The Loneliness Epidemic: Why So Many of Us Feel Alone—and How Leaders Can Respond
Book by Susan Mettes: Brazos, pp. 224
Reviewed by Clint Wilson
The Loneliness Epidemic is essential reading for clergy and laity alike, as it explains the nature of epidemics and how loneliness has reached such proportions. The work of Susan Mettes has been preceded by a few decades of reflections on loneliness.
Bowline Alone by Harvard professor Robert Putnam is a fascinating account of how Americans have walked away from organizations and other forms of community since the 1950’s. Drawings evidence from nearly a half-million interviews across 25 years, Putnam’s research shows that Americans are increasingly disconnected from each other.
Bowling Alone spawned a cottage industry of other works: Charles Murray’s Coming Apart, J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy, Ben Sasse’s Them, and Tim Carney’s Alienated America. They all posit that our individualism makes us less happy, less giving, less productive, less connected, less human.
Matters have only grown worse. What We Do Together (2017), a report by the Congressional Joint Economic Committee, tracks the fallout of what Putnam identifies as American family life. This includes reduced marriage rates and fertility, lower involvement in religious activities, declining community activity, and reduced work.
This has led to an uptick in suicide rates of all ages, but especially among men ages 25-55. We have mental health crisis fueled, in part, by rampant loneliness. Did you know that, in 2018, English Prime Minster Boris Johnson appointed a Minister of Loneliness, and the U.S. Surgeon General has declared loneliness an epidemic?
Mettes provides a polyphonic perspective on the topic, tracing how loneliness affects us across different ages, in romance, through insecurity, on social media, in faith and churchgoing, and in our private lives. The final section of her book provides practical strategies for how to protect against loneliness.
Her writing is loaded with research and vignettes drawn from practical experiences and relationships, which make it very accessible. Because she is an academic, her content is not primarily anecdotal. The church has much to learn from her, and we need to engage the concept of loneliness with great intentionality. The appendix on “What the Bible Says about Loneliness” is worth the price of the book, and provides many helpful reflections for Christian preaching and teaching.
Following as it does from worship, community is our lifeblood. But the challenge of our hyper-individualist age has pushed us toward increased atomization and isolation, requiring us to engage loneliness with fresh tools. Mettes provides us with a real gift, born of academic credibility.
I recently spent a week in New York City for continuing education. It is a trope of urbanity that one can be in a city of millions and still feel incredibly alone. One of the parishes I visited was St. James’ Episcopal Church on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. I was without my family, which on one level was restful, but on a deeper level was isolating and lonely.
I prayed in this beautiful church where only a few weeks later Al Roker’s son, Nick, would speak directly to the role this community played in his life. “Today, I am 19 years old and about to graduate high school,” he said. “I have a learning disability, and I have worked extra hard to get to this point… I feel empowered here and welcome. I am accepted here for who I am.”
Churches need more stories like this. From parish coffee hour to Bible studies and small groups, to soup kitchens and food banks, Christians create communities of belonging. And apart from our highest call of drawing persons into worship and relationship with the triune God, one of the greatest gifts we can give is deep, textured community, the antidote to loneliness.
We are called to form environments in which persons can be known and seen for who they are, without being rejected. This is what God has done for each of us, for we serve the one to whom “all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid.”
The Rev. Clint Wilson is rector of St. Francis in the Fields, Harrods Creek, Kentucky.
First printed in The Living Church
