Jessica COBLENTZ. Dust in the Blood: A Theology of Life with Depression. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2022. pp. 248. $24.95 pb. ISBN 9780814685020, 8502. Reviewed by Maureen Beyer MOSER, Greenwich Academy, Greenwich, CT 06830.

Beginning with her own lived experience of depression, Jessica Coblentz presents a critique of Christian attitudes towards depression and looks at depression as a lens through which we can learn about God, as well as about humanity.  Her book is an important part of renewed Christian reflections on depression, both bringing a number of scholarly voices into conversation and attempting to open some new windows of her own.

Coblentz describes common Christian perspectives on depression, which either see depression as “self-imposed moral evil” or view it as pedagogical, finding inherent meaning in it.  This first perspective judges depression sufferers as lacking in hope and faith.  The second sees depression, like a “dark night of the soul,” as advancing a person’s spiritual development.  Coblentz argues that both of these perspectives miss the reality of depression, as well as who God is.  

Turning to the theology of Karen Kilby, Coblentz reflects on the ways that Christians understand suffering.  With respect to the suffering of others, we should always try to prevent it, when possible, and to accompany the sufferer, when there is nothing else we can do.  We have no right to ascribe meaning to anyone else’s suffering; theologans must refuse to assign meaning to suffering.  Coblentz insists that “meaningless suffering is not necessarily antithetical to the Christian worldview;” suffering can be apophatic.  Sufferers can find goodness and hope amidst depression, but that does not require any imposed meaning or pedagogy from outside. 

As her own project, Coblentz builds on the wilderness experience of Hagar (looking at the theology of Delores Williams).  Accepting “life in the wilderness,” without expecting that depression can be cured or fixed, can lead to new ways of perceiving survival and meaning in life.  The sufferer can hope that, rather than hope for–”hope that out of utterly meaningless, nonsensical, and dehumanizing suffering, God will nevertheless reveal possibilities for survival and even the generation of meaning.”  It is important, as Coblentz says, that we recognize that this hope is radical and may not be realized in this life.

In the end, Dust in the Blood calls for Christians to be present with those who suffer, to exercise their “tragic imaginations,” and to change things that may be of concrete help to depression sufferers, like access to mental healthcare and attitudes to mental health in our larger society.  Coblentz is doing important work that should be continued in theological circles.  Christian communities must be present without limitation for those who suffer, without imposing artificial meaning onto depression, without judging the sufferers.  Loving and being present to sufferers means changing the shape of our theologies, and Coblentz has taken a step in that direction.