Mark Stephenson
After receiving an M.Div. degree, I served as pastor of two Christian Reformed churches for a total of 17 years. From 2006 through 2021, I was the Director of Disability Concerns for the Christian Reformed Church, and relish the close working relationship CRC Disability Concerns has with the Reformed Church in America Disability Concerns ministry. I have served as interim Director of the CRC's Offices of Race Relations and Social Justice since Feb 2020. My wife Bev and I have five living children, two daughters-in-law, and three grandchildren. Our oldest child, Nicole, was born extremely prematurely in the late 1980’s and lives joyfully with severe, multiple impairments. That label does not define her. She loves magazines, loves interacting with people, loves roller-coasters and wild amusement park rides, and she loves to worship and to pray with God’s people. In any group, she shares her own unique gifts.
Posted in: Diagnosing Evil
I just read another fine article on this subject by the director of a county community mental health agency: A call to fund mental health treatment. The author, Michael Brashears, argues BOTH that a history of mental illness is not a predictor of violent behavior AND that communities that fund treatment programs for people dealing with mental illnesses show that they consider these individuals to be valued and contributing members of their communities.
Posted in: Mental Illness or Moral Illness?
For more information about moral injury, Herm Keizer collaborated on an insightful piece about moral injury and military suicide that appeared yesterday in the Huffington Post: Moral Injury: The Crucial Missing Piece in Understanding Soldier Suicides.
Posted in: Mental Illness or Moral Illness?
Eric, thanks for this opportunity to clarify. I affirm the doctrine of total depravity wholeheartedly. "There is no one on earth who is righteous." (Ecc. 7:20) However, although the confession of sin in the Book of Common Prayer says, "There is no health in us," I would disagree with that. I don't think of moral health and moral illness as distinct categories into which we can divide all humans. Instead these are endpoints on a continuum in which we all find ourselves. Every one of us has elements of moral health and moral illness. Like someone said, the line between good and evil cuts down the middle of every human heart. Just as we want (and sometimes work at) developing physical hygiene, so it would be wise for all of us to work at good moral hygiene and to avoid actions and thoughts that lead toward increasing moral illness.
Concerning my original point, namely, fingering mental illness as the reason why mass murderers commit their atrocities, I'm thankful that I have seen very little of that sort of speculation with regard to James Holmes. This is good for everyone affected by mental illness. I would submit that speculation about mental illness in days following a tragedy like the one in Aurora not only stigmatizes people with mental illness, but also is useless except for increasing advertising revenue. It would make much more sense to talk instead about moral illness. I suppose the media are doing that in a way with much of their reporting about the alleged murderer: a member of a sex hook-up website, amassing weaponry in the months preceding the incident, isolating himself from other people. He was morally adrift, or in my terminology, he was very ill morally, and over 70 victims paid the price.
Posted in: Mental Illness or Moral Illness?
Julia, you ask four good questions. First, I'm not going to touch your question about Aristotle because I'm not qualified to answer.
Second, you ask, "I would assume that a person, then, could be both morally and mentallly ill? Or would you make the case that a socio/psychopath could not be morally ill because they can no longer distinguish morality?" I agree that one can be both mentally and morally ill. I have a friend who lives with chronic, severe mental illness who has robust moral health. So I would assume the opposite could be true too. Could someone be so morally ill that he can no longer know that what he is doing is wrong? Perhaps, but I would want to proceed carefully with this. If we say "yes," then it may be true not only for people who commit crimes and use an insanity defense, but also for drug traffikers in who leave headless bodies in the streets, and for terrorists who bomb large numbers of victims. These too, it would seem, do not know or believe that what they are doing is wrong. Then we would need to ask is someone culpable for actions that violate commonly held human mores, such as killing innocent people, if they do not consider their actions to be wrong? And should they be "punished" or should they be "treated"?
That's a segue into your last two questions: "What wold you suggest are the practical implications ramifications of such a diagnosis? And who would be qualified to treat it?" To avoid rambling, anyone else have thoughts about these good questions?
Posted in: Review: Ministry with Persons with Mental Illness and Their Families
Steve, yes, it lays out difficult concepts in terms that most of us (usually) can understand, and gives good ideas for ministry as well. You may want to consider attending Elly's webinar too (and encourage others from your church to do the same). Mark
Posted in: Mental Illness or Moral Illness?
Mark, thanks for sharing your thoughts. One of the great challenges with identifying "moral illness" in a pluralistic society will be identifying specific behaviors that we can all agree are wrong. If you do have opporutnity read Dr. Meninger's book, it would be great if you would share a few applicable insights here.
