• Celebrating Dr. King with Service: Rev. Dr. M. William Howard Jr. and gospel artists Richard Smallwood and Tye Tribbett reflect on the influence of MLK on their own lives of service.
• NYC Worship Protests Intensify: New York City clergy and council members invoke the Civil Rights Movement for their latest protest of the city’s policy banning churches from renting meeting spaces at public schools and city facilities.

• Religion Wins Big; Pastors Protest Loss: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that religious schools can fire ministers and more New York City pastors were arrested while protesting fallout from the court’s decision not to hear a Bronx church’s appeal.
• Politics Are Personal: In her new book ‘Left, Right, and Christ,’ Lisa Sharon Harper models a civil and redemptive discussion of divisive political issues. She spoke to UrbanFaith about Christians in the public square, and the dangers of winning political and religious debates but missing the truth.
• Pastors Protest School Worship Ban: Some New York City pastors are protesting the Board of Education’s ban on worship in public school space as the ban threatens to spread beyond schools.

Depression causes more disability than any other psychiatric disorder,” Laity Leadership Institute senior fellow Dan Blazer, M.D. said his 2005 book The Age of Melancholy: Major Depression and Its Social Origins.  In fact, depression is as disabling or more disabling than diabetes and hypertension, he said, and the World Health Organization estimated that it will be the second leading contributor to the “global burden of disease” by 2025.

Although those born in the later part of the 20th century suffer higher rates of depression than those born earlier, roughly 15 percent of the elderly experience significant symptoms.

A Crossword Puzzle Case Study

When The High Calling interviewed Dr. Blazer last fall, he talked about a patient who is close to 90 years old. The man had called Blazer a few weeks earlier to say he was feeling “terrible,” that he wasn’t sleeping and was losing weight, all of which are symptoms of depression.

The patient also said, “I’m not doing my crossword puzzles.”

“He had been doing crossword puzzles for 80 years,” said Blazer. “All of a sudden he wasn’t doing them. That signals loss of interest, which is another symptom of depression.”

Blazer prescribed medication. When he talked to the patient a few weeks later, he said he was feeling much better.

Blazer asked, “Are you doing your crossword puzzles yet?”

“No,” he replied.

The doctor knew then that the man wasn’t well yet …

Read the whole article at The High Calling.

• Immigration News: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly: News on the immigration front has been ugly this week, with deportation mistakes making headlines, but it’s not entirely bad.
• Bigotry Charges Haunt Iowa Caucuses: As Republican voters in Iowa prepare to caucus, bigotry charges fly.

Proverbs 23:7 says, “As [a man] thinks in his heart, so is he” (NKJV). When it comes to geriatric health, this statement has repeatedly proven true.

“Self-perceptions of older adults about their health and well-being may be at least as important as objective data for predicting the course of their health over time,” Laity Leadership Institute Senior Fellow Dan Blazer, M.D. wrote in a 2008 article that was published in The Geriatrist.

“Most clinicians treating adults focus on facts: facts about the behaviors of their patients (eg. the number of times a patient gets up at night to use the bathroom), facts about their physiological function (eg. lab values), and facts about their daily function ( eg. activities of daily living). Nevertheless, research has shown over the years that the perceptions of older adults about their health and well-being may be at least as important as facts,” he explained. …

Read the whole article at The High Calling.

• 2011 News Highlights: We didn’t cover all the top news of 2011 at UrbanFaith, but we did shine our own unique spotlight on much of it. Here are some highlights.
• Court Says No to Worship in Schools: New York City churches are facing eviction now that a legal battle over worship in public schools has ended and UrbanFaith talked to a pastor and a public school parent on opposing sides of the issue about the decision.
• UrbanFaith’s 2011 Hit List: Articles about single ladies, Zachery Tims, black hair, Steve Jobs, Detroit, Gadhafi, and the ‘Rainbow Right’ were among our most popular of 2011.

Dr. Dale C. Whilden succeeds Scott Rasmussen (who ended his six-year term in mid-October) as president of the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association. Whilden is a life-long Ocean Grove resident. He has served as an OGCMA Trustee since 1983 and has chaired both the Development and Program committees. Patch Faith & Family columnist Christine A. Scheller interviewed Whilden about his new role.  

Christine A. Scheller: How did you come to be involved with the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association (OGCMA)?

Dr. Dale C. Whilden: I came to Ocean Grove when I was three days old right from the hospital. My parents had purchased a home here back in the mid-1940s. In the early 50s when I was born, we lived here year round for a number of years. Dad was principal of the school here in town, then we had to move to Toms River based on a new job he had as county superintendent of schools. We kept our little summer house here, and so for my entire life I’ve been coming to Ocean Grove every summer. Growing up through the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting programs, the childrens’ programs, the youth programs, Bible studies, beach activities, and choral and dramatic events, all those things over the years has led me to a sense of how important OGCMA has been in my life and in our family’s life as well. That history has certainly been a factor in my wanting to be involved.

Then when I graduated from dental school and did a residency at Jersey Shore University Medical Center, I couldn’t imagine not opening my dental practice in Ocean Grove. All those years growing up, it was sort of my Shangri La. I’d go to school in Toms River and we’d be there all winter, and then come summer time, this was the place. This was the epitome of my dream escape and it’s worked out very, very well. I think it gives me a good sense of the community and the history of the community. …

Read the whole interview at Manasquan Patch.

In his 2002 book, Depression in Late Life, Laity Leadership Institute Senior Fellow Dan Blazer, M.D. retells a story from the life of Siddhārtha, who would come to be known as the Supreme Buddha. The young prince left his palace one day and came across a “tottering, wrinkled, white-haired, decrepit old man who was bent over, trembling, and mumbling something incomprensible while he tottered along, balanced by a stick he used for a cane.” Seeing this sight, Siddhārtha is said have told his chariot driver, “It’s the world’s pity, that weak and ignorant beings, drunk with the vanity of youth, do not behold old age. Let us hurry back to the palace. What is the use of pleasures in life, since I myself am the future dwelling-place of old age?”

The perception of old age as a depressing season of life, however, is not confirmed in scientific studies of the elderly, Blazer concluded. …

Read the whole article at The High Calling.

• Pentecostalism’s Neglected Black History: In her groundbreaking new book ‘Black Fire,’ theologian Estrelda Y. Alexander shines a light on the African American roots of Pentecostalism. Here, she speaks to UrbanFaith about the miracles and scandals of Black Pentecostal faith.
• MTV’s Mixed Messages About Females and Teen Sexuality: A new Parent’s Television Council report says MTV’s reality shows disparage females, so why do some feminists offer conditional support for these shows?

Laity Leadership Institute senior fellow Dan Blazer, M.D., PhD. describes himself as a “prototypical academic psychiatrist,” but the path to his specialty in geriatric psychiatry was anything but typical.

Blazer spent two years as a young medical missionary in Cameroun and Nigeria, where he ran a mobile clinic in remote villages. He was impressed by the good mental health of the elderly he encountered among the 150-200 patients he treated every day.

“If a person survived into late life relatively healthy, they did exceptionally well, so I was curious what it was about being in that society that permitted these older people to do as well as they did,” said Blazer.

When he arrived at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, to begin his psychiatric residency, he discovered that Duke houses a national center for the study of aging.

“I immediately got involved with the aging center and basically have been doing geriatric psychiatry ever since. But I think the stimulus was the work in Africa where I saw these very healthy people aging,” he said. …

Read the whole article at The High Calling.