age of Melancholy (Routledge, 2005). Download a companion Bible study for this article at ChristianityTodayStore.com.

Related Elsewhere:

This article, "Connecting to Hope," "When You're Depressed" "Light When All is Dark," and "My Life with Antidepressants" are part of Christianity Today's March cover package on "The Depression Epidemic."

Previous articles on depression and suicide include:

The Gospel According to Prozac | Can a pill do what the Holy Spirit could not? (August 1, 1995)

To Be Happy in Jesus | Are evangelical Christians really happier than their neighbors? (March 8, 2006)

Good Question: Is Suicide Unforgivable? | Question: What is the biblical hope and comfort we can offer a suicide victim's family and friends? (July 10, 2000)

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March 2009, Vol. 53, No. 3

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Hale	Posted: March 14, 2009 12:57 PM

Great article, thank-you! When someone (Christian or Non-Christian) sees depression in another person or in themselves I think they rarely look first to their church or Pastor for the answer. If Pastors are looking for a conference that deals specifically with this issue they should think about the Redeemer Conference for Pastors on May 4-5 in Minnesota feature Ed Welch and RW Glenn. For more information visit our blog site at www.redeemerconference.com , our church site at www.redeemerbiblechurch.com or our media ministry at www.solidfoodmedia.com . Blessings, Hale Jay, Redeemer Bible Church

Rev. Shirley

Posted: March 13, 2009 11:12 AM

My vocation as a Congregational Health Chaplain is to develop faith-based health support groups in congregations; to support and educate those with similar health challenges, whether Diabetes or Depression. While most churches continue to avoid the subject and depression is still a stigma in ethnic communities, many churches in our faith-health network has managed to organize depression support groups to embrace those battling deprssion and educate and support their families. One has to persist in 'creating the culture' in the church and community to help those with any chronic illness.

Mario

Posted: March 11, 2009 12:31 PM


Good Article. I myself have begun to suffer from severe depression since entering this new year. This seemed to me like a timely article. Maybe there are many many other Christians out there right now who are going through the same thing. God Bless You All -Mario

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