Theos Report on Christianity and Mental Health

For any of the three or four readers of this blog who may be interested, this is my 2000th post, which feels like something of a milestone. Thanks for checking in.

The latest report from Theos has just been published:

Ben Ryan, Christianity and Mental Health: Theology, Activities, Potential (London: Theos, 2017).

Here are the opening paragraphs from the Executive Summary (the bold text is original):

‘This report follows on from the findings of the Theos report Religion and Wellbeing: Assessing the Evidence. That report looked at 140 academic studies and sought to analyse the underlying relationship between religion and wellbeing. This report, by contrast, looks more specifically at Christianity and is an attempt to assess what Christians are actually contributing to society in terms of addressing mental health needs.

‘It should be read as a scoping study, an initial foray into the field which is looking to suggest a research agenda, rather than presenting any firm conclusions. It draws on 15 informal interviews with Christian experts and practitioners within the field, representing a range of denominations, theologies, and particular engagements with mental health.

‘The report provides a brief overview of the mental health situation in the UK today, suggests some Christian principles on which an authentic Christian response could be built, makes a preliminary effort to map such services as already exist, and finally looks to establish how effective those services are and how they could be improved.

‘Throughout, the report returns to “what next?” questions, outlining a programme of research that is needed to encourage, inform, shape and amplify the Christian response to current mental health problems.’

A pdf of the full report is available here.