Scripture

Created to Create, Part 1: Image Bearers

~ D. R. Meriwether, Ph.D. ~ Leave a comment

Header image credit: me // Featured image credit: Michelangelo (public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

What makes humans special?

Humans have probably been asking that question for probably as long as we’ve existed. For much of that time, I imagine that question focused on a particular variation: what separates us from the animals? Language, consciousness, problem-solving, and tool use are some of the more convincing answers, but not convincing enough. We needn’t look far into the animal kingdom to find sophisticated communication, self-awareness, clever solutions to problems, and the shaping and use of tools.

In recent decades, the arguably more pressing variation of the question is a technology-focused one: what separates us from the machines? Or, phrased differently, what makes human intelligence different from artificial intelligence? I’ll address the first question in this post, but you’ll have to wait for part two to hear my rant about—I mean my answer to the second.

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A Christian Approach to Mental Health, Part 3: Is Mindfulness Unbiblical?

~ D. R. Meriwether, Ph.D. ~ 1 Comment

Header image credit: me // Featured image credit: Dingzeyu Li (freely available via Unsplash)

It’s been a while because…life. But I’ve got a bunch of drafts in progress, so more to come soon. But first, time to finish this little series. And since it’s been so long sin the last one, a tiny recap: in the first part of this three-part series, I discussed why I believe there is tension between psychology and faith. The second part expanded on this, addressing how this tension has led to a particularly strong stigma around mental illness in the Christian community and proposing what an integrated approach to mental health should be. In this third part, I’ll discuss various mindfulness practices, how they apply to mental health, and whether or not they’re biblical and are things Christians can or should practice.

I wrote about mindfulness—what it looks like, what benefits it confers, and even Scripture verses that describe mindfulness—in a previous post, so I won’t go into much depth on the well-being benefits of mindfulness here. Instead, the focus of this post will be more about the spirituality of mindfulness.

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A Light in the Darkness

~ D. R. Meriwether, Ph.D. ~ Leave a comment

Header image credit: me // Featured image credit: Ivanić-Grad (freely available via Unsplash)

I get the appeal of suicide.

Don’t get me wrong: I am not suicidal. I have never harbored such ideations, and I feel safe in saying that I never will (by the grace of God). Also, my life belongs to the King of Kings; it is His to take—not mine—when He deems the time to be right.

But, I get the appeal.

I get being in a darkness so suffocatingly oppressive that it chokes out the memory of light’s warm touch. I get experiencing a night so despairingly long that you’ve lost all faith that the sun will ever rise again. I get feeling like your life is so burdensome and valueless that, like George Bailey, you think it’d be better for everyone if you’d never been born. I get being utterly and completely hopeless that life will ever get better that you’d rather it just end.

At least this life, that is. But thank God this earthly life isn’t the only one.

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A Christian Approach to Mental Health, Part 2: Faith, Stigma, and Mental Illness

~ D. R. Meriwether, Ph.D. ~ 1 Comment

Header image credit: me // Featured image credit: Marcel Strauß (freely available via Unsplash)

In part 1 of this series, I discussed how the mind and body are inextricably connected, each one affecting the other, and how the mind is the battleground for our great mental and spiritual battles. I concluded by arguing that a proper approach to mental health must be comprehensive (i.e., must acknowledge this reality) and by hinting that a failure to do so, accompanied by a misunderstanding of what faith is, is a likely cause for at least some the stigma surrounding mental health in the Christian community.

In this second part of the series, I’ll lay out a very basic theology of mental illness that addresses the role of faith in healing and the purpose that our struggles serve. I won’t go into a theology of why it happens (perhaps in another post), but long story short, it’s because we live in a broken world.

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A Christian Approach to Mental Health, Part 1: The Mind and Mental Health

~ D. R. Meriwether, Ph.D. ~ 1 Comment

Header image credit: me // Featured image credit: Marcel Strauß (freely available via Unsplash)

Since May is mental health awareness month, it seems like a good time to talk about a faith-based approach to mental health. This is an important topic not only because mental health is vitally important to our well-being as individuals and as a society as a whole, but also because mental illness is arguably more stigmatized within the Christian community than it is within the broader community. And that stigma seems to be based on misguided views of how mental health works and of what the Bible actually says about mental health practices.

There is a contingent within the broader Christian community that views mental health issues as a sign of a lack of faith and that considers mindfulness and other psychotherapeutic techniques as unnecessary at best and as heretical at worst  My goal is to show that the exact opposite is true: mental health issues are a sign of a broken world and are no more to be stigmatized than are physical health issues (i.e., not stigmatized at all; just a brokenness that needs to be fixed, a hurt that needs healing); and not only are mindfulness and psychotherapeutic practices necessary for a healthy life, but they are actually supported—no, more than that, mandated—by Scripture.

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Mindfulness for Mind Fullness

~ D. R. Meriwether, Ph.D. ~ 7 Comments

Header image credit: me // Featured image credit: Keegan Houser (freely available via Unsplash)

Mindfulness. It’s a word that’s been thrown out a lot in recent years. But what exactly is it? What does it entail? What does it do? Why is it so popular? Is it just another fad, popular now, only to fall off when we realize there’s actually nothing to it. If you just want quick, to-the-point answers, here you go, in order: a practice that can be trained; potentially many different things; great things for mental and physical health; likely due to the fact that it works; and no. If you want more detailed answers, read on.

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