Depression in African American Clergy

By Wynnetta Wimberley

In this book Wynnetta Wimberley addresses the often overlooked crisis of depression in African American clergy, investigating the causes underlying this phenomenon while discussing possible productive paths forward. Historically, many African American pastors have had to assume multiple roles in order to meet the needs of congregants impacted by societal oppression. Due to the monumental significance of the preacher in the African American religious tradition, there exists a type of ‘cultural sacramentalization’ of the Black preacher, which sets clergy up for failure by fostering isolation, highly internalized and external expectations, and a loss of self-awareness. Utilizing Donald Winnicott’s theory of the ‘true’ and ‘false’ self, Wimberley examines how depression can emerge from this psycho-socio-theological conflict.  When pastors are depressed, they are more prone to encounter difficulties in their personal and professional relationships. Drawing from a communal-contextual model of pastoral theology, this text offers a therapeutically sensitive response to African American clergy suffering with depression. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Release date: Oct 31, 2016
• ISBN: 9781349949106

Book preview

Part I

Part One

© The Author(s) 2016

Wynnetta WimberleyDepression in African American ClergyBlack Religion/Womanist Thought/Social Justice10.1057/978-1-349-94910-6_1

1. Depression in the Pulpit

Wynnetta Wimberley¹ 

(1)

Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

The Lord who told me to take care of my people, meant me to do it just as long as I live, and so I did what he told me.

Harriet Tubman¹

crisis, n. a time of acute difficulty or danger, esp on a national or international scale.²

In 2013, a young African American pastor in Georgia committed suicide en route to church one Sunday morning. His suicide sent shock waves throughout the African American Christian community. While there were those who were aware of his struggle with depression, many seemed shocked that it could actually lead to suicide. The unspoken question that seemingly lurked for months following his death was, How could a pastor commit suicide? Shortly after that tragic event, while walking across campus one afternoon, I encountered a young African American man who appeared visibly distraught. Smiling as I approached him, I asked, Are you alright? He drew near to me whispering, Can I ask you something? I replied, Sure. He asked, Do you believe in God? I answered, Yes, I do. He pressed further, Then, can you answer this one question? How does a pastor who professes to believe in God, commit suicide? He retorted, If the pastors are losing hope, what are we supposed to do? He seemed to feel as if he had been deceived—as if his faith, his religious tradition, and his image of the African American pastor had somehow betrayed him.

In those moments, I recognized the great gulf that often exists between the internalized expectations that pastors place upon themselves, the external expectations that people place upon pastors, and how the humanity of pastors is often ignored by all.

The fields of pastoral theology, care, and counseling currently lack adequate resources to address depression³ among African American⁴ evangelical⁵ pastors because they fail to provide appropriate methods of evaluation, self-care, and accountability among black clergy leaders.

I have tremendous admiration and respect for the extraordinary institution known as the black church. My use of the term black church is intended to distinguish between worship in the broader Christian tradition and the particularities and socio-cultural nuances that comprise the African American evangelical worship experience (e.g., the call and response, the shout, the rhythmic scratching of the washboard, the sound of the kettledrums). There is no place I enjoy being on a Sunday morning than in the midst of a spirit-filled African American church at worship. Those who have experienced worship in this tradition would be hard-pressed to deny the exuberance, vitality, liberty, and (in some instances) pageantry encountered there on Sunday mornings.

This book is birthed out of my concern for the welfare of the black church and more specifically for the mental health of African American clergy leaders. Over the last decade, there has been a sharp increase in the rate of depression and suicide among African American pastors. Yet, despite the fact of this increase, many people continue to marvel at how depression can materialize among leaders who are tasked with being proponents of faith.

In the African American religious tradition, we have historically made haste to hide the nakedness of our clergy leaders. Oftentimes, these attempts at covering up human frailty have proven detrimental to the pastors themselves as well as the congregations they are called to serve. My hope is that this book will generate much needed dialogue around the crisis of depression in African American clergy and its impact on the black community.

It has been my experience that often the culture of an African American evangelical church correlates with the personality of its pastor. This is because African American clergy tend to hold great influence in their religious communities. The admiration and respect they receive can be attributed to a historical view of them as being the mouthpiece or representative of God.⁶ Unfortunately, this cultural sacramentalization of the black preacher sets pastors up for failure through isolation, internalized/external expectations, and a loss of self-awareness. It is from this framework that the etiology of depression can materialize in African American pastors.

Further, because African American evangelical clergy are most able to remain true to who they are when they are self-aware, the task of aiding pastors in overcoming the reality of depression involves equipping them with culturally specific resources that empower them to receive the help they need. Encouraging African American pastors to seek treatment for depression also means ensuring that they assume ethical responsibility within the pastoral function through clearly defined parameters of evaluation, self-care, and accountability.

The Crisis of Clergy Depression

The crisis of depression among clergy is not foreign to those within African American evangelical circles. Startling statistics continue to emerge regarding the state of clergy mental health in America. Trans-denominationally, pastors are suffering with a variety of mental health issues in silence and isolation. Within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) alone, statistics from the Board of Pensions showed the denomination was at risk of declining membership due to poor wellness disciplines among pastors such as poor eating habits, a lack of physical activity, smoking, and excessive alcohol consumption. In their 2006 health analysis report, the Board of Pension’s statistics showed that approximately 63% of ELCA pastors had risk factors indicating poor emotional health.⁷ Among Presbyterian clergy, the Committee on Preparation for Ministry in the Charlotte Presbytery reported the leading cause for stress among clergy to be feelings of loneliness or isolation.⁸ The Report on Clergy Recruitment and Retention to the 216th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA identified specific issues that impacted how pastors experience their work (each of which, singularly or combined, can lead to depression):

1.

