Ashamed for Being Ashamed: Maintaining Mental Health under Online Hate and Offline Rejection
By Talant Aktanzhanov, scholar of World Religions based in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
Earlier this year, I presented a paper at the World Christianity Conference 2025 at Princeton Theological Seminary. My topic was unrelated to mental health, but after the session, I was invited to contribute an essay on that very subject. At first, I hesitated. Mental health is not something we often talk about in my context, at least not openly. I live and minister in Kazakhstan, a country where Islam is closely tied to ethnic identity and where Christianity is often perceived as foreign or even suspect. As a Kazakh Christian, following Jesus comes with both visible and invisible costs. This essay is a reflection on one of those hidden costs: the mental and emotional weight we carry when faith isolates us from our communities, and shame silences us even among fellow believers.
“Do not be ashamed of the gospel.” One of the biblical exhortations is easier said and agreed upon than put into practice. The statement of Rom. 1:16 has echoed throughout the centuries, fueling the endurance of the persecuted Christian believers around the world. Persecution is not some relic of the past. It is still around and widely practiced even today.
For instance, for believers in Central Asia and those of us with roots in these lands, obedience to this instruction often comes at a steep emotional cost. I know this personally. As a Kazakh follower of Christ, I have been vilified online and quietly shunned offline, treated as a traitor to my ethnicity and culture, accused of abandoning the faith of my ancestors, and excluded from the very communities that once nurtured me.
These experiences are not uncommon for Central Asian Christians, especially converts from Islam. In countries like Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan, expressing one’s Christian identity can provoke suspicion or even hostility, more often from one’s neighbors, coworkers, and extended family than from government structures. It is a quiet persecution that never makes international headlines but erodes mental health all the same.
Among our communities, silence often becomes the only refuge. We hide our faith not only to avoid legal trouble or social alienation, but because we do not want to bring shame to our families. However, an oppositional internal pressure intensifies when we compare ourselves to more outspoken believers, especially those in the West. We feel the weight of their expectations and spiritual confidence. Why can't we be more like them? Why are we afraid? Why are we ashamed?
The shame, however, does not end with fear of the world’s rejection. A second, more subtle disgrace emerges: the shame before other Christians.
We are ashamed of being ashamed. Ashamed that we cannot speak up. Ashamed that we cannot rejoice in persecution, as Jesus told us to. In many Asian and Central Asian Christian communities, there is no space to confess this secondary shame.
I remember the days I volunteered with a Western missions agency in Almaty. As part of their outreach strategy, every worker was required to evangelize on the streets and university campuses twice a week. For those who spoke Russian, this was rarely an issue because Russian-speaking Christians are generally seen as culturally acceptable, even expected. Christianity preached in Russian tends to blend into the religious landscape without raising eyebrows. But for me, it was different. I had to speak in my mother tongue, Kazakh. And that changed everything. Preaching in Kazakh marked me not just as a believer, but as a traitor. Kazakhs are expected to be Muslim. To proclaim Christ in Kazakh was to disrupt a deeply held ethnic-religious compound identity. To share the Gospel in my language was not just evangelism; it felt like defiance. Every time I opened my mouth, I felt I was risking not just rejection, but cultural exile.
We are left to navigate it alone—bearing the external rejection of our cultural communities and the internal disappointment of not measuring up to spiritual ideals.
I want to name this experience for what it is: a spiritual and emotional double bind. It is a crucible where mental health, cultural identity, and discipleship intersect. And for many of us, it threatens to crush the soul.
Mental Health in the Shadows
Online hate has only deepened the ache. The anonymity of digital platforms emboldens aggressors and sharpens humiliation. Whenever I share a sermon or a personal story, especially in Kazakh, waves of cruelty follow. The insults come fast, raw, and unchecked. Some question my intellect. Others dismiss me as uneducated, a “dumbass,” “stupid,” irrelevant. The attacks are not subtle. They’re cutting, direct, and relentless. Even when I try not to care, it hurts. I start wondering: is the message worth the misunderstanding? The ridicule? The weight of being misjudged?
Offline, the rejection takes a quieter form, but it cuts just as deep. In high school and university, forming close relationships was difficult. There was always a part of me I had to keep hidden because of my faith in Christ. I couldn’t be fully known. I couldn’t speak freely. Even the best friendships hovered on the surface. I learned to smile, to interact just enough, while guarding the core of who I was. That kind of living—half-truths stretched across years—shapes the soul. It builds invisible walls. And the longer they stand, the harder they fall.
The church is supposed to be a refuge. But here, too, we often stumble. In some gatherings, mental health is misunderstood. Struggles with depression or anxiety get labeled as spiritual weakness. “Pray harder.” “Trust more.” “Rejoice in your suffering.” These words carry truth, but when spoken without tenderness, they sting. They silence. They isolate. There’s little space to speak honestly about the emotional cost of discipleship in hostile places.
Bearing Witness from the Margins
And yet, Christ has not abandoned us in this wilderness. Even here, He walks beside us.
In recent years, I’ve come to see mental health not as private brokenness but as sacred ground where faith is stretched, questioned, and slowly refined. In the ache of rejection and the fog of self-doubt, I am learning the language of lament, the rhythm of resilience, and the slowness of healing. The Psalms have become more than poetry; they've become my prayers.
I’ve also realized the importance of naming our pain out loud, without shame. Not to glamorize suffering, but to acknowledge the psychological toll of obedience in harsh environments. Especially for Asian Christians, who live under the heavy code of honor and silence, we need new ways of speaking words that don’t hide wounds but dignify them. Sometimes, courage is quiet. It looks like getting through the day. Like praying in whispers while surrounded by mockery. Like surviving.
In my teaching and preaching, I now share stories of not only bold defiance but also quiet endurance. Both matter. Both belong. Both are testimonies of grace.
Imagining Otherwise
I write this not only for Central Asians but also for those across the Asian North American diaspora who carry similar burdens, for those suspended between worlds, shaped by cultural tension, parental pressure, racial pain, and hidden shame. The context shifts, but the pain is familiar.
So what would it mean to imagine otherwise?
I imagine communities where the gospel is preached with boldness and where emotional honesty is met with love. I imagine churches that talk freely about trauma, anxiety, and depression, not as signs of spiritual weakness or symptoms of a lack of faith and trust. I imagine conversations about mental health that are understood as realities Christ accepts. I imagine mentors who measure strength not by noise but by perseverance. I imagine a kind of faith that embraces the messy beauty of following Jesus in our actual bodies, with our particular pasts, in the cultures we cannot escape.
Until then, we walk with a limp, like Jacob after wrestling the divine. We carry wounds that haven’t yet healed. But we walk on.
And we are never alone.
Dr. Talant Aktanzhanov is a theologian, missiologist, and scholar of World Religions based in Almaty, Kazakhstan. His research focuses on the history of Christianity in Central Asia, Christian-Muslim relations, and indigenous theological identity. He teaches theology and apologetics at Grace School of Theology and the Almaty Bible Institute. A frequent speaker at international conferences, he is actively involved in literature development, pastoral training, and cross-cultural missions across Central Asia.
Never felt ashamed of Christ sharing gospel in Central Asia and Kazakhstan, brother Talant!
I could be rejected, but we don't need to be ashamed or afraid of it, even the Lord was rejected, it is an honor to be persecuted or suffer for the name of Jesus Christ.