Dr. Skylar Ray

Bio

Skylar Ray is a historian specializing in the religious and cultural history of the United States, with an outside field in Latin American Christianity. Ray earned her MA (‘17) and PhD (‘23) in the Baylor University Department of History, where she served as a Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow during the 2023-2024 academic year. In the Fall of 2024, Ray will begin a new position as Assistant Professor of History at John Brown University in Siloam Springs, Arkansas.  

Dissertation

Healing Minds, Saving Souls: Evangelicals and Mental Health in the Age of the Therapeutic

Abstract

This dissertation examines the evangelical relationship to modern psychology and its therapeutic function in treating issues of mental health from the late nineteenth century to the early twenty-first. For centuries before the advent of modern psychology, many Christians considered care for the soul—long thought to encompass the mind and emotions—to be among the most vital responsibilities of the church. As the psychologist replaced the pastor as the authority on the mind and emotions in American society, conservative white Protestants in the twentieth century grappled with the epistemological, ontological, and pastoral challenges that this new science and its practitioners posed to the older tradition of “soul care.”  While some evangelicals proved successful in reconciling modern psychology and American evangelicalism, their efforts also prompted backlash among other evangelicals who claimed that the Bible alone was sufficient to guide Christians through even the most serious of mental maladies. While evangelical relationships with modern psychology differed, all reflected the interplay of scriptural and cultural authority, pastoral care, and beliefs about the relationship between the mind, body, and spirit. 

What Faculty Say

Dr. Ray’s dissertation, “Healing Minds, Saving Souls: Evangelicals and Mental Health in the Age of the Therapeutic,” is original, significant, interdisciplinary, and—perhaps rare for dissertations—widely useful. Ray’s dissertation is the first book-length analysis of the relationship between American evangelicals and the field of modern psychology. This study is so important because, as Ray notes, “a quarter of Americans identify as evangelical and one in four American adults struggles with mental health conditions.” Ray’s discussion of the nuances of evangelical engagement with modern psychology—from rejection to selective use to wholehearted embrace—provides essential context for both professional counselors and lay believers seeking to alleviate the mental illness experienced by so many American Christians, as by so many Americans in general.