Posted in: Good Websites Remove Barriers
When creating and updating websites, good webmasters will work to remove barriers in design as well. Accessible web design is not that complicated, and sends a message to people with visual impairments, "You are welcome at our church."
Posted in: Church Safety for Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities
"It has been estimated that 83% of women with a disability will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime." (Stimpson, L. & Best, M. 1991. Courage Above All: Sexual Assault Against Women with Disabilities. Toronto: DisAbled Women’s Network.) And a review commissioned by the World Health Organization found that children with disabilities are "3.7 times more likely than non-disabled children to be victims of any sort of violence; 3.6 times more likely to be victims of physical violence; and 2.9 times more likely to be victims of sexual violence."
As the father of an adult daughter who has intellectual disability, I know all too well how vulerable she is. Thanks for highlighting this important aspect of ministry with people with intellectual disabilities, and for giving these important guidelines to reduce the risk of the unthinkable happening to a loved one/friend/fellow church member.
Posted in: Cruelty or Evil, Which is Better?
Thanks to both of you for your encouragement. Yes, very tough decision that many, many people face. As us Boomers get into our 70's and 80's, even more people will be making difficult decisions like this.
Posted in: A Little of God's Work in Kenya
I recently received this encouraging report from one pastor who attended the TEA conference at which I was priveleged to speak, and post it here with permission. The photos included in the report are not shown below. Mark Stephenson
Report on Ministry to people with Disabilities.
By Pr. Musoke John Paul.
Our church is promise Faith Centre, It was started way back in 1993 as a home cell after having received God’s call of reaching to the unreached with the redeeming Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ
The organizations vision is to win the lost, disciple the responsive and equip Leaders for the ministry. The purpose of this church is to glorify the God of the Scriptures in promoting His worship, evangelism and edifying saints. To this end we are committed to proclaiming God's perfect Word and His glorious Gospel of Grace in Jesus Christ throughout the world, and to defending the "faith once delivered unto the saints",
(Jude 3).
To reach our communities with the Love of Christ through charity work which includes caring for orphans, widows ,elderly, disabled, disadvantaged and people without hope in accordance to James1:27, Prov.19:17,Mathew 25:40.
In August 2010, we were invited by Dr. Mwaya Wa Kitavi in the TEA Conference in Lumuru Nairobi Kenya where we had different workshops. One of the workshops I joined was about ministry among disabled. We did not have the ministry to disabled in our church and I was touched to go back and start this ministry but I did not know where to start from. God had a plan for us to start this ministry. We have an institution which is near our church and there were six younger people who were deaf so God brought one to visit our church and the problem we had was communication until when one sister managed to communicate to them by writing on paper. That is when we recognized that God is calling us to serve Him in this ministry.
Today we have a strong team of deaf brethrens who attend our church service and they go out to preach the Gospel to the deaf people who are in the community.
Our church seeks to:-
- engage believers in discovering ways to be hospitable and accessible to all people.
-Create relationships through which people living with disabilities become active church members and leaders.
-Foster increased awareness that people living with disabilities have gifts which they can contribute to the larger church.
The challenge is communication; we do not have interpreters or translators for these people and we still trust God for funds to sponsor some people who are ready to go for training as interpreters for the deaf because most times these people are left behind when there is no one to interpret for them.
Together we strive to transform the church into a physically and spiritually hospitable and accessible place for all people.
Annette Namatta is a disabled girl and an orphan staying with her mother .She was abandoned by all people. No school fees for her because they could see her as useless so according to what I received from TEA Conference we had to start a ministry that could help such people in a hunting world. I was convicted to get her a wheel chair which she never dreamed to have and then afterwards we took her to school and her education is sponsored by our church. She is now a happy girl.
Christine too is deaf and many feared to take her to school with the fear that it is too hard to handle her in class and that she needed a trained teacher for sign language which is true but we have put her in class and she is trying. But now, she is happy to associate with other children being sponsored by our church to be at school.
Once more thank you for the invitation to last year’s TEA Conference for it opens our eyes to see all what God wants us to do. Glory be to God.
With love from,
Pastor Musoke John Paul
Posted in: A Little of God's Work in Kenya
Nice one. Loved the graphic, although it confused me at first because Mr. Guillebeau uses "hustler" as a positive term meaning simply someone who combines work and talk well. I think of the word "hustler" as another name for a "con man."
Posted in: Grace and Truth Instead of Fear
Larry, you'd think they would know better, but they don't. Every time an American perpetrates some horror, the first thing we hear from the mouths of many pundits is a comment about the possible mental illness of the perpetrator. Why do you think that is?