The Christian Clinician

What if the reason sharing your faith feels so hard isn't a character flaw — it's actually completely understandable, and there's a name for it? For many Christians, evangelism doesn't feel joyful or natural. It feels intimidating, shame-loaded, confrontational, or even manipulative. Maybe you were taught that evangelism meant knocking on doors, handing out tracts, arguing someone...

Why does the church feel so tired? Many Christians know they need rest, but even after a day off, a vacation, or a slower weekend, the deeper restlessness often remains. In this episode of  The Christian Clinician , Dr. Tanya Paynter talks with Dr. Amy Erickson and Dr. Gregory Wagenfuhr about their book  Sabbath Gospel  and a renewed vision of Sabbath, work, rest, and the mission of the church. Th...

What if anxiety, poor sleep, and mood shifts are your body's way of telling you something about your relationship with God? In this episode of  The Christian Clinician , Dr. Tanya Paynter closes the Sabbath series with a deeply personal application episode — sharing her own story of taking a priority assessment that revealed her actual life looked nothing like the priorities she believed she h...

Sabbath often gets reduced to "a day off." But what if Sabbath isn't just stopping work — what if it's a whole way of life that exposes anxiety, reshapes identity, and restores the nervous system over time? In this episode of  The Christian Clinician , Dr. Tanya Paynter sits down with Dr. Natasha Tubbs to explore how practicing Sabbath as a way of life helped resolve debilitating a...

Sabbath is one of the most misunderstood practices in the Christian life — and one of the most healing ones, physically and spiritually. In this teaching episode, Dr. Tanya Paynter walks through the biblical foundation of Sabbath from creation through the Ten Commandments, then shows how Sabbath ultimately points to Jesus — our true rest — under the New Covenant. This is not a legalistic rule to f...

Do you feel guilty for enjoying your hobbies? Like reading, baking, or camping somehow pulls you away from God instead of toward him? In this episode, Dr. Tanya Paynter sits down with Brianna Lambert — author of Created to Play: How Taking Hobbies Seriously Grows Us Spiritually — to talk about why Christians so often compartmentalize their faith from the things they love, and why that divide was n...

When most Christians hear the word  worship , they think singing. And while singing is a biblical expression of worship, worship is far bigger than a Sunday morning moment. In this episode of  The Christian Clinician , Dr. Tanya Paynter closes the worship series by reframing worship as the Godward orientation of your entire life — your body, your choices, your attention, your obedience, your resou...

Worship is not only singing. It’s a whole-life response to God—and Scripture shows that worship can be practiced in many forms that shape both spiritual life and stress physiology. In this episode of The Christian Clinician, Dr. Tanya Paynter continues the teaching on worship and the body by focusing on two worship categories that often get overlooked: corporate worship and fellowship, and meditat...

What if worship was one of the most healing things you could do for your body? Most of us grew up thinking worship meant the singing portion of a Sunday service. But the Bible's picture of worship is far bigger than music—and the science of healing maps almost perfectly onto that wider picture. In this episode of The Christian Clinician, Dr. Tanya Paynter walks through the major categories of...

In hard seasons, many Christians don’t stop believing in God—but they do start doubting whether His Word applies to their real life. When fear is loud, when your child is sick, when you’re exhausted, it’s easy to feel like prayer becomes a desperate scramble for the right words. In this episode of The Christian Clinician, Dr. Tanya Paynter interviews Stephanie Esposito, author of The Covering: Spi...

Many apologetics resources focus on making a positive case for Christianity—but real conversations often start with an accusation. Christians are hypocrites. Christianity is anti-LGBTQ. The Bible supports slavery. The church is abusive. God is cruel. In this episode of The Christian Clinician, Dr. Tanya Paynter interviews Dr. Andrew “Ike” Shepardson and Dr. Melissa Cain Travis about their book The...

Welcome to a mid-season recap of The Christian Clinician. In this mid-season recap of The Christian Clinician, Dr. Tanya Paynter steps back to look at the bigger picture of Season 3 and why this season has been centered on biblical practices and physiology—how prayer, gratitude, and forgiveness shape the nervous system, retrain the brain, and help deactivate chronic fight-or-flight responses. So f...

Many Christians know what “wilderness” feels like, even if we never use that word. Seasons where God feels absent and where we find ourselves near the end of our strength. In this episode of The Christian Clinician, Dr. Tanya Paynter sits down with Dr. Noel Forlini Burt to discuss her upcoming book, God in the Desert: How God Uses Painful Seasons to Heal Us Spiritually and Emotionally. Together, t...

