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Faith and Health About Wholeness
A couple years ago, I worked with colleagues from the University of Cape Town to understand the link between faith and the health of the communities living on the bitter soil of Lesotho, which has some of the very highest incidence of HIV/AIDS on the planet.
We discovered that the language of the Sesotho people has no word for faith that does not already mean health; and no word for health that does not include faith.
Scientists are backing into the same sort of understanding as they speak about the rich interplay of interconnections at the levels of genes to biospheres. If English were not so awkward at describing such obvious reality, both theologians and public health workers would be less dumb about each other’s role in nurturing living communities.
In Memphis our hospital is trying hard to understand how we can align our scientific strengths with the enormous social strengths of hundreds of congregations to whom our patients belong. We treat several thousand people a day and are way better than average at what we do medically, but it would be foolish to ignore the other institutions that share the lives of our patients before and after they are our patients.
So we hire Navigators, people who are supposed to build relationships with hundreds of area congregations. Our motto is, “Buddhist, Baptist, Muslim or Methodist, if you are a patient, we want a relationship with your congregation.” Through these faith-based relationships with our patients, we see, for example, that treating a broken bone cannot be done with quality if we do not see the broken relationships that caused it and the broken community that predicted both.
Dr. Teresa Cutts of our Center of Excellence in Faith and Health says that violence done to our brothers and sisters on the economic margins can be a quick death (child abuse from a domestic partner, drive-by shootings) or a slow one (starvation, malnutrition with poverty-type obesity and almost guaranteed early onset of diabetes and heart disease).
Knowing the world is whole pulls us beyond our traditional hospital competence, but neatly into the middle of reality. That’s what good religion does. It pulls us into the world, not away from it.
We can patch up individuals, but it is impossible to heal less than a community.
Gary Gunderson is Senior Vice President for Health and Welfare and Director of the Center of Excellence in Faith and Health of Methodist LeBonheur Healthcare in Memphis, Tennesse.
By Gary Gunderson |
June 17, 2008; 9:00 AM ET
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Posted by: E Favorite | June 19, 2008 10:33 AM
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Dear Rev Dr Gunderson
Thank you for playing a significant part in wonderful Christian organization which is actively building interfaith relationships as part of its extended interest in the religious community from where patients come, with a view to help patients and the community more. I consider it another aspect of what medical doctors like Dr Manoj Jain (Guest Voice 13 June 2008)are doing, assessing the affects of prayer on health.
Religious beliefs and practices after all create and shape cultures and communities. The individual members are directly affected by what they believe and practice, not just as an individual but as communities. So it makes sense to know fully what those beliefs and practices are and how it affects the health of individuals and their communities.
Religions must be judged based on its capacity to be universal in its capacity to love and serve. As Christians called to love even our enemies, Christians will always be in the process of trying to live up to the perfection that is expected of us.
The value of interfaith work in a world prone to violence in the name of religion cannot be overemphasized.
Thank you once again for setting a great example for others to follow. Wishing you great success!
Soja John Thaikattil
Sydney, Australia
Posted by: Soja John Thaikattil, Sydney, Australia | June 17, 2008 10:09 PM
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Mr. Gunderson - this sounds great: "Through these faith-based relationships with our patients, we see, for example, that treating a broken bone cannot be done with quality if we do not see the broken relationships that caused it and the broken community that predicted both."
It also sounds like good community organizing - understanding and engaging the community in order to strengthen the individuals in it and the community itself. It is the best kind of social work.
As a humanist, I notice that nowhere in your essay do you mention the will of God or the power of prayer. For this, I am grateful. Not because of my own deity-free outlook on life, but because it indicates to me that your organization is trying to positively impact realities it knows it can influence – medical knowledge and communities - and is leaving metaphysical issues to religious institutions.
Thank you for the fine work you are doing.