Book ID: CBB007730120

Madness: American Protestant Responses to Mental Illness (2015)

unapi

Madness is a sin. Those with emotional disabilities are shunned. Mental illness is not the church’s problem.All three claims are wrong.In Madness, Heather H. Vacek traces the history of Protestant reactions to mental illness in America. She reveals how two distinct forces combined to thwart Christian care for the whole person. The professionalization of medicine worked to restrict the sphere of Christian authority to the private and spiritual realms, consigning healing and care—both physical and mental—to secular, medical specialists. Equally influential, a theological legacy that linked illness with sin deepened the social stigma surrounding people with a mental illness. The Protestant church, reluctant to engage sufferers lest it, too, be tainted by association, willingly abdicated care for people with a mental illness to secular professionals.While inattention formed the general rule, five historical exceptions to the pattern of benign neglect exemplify Protestant efforts to claim a distinctly Christian response. A close examination of the lives and work of colonial clergyman Cotton Mather, Revolutionary era physician Benjamin Rush, nineteenth-century activist Dorothea Dix, pastor and patient Anton Boisen, and psychiatrist Karl Menninger maps both the range and the progression of attentive Protestant care. Vacek chronicles Protestant attempts to make theological sense of sickness (Mather), to craft care as Christian vocation (Rush), to advocate for the helpless (Dix), to reclaim religious authority (Boisen), and to plead for people with a mental illness (Menninger).Vacek’s historical narrative forms the basis for her theological reflection about contemporary Christian care of people with a mental illness and Christian understanding of mental illness. By demonstrating the gravity of what appeared—and failed to appear—on clerical and congregational agendas, Vacek explores how Christians should navigate the ever-shifting lines of cultural authority as they care for those who suffer.

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Reviewed By

Review Joseph Williams (2017) Review of "Madness: American Protestant Responses to Mental Illness". Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences (pp. 354-356). unapi

Review Lawrence B. Goodheart (2016) Review of "Madness: American Protestant Responses to Mental Illness". Bulletin of the History of Medicine (pp. 334-335). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB007730120/

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Authors & Contributors
Ungureanu, James C.
Stephen Coss
Whooley, Owen
Toal, Ciaran
Schmidt, Jeremy
Roberts, Michael B.
Concepts
Christianity
Science and religion
Protestantism
Medicine and religion
Mental disorders and diseases
Cross-cultural interaction; cultural influence
Time Periods
19th century
20th century
18th century
17th century
16th century
21st century
Places
Americas
United States
Canada
Great Britain
Moravia
England
Institutions
British Association for the Advancement of Science
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