Forgiveness is not about pretending an offense didn’t matter or even about reconciliation. Instead, it is a releasing of anger and the need for vengeance. This will be a repeated practice, something we often have to choose again and again as memories resurface and emotions return. In this episode of The Christian Clinician, Dr. Tanya Paynter shares practical ways to begin practicing forgiveness, c...

Can forgiveness really change your health? What if it meant going from multiple medications to none? In this episode of The Christian Clinician, Dr. Tanya Paynter sits down with Kathy Afzali to share her forgiveness testimony. Kathy describes years of unresolved pain, chronic stress, and a season of physical sickness that left her barely functioning. She knew unforgiveness was part of what was mak...

Forgiveness is one of the hardest commands Jesus gives. Many of us believe we’ve forgiven someone… until their name comes up, the memory resurfaces, and suddenly the anger, tension, or anxiety returns as if the event just happened yesterday. Why does that happen? In this episode of The Christian Clinician , Dr. Tanya Paynter explores what unforgiveness actually does to the body. Drawing on neurosc...

Episode Description Many Christians love the New Testament but struggle with the Old Testament. In this book review episode of  The Christian Clinician , Dr. Tanya Paynter sits down with Old Testament scholar Dr. Ian Vaillancourt to discuss his new book,  Unfolding Redemption: The Heart of the Gospel in the Story of the Old Testament History. For many Christians, the Old Testament can feel distant...

Gratitude can calm anxiety — but it needs to be rooted in trust, not used as a means to control. In this episode of The Christian Clinician, Dr. Tanya Paynter explores how to practice gratitude in a way that actually reshapes your nervous system and deepens your relationship with God. This is not manifestation thinking or pretending life is easy. And it’s not using thankfulness as a tool to avoid...

Perimenopause can feel like a loss of identity—physically, emotionally, and spiritually. But what if this season isn't about losing who you are but about who you are becoming? Inviting Christ into this transition can bring an unlooked for level of peace and healing. In this episode of  The Christian Clinician , Dr. Tanya Paynter speaks with nutritionist and health coach Lindsay Spivey about he...

Gratitude is often treated as a mindset or an attitude we’re supposed to have as Christians. But in Scripture, gratitude is more than positive thinking—it’s a biblical practice that shapes how we relate to God, ourselves, and the world around us. In this episode of The Christian Clinician, Dr. Tanya Paynter begins a new focus on gratitude by exploring what the Bible actually teaches about thankful...

Before we turn our attention to the biblical practice of gratitude, we pause to widen the lens through which we consider faith, Scripture, and the story God is telling. In this episode of  The Christian Clinician , Dr. Tanya Paynter is joined by Old Testament scholar Dr. Ingrid Faro to discuss her newest book  Redeeming Eden: How Women in Scripture Advance the Story of Salvation . This conversatio...

Episode Description Prayer can become dry and effortful, something we do because we’re supposed to rather than something we want to. This is especially true during seasons of frustration, stress, or spiritual fatigue. In this episode of  The Christian Clinician , Dr. Tanya Paynter explores how to reframe prayer as a lived, relational interaction with God rather than a spiritual obligation. Buildin...

Episode Summary What happens when prayer doesn’t just change how you feel—but changes what’s happening inside your body? In this episode of  The Christian Clinician , Dr. Tanya Paynter sits down with Old Testament scholar and author Dr. Ingrid Faro to hear her powerful testimony of physical healing during a season of deep trauma, exhaustion, and unresolved anger toward God. After years of caregivi...

Does prayer work?  Many Christians pray faithfully and still wonder why prayer feels silent, unanswered, or ineffective. In this episode of  The Christian Clinician , Dr. Tanya Paynter examines Christian prayer, health, stress, and the nervous system  through a biblical and clinical lens. Drawing from Scripture, evidence-based medicine, and current research on  prayer and health , Dr. Paynter expl...

Season Three of The Christian Clinician  is for the Christian woman who is exhausted—physically, emotionally, and spiritually—and wants to bring God into the healing process in a real and meaningful way. If you’ve tried prescriptions, supplements, diets, protocols, lifestyle changes, or stress-management plans and still feel like something is missing, this season explores the healing that happens...