More than 60 international emotional health and wellness professionals, theologians, and members of the clergy led out in presentations and workshops at Loma Linda University (LLU), October 12-15, for a multidisciplinary, multicultural conference to advance a biblical framework for achieving emotional wholeness. Some 500 attendees from 51 countries packed LLU’s Damazo Auditorium in the Centennial Complex during the four-day event.
According to Seventh-day Adventist emotional health professionals, an escalating number of people in today’s fast-paced, high-stress society—both inside and outside the church—are seeking life-coping skills and emotional healing from professionals in the field. The extra edge of Adventist mental health practices, however, is a biblically based foundation. The focus of the LLU Emotional Health and Wellness Conference was to explore the role of these Bible principles.
Opening keynote speaker Allan Handysides, director of the General Conference Health Ministries Department, set the tone for the conference by pointing out that its purpose was not to debate a biblical perspective, but to present and explain it.
“The biblical viewpoint makes God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit—the three-in-one God—central to all life and creation,” he said, “[and] distinguishes our worldview from that of those who see themselves as a result of a random, undirected, evolutionary process.”
Naturalism and Theism
The tension between two worldviews—naturalism and theism—and their relationship to mental health was a prominent theme. Brent Slife, of the Brigham Young University Department of Psychology, a keynote speaker, explored this dichotomy of philosophies in his presentation and concluded that the two views are incompatible.
“While naturalistic psychologists deny the necessity of God in their interpretations,” Slife said, “theists view God as an essential element. . . . Secular psychology rejected faith and adopted naturalism, which allows that God could be involved at Creation but not in any way that makes a difference after that.” These assumptions, he said, are relevant to the practical applications of therapeutic care, in that secular therapists teach their clients “godless understandings of themselves—that God does not matter at all.”
A danger also exists for Christian students of psychology, Slife noted. Teaching naturalism “moves even theistic students away from their theistic beliefs across their years of study,” he said.
A biblically based worldview is integral when considering the Adventist belief in a caring, Creator-God, and the whole-person care approach of the church’s health organizations. Presenter Lisa Beardsley, General Conference Education Department director and a former vice chancellor of LLU, underscored this perspective when she described the Bible as “not just another source of information” and that its use “transforms both the healer and the patient, contributing to the harmonious development of the whole person.”
Other speakers emphasized the vital role of pastors, who also are on the front lines helping congregants to achieve emotional wellness. Eric Johnson, professor of pastoral care for the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said, for example, that both theologians and psychologists are needed to work together with clients to achieve whole health, which involves “conforming to the heart, mind, and life of God.”
Religious Beliefs and Emotional Health
David Williams, of Harvard University’s School of Public Health and an LLU alumnus, presented a wealth of empirical evidence regarding the central role religious beliefs play in emotional well-being. High levels of religious involvement, he said, relate to lower levels of anxiety and depression, as well as have a profound effect on lifestyle. He added, however, that religion can increase anxiety when people are subjected to congregational criticism, when too many demands are made of them, and when personal problems and evil in the world cause a person to doubt their religious beliefs.
“The United States leads the world in prevalence of mental disorders,” Williams said. “U.S. immigrants fare the best regarding their physical and mental health,” he noted, but added that the longer they live in the U.S., the greater is their decline in these areas.
Pragmatic Approaches
Even routine conversations with others, particularly family members, can promote emotional wellness, said GC Family Ministries Department director Willie Oliver. We should speak to our spouse and others as if we’re giving them “apples of gold in settings of silver,” he said, referring to Proverbs 25:11. “Good emotional health is necessary within the family, because the family impacts the community, the church, and the world.”
The importance of exercise also was addressed. Fernando Gomez-Pinilla, professor of neurosurgery, integrative biology, and physiology at the University of California at Los Angeles, said that exercise and healthful eating reduce cognitive decay in aging, the risk of Alzheimer’s disease, anxiety and depression, and incidence of addictive behaviors. . . . “Exercise,” he said, “may be the most effective strategy to combat depression.”
Attendee Response
Some conference attendees, such as North England Conference health ministries director Grace Walsh, traveled many miles to participate in the event and to become better equipped to deal with such issues when she returns home.
“When you look at the statistics, they’re quite frightening,” Walsh said. “The World Health Organization says that by 2020, depression will be a leading cause of disability. We need to be working with our members and our community to try more preventive measures.”
Miriam Andres, director of family and children’s ministries for the Southern Asia-Pacific Division, expressed similar thoughts.
“We need to look at these situations in a whole-person context,” she said. “If I understand that better, I can share what I learn with my counterparts and other church members.”
Not everyone journeyed great distances, however. Harvey Elder, a physician and a professor at the LLU School of Medicine, gave the event high marks for “emphasizing critical issues of spiritual growth, how to deal with the brokenness we have in our hearts, our mental and emotional needs, and how to cope with life.”
“We need to have an emphasis on how to know you’re loved by God, how to walk in the reality of God’s presence, to know that God is with you to help you overcome sin day by day,” Elder said. “That’s where we need to live, and that’s what they’re talking about here.”
A Personal Journey
Sabbath morning theologian and businessman E. Edward Zinke shared his personal testimony on how he moved from a humanistic worldview to that of seeing the Bible as the only foundational lens through which the natural world can be rightly understood.
“I grew up trying to rationalize God and to make Him fit into the moral sensibilities of my society—a god that would fit within the limits of human and natural reasoning,” Zinke said.
A discussion with one of his professors, during which Zinke was described as “a good scholastic theologian”—one who approaches God in a rationalistic way—triggered the beginning of a paradigm shift in his thinking.
“It was the rebirth of my worldview, seeing things based on God’s Word rather than humanistic thinking,” Zinke said. “[I discovered that] it’s not the Word of God that’s the patient; it is I who am the patient.”
Central Message
GC general vice president Lowell Cooper in his central Sabbath message described God’s mission as the restoration of all that was part of His original creation. He also noted that while Christ was on earth, His care for humanity was His chief concern.
“There are evidence-based principles that promote health,” he said. “Let us share these with the world. We should be a church that is so focused on the health of the people that no one is left behind.”
Other keynote speakers and workshop presenters included, among others, Jorge Rodriguez, senior adviser for mental health, Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization; Carlos Fayard, associate professor of psychiatry, LLU School of Medicine; Peter Landless, associate director of the GC Health Ministries Department; Carla Gober, director of the Center for Spiritual Life and Wholeness and associate professor of LLU’s School of Religion; and Duane McBride, dean and professor of behavioral sciences, Andrews University, and director of the Institute for Prevention of Addictions.
Educators, pastors, administrators, clinicians, and others attended the conference, organized by the LLU Department of Psychiatry; LLU School of Medicine; and the General Conference Health Ministries, Family Ministries, Women’s Ministries, Adventist Chaplaincy Ministries, and Education departments.
To learn more about the Emotional Health and Wellness Conference—A Biblical Worldview in Practice, go to www.globalemotional health.org.
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Sandra Blackmer is features editor of Adventist Review. This article was published December 22, 2011.
