Mental health not about churches ‘fixing’ people, Baylor prof insists

Participants listen to a presentation at the Peace of Mind Conference on mental health held recently at Green Acres Baptist Church in Tyler. (Peace of Mind Tyler Photo)

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TYLER—Christians should not see their job as fixing the mentally ill but rather showing them Christ’s love, said Matt Stanford, professor of psychology, neuroscience and biomedical studies at Baylor University.

Stanford spoke at the Peace of Mind Conference on mental health held recently at Green Acres Baptist Church in Tyler.

matt stanford casual200Matt StanfordSome Christians insist they are unable to help the mentally ill because they lack knowledge about psychiatry and psychology. But Stanford pointed out the church offers aid and comfort to people who have cancer and other diseases, and Christians generally offer it without benefit of a medical degree.

Regardless of the church’s readiness, people who need help with emotional and psychological issues are going to come seeking assistance, he said.

“Individuals who are experiencing psychological stress are more likely on average to go to a clergy member first than they are any other professional group,” Stanford said. “And that goes for people of faith and those who are not people of faith.”

A number of things play into that, he said. First, the mental health system is so overrun, it can be difficult to get an appointment to see someone.

Second, mental health problems cause people to ask questions such as “Where is God?” and “Why am I suffering?”

Third, people often don’t know they have a mental health problem. They just know life is not going well, and they are having a hard time getting along with others.

Just the fact that those people go to the church proves it has a level of importance to them, he asserted.


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“If you are a person of faith, or if you go to a place of faith and you are looking for some sort of comfort or care, that is an important part of your treatment,” Stanford said.

“Knowing that this happens, you would think we would try to develop some kind of bridge building. But the reality is that not many bridges exist between the mental health community and the faith community. In fact, the faith community is very wary of the mental health community, and maybe rightly so in some sense,” he said.

Some wariness stems from a lack of knowledge, and sometimes it grows out of the belief mental illness is “not a real thing,” Stanford said.

Opportunity for ministry

Since people with mental illness come to the church first, it creates an opportunity for ministry, he noted.

“Let’s not miss what is going on here. It is a divine opportunity. Any pastor that I would talk to, if I said, ‘I got a ministry for you, and you never have to leave the chair of your office; God is going to send all the people right to you’—they would jump at that. But as a group of individuals of faith, we’ve completely ignored this. Not only ignored it, but in some ways we’ve damaged the people who come with mental health problems even more,” he said.

One study found 48 percent of conservative Christians believed people with severe mental illness such as schizophrenia, depression and bipolar symptoms could overcome those issues with prayer and Bible study alone.

“Forty-eight percent of my people and probably your people said that was true. I don’t believe that is true, but if I’m a person with a serious mental illness and somebody tells me that right there, am I going to get any better?” he asked.

“In fact, what am I going to do? I’m going to invest myself in the Scriptures, and I’m going to invest myself in the spiritual disciplines because somebody I went to for help just told me that’s what I needed to get me out of that.

“Do you know what I’m going to find? I going to find frustration, and I’m going to find failure and a God who does not care for me enough to heal me. And I’m going to separate myself from that faith community, and I’m going to be worse than when I went there.”

That’s not why God is sending people with mental illness to churches, he insisted.

“We find 30 percent of interactions of mentally ill persons are negative. In most instances they are told their illness does not exist, and it is one of three things—personal sin, lack of faith or the demonic,” he said.

“I believe in the demonic, but when someone tells me they have cancer, I feel sorry. I want to give them comfort; I want to give them care. If someone tells me they have schizophrenia, and I’m in the church, do I feel the same thing, or do I want to fix them spiritually?

‘Whenever we want to fix anybody, we’ve messed up’

“Whenever we want to fix anybody, we’ve messed up. Comfort and care is what we should think of first.”

While the church would like to think of themselves as welcoming, research with people with mental illness who seek acceptance shows otherwise, he said.

“Shun, shame and stigmatize is what the church does to people with mental health problems. If you do that to the person with mental health problems, you do that to the family also,” he said.

“God is not sending them to us so we can say, ‘Oh, you’re a sinner.’ We are all sinners. God is sending them to us so that we might see the works of God manifested in their lives, so that we might have greater intimacy with him. That’s for us—and for them.”

Churches can build relationships with people who are hurting, he insisted. And as they do, hope increases.

“Hope is not a feeling. It is a person, and that is what we have to give to the mentally ill. There are days I don’t feel very hopeful, but I have a hope that transcends my circumstances,” he said.

“We have an opportunity to walk alongside, bear the burdens and see God restore their lives—through the love and care you are giving them and his involvement in their lives.

“We have to not try to fix them but love them and care for them. God will do the fixing.”


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