eChurch Blog

I’m probably posting this as I’m surfacing from a long dark tunnel.

An international longitudinal study purports to find a greater incidence of developing a major depression among ‘participants reporting a spiritual understanding of life’:

Spiritual and religious beliefs as risk factors for the onset of major depression: an international cohort study.

Abstract

BACKGROUND:

Several studies have reported weak associations between religious or spiritual belief and psychological health. However, most have been cross-sectional surveys in the USA, limiting inference about generalizability. An international longitudinal study of incidence of major depression gave us the opportunity to investigate this relationship further. Method Data were collected in a prospective cohort study of adult general practice attendees across seven countries. Participants were followed at 6 and 12 months. Spiritual and religious beliefs were assessed using a standardized questionnaire, and DSM-IV diagnosis of major depression was made using the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI). Logistic regression was used to estimate incidence rates and odds ratios (ORs), after multiple imputation of missing data.

RESULTS:

The analyses included 8318 attendees. Of participants reporting a spiritual understanding of life at baseline, 10.5% had an episode of depression in the following year compared to 10.3% of religious participants and 7.0% of the secular group (p < 0.001). However, the findings varied significantly across countries, with the difference being significant only in the UK, where spiritual participants were nearly three times more likely to experience an episode of depression than the secular group [OR 2.73, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.59-4.68]. The strength of belief also had an effect, with participants with strong belief having twice the risk of participants with weak belief. There was no evidence of religion acting as a buffer to prevent depression after a serious life event.

CONCLUSIONS:

These results do not support the notion that religious and spiritual life views enhance psychological well-being.

A few things to note. I don’t have access to the full study and so have no way of knowing how they defined ‘spiritual or religious’ belief. We also have the causality problem, within which we cannot tell if spirituality / religion precipitated depression, or if those with underlying depression were drawn to  ’a spiritual understanding of life’.

This aside, I was drawn to this study for three reasons.

The first is the strange anomaly of the UK finding. Why would it be that specifically in the UK the religious / spiritual group reports three times higher incidence of depression compared with the secular group? If we take the study findings at face value and accept that spirituality / religion precipitates depression, then would this indicate that it is particularly cognitively difficult to hold this worldview within the social environment of the UK?

The second point of interest – which is perhaps connected to the first – is the finding that strength of belief has an impact, with those of ‘stronger belief’ being more prone to depression than those with ‘weak belief’.

The third point, is of course the conclusion itself; namely, the assertion that a religious / spiritual worldview does not create a buffer against depression.

I’m probably not alone in reading material that contradicts this conclusion; however, from my own personal perspective, I can attest to the fact that my Christian religion most certainly does not counteract, or in any way, mitigate my own depression. In fact, quite the contrary.

I will say that my religion does give comfort in relation to making some sense of suffering.

The question on my mind is simply: Is the Christian religion supposed to create a buffer against suffering; mental or otherwise?

I think not.

It’s true, I have always been painfully aware that my personality is fundamentally flawed. In response to this I spent many years carefully observing others and trying my hardest to clone their behviour in a poor attempt to appear ‘normal’.

When I was heavily ensconced in the Charismatic world I felt I must have been walking around with an invisible (to me) sign on my forehead: “Pray for me”.

Folk literally couldn’t wait to lay their grubby hands on my head and pray for me to be ‘healed’ and ‘stable’ and know the love of God in my heart, etc etc.

I never asked for their prayers by the way, it was almost as if I was on some secret Charismatic list under the heading ‘troubled, needs prayer’.

When this didn’t work, it was insinuated that I had sin in my life. Bloody right I did and that got me thinking that perhaps I was the only one. Horrible.

The truth is they perceived my mental and personality instability as something that must be cured by God. Something evil.

It’s taken me many years to turn this thinking on its head.

God made me as I am. If I take away those aspects of my personality and cognitive processes that have been with me since I can remember, then I would no longer be me. I would be someone else. How could I possibly wish for that? I wouldn’t know what it would be like and what kind of person I’d be.

The truth is, my mental problems frequently bring me low, embarrassed and humbled, and I no longer view this entirely negatively.

God has me exactly where he wants me, there’s a work to be done, that’s for sure, but he will do it through me using my warts and all.

As today is the feast of ‘St. Paul’s conversion’ I must turn to his words for comfort.

Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

A thorn in the flesh denotes to me consistent pain. It doesn’t come and go, just like my mental problems.

I have finally turned it all upside down.

The Grace I have received through being weak and flawed is staggering.

May I never be ‘healed’, but may I know him more fully through my weakness.

I just stumbled on a post entitled: Crooked Healing: Disability, Vocation and the Theology of the Cross.

Written by Kelby Carlson, himself a disabled chap, he looks at the ‘theology of disability’ through the prism of the Doctrine of Vocation and the Theology of the Cross.

This post is singularly excellent. Carlson clearly and harmoniously articulates so much of which has been ruminating around my own disjointed mind for some time.

I can’t encourage you enough to take the time to hop over and read.

Brilliant stuff…..

Hat-tip: First Things

An article on Anglican Mainstream caught my attention entitled: ‘Beyond Critique’ – LGBT Mental Health Issues.

It’s advertising an upcoming Core Issues Trust ‘Briefing Seminar’ in London in association with Christian Concern. The seminar is rather boldly called: Beyond Critique: The Misuse of Science by UK Professional Mental Health Bodies.

Media Statement from Core Issues Trust

The Royal College of Psychiatrists is a highly respected institution which is trusted by the nation, as are the UK’s largest counselling and psychotherapeutic professional bodies, the  British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and the UKCouncil for Psychotherapy (UKCP). The latter have issued professional practice statements and guidelines  forbidding their members to assist clients to reduce homosexual feelings, under any circumstances. All three organisations promote a biological causation of homosexuality,  sidelining significant research findings which suggest the profound influence of environmental experiences in childhood on an individuals’ sexuality.

A 2007 submission by the Royal College of Psychiatrists to the Church of England is a debatable document which may mislead the Church and the general public. It goes beyond science in identifying societal discrimination as the primary cause of the high incidence of various mental health issues experienced in the LGBT community. We call on the Church to reconsider this document, together with its likely consequences for counsellors, psychotherapists, and their clients who share traditional values, in the light of the best scientific research.

One consequence of the position taken by the professional bodies is that vulnerable individuals seeking to reduce unwanted same-sex attractions are now denied professional help to pursue their legitimate therapeutic goals. Although these organisations criticise attempts to “pray away the gay”, they are now making it more likely that amateur therapists and informal church-based ministries will be the only way open to people who want to reduce same-sex attractions, even if they are seeking to protect their marriage and family. Such therapeutic  approaches will not be supported by professional competencies, protection, regulation, supervision or professional indemnity insurance. This is analogous to promoting the practice of back street abortion, which society has striven so hard to eliminate.

I’ve made my position clear on ‘Reparative Therapy‘ or whatever you want to call it, and that is quite simply I know that no amount of ‘therapy’ would alter my hard-wired sexual proclivity, so why should it anybody else? However, if a person seeks treatment for an unwanted sexual attraction, I feel they should be free to do so, and psychotherapists should be free to offer this service privately.

Again, personally, I don’t think Christian organisations or Churches should be promoting ‘gay conversion therapy’; however, they should be free to do so. This said, I do have a problem with importing Canadian extremists to support this endeavour.

On this link you can view the seminar flyer in PDF and you will note the involvement of this guy:

Dr Joseph Berger

Consulting Psychiatrist in Toronto, Canada, doubly certified as a Specialist in Psychiatry by both the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. He has been an Examiner for the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology for 25 years in the Oral portion of the Board Certification Examination, and at one point in his career, taught and supervised as Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto. He remains in practice.

Professor Berger has seen many clients with same-sex desires, fantasies and behaviours, and has successfully treated a number of such people who have become heterosexual, have married, and have had children, in fulfilling relationships. He has published in this area of work. Dr Berger has served as a scientific advisor to the National Association for Research and Therapy for Homosexuality (NARTH). He has been a past President of the Ontario District Branch of the American Psychiatric Association, and was a representative to the Assembly of the American Psychiatric Association for 8 years for the Ontario District Branch. He is author of the book “The Independent Medical Examination in Psychiatry” Butterworth Lexis Nexis 2002.

