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The World Needs to Recover True Lament. Christianity Can Teach It.
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TL;DR
- Lament is a structured prayer practice found in biblical traditions, involving honest anguish, complaint, and often praise to God.
- Contemporary Christianity has largely lost the practice of lament, favoring a triumphalist posture that suppresses honest engagement with suffering.
- Research demonstrates that engaging in lament is associated with reduced pain and depression, increased life satisfaction, and enhanced meaning-making.
- Lament allows individuals to honestly express negative emotions to God, fostering a sense of being heard and less alone.
- Churches have a communal responsibility to recover lament by creating environments where honesty about suffering is structurally welcomed and normalized.
- The recovery of lament offers a model for the broader culture, demonstrating that suffering can be spoken, witnessed, and held, not just solved.