Inadequate skills in managing what are perceived to be unrealistic expectations of the congregation

2.

Unrealistic expectations of pastors entering a new call, especially their first call

3.

Inability to spend adequate time with family or loved ones

4.

Feeling drained by the demands made by parishioners

5.

Inadequate ongoing support mechanisms for pastors

6.

Receiving little satisfaction in the role/status of pastor

7.

Inadequate compensation package

8.

Conflict within the local church due to differences in leadership styles, worship practices, management issues, and so on, and

9.

Conflict with denominational officials leading to a feeling of not being supported by those outside the local congregation, which exacerbates issues of loneliness and stress.⁹

The American Baptist Churches USA responded to clergy burnout within their organization by establishing a wellness program to ensure that cultural values about healthy pastoral functioning become more central to the pastorate. This wellness program followed a yearlong study¹⁰ by the Ministerial Leadership Commission and observed that a large number of the denomination’s 8900 ministers were experiencing burnout and other significant health-related issues.

As accounts of clergy mental illness in the USA continue to surface, a rise in the frequency of suicides, specifically among African American clergy, is also being reported. In The United Methodist Church in Ohio, black clergy suicides, which had formerly gone under the radar, are now being reported. A series of African American clergy suicides in the southern states over the last few years have startled those within the African American Christian community. Mental illness among smaller religious sects of evangelicals has also more recently come to light. Due to the explosive growth of information available through the Internet, the private lives of many African American clergy have become public,¹¹ for example, divulging the arrests of several pastors within the Church of God in Christ (COGIC) on charges of child molestation, sexual abuse, and sexual misconduct against church members.

According to the Clergy Health Initiative¹² at Duke Divinity School, programs designed to promote clergy health are only effective if the conditions that compromise clergy health are addressed, namely congregational and denominational governance. Since African Americans pastors are the least likely of all clergy to obtain mental health treatment from any source, the cultural stigma¹³ associated with depression in the black community heightens the need for more extensive education, training, therapeutic treatment, and preventative resources.

Recurrent incidents of black pastors experiencing mental health crises have come at great cost to the African American community. This crisis of mental health among those otherwise deemed to be pillars of the community has undoubtedly created a healthy cultural suspicion around the validity, integrity, and safety of the black church as a place of refuge for African Americans and around the black pastor as her heralded leader.

Moreover, mental illness among black clergy has left many in the African American religious community feeling vulnerable, prompting questions about the credibility of the black church moving forward: Has the black church become a structural form of religious oppression in her negation of mental illness among her leaders? Is the black church complicit in the re-traumatization of beleaguered souls in its unleashing of spiritual violence from the pulpit, either consciously or unconsciously through depressed pastors? If the adage hurting people hurt people holds true, presumably the African American Christian community is not safe from harm from its depressed clergy leaders.

So, what exactly is mental illness? How is it defined? What does depression look like? How does it materialize?

It is easy to become inundated by the myriad of diagnoses that encompass the field of mental illness. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), the standard diagnostic tool used by mental health professionals, refers to mental illness as a group of brain disorders that cause disruptions in thinking, feeling, behaving and relating. These disruptions vary in their degrees of severity and are sometimes referred to as ‘major mental illness,’ ‘prolonged mental illness’ or ‘serious mental illness.’¹⁴ I use the term disorder¹⁵ as a means of describing a break in the systematic functioning—a disarrangement or interruption of what regularly occurs.

There are many different types of mental illness listed in the DSM with significant disorders categorized as Mood Disorders (Depression, Bipolar Disorder, etc.), Personality Disorders (Narcissistic, Avoidant, Antisocial, Obsessive–Compulsive, Paranoid, etc.), Psychotic Disorders, Schizophrenia, and Dementias. Personality Disorders consist of enduring pattern[s] of inner experience and behavior that are sufficiently rigid and deep-seated to bring a person into repeated conflicts with his or her social and occupational environment.¹⁶ The DSM specifies that these dysfunctional patterns must be regarded as nonconforming or deviant by the person’s culture, and cause significant emotional pain and/or difficulties in relationships and occupational performance to be classified as disorders.¹⁷

However, it is not personality disorders but mood disorders, and specifically depression, which is the most common form of mental illness in America. In layman’s terms, depression is defined as a complex mood disorder characterized by a significant loss of self-esteem and is considered a complex pattern of psychological and physical symptoms.¹⁸ What most people do not recognize is how disabling depression can be. It can substantially impact one’s emotional, psychological, and social well-being. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC)¹⁹ predicts that by the year 2020, depression will be the second leading cause of disability throughout the world—second only to coronary artery disease.

There are three key factors that contribute to depression: brain chemistry, genes or family history, and the stress brought on by challenging life situations, or a combination of all three.

The most common forms of depression are categorized as Major Depression, Persistent Depression (formerly known as Dysthymia),²⁰ and Unspecified Depressive Disorder. Major Depression is described as having symptoms that severely disrupt one’s daily functioning (e.g., eating, sleeping, working, enjoying many aspects of life). While some people may experience only one episode of Major Depression in their lifetime, many experience several, and these episodes can last weeks, months, even years.

Persistent Depression (or Dysthymia) is a milder form of depression and is much more chronic or long term in its presentation because it lasts for at least two years and sometimes longer. Individuals who suffer with Persistent Depression can also experience episodes of Major Depression; this combination is sometimes referred to as double depression. Persistent Depression is also disruptive to one’s daily functioning and ability to enjoy certain aspects of life.

Unspecified Depressive Disorder is very similar to Major Depression because some of the symptom criteria for Major Depression are met but not all.

The diagnostic criteria for determining the presence of depression consists of five or more of the following symptoms: (1) fatigue and/or loss of energy, (2) a marked decrease in pleasure or interest in