I had a an urge to find out more about this chap and it turns out that in 2006 NARTH went into a tailspin after they published Dr Berger’s article within which he advocated:

“I suggest, indeed, letting children who wish go to school in clothes of the opposite sex – but not counseling other children to not tease them or hurt their feelings…On the contrary, don’t interfere, and let the other children ridicule the child who has lost that clear boundary between play-acting at home and the reality needs of the outside world. Maybe, in this way, the child will re-establish that necessary boundary…It is a mistake for various interfering, ignorant, and biased busybodies to try to “counsel” the other children into accepting the abnormal. It is very healthy to be able to draw the line between what is healthy and what is sick.

So Dr Berger advocates the mechanism of bullying by a child’s peers for the purpose of behaviour modification. I’m not alone in finding these comments morally abhorrent.

The irony of inviting this man to take a key role in an seminar that seeks to address “the high incidence of various mental health issues experienced in the LGBT community” is bloody palpable. In fact, this seminar shouldn’t be called: ‘Beyond Critique’ but ‘Beyond Irony’.

And you know what, the truth is, I only checked this guy out on a curious whim.

The ever thickening alliance between the UK Christian Right and their extremist overseas counterparts is troubling. And if you need evidence of this I suggest you follow Richard Bartholomew who charts this in forensic detail.

A few links I found interesting for one reason or another:

Get Religion – Anti-gay marriage protests prompt ire of the BBC

The Mental Elf – Clinicians should consider referring depressed patients to Internet Support Groups, according to new RCT

iMonk – “Getting Better”

Opinionated Vicar - The National Lottery: pet parasite of the nation

Oxford Human Rights Hub – R (Hodkin): A Signal to Rethink Religious Worship

Society for Christian Psychology – Redemption and Restoration

Dr Robert Cargill – Is the Internet bringing about the end of organized religion?

PsychCentral – Lance Armstrong: Narcissist or “Optimist”?

Believer’s Brain – 4 Things Not To Say to a Depressed Christian

Normblog – Telling stories to win an argument

Patheos: Science and Religion – Do you believe in magic? Seriously.

The Emotionally Sensitive Person – Sunsets and Math Problems: Appreciating the Difference

This is a cross-post written by Bernadette Meaden and first appeared on Ekklesia:

On the evening of Tuesday 18 December, the WOW petition was launched. WOW stands for War on Welfare, and behind the petition is a community of sick and disabled people, carers, friends and families, who have come together via social media to start a resistance.

Spearheaded by actor and comedian Francesca Martinez, the petition aims to get 100,000 signatures to end the ‘war on welfare’ being waged by the government.

“It’s a scary, dark time for disabled people,” says Francesca Martinez. “Already a third of disabled adults live in poverty. That’s disgraceful and with the new cuts, that figure can only rise. It breaks my heart that some of the most vulnerable people in society are being demonised and used as scapegoats. It’s something everybody needs to fight against.”

The propaganda which has been used to win public support for massive welfare cuts in Britain has left many people feeling frightened, unwanted, and in some cases, suicidal. Time after time, the Work Capability Assessments (WCA) carried out by private company ATOS have been shown to be a grotesque farce, as seriously ill people die shortly after being declared fit to work.

Growing numbers of poor, sick and disabled people are threatening to take their own lives, and in some cases actually doing so.

Just last week, @IanLaveryMP tweeted: “Very busy day ending in great sadness, reading a 54-year-old man’s suicide note blaming the #wca and zero score. Couldn’t face another year.”

Also last week, the New Statesman’s Laurie Penny penned an open letter to a reader, entitled, ‘You are not a scrounger’. She wrote: “A few days ago you wrote to me and told me you were planning to take your own life. You told me that your reasons for this are: because you are frightened about what will happen to you when you lose the disability living allowance you rely on to live independently, and because you want to take a stand against the government’s assault on welfare.”

The very next day, Minister for Disabled People Esther McVey announced in the House of Commons that when Disability Living Allowance (DLA) is replaced by Personal Independence Payments (PiPs), more than 300,000 people will have their benefits cut or removed altogether.

Anybody who can walk more than 20 metres will not receive the mobility element of the new benefit.

Now, imagine you can only walk about 30 metres before pain or exhaustion means you can’t go any further. Would you be able to rely on public transport? I doubt it. Without the money to fund a car, or taxis, or a mobility scooter, you would become housebound, and this is what will happen to countless thousands of people under the government’s plans.

All of this indicates why the WOW petition initiative is so vital.

* Sign the petition (http://tinyurl.com/cgjwx5f ) and promote it on Twitter using the #WOWpetition hashtag.

