Madness: American Protestant Responses to Mental Illness

Madness is a sin. Those with emotional disabilities are shunned. Mental illness is not the church’s problem.

All three claims are wrong.

In Madness, Heather H. Vacek traces the history of Protestant reactions to mental illness in America. She reveals how two distinct forces combined to thwart Christian care for the whole person. The professionalization of medicine worked to restrict the sphere of Christian authority to the private and spiritual realms, consigning healing and care--both physic...