What Does Depression Mean for My Faith?

Biblical Hope for Those Who Suffer from Clinical Depression

Studies show that everyone will encounter someone who struggles with clinical depression at some point in their lifetime. Depression’s debilitating, pervasive joylessness is crippling. It can affect your body and brain, numb your emotions, and put strain on your relationships. For Christians, it can even inhibit them from delighting in the greatest gift ever known--the good news of the gospel.

What should Christians think about clinical depression? How can church leaders respond lovingly to those who face this dark, unsettling, and sometimes baffling dilemma? In What Does Depression Mean for My Faith? author and physician Kathryn Butler addresses common misconceptions about mental illness in the church. She offers grace, relief, and practical help to Christians who feel shame, and she equips church leaders with the tools they need to extend Christ’s love to the vulnerable.

• Comforts Those Who Suffer: Offers grace, relief, and practical help to Christians who feel shame over clinical depression
• Equips Those Who Care: Provides a clinical, theological, and practical understanding of depression so church leaders can compassionately assist those who suffer
• Short, Accessible Format: Combines anecdotes, a concise overview of depression, and practical pointers
• TGC Hard Questions Series: Equips readers with answers to difficult questions facing today’s church

Kathryn Butler (MD, Columbia University) trained in surgery and critical care at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, where she then joined the faculty. She left clinical practice in 2016 to homeschool her children, and now writes regularly for desiringGod.org and the Gospel Coalition on topics such as faith, medicine, and shepherding kids in the gospel.