* Help push the debate on the impact of cuts on the disabled - http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/17590

Continuing my recent theme of Christianity and therapy (Here, here and here) I noticed a relevant article the Christian Post entitled: Christianity and Mental Health: Have We Lost Our Faith?

Studies within the past eight years, have recorded an increase of Christians who are utilizing mental health services in lieu of religious tools to achieve mental stability and balance. Have Christians begun to jump ships on their faith for a quick fix?

[.....]

The concern of mental health in the body of Christ has become a huge topic of discussion in churches. Many churches have recognized the need and have proceeded with calls of action to address mental illness by hosting health fairs and seminars facilitated by local and national psychologists and psychiatrists.

The article goes on to cite fundamentalist concerns:

Yet, not all parishioners are sold that therapy and pills are not just another gateway for the devils entry into a Christian lifestyle.

“Our faith is our connection to God. Once we break that connection, there is no faith,” says Alexis Ritvalski a mother of three from Texas. “Why do Christians feel a need to seek the advice or help of another person, when Christ should be all that we need? We don’t need psychiatrists to fix us or depression medication to relieve us. There is deliverance in the Word of God. There is breakthrough in the Word of God. There is healing in the Word of God. Every situation that we endure, there is a word for us. To seek out these other methods is to not trust God.”

Oh dear.

On aside, I wanted to make note of a strange phenomena that I have blogged about in the past, and to which nobody seems to able to offer an explanation:

I had occasion to be in a psychiatric ward not so long ago and there was a seating area for patients. I would say that there were 10-12 patients and roughly 7-8 of them were reading bibles. Now, I don’t mean the standard Gideon bibles that were in their rooms, but their own personal Bibles.

It transpired that 3/4 of the patients on that ward, at that time, were Christian.

I have asked many folk their opinion and have never received a satisfactory answer as to why the proportion of mental health patients on this unit were Christian.

A real strange one, which still perplexes me.

My protagonists have used this to assert that a person must be prone to mental illness to accept the Christian narrative. My response is:

It is either that Christianity is the religion of the mad, which I’m happy with, or Christians are for some reason more prone to mental problems. Or perhaps Christ came for the sick…..

1 Corinthians 1:27

But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.

Since writing these words I have again witnessed an unusually large proportion of Christians on a Psychiatric ward.

Obviously my observations are anecdotal and not scientifically verifiable, but I’d love to hear you thoughts.

A few links I found interesting for one reason or another:

Chelliah Laity - RIP Big Issue Sellers

The World of Mentalists - The #TwentalHealthAwards – The Winners

Believer’s Brain - Flat-Pack Furniture and the Body of Christ

Accepting Abundance - Unmoved Mover for Unmoved Doubters

The Alethiophile - A christian response to trolling, Part 1: Trolls and what Peter said - (Part 2)

The Not So Big Society - Generic Condemnation of This Thing That Person Said on Twitter

British Religion in Numbers - Attitudes to Muslims

The Ugley Vicar - The enormous value of being logically wrong

Thought catalog – Five emotions- invented by the internet

I wanted to briefly respond to Edmund Standing’s excellent post: Christianity: A form of therapy or a radical alternative?

Let me begin with this quote:

Insanity – a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world.

R. D. Lang

This quotation, for me, hits at the heart of the premise underlying Edmund’s post. Our society’s focus on individualism, consumerism and self, is so alien to our deep needs of community, it is no wonder that maladies of the mind and spirit prevail giving rise to a ‘therapy’ culture.

Edmund makes this interesting point:

Despite what the therapy industry might tell us, true mental illness is still a relatively rare phenomenon, but what we have seen grow exponentially is the widespread sense of being deeply uneasy, hollow, and anxious. Such a feeling in a medical-centred culture is generally nowadays classified as being a manifestation of one or other nervous disorder or depression, and a dubious combination of medication and psychobabble are seen to be its ‘cure’, but perhaps we need to look at such disorders and ‘depression’ (often a very slippery and ill-defined concept) as evidence that the human spirit is crying out under the pressures of living in what is an increasingly unhealthy and unnatural environment.

I agree there is a tendency to over pathologise in our Western culture and a prime example of this can be seen in the war being fought over the new DSM-5 diagnostic manual, within which the removal of the ‘bereavement exclusion’ from the diagnosis of depression will mean that someone could be diagnosed as depressed even if they’ve just lost a loved one.

