A Christian mental health empire in Grand Rapids, Mich. promotes an LGBT+ agenda medically, socially, and politically. Pine Rest Christian Mental Health Services claims to operate “from a Christian world-view,” despite its historical ties to a Christian denomination that still holds to biblical teachings on marriage and gender. Pine Rest says its mission is “to express the healing ministry of Jesus Christ,” but it clarifies that its version of the Christian worldview is “sensitive, inclusive, and without apology.”
Magnitude of Pine Rest
By any measure, Pine Rest ranks among the nation’s largest mental health groups. It claims to be “the second largest non-profit behavioral health provider in the U.S.,” according to its website. Its 2024 Annual Report (the most recent posted on its website) recorded annual operating revenue and expenses above $210 million, while it treated nearly 54,000 patients, including more than 7,000 children.
Separately, Philanthropy.org ranks Pine Rest Christian Mental Health Services as the nation’s 13th-largest “mental-health nonprofit” by revenue and expenses reported on 990 forms — a slightly larger category with slightly updated data.
This sizable budget translates into a sizable footprint in Western Michigan. Google Maps shows Pine Rest hospital locations in both Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo, as well as six geographically separate clinics in Grand Rapids and one each in Kalamazoo and Grand Haven. In March 2026, Pine Rest opened a 136,000-square-foot Pediatric Center of Behavioral Health, which cost $98 million and includes 66 inpatient beds.
Christian History of Pine Rest
Pine Rest dates back to 1910, when it was formed by pastors and laity of the Reformed Church in America and the Christian Reformed Church in America. While not officially affiliated with any denomination, the institution claims to “still reflect our faith-based heritage in all we do by providing professional behavioral health services that are rooted in Christian teaching and values.”
Pine Rest retains residual connections to the Reformed denominations through its donor base. For example, the David and Carol Van Andel Family Foundation donated $8 million towards the construction of a Pediatric Center of Behavioral Health. The Van Andel family made its fortune from Amway and has been involved with the Christian Reformed Church for generations.
In 2020, the Christian Reformed Church issued a Human Sexuality Report that grounded its framework for interpreting human sexuality in Jesus’s teaching in Matthew 19, which appealed to creation, the fall, and redemption in Christ. The report concluded that “biblical teaching concerning human sexuality … restricts sexual intercourse to the context of a marriage between husband and wife.” It further concluded that, while “some people experience a disconnect between their gender identity and their sex … there is no redemption in embracing this disconnect as a sign of God’s good intent.”
‘LGBTQ+ Affirming’ Health Care
Despite its background in this Christian tradition, Pine Rest Christian Mental Health Services has adopted and advocated for a health care model that unquestioningly promotes LGBT lifestyles.
Using the “Find a Clinician” function on the Pine Rest website, The Washington Stand counted 25 providers listed under the treatment category “LGBTQ+ Affirming Care” (archived here). When TWS further specified “LGBTQ+ Affirming Care” as the treatment category and the patient’s age as “Child,” TWS counted seven providers in the Pine Rest system (archived here).
“Gender-affirming care” refers to a clinical strategy that never questions a person’s expressed internal feelings about their gender in counseling or treatment options. It usually involves providing the patient with cross-sex hormones and ultimately surgeries in a quest to validate their transgender feelings.
In many cases, the rush to affirmation has caused health care providers to overlook other serious mental health factors, which were therefore left untreated. The alternative to “gender-affirming care” is “watchful waiting,” which postpones any drastic physical interventions like drugs or surgery to see whether a person’s expressed feelings persist unchanged.
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Non-Discrimination Policy
Pine Rest has adopted an official policy to insulate staff who may identify as LGBT from criticism on religious grounds or otherwise. It has an “internal grievance procedure” to swiftly resolve “complaints alleging any action prohibited by Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act.” The Pine Rest discrimination notice explains, “Any person who believes s/he has been subjected to discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, gender identity, age or disability may file a grievance.”
However, the application of Section 1557 to gender identity has varied by administration. In 2016, the Obama administration Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) interpreted Section 1557 to apply to gender identity by expanding the definition of “discrimination on the basis of sex” to include gender identity and sexual orientation. In 2020, the Trump administration HHS reversed this policy with a rule applying sex-based discrimination only to discrimination on the basis of sex, not gender identity or sexual orientation.
In 2024, the Biden administration HHS reversed the policy again, reverting to the 2016 language that defined “discrimination on the basis of sex” to include gender identity and sexual orientation. On July 3, 2024, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi stayed (Tennessee v. Becerra) the effective date of the 2024 rule nationwide “in so far as this final rule is intended to extend discrimination on the basis of sex to include discrimination on the basis of gender identity.”
Thus, the Pine Rest non-discrimination policy, in prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender identity, appears to comply with the Biden-era regulations implementing Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, which are currently not in effect. For Pine Rest to maintain its prohibition of discrimination on the basis of gender identity, even when not required by federal regulations, means the policy is a deliberate choice by the organization.
