Yes, Jim. A thousand incense sticks lit in your honor. 🙏
Trying to pray away a mental health condition is like shouting at a toothache in Aramaic and calling it “deliverance.” It may feel holy, but all you’re doing is bleeding in tongues.
The idea that faith should eliminate depression is the spiritual equivalent of prosperity gospel for the psyche: dangerous, dishonest, and designed to keep people quietly suffering while they try to outperform their humanity with devotion.
What you said about the This-Is-What-I-Have vs. This-Is-What-I-Am mindset? That’s real theology. That’s the desert wisdom the early monks were trying to channel when they stared at the walls of their cells until the walls started talking back.
We are not our pain. We are the space that holds it.
So no, you can’t pray it away—but you can bring prayer with you as you sit on the therapist’s couch, refill your meds, and walk through your grief like the mystic you forgot you were.
Thank you for naming what so many of us were taught to deny. This is gospel. Just not the kind they’ll preach from the pulpit.
I remember a church I went to 15 years ago where the pastor told people they shouldn’t be on antidepressants and to rely on God instead. Another church I went to convince me to do healing prayer for my anxiety and then a year later I discovered I was in perimenopause, and I started taking hormones, and the anxiety was gone within a week. The irresponsibility of this kind of behavior cannot be overstated. I’m glad I’m not part of these kinds of communities anymore but I do worry about people who are.
Religion tends to have the unfortunate distinction that its leaders, who others trust for their spiritual, mental and emotional well-being, have woefully inadequate training or understanding in areas such as psychology, human biology and biopsychology. You said it well, "The irresponsibility of this kind of behavior cannot be overstated."
Recently I saw a piece on how the Irish used to describe " life's problems": Instead of saying, "I am very sad" they would say "a sadness has come upon me" and used similar ways of speaking about their illnesses or disabilities. This seems to match what you are speaking of in this article. However, I don't believe the "mental health" professionals are either helping or healing in this regard-- they have been promoting the "brain produces ill feelings, dispositions, sufferings" theory for over a century and their current answer is "take this drug or that or a combination of drugs". Problem solved? No. This medicalization of spiritual problems has injured and killed innumerable "patients". I put that word in quotes because so many so-called patients are just ordinary people with varying degrees of the existential problems we all share. And this is where I believe the "spiritual" answers are NOT coming in: we don't need toxic psychotropic drugs that may actually injure the physical brain and create life long drug dependency. But while I fully agree that toxic religion is not the answer either, I believe that your sympathies with the "medical model" (involving psychology and psychiatry) is also a serious mistake. These fields are based in scientific materialism which promised a panacea to the ills of mankind but have instead entrapped a bewildered Western world into consumerism, hedonism and apathy--a dystopia. Is it any wonder we feel alienated, depressed, lonely, and at worst, nihilistic? What we DO need is a return to true community and people who specialize in the matters of Spirit. We all but lost the idea of an immanent God in the 19th century yet here we are: still spiritual beings having a human experience, a truth that few seem to understand. This needs to be addressed.
A fundamental teaching of the Christianity I grew up in was that all that was bad about you was internal and really you, while anything good you ever did was of god acting through you, therefore external to your nature and who you are. If that isn't a recipe for disastrous self esteem and depression I'm not sure what is.
I have been mulling this over. When my husband and I joined a church here in our very small town…912 people, we noticed fairly quickly that there were quite a few very depressed congregants. Getting down on their knees on any given Sunday and snot crying was a common occurrence and there could one or more active participants. This was new to us but since our pastor encouraged us to pray for them that god would heal them that is what we did. Over and over and over for years to no avail. One of the ladies who was a great loud crier informed me that I would need to break in that way and cry if I ever wanted to get close to god. I told her I didn’t want to cry…that I wanted to be joy filled. I was instructed that without the tears there could be no connection with god. She was one of the pillars of that church. Bible study leader…totally immersed. That was the start of my secret stepping away from the religion of church. I kept attending even knowing that I was a condemned sinner with no chance of making it to the “kingdom”. Not too many years later I had completely given up on ever being a Christian and just settled for being a secret heathen
We know better than to take a broken car to a pastor for repair. But when it comes to depression, addiction, trauma, or anxiety, people are still being told to pray harder, have more faith, or meditate it away.
Spirituality can offer meaning, perspective, and inner strength—but it is not a replacement for evidence-based mental health care. That’s not a knock on faith. That’s an invitation to take our humanity seriously.
The idea that emotional suffering is a sign of spiritual immaturity or a lack of devotion is one of the most harmful legacies of toxic religion. It isolates people in shame and keeps them from seeking the support that could save their lives.
Depression isn’t a failure of faith. Addiction isn’t a moral flaw. Trauma doesn’t mean you’re spiritually broken. These are complex human experiences that deserve real care—not spiritual bypassing dressed as divine wisdom.
True spirituality doesn’t shame you for struggling. It walks beside you as you struggle, and tells you it’s okay to get help. It reminds you that needing therapy, medication, or support doesn’t make you weak—it means you’re human. And being human was never a spiritual failure.
