"Finding Jesus in the Storm" by John Swinton. A Review.

 

Instead of allowing clinic diagnoses to dictate the direction of life and become one's destiny, John Swinton, a one-time mental health nurse and now Chair in Religious Studies and Divinity at the University of Aberdeen, encourages a different approach. Swinton's 2020 book, "Finding Jesus in the Storm: The Spiritual Lives of Christians with Mental Health Challenges" is geared toward giving people with serious mental health challenges (notice, not mental illness), and those who care for them, a more respectful and wholesome way of perceiving their situation. It's not an anti-psychiatry diatribe, though he does challenge assumptions. Rather, for example, he shows the pros and cons of allowing DSM V to narrow what we see and how we engage those living with these mental health challenges.

Since there are plenty of other reviews, I'll make this simple. Swinton's stated goals for the book are very clear, and run the entire volume. First, "to provide readers with rich, deep, and thick descriptions of the spiritual experiences of Christians living with mental health challenges" (2). He does this by weaving personal statements and narrations from many of those he has studied and worked with. The people he invites into the book are living with depression, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder, as well as other struggles. Further, the author's primary intention "is to facilitate faithful speech that moves us to faithful action" (5). Here I think he beautifully succeeds. By the time a reader has finished the work, they will have a greater sense that people with mental health challenges really are men and women who bear the image of God, even in the uniqueness of their mental health challenges. In the end, Swinton shows that people "living with mental health challenges, like all of us, just want to be understood, respected, and treated with love and kindness" (215).

I wasn't always satisfied with Swinton's theological trajectory in places, but overall I found the work refreshingly useful. Since, as a Christian pastor, I have found myself more engaged with people living through mental health challenges over the last few years, the author has given me a healthier way to view them, and ways that I can actually help them - even as a non-professional. As the writer helpfully put it, his focus "is not so much on eradicating or controlling pathology, but more on how people can live well with Jesus even in the midst of such [severe mental health challenges]" (43). Yes! How to aid them in living well with Jesus in their storm. I happily recommend the book.