This week is another listener question: and it's all about counseling and mental health in the church. Jamie dives into a few issues related this.
Jamie Dew: Hey everybody. I'm Jamie Dew.
Joe Fontenot: And I am Joe Fontenot.
Jamie: And once again, welcome back to our podcast, The Towel & Basin.
Joe: Yes, and we are still taking questions and we are answering another question today. This one is a-
Jamie: It's actually a series of questions.
Joe: It's a series of questions.
Jamie: They're all related.
Joe: It's a cluster of questions. This is about mental health, emotional health, counseling. So, here's the question. Should mental and emotional health be important to Christians?
Jamie: Yeah, I think absolutely. Look. Gosh, I don't know exactly what the person asking that question has in mind when they asked that question, but I think I can take a wild guess and say clearly, and absolutely, yes. I do think that this is something we have to take seriously as Christians. There is a tendency to maybe try to strip down human beings into nothing more than just truth proclaimers, and truth receptors, so to speak. But, think about the way that God made us. God could have made a world where it's just plain, and square, and ordinary, but He didn't.
He made a world filled with colors. He made a world filled with shapes and sizes. He made a world filled with smells, and all sorts of things. He made a world where things taste good. He made a world where things feel a certain way. He made us physical beings in such a way that we can incorporate all of that, and experience all of that, and to enjoy all of that. So, all of that to say, as I talk about the way that God made it, He made us this way. Part of the way He made us is not just spiritual, that is true, but physical, and also emotional.
We've talked in some other podcasts about the way that God Himself is at least partly that way. So, He might not be a physical being, but God does experience, it seems, or at least He's described. There's debate actually amongst theologians as to whether or not He actually experiences these emotions. But, He's described, at least, as having certain types of responses, anger, pleasure, and things of that nature, and He makes us that way. I think it's ... Look, no matter what position you want to take about God being that way, the fact of the matter of it is He did make us that way, and we do experience those things. So, I think that's part of what we are and, therefore, we have to take that stuff very seriously.
The other thing I'd say here about why we have to take this seriously is that, look, whether we like it or not, whether we want to admit it or not, all of us respond and make major life decisions, and even small life decisions, based off of emotions. So, if those emotions are not healthy, if our mental life is not healthy, then there's a very high correlation of just a lack of health across the board in our life, so we have to take this seriously.
Joe: Do you think that's, though, the result a weakness or something? For instance, if we're making decisions based on emotions, or emotional input, is in some way the goal to be more stoic, not to be missing anything but to be more Vulcan, to put it in Star Trek terms, where we are just more rational, logical? Do you think that's a benefit or do you think that's going in the wrong direction?
Jamie: I think it can have its, it certainly has its place. There's times where we just, we do need to let cooler heads prevail. Say, for example, you find yourself in a moment where it's very easy to be angry, and in moments of great anger we will be inclined to make rash decisions, and wrong decisions, not surprisingly. Therefore, the Bible will say things to us like this, "Be angry and sin not," which is to say, Look, you do feel this, and you are going to have rage in your heart, but don't make the wrong decision.
Joe: Kind of having mastery over your feelings.
Jamie: Right, that's right. So there's absolutely the place where our emotions get the best of us. We make rash decisions. I mean, my gosh if I learned anything in my time working in the prisons, when I hang out with these folks in the prisons ... We tend to think of those of us on the outside that they're very, very different from us. Man, you hear their stories and many of these cases you put yourself in their shoes in that moment and you go, "Man, I could so easily see myself doing the same thing." Somebody rapes his granddaughter and he goes out and he kills the guy. You know, I mean wrong. Nobody's arguing that it was right of him to do that, but understandable, right?
Your wife cheats on you, or something like that, and dude just has outrage and goes and beats the guy, doesn't mean to kill him but he beats the guy up, but he kills him in the process, or something like that. A guy breaks a beer bottle over his head in the middle of a bar one night, and he turns around and he beats the guy up and he dies. All that to say their life is filled with examples, and we don't have to look to prisoners. We could look at our own lives of times and places where we let our emotions get the best of us.
So, in answer to the question that our move to try to be more Vulcan, or to be a more factual, more stoic, whatever else, yes, there's a time and a place for that. I also think there's error on the other side. This is why I started the way I did. At the end of the day God did not make us to be calculators, or computers, He made us to be living and fleshed beings of body and soul, and He made us in such a way that these emotions are a part of this, and when guided directly have their appropriate place.
The book of Ecclesiastes tells us, Man, there's a time and a place under the sun for everything. There's a time to laugh and there's a time to cry. Now, those are two very different emotions, joy of laughter and pain in sorrow. Those are very different emotions, and what the book of Ecclesiastes is telling us is there is a place for both. So, the Vulcan move, as you've described it, to strip away may, indeed, have its place. We have to be able to control our emotions. Part of controlling our emotions sometimes is letting them have their place. It's kind of like a kid when you're in elementary school, there's a reason those classes go out on the playground and let it out, because those little kids need to let it out.
When someone dies, or someone experiences great loss, the move will be for some people to try to bottle it in and hold it in, in the name of being strong, Man, there are times you flat out need to grovel and cry on the floor and let it out, because it's really there, and it's supposed to be there. You just lost somebody you loved. So, truth be told, I think that there's a place for both of them. There's times we've got to control those emotions, and then there's times that we give them their place.
Joe: Do you think they're connected in the sense that what happens to one affects the others, or do you think they're-
Jamie: You'd say they're connected, you talking about like-
Joe: The aspects of a person.
Jamie: Exactly. I'm sorry, like the physiology, the emotional, the spirituality, all these kind of core elements that make up us.
Joe: Man, for years, and I'm a dude, I'm a guy, and I'm a philosopher, and so I have spent a lot of time in my life wanting to think of myself, and wanting to think of us, that none of what you just said is true.