Yes, Jim. A thousand incense sticks lit in your honor. 🙏
Trying to pray away a mental health condition is like shouting at a toothache in Aramaic and calling it “deliverance.” It may feel holy, but all you’re doing is bleeding in tongues.
The idea that faith should eliminate depression is the spiritual equivalent of prosperity gospel for the psyche: dangerous, dishonest, and designed to keep people quietly suffering while they try to outperform their humanity with devotion.
What you said about the This-Is-What-I-Have vs. This-Is-What-I-Am mindset? That’s real theology. That’s the desert wisdom the early monks were trying to channel when they stared at the walls of their cells until the walls started talking back.
We are not our pain. We are the space that holds it.
So no, you can’t pray it away—but you can bring prayer with you as you sit on the therapist’s couch, refill your meds, and walk through your grief like the mystic you forgot you were.
Thank you for naming what so many of us were taught to deny. This is gospel. Just not the kind they’ll preach from the pulpit.
I remember a church I went to 15 years ago where the pastor told people they shouldn’t be on antidepressants and to rely on God instead. Another church I went to convince me to do healing prayer for my anxiety and then a year later I discovered I was in perimenopause, and I started taking hormones, and the anxiety was gone within a week. The irresponsibility of this kind of behavior cannot be overstated. I’m glad I’m not part of these kinds of communities anymore but I do worry about people who are.
Religion tends to have the unfortunate distinction that its leaders, who others trust for their spiritual, mental and emotional well-being, have woefully inadequate training or understanding in areas such as psychology, human biology and biopsychology. You said it well, "The irresponsibility of this kind of behavior cannot be overstated."
Recently I saw a piece on how the Irish used to describe " life's problems": Instead of saying, "I am very sad" they would say "a sadness has come upon me" and used similar ways of speaking about their illnesses or disabilities. This seems to match what you are speaking of in this article. However, I don't believe the "mental health" professionals are either helping or healing in this regard-- they have been promoting the "brain produces ill feelings, dispositions, sufferings" theory for over a century and their current answer is "take this drug or that or a combination of drugs". Problem solved? No. This medicalization of spiritual problems has injured and killed innumerable "patients". I put that word in quotes because so many so-called patients are just ordinary people with varying degrees of the existential problems we all share. And this is where I believe the "spiritual" answers are NOT coming in: we don't need toxic psychotropic drugs that may actually injure the physical brain and create life long drug dependency. But while I fully agree that toxic religion is not the answer either, I believe that your sympathies with the "medical model" (involving psychology and psychiatry) is also a serious mistake. These fields are based in scientific materialism which promised a panacea to the ills of mankind but have instead entrapped a bewildered Western world into consumerism, hedonism and apathy--a dystopia. Is it any wonder we feel alienated, depressed, lonely, and at worst, nihilistic? What we DO need is a return to true community and people who specialize in the matters of Spirit. We all but lost the idea of an immanent God in the 19th century yet here we are: still spiritual beings having a human experience, a truth that few seem to understand. This needs to be addressed.
Where/when is the training you mentioned in this article? More info please!
I’ve decided before I accept a diagnosis of depression I need to make I’m not surrounded by a-holes
A fundamental teaching of the Christianity I grew up in was that all that was bad about you was internal and really you, while anything good you ever did was of god acting through you, therefore external to your nature and who you are. If that isn't a recipe for disastrous self esteem and depression I'm not sure what is.
I have been mulling this over. When my husband and I joined a church here in our very small town…912 people, we noticed fairly quickly that there were quite a few very depressed congregants. Getting down on their knees on any given Sunday and snot crying was a common occurrence and there could one or more active participants. This was new to us but since our pastor encouraged us to pray for them that god would heal them that is what we did. Over and over and over for years to no avail. One of the ladies who was a great loud crier informed me that I would need to break in that way and cry if I ever wanted to get close to god. I told her I didn’t want to cry…that I wanted to be joy filled. I was instructed that without the tears there could be no connection with god. She was one of the pillars of that church. Bible study leader…totally immersed. That was the start of my secret stepping away from the religion of church. I kept attending even knowing that I was a condemned sinner with no chance of making it to the “kingdom”. Not too many years later I had completely given up on ever being a Christian and just settled for being a secret heathen
We know better than to take a broken car to a pastor for repair. But when it comes to depression, addiction, trauma, or anxiety, people are still being told to pray harder, have more faith, or meditate it away.
Spirituality can offer meaning, perspective, and inner strength—but it is not a replacement for evidence-based mental health care. That’s not a knock on faith. That’s an invitation to take our humanity seriously.
The idea that emotional suffering is a sign of spiritual immaturity or a lack of devotion is one of the most harmful legacies of toxic religion. It isolates people in shame and keeps them from seeking the support that could save their lives.
Depression isn’t a failure of faith. Addiction isn’t a moral flaw. Trauma doesn’t mean you’re spiritually broken. These are complex human experiences that deserve real care—not spiritual bypassing dressed as divine wisdom.
True spirituality doesn’t shame you for struggling. It walks beside you as you struggle, and tells you it’s okay to get help. It reminds you that needing therapy, medication, or support doesn’t make you weak—it means you’re human. And being human was never a spiritual failure.