Although I am enamored with the Enlightenment, including things like the belief that there are objects to be known and that we can know them, and that among these things are universal obligations and proscriptions, I am also oddly attracted to a few things opposite it, including the local church.

Modernity tends toward the comprehended, planned, organized, programmed, outlined, propositionalized, and controlled—everything local churches are not.

I know something of the effort made, especially by pastors and staff members, to understand, plan, and implement the program of the church. I also know the varying degrees of efficacy with which that effort is wielded and the equally (but not necessarily proportionately) varying levels of success it brings—from shining examples of relevant church ministry worthy of the emulation of every fee-paying, conference-attending, book-reading, and manual-following sycophant to dismal counter-examples of how to do anything well.

David Mandani heard voices telling him to kill himself. He was paranoid. He saw things others didn’t.

He was spiraling out of control.

Mandani was hospitalized but ran away. Family members found him in a park and asked police for help. He was put in an ambulance, tied down and taken to a psychiatric lockdown facility where he spent several weeks strapped to his bed. His condition was diagnosed as schizophrenia.

Medication and counseling helped clear up the voices and irrational beliefs. Still, he relapsed six times over the next seven years.

He struggled and felt hopeless and sought help from clergy at six churches. Ashamed of his diagnosis, he didn’t mention it. Clergy prayed with him, over him and for him. In one case he was told to repent.

“They dismissed it. They didn’t see it was a health care issue,” Mandani said.

Mandani’s diagnosis was almost 20 years ago, but his experiences ring true today. A recently released national study conducted by an evangelical group found the stigma of mental illness is still real inside the church. While clergy are often a first resource, the study found many pastors can’t – or don’t want to – assist people struggling with mental illness. The study also showed disparity between what clergy thought they were doing compared to the help parishioners said they received.

In his wandering, disjointed article at Slate, Brian Palmer meant to convey his distrust of Christian missionaries who provide medical care, particularly those serving where Ebola is ravaging the population. Instead, he became another in a long line of critics unintentionally complimenting followers of Christ.

The initial reaction on Twitter to the article was … not pleasant. Ross Douthat said his initial thoughts on the piece were “not printable in a family Twitter account.” Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission called it “repulsive.”

I understand that response. Some of what Palmer wrote was absurd. He even notes that while his thoughts were milder and less offensive, he had to somewhat agree with Donald Trump and Ann Coulter’s bashing of Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol, the first missionary health workers who contracted Ebola. He almost seems more concerned about whether Christian missionaries are sharing their faith than whether they are helping people who are sick. “It’s great that these people are doing God’s work, but do they have to talk about Him so much?” he asks. What Christian wouldn’t bristle at such a question?