This to me is an example of pathologising a normal reactive psychological response.

I also adhere to the unpopular stance that “true mental illness is still a relatively rare phenomenon” despite the “one in four” meme.

To me, much of what is spoken of as mental illness nowadays is an entirely rational response to a crappy world.

This is not to denigrate severe and chronic mental illness which debilitates so many and the enormous benefits of therapy to this community.

The irony of the ‘therapy’ culture is that it is entirely understandable. Therapy may be the only environment within which a person can talk, knowing everything said will be held in the strictest confidence. Also, therapy tends to be non-judgmental. There can be a feeling of being ‘connected’ with ‘another’.

Of course, the therapeutic environment is entirely contrived and paid for, but in an increasingly individualistic and lonely society, who can blame folk for turning to therapy.

It also strikes me that another consequence of the loss of community and increasing individualism is the issue of identity; or more specifically, the loss of identity. We used to frame ourselves in terms of our community, but what happens when we lose our community?

Where else can folk in our modern society turn for these provisions?

Which brings me back to Edmund’s post:

One of the greatest losses of modernity has been the decline of community spirit and the sense of being united around common practices. Where once the church and the pub provided the two key venues in which communities could come together, many churches across the land are gradually emptying and pub closures now take place on a weekly basis, as cheap supermarket alcohol leads people out of the old communal space and into drinking at home, often alone. Biblical Christianity offers a way to combine all of this – the experience of community, shared worship, and shared eating and drinking. This Christianity points us to a God of relationships, not a God of the isolated self.

[.....]

The answer lies not in a culture of therapy, but rather in the rediscovery of the radically relational and communal lifestyle of Jesus and his early followers.

This is by no means a ‘quick fix’ solution and is not something that can happen overnight. It constitutes a significant challenge to the Church to once again return to its roots, to strip away the institutionalisation that has sapped the life out of Christianity’s early core, and perhaps calls for a renewed consideration of what it actually means to be a part of the Church. Most importantly, it constitutes a call to re-think the ‘personal salvation’ theology promoted by much of modern Christianity and to consider the possibility that the call of Jesus is not a call simply to the individual, but rather a call to a wholeness that can only come through community.

I have to agree with this.

I believe the rise of sects such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses thrive off the sense of community they create. They have tapped into something that has been sadly lost in the mainstream denominations. That feeling of ‘belonging’ and ‘community’ and ‘brotherhood’ are heavily emphasised within these organisations. Their ‘identity’ is wrapped up in their affiliation with the group and they do look out for one another.

I’m not one who wishes to live in a another’s pocket; however, there is much to be learned from such groups.

Church can be too often that thing we do on Sunday, complete with our best masks, and we are in danger of standing aloof from one another.

We as Christians need to relearn communal living as this is the real attraction of Christianity.

Edmund made this comment:

…..and an age in which the concept of ‘friendship’ increasingly means nothing more than having a list of people connected to you on a social networking website.

I suspect more and more of us are seeking and receiving our ‘community’ online; I know this is very true for the mentally ill community and perhaps so for Christians also.

Is this a good thing or bad? I’ll let you be the judge of that.

I often read that we should seek our identity in Christ, but more and more, I realise the impossibility of this without the community of his people.

Guest post by Edmund Standing:

Stuart has recently published a thought-provoking post looking at psychotherapy and what role Christianity and the Church might play in its delivery. The following post is not intended as an attack but rather as an alternative contribution to the discussion and as a consideration of the important role the New Testament should play in dealing with the question of ‘therapy’.

In response to the question ‘Should everyone be in therapy?’, I would answer with a resounding ‘no’, for far from most people actually needing therapy and a deeper exploration of selfhood, it is arguably our modern culture’s fixation on the self that has greatly contributed to the social and intellectual malaise that has given rise to the apparent epidemic of depression and nervous disorders which seems to characterise our age. This fixation on selfhood, and the associated pathologisation of anyone who doesn’t feel fully at ease with themselves, lies at the root of the modern ‘therapy culture’ and is arguably rooted in the social atomisation issuing from an increasingly individualistic and materialistic society (or lack of society). Despite what the therapy industry might tell us, true mental illness is still a relatively rare phenomenon, but what we have seen grow exponentially is the widespread sense of being deeply uneasy, hollow, and anxious. Such a feeling in a medical-centred culture is generally nowadays classified as being a manifestation of one or other nervous disorder or depression, and a dubious combination of medication and psychobabble are seen to be its ‘cure’, but perhaps we need to look at such disorders and ‘depression’ (often a very slippery and ill-defined concept) as evidence that the human spirit is crying out under the pressures of living in what is an increasingly unhealthy and unnatural environment.