Jamie: You hear people say things like, "Man, if you're not sleeping, you're going to have a hard time with depression, or if you're really stressed it can cause body damage, and all this stuff. I just kind of always thought, Nah, muscle through it.
Joe: Knock it off.
Jamie: Yeah, that's right. Suck it up, buddy.
Joe: Man, the older I get the more obvious that is.
Jamie: Yes, absolutely. There's no doubt, and part of this, not to get too philosophical, or theological, here, the question, you're going to say yes or no to that, frankly, based off of what you believe human persons are. If you think that a human person just is a soul, and a soul that embodies, like a ghost in a machine, a physical organism like we're in, then you could very easily say those things. If you think that you are nothing more than the physical, then you would absolutely say physiological things affect mental states. If you think that you're a combination of both, and that's the view where I would go with it.
I think that the human person is a body and soul in a composite unity. If you think that, then I think you have to have a place to say within your anthropology, that physical stuff affects the personal stuff and the mental stuff. So, for example, if a person is undernourished there's going to be problems. If a person is not resting well they're going to be problems. If a person experiences brain trauma there are going to be problems.
Joe: Sure.
Jamie: If chemicals get out of whack there are going to be problems, and you have to take that seriously. There's a relationship there. The opposite is also true. The fact of the matter of it is if you're bearing massive amounts of stress, physiologically that will have an effect on your physical, as well on the brain, on the heart, on a wide assortment of things within the body. Stress does amazing things. So, are these interrelated? Absolutely. Does one impact the other? Absolutely. It seems to me, the emotions that we have will be the byproduct of the wellbeing, or lack thereof, in both of those, the physical and the nonphysical.
Joe: So one more question. This is a followup for this person who wrote in. So the original question was, Should mental and emotional health be important to Christians? The follow up was, Should it also be important to people in ministry?
Jamie: Absolutely. So, a minister of the gospel ... Look, I have watched, unfortunately, and I say this with fear and trembling because I know ...
Joe: But for the grace of God there go I.
Jamie: Right, and I know this could happen to me, or anybody around me, too. I've watched a lot of people in my years of ministry either have some kind of moral blemish, moral failure of some kind and, therefore, no longer be able to continue on in ministry. I've also watched a lot of dear people that didn't have a moral failure of some kind like that but they just reached a place where emotionally, spiritually, they just could not go any farther. In a lot of those cases the emotional side of this is taking a toll. So, for example, if you're lonely, if you feel isolated, if you feel by yourself in this you may be far more likely to cheat on your spouse. You're going to be tempted to look, and to search, and to entertain ideas and thoughts. You're going to let those ideas roost in your mind, and you're going to go with them. If you are discouraged you might be inclined to cheat in other ways, or something like that. All those emotions ... If you're hurt by something in ministry, someone hurts you ...
Joe: You don't have a good outlet ...
Jamie: That's right.
Joe: ... for your emotions.
Jamie: That's right. ... then ultimately you might be inclined to throw down the towel, or something like that. So, it seems to me all Christians have to take their mental life very seriously, and their mental health very seriously, but the minister of the gospel even more so, because we have to remember that our adversary's like a roaring lion. He's out there looking for ways to devour us, and he custom suits, and custom builds, ...
Joe: Yeah, each and every trial.
Jamie: ... trials for each one of us that are unique to us.
Joe: Yeah. All right. This is the real last question. How have you seen this in your own life? Where the rubber meets the road, Jamie Dew. So, ma'am.
Jamie: Leave me alone, leave me alone, dude.
Joe: But you're a real person.
Jamie: Yeah, and I guess that's what I'm saying.
Joe: And you really deal with this.
Jamie: This is not theory here. No, I absolutely do. To be honest with you, the more the responsibility that's given to a person, and the greater the consequences, the more deeply these things are felt. I would just assure everybody out there that would do us the honor of listening to this podcast, I am exactly like you in every respect in those ways. Man, these pressures mount on me and cause me to feel things that can be heavy, or can be difficult, and can overwhelm just like anybody else. So, I see it in my own life, to answer the question and being honest, the more I'm entrusted with the more I feel those weights, and pressures, and yeah, a job like this, a responsibility like this, can be a very lonely place, so I have to be very ...
I'm fortunate in that I've got good people around me, and good friends, and a wife that is fantastic, and children that I come home from work every day and they don't care that I'm the President. They don't care about any of those things. They see me as dad. Stay connected to reality, keep your feet rooted in reality, keep a good group of people around you that you can shoot straight with and you can be honest with about where you're actually at.
Joe: You don't have to be your role.
Jamie: Yeah.
Joe: Yeah.
Jamie: Well, I mean yes and no. On the one hand you need people that love you no matter what, and that you can let your hair down, so to speak, with but at the same time the roles that you carry those are realities. Those are not just at this point in our lives appendages to our lives. Those are realities in our lives, and having people that can have a front row seat in your life and be able to see the details of it, and can encourage you within that, and can be a sounding Board, or something like that, you've got to have that support around you. I mean, in my role, to be frank, yeah you feel the weights in various ways, and you got to have people like Moses holding your arms up.
Joe: Yeah, for sure.
Jamie: Yeah.
Joe: Well, that's great. Thanks for talking us through that. For everybody listening you can send your questions in at jamiedew.com/questions, and we would love to hear from you.
Jamie: And we do our best to answer your questions.
Joe: That's right. Hey everybody, this is Jamie and Joe again. If you liked this podcast would you leave us a rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts. That helps other people find it.
Jamie: If you have any questions, we'd love to hear about them. Just go to jamiedew.com/questions and send them in that way, and we'll take a look at the most frequently asked questions and give them a shot.