Article first published as Christianity and Depression on Blogcritics.

For many people with a Mental Health issue, seeing the words Christianity and Depression together is something akin to an oxymoron.  When paired, those words just do not make much sense to them.  Most of the time, this reaction is caused by experiences with the Christian Community that involved stigma, discrimination, and, misunderstanding. The resulting consequences of these negative experiences is that people with depression often feel they are being judged by the Christian Community. These  judgments can range from being told that there is no such thing as depression, to implying that depression  is simply a lack of faith.

For some, these judgments get in the way of seeking help.  Instead, a choice is made to get rid of the depression without any medical intervention.  Rarely does this work.  Others react by experiencing a crisis of faith, frequently leaving them in a deeper state of depression.

However, there are a number of Christians who acknowledge that depression is  a disease.  Interestingly, this is not a recent development.  It appears that many Puritan Pastors. who were well versed in the Bible, recognized that depression was a complex disease with a multitude of causes.  Puritan Pastor Richard Baxter is known for a sermon on depression he once delivered.  In it he declares that not all depression is caused by sin or a lack of faith, but that in many instances its root cause is physical. (Using the word physical during Puritan times also included the brain.)

With very many there is a great part of the cause in distemper, weakness, and diseasedness of the body; and by it the soul is greatly disabled to any comfortable sense. But the more it ariseth from such natural necessity, the less sinful and less dangerous to the soul; but never the less troublesome, but the more.

Basically what Baxter is saying is that even if the cause of the depression is physical it can affect the soul. Not in a Heaven or Hell sense, but that the soul will be in pain. He is also saying that when the depression is caused by something physical then it has no basis in sin and could possibly cause a person to be in more pain than someone feeling depressed or upset because they committed a sin. At the end of this sermon Baxter also discusses how diet and medicine (most likely meaning herbal remedies) can help someone with depression. More information about Richard Baxter and his sermon about depression (including the quote used in this article), can be found at Puritan Resources for Biblical Counseling.

Christians living in today’s world, who believe that depression is a disease, can and do use the Bible to back up their beliefs. David in the old testament on more than one occasion felt as if he had been immersed in a “pit of destruction” or a “miry bog”. These words are believed to describe David’s spiritual condition/depression.

These Christians believe in the miracle of modern medicine to treat previously untreatable depressive episodes. They also believe that joy can be found in God. In essence, they feel that depression can be treated by a combination of medicine and God’s Word, and that this can be done without judgment or alienation of the person with a depression diagnosis.

There will always be some Christians whose viewpoint about depression is that it is not a disease. However, this does not represent the opinion of all Christians. For those who do believe that depression is a disease, their belief is rooted firmly in what the Bible tells them about depression.