The All India Congress on Church in Mission (AICOCIM) continued Wednesday with a keynote address by Dr. Santhosh T. Mathew, an internal medicine specialist who has served with the Emmanuel Hospital Association. In a wide-ranging presentation, Mathew urged the Indian Church to reclaim its legacy of holistic healing and to reimagine pastoral care in response to today’s mental health and trauma crisis.
Mathew spoke candidly about his own hesitations in addressing the topic, noting that many in the audience had long experience in counseling and psychiatry. Yet he pressed forward, grounding his reflections in Scripture, history, and contemporary research. His central theme was that the Church must see itself as a “wounded healer” — a community that acknowledges its own brokenness yet becomes a source of wholeness for others.
Remembering the legacy of healing
Mathew began by looking back at the Church’s history in health care. From Jesus’ compassion for the “harassed and helpless” crowds in Matthew 9 to the response of early Christians during plagues in the Roman Empire, he said, the Church has always seen beyond physical illness to the invisible epidemics of fear, distress, and despair.
He contrasted the retreat of Galen, a famed physician of antiquity, who fled during a plague, with the commitment of Christian communities who stayed behind to care for the sick, often at great personal risk. “This was a persecuted minority with no power,” Mathew noted, “yet they took responsibility for their neighbors.”
That legacy continued with the creation of hospices for travelers in the early centuries and the establishment of hospitals by missionaries in the modern era. Many of these pioneers were single women who came to India to serve. “They left behind a testimony of holistic care,” Mathew said. But over time, medicine became professionalized and compartmentalized, reducing the body to a machine and separating physical, psychological, and spiritual dimensions of health.
“The Church handed care over to professionals and lost its holistic vision,” he observed. “We need to recover that.”
The scale of the crisis today
Turning to the present, Mathew laid out sobering statistics. Worldwide, one in five adults experiences mental illness, with depression and anxiety leading the list. In India, surveys suggest that about 10 percent of children and adolescents are affected, while a recent post-COVID study found that nearly one-third of adults experience mental distress.
“Behind these numbers are faces, families, and communities,” Mathew reminded the audience. “It is not just data; it is deeply human.”
He described the loneliness epidemic identified by the World Health Organization, noting that isolation is especially acute among women, young people, and the elderly. He recalled visiting elderly households in Kerala where retired couples spoke of purposelessness and despair, and warned that urban churches will face similar challenges as populations age.
Children and youth, meanwhile, struggle with academic pressure, family tensions, peer relationships, and trauma. Generational differences have widened so dramatically, he said, that even youth pastors in their late twenties admit they cannot fully relate to Gen Z.
Trauma in church and society
Mathew did not shy away from raising uncomfortable questions. He acknowledged the presence of trauma within churches themselves — leaders with controlling or narcissistic tendencies, families fractured by ministry pressures, and children alienated from absent parents.
He recounted stories of missionaries’ wives who lamented, “My husband is dying for Christ, but he is not living at home.” Such dynamics, he argued, create hidden wounds that the Church must be willing to address.
Mathew also pointed to the popularity of “performance-driven, emotionally moving worship” and prosperity-oriented theologies, suggesting that their appeal reflects unmet needs amid a wider mental health epidemic. “Young people are drawn to spaces that promise healing,” he said. “Are our churches providing that in healthy ways?”
At the same time, he noted, research outside the Church increasingly affirms the role of spirituality in mental health. “Science is telling us what Scripture has said all along — that spiritual life matters,” Mathew said. “This is an opportunity to reclaim lost ground.”
Learning from past leaders
Mathew highlighted Christian leaders who themselves struggled with depression, from Martin Luther to Charles Spurgeon, William Cowper, and E. Stanley Jones. Far from disqualifying them, he said, their experiences deepened their ministry.
Spurgeon once wrote, “The strong are not always vigorous; the brave are not always courageous; the joyful are not always happy.” Stanley Jones, after his own breakdown, went on to establish a psychiatric hospital in India that integrated medical care and spiritual support.
“These leaders remind us that depression and struggle are not alien to Christian life,” Mathew said. “They can become sources of empathy and ministry.”
Renewing understanding and restraint
Mathew proposed five responses for the Church. First, he said, Christians must renew their understanding of health as holistic and resist the temptation to compartmentalize. “Humans are not Lego pieces,” he explained. “Body, mind, and spirit are interwoven.”
Second, he called for restraint from harmful practices, such as labeling people with psychiatric terms, offering simplistic theological answers, or quoting Scripture in ways that minimize pain. “Sometimes silence is more powerful than words,” he said, recalling Job’s friends who sat quietly with him for seven days before speaking.
Third, he urged leaders to create a culture of vulnerability. Sharing his own struggle with depression, Mathew described how a young pastor’s honesty opened space for him to write about his journey. “Vulnerability is not dumping your dirt,” he said. “It is testifying to how God meets us in our brokenness.”
Fourth, he encouraged churches to foster soul conversations — intentional listening that validates experiences rather than rushing to fix them. He told of a pastor who spent two hours each week simply listening to a man with long-term struggles. “After six months, both were transformed,” Mathew said.
Finally, he called for building communities of recovery where people can journey together over time. He shared how a small group of peers who began meeting monthly to talk about their struggles became a lifeline. “Community is the safe space where transformation happens,” he said.
Integrating biomedical care and pastoral support
Mathew was clear that pastoral care does not replace medical or psychological treatment. He acknowledged the essential role of professional counseling, psychiatry, and medication. But he argued that the Church can complement these services by providing relational support, spiritual guidance, and communities of belonging.
“A church that ignores mental health is irrelevant to the needs of its members,” he said, citing a recent paper that called for churches to conduct “mental health audits” and put safeguards in place for trauma response.
He also warned against the stigma that persists even among pastors and doctors. “How many hands go up if you ask about diabetes? But how many if you ask about depression?” he asked. “The silence shows the shame. We must break it.”
Ready to serve as wounded healers
Mathew concluded by pointing to the model of Christ himself, who embraced wounds in order to heal others. Drawing from Henri Nouwen’s The Wounded Healer, he said the question is not how to hide our wounds but how to put them at the service of others.
“When we become open and vulnerable, when our wounds are no longer a source of shame but of healing, we follow the model of our Master,” Mathew said.
He challenged the Congress to imagine the Church as a community of wholeness for a nation struggling with invisible epidemics of loneliness, depression, and trauma. “The Master saw the harassed and helpless,” he said. “We must see what others do not see, and be present where others will not go.”
