If I M A Christian Why Am I Depressed

The author shares his faith-based insights and perspective on acknowledging and managing depression, using his own experiences with depression and those of other men and women of faith throughout history as illustration.

A compassionate, shame-free guide for your darkest days “A one-of-a-kind book . . . to read for yourself or give to a struggling friend or loved one without the fear that depression and suicidal thoughts will be minimized, medicalized or over-spiritualized.”—Kay Warren, cofounder of Saddleback Church What happens when loving Jesus doesn’t cure you of depression, anxiety, or suicidal thoughts? You might be crushed by shame over your mental illness, only to be told by well-meaning Christians to “choose joy” and “pray more.” So you beg God to take away the pain, but nothing eases the ache inside. As darkness lingers and color drains from your world, you’re left wondering if God has abandoned you. You just want a way out. But there’s hope. In I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die, Sarah J. Robinson offers a healthy, practical, and shame-free guide for Christians struggling with mental illness. With unflinching honesty, Sarah shares her story of battling depression and fighting to stay alive despite toxic theology that made her afraid to seek help outside the church. Pairing her own story with scriptural insights, mental health research, and simple practices, Sarah helps you reconnect with the God who is present in our deepest anguish and discover that you are worth everything it takes to get better. Beautifully written and full of hard-won wisdom, I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die offers a path toward a rich, hope-filled life in Christ, even when healing doesn’t look like what you expect.

Many Christians mistakenly believe that true Christians don't get depressed, and this misconception heaps additional pain and guilt onto Christians who are suffering from mental and emotional distress. David P. Murray explains why and how Christians should study depression, what depression is, and the approaches caregivers, pastors, and churches can take to help those who are suffering from it. --from publisher description.

Young people are walking away from the church and those still in the church often struggle with indifference about their faith. But it doesn't have to be this way. It's time for a revolution, a holy uprising. A riot. With passion and authenticity, teen author Sara Barratt calls on her generation to reject apathy and embrace a daring, costly faith. Not content with safe religion that demands nothing of us, Sara shows teens how they can stop giving in to the status quo and devote themselves fully to Christ, following him no matter what their friends do or the culture around them does. She challenges them to give everything over--their comfort zones, their time, their loyalties, their pride--and discover that in losing control they are gaining the life that was meant for them all along. Love Riot is a battle cry from one teen to another to embrace a life of wholehearted commitment and relentless abandon for Christ . . . no matter the cost.

It is possible to find true love through dating. In True Love Dates, Debra Fileta encourages singles not to "kiss dating goodbye" but instead to experience a season of dating as a way to find real love. Through powerful, real-life stories and Fileta's personal journey, this book offers profound insights from the expertise of a professional counselor. Christians are looking for answers to finding true love. They are disillusioned with the church that has provided little practical application in the area of love and relationships. They're bombarded by Christian books that shun dating, idolize courting, fixate on spirituality, and in the end, offer little real relationship help. True Love Dates provides honest help for dating by providing a guide into vital relationship essentials. Debra is a professional Christian counselor who reaches millions with her popular blog, Truelovedates.com, and her book offers sound advice grounded in Christian spirituality. She delivers insight, direction, and counsel when it comes to entering the world of dating and learning to do it right the first time around. Drawing on the stories and struggles of hundreds of young men and women who have pursued the search for true love, Fileta helps readers bypass unnecessary pain while focusing on the things that really matter in the world of dating.

Spiritual Depression is one of the great classics of the modern Church and tackles the big question: If Christianity is such "good news" why are its followers often unhappy? Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones was possibly the greatest Christian preacher and teacher of the twentieth century. A medical doctor by training, Spiritual Depression draws together his professional understanding of the mind with a profound understanding of Christian teaching and the Bible. Spiritual Depression diagnoses the causes of the ill feeling that many Christians experience. It prescribes the practical care that is needed to lift people's spirits and bring them freedom, power and joy. Spiritual health is possible and this book explains how everyone can grasp it for themselves.

Overcoming Depression can provide healing and freedom for millions of Christians who suffer silently from depression. This Christ-centered road map to recovery balances spiritual and physical symptoms, leading those with depression, and those in the church who must help them, to both a thorough understanding and a comprehensive treatment. Now is the time to get Overcoming Depression into the hands of Christians everywhere, helping those who are desperately in need of its powerful and life-changing message.

In The Myth of Persecution, Candida Moss, a leading expert on early Christianity, reveals how the early church exaggerated, invented, and forged stories of Christian martyrs and how the dangerous legacy of a martyrdom complex is employed today to silence dissent and galvanize a new generation of culture warriors. According to cherished church tradition and popular belief, before the Emperor Constantine made Christianity legal in the fourth century, early Christians were systematically persecuted by a brutal Roman Empire intent on their destruction. As the story goes, vast numbers of believers were thrown to the lions, tortured, or burned alive because they refused to renounce Christ. These saints, Christianity's inspirational heroes, are still venerated today. Moss, however, exposes that the "Age of Martyrs" is a fiction—there was no sustained 300-year-long effort by the Romans to persecute Christians. Instead, these stories were pious exaggerations; highly stylized rewritings of Jewish, Greek, and Roman noble death traditions; and even forgeries designed to marginalize heretics, inspire the faithful, and fund churches. The traditional story of persecution is still taught in Sunday school classes, celebrated in sermons, and employed by church leaders, politicians, and media pundits who insist that Christians were—and always will be—persecuted by a hostile, secular world. While violence against Christians does occur in select parts of the world today, the rhetoric of persecution is both misleading and rooted in an inaccurate history of the early church. Moss urges modern Christians to abandon the conspiratorial assumption that the world is out to get Christians and, rather, embrace the consolation, moral instruction, and spiritual guidance that these martyrdom stories provide.