5 Lies Christians Tell About Mental Illness

October 11, 2014 By Reba Riley

In honor of National Mental Illness Awareness Week (October 5-11), I invited minister and social worker Rev. Dr. Sarah Griffith Lund to write this post about some of harmful lies told in Christian communities about mental illness and faith. She is the author of Blessed are the Crazy: breaking the silence about mental illness, family & church (Chalice Press), which is both a memoir of her own family’s struggle with mental illness and a resource for faith-based organizations to provide healing... Read more

Dear Brittany Maynard: Not All Christians Are Against You

October 9, 2014 By Reba Riley

Dear Brittany, Not all Christians are against you. It may seem like it today, when many of us are yelling “Coward!” “Heathen!” “Murderer!” “Sinner!” “Hell-bound!” and other horrible things in your direction. Oh, we may not be using those words. We may be couching the attack in love: writing sentences about bravery in suffering and Christ’s death on the cross. We may be telling you how we are praying for your soul. But I’m sure you can hear what’s really... Read more

NYT Bestselling Author A.J. JACOBS Talks Unity, Diversity, A Little Religion & A Whole Lot of Cousins

October 8, 2014 By Reba Riley

It’s almost hard for me to say what I like the most about A.J. Jacobs. Is it his die-hard commitment to becoming a human guinea pig in the name of journalism? [See his four NYT Bestsellers: The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World; The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible; Drop Dead Healthy: One Man’s Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection; My Life as... Read more

Christianish: Or, What Yom Kippur Taught Me About Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome

October 3, 2014 By Reba Riley

This scene from my upcoming memoir Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome occurred Saturday, October 8, 2011, in Columbus, Ohio, where I visited a synagogue on Yom Kippur as part of my journey to overcome PTCS by experiencing thirty religions in the year before I turned thirty. Excerpted from Chapter 12: Redemption I skidded into the synagogue parking lot twenty minutes before service time, worried I might already be too late to snag a seat. But instead of the sea of cars I’d expected,... Read more

Waiting for Official Permission to Heal? Here it is.

September 27, 2014 By Reba Riley

My family’s favorite movie is What About Bob. We watch and re-watch it on holidays, shouting over one another to quote the lines. In the movie, Bob (Bill Murray) plays a hilariously disturbed therapy patient who follows his psychiatrist (Richard Dreyfuss) on vacation. To get rid of Bob, Doc writes Bob a prescription to “take a vacation from his problems”. The prescription works, well–for Bob anyway, who decides to take his “problem vacation” next door to Doc’s lake house. Now, I’m no... Read more

37 Shades of Jesus

September 22, 2014 By Reba Riley

I blame the content of this post on Homeschool Jesus. Last week I mentioned “Homeschool Jesus” during a live video chat with Benjamin L. Corey*, Matthew Paul Turner, Zach Hoag, and my comment inspired chatroom responses about other Jesuses: “Let’s Make Bible Covers With Two Handles Jesus” (via Ben Corey), ”Cincinnati Jesus” (eats at Skyline), and “Hippee Jesus” (smokes a lot of weed). I almost maintained my composure on camera. Our chat got me thinking about all the Jesuses out there, so... Read more

Martha Beck & Lissa Rankin Jam: 3 Spiritual Practices That Ease Suffering & Tune Into Peace

September 21, 2014 By Reba Riley

Eight years ago, when I was twenty-four and chronically ill, I cut out a picture of Martha Beck and pasted it to a vision board. (If you’re unfamiliar with the self-help aisle, a vision board is a photo collage of the things you want to attain or achieve—kind of like a visual Bucket List, except without the threat of looming death.) I didn’t do this because Martha has a Ph.D. and a bunch of other Harvard degrees attached to her... Read more

Why I call God “Sam”

September 15, 2014 By Reba Riley

I call God “Sam”. A little scandalous? Maybe. Unorthodox? Absolutely. But it works for me, and that’s more than I can say for the word “God” sometimes—a loaded term under the best of circumstances. Especially for people dealing with Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome. For me, the word God evoked the decidedly male Trinity I grew up with. It meant betrayal and pain and a portion of my life I never wanted to go back to. God was a figure who might, say,... Read more

What is Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome? Part Two

September 14, 2014 By Reba Riley

In Part One, we established that PTCS is a spiritual health condition that acts as a name, a frame of reference, common ground for shared experience, and a bridge. What else is Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome? PTCS is a loss of gravity. For those of us who, by choice or chance, placed God or religion as center of our personal universes, losing or leaving faith is akin to the sun ceasing to exist. The thing that exerted gravitational pull over our... Read more

What is Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome? Part One

September 13, 2014 By Reba Riley

Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome (PTCS) is a spiritual injury that is every bit as real and painful–sometimes more so!—as physical injury or mental illness. Instead of referring to a broken body or mind, PTCS signals a broken, battered, or bruised spirit. A much harder thing to see than a crushed spine, sure—but just as capable of paralyzing you. PTCS is a name for a shared experience of spiritual woundedness. Many of us experienced or are experiencing PTCS, but we lacked a... Read more