By ‘unhealthy’, I am not merely referring to the usual suspects such as fast food and lack of exercise (although these do play an important role), but rather more to a kind of spiritual sickness. This sickness is the result of the human, a naturally communal and social being, finding himself living in a world of excessive competition, of shallow appearances, of consumerism, of the love of money, and a world in which success is measured not in terms of contentment but rather in terms of social standing and the accumulation of power and possessions. This is the world of ‘me’, a world in which you buy cosmetics ‘because you’re worth it’, a world in which people are running up huge credit card debts as they attempt to feed their craving for ‘products’, and a world in which the idols of the day are rich and famous ‘celebrities’. This is also, it is worth noting, the age of microwave meals for one, and an age in which the concept of ‘friendship’ increasingly means nothing more than having a list of people connected to you on a social networking website. It is no great surprise that such a world has led to an increasing desire among its inhabitants to reach out for ‘therapy’, yet there is a very powerful alternative to the culture of the self and of therapy, and this is found in the New Testament.

The New Testament provides us with a picture of Jesus as a man who loved to be amongst people and who loved to eat and drink with people. We see a man who chooses to eat with the social outcasts of his day (Matthew 9:11), who helps his disciples catch fish (Luke 5:1-11), who provides lunch for those who have followed him (Mark 8:1-9), and who ensures that a wedding party doesn’t run dry (John 2:1-2:11), and who did so, it should be noted, (as suggested by the steward in the text) after the guests had already ‘become drunk’. This Jesus is a man who, even as he approached the Crucifixion, gathered his disciples together for a final meal, and is a risen Lord who knocks at the door and promises to those who open the door that ‘I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me’ (Revelation 3:20). Jesus promises that he is among us communally, for ‘where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them’ (Matthew 18:20). The Book of Acts shows how radically the early Christians followed the example of Jesus:

All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved (Acts 2:44-47).

Christianity, then, from the time of Jesus well into the early period of the Church, showed no regard for the modern concepts of ‘selfhood’ or ‘self-realisation’. To know oneself as a self was only ever to know oneself as a self in relation. While the early radicalism of the Christian community eventually gave way to a more formalised ‘religious’ structure, this notion of the blending of the sacred and the profane, and of the importance of community, not of selfhood, still remained as an underlying concept.

One of the greatest losses of modernity has been the decline of community spirit and the sense of being united around common practices. Where once the church and the pub provided the two key venues in which communities could come together, many churches across the land are gradually emptying and pub closures now take place on a weekly basis, as cheap supermarket alcohol leads people out of the old communal space and into drinking at home, often alone. Biblical Christianity offers a way to combine all of this – the experience of community, shared worship, and shared eating and drinking. This Christianity points us to a God of relationships, not a God of the isolated self.

It is no coincidence that ours is an age that has seen a growth in ‘new age’ spiritualities. These ‘spiritualities’ are often focused on the self, on an inner path, on ‘Enlightenment’, and on a lonely project of solo communion with some vague ‘higher power’. This is the spirituality of an age of excessive individualism, an off-the-shelf commodified ‘religious experience’ for those who seek some form of inner release, as opposed to the communal belonging found in Christianity. Christians have in their hands a great and powerful tool for overcoming the isolation of individualism, as well as its associated narcissism, search for self-gratification, vacuous consumerism, and psychological maladies. The answer lies not in a culture of therapy, but rather in the rediscovery of the radically relational and communal lifestyle of Jesus and his early followers.

This is by no means a ‘quick fix’ solution and is not something that can happen overnight. It constitutes a significant challenge to the Church to once again return to its roots, to strip away the institutionalisation that has sapped the life out of Christianity’s early core, and perhaps calls for a renewed consideration of what it actually means to be a part of the Church. Most importantly, it constitutes a call to re-think the ‘personal salvation’ theology promoted by much of modern Christianity and to consider the possibility that the call of Jesus is not a call simply to the individual, but rather a call to a wholeness that can only come through community.