Spiritual Healing, Sick Kids and the Law: Inequities in the American Healthcare System

2003 ◽  
Vol 29 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 269-299
Author(s):  
Janna C. Merrick
Keyword(s):  
Medical Science ◽  
Spiritual Healing ◽  
Best Interests ◽  
Legal Rights ◽  
High Tech ◽  
Divine Love ◽  
Religious Minority ◽  
Human Need ◽  
East End ◽  
The Church

Main Street in Sarasota, Florida. A high-tech medical arts building rises from the east end, the county's historic three-story courthouse is two blocks to the west and sandwiched in between is the First Church of Christ, Scientist. A verse inscribed on the wall behind the pulpit of the church reads: “Divine Love Always Has Met and Always Will Meet Every Human Need.” This is the church where William and Christine Hermanson worshipped. It is just a few steps away from the courthouse where they were convicted of child abuse and third-degree murder for failing to provide conventional medical care for their seven-year-old daughter.This Article is about the intersection of “divine love” and “the best interests of the child.” It is about a pluralistic society where the dominant culture reveres medical science, but where a religious minority shuns and perhaps fears that same medical science. It is also about the struggle among different religious interests to define the legal rights of the citizenry.

St Symeon the New Theologian (969-1022): Byzantine spiritual renewal in search of a precedent

1997 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 75-90
Author(s):  
John Anthony McGuckin
Keyword(s):  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Spiritual Renewal ◽  
Divine Love ◽  
The West ◽  
Conference Theme ◽  
Autobiographical Accounts ◽  
The Stability ◽  
The Church

St Symeon the New Theologian is, without question, one of the most original and intriguing writers of medieval Byzantium. Indeed, although still largely unknown in the West, he is surely one of the greatest of all Christian mystical writers; not only for the remarkable autobiographical accounts he gives of several visions of the divine light, but also for the passionate quality of his exquisite Hymns of Divine Love, the remarkable intensity of his pneumatological doctrine, and the corresponding fire he brings to his preaching of reform in the internal and external life of the Church. He was a highly controversial figure in his own day. His disciples venerated him as a saint who had returned to the roots of the Christian tradition and personified its repristinization. His opponents, who secured his deposition and exile, regarded him as a dangerously unbalanced incompetent who, by overstressing the value of personal religious fervour, had endangered the stability of that tradition. The Vita which we possess was composed in 1054, in an attempt to rehabilitate Symeon’s memory and prepare for the return of his relics to the capital from which he had been expelled when alive. This paper will investigate how he himself understood and appropriated aspects of the earlier tradition (particularly monastic spirituality), hoping to elucidate why he felt himself inspired to reformist zeal, and why many of his contemporaries (not simply his ‘worldly opponents’ as his hagiographer would have us believe) regarded him as unbalanced. It will end by attempting some reflection on what the controversy reveals on the larger front about how the Church ‘selectively looks back on itself, so to paraphrase our president’s description of the conference theme, and whether the model of tradition and its reception exemplified in this Byzantine writer can offer anything to the dialogue between history and theology which the doctrine of Tradition (Paradosis) inevitably initiates.

scholarly journals Archaeological excavations in St Giles' Cathedral Edinburgh, 1981-93

2006 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Collard ◽  
John Lawson ◽  
Nicholas Holmes ◽  
Derek Hall ◽  
George Haggarty ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Early Church ◽  
Limited Evidence ◽  
The South ◽  
14Th Century ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
12Th Century ◽  
East End ◽  
Formed Part ◽  
The Church

The report describes the results of excavations in 1981, ahead of development within the South Choir Aisle of St Giles' Cathedral, and subsequent archaeological investigations within the kirk in the 1980s and 1990s. Three main phases of activity from the 12th to the mid-16th centuries were identified, with only limited evidence for the post-Reformation period. Fragmentary evidence of earlier structural remains was recorded below extensive landscaping of the natural steep slope, in the form of a substantial clay platform constructed for the 12th-century church. The remains of a substantial ditch in the upper surface of this platform are identified as the boundary ditch of the early ecclesiastical enclosure. A total of 113 in situ burials were excavated; the earliest of these formed part of the external graveyard around the early church. In the late 14th century the church was extended to the south and east over this graveyard, and further burials and structural evidence relating to the development of the kirk until the 16th century were excavated, including evidence for substantive reconstruction of the east end of the church in the mid-15th century. Evidence for medieval slat-bottomed coffins of pine and spruce was recovered, and two iron objects, which may be ferrules from pilgrims' staffs or batons, were found in 13th/14th-century burials.

scholarly journals Compassion, ethics of care and legal rights

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 158-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Herring
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Intimate Relationships ◽  
Ethics Of Care ◽  
The Self ◽  
Best Interests ◽  
Legal Rights ◽  
Caring Relationships ◽  
Legal Requirement ◽  
Relational Analysis ◽  
Appropriate Care

AbstractThis paper will explore the difficulties facing law in promoting compassion and responding to caring relationships. These include the difficulties in determining whether a person has demonstrated compassion and in enforcing any legal requirement for compassion. The paper will use the ethics-of-care literature to critique two key legal tools: human rights and the concept of best interests. These concepts are typically designed to promote individualistic abstract understandings of the self, which are problematic when used in the setting of intimate relationships. However, this paper will suggest that it might not be necessary to abandon the concepts of rights and best interests. They may be useful for setting the boundaries for a space in which appropriate care and compassion can be exercised. It will also be suggested that both rights and best interests are not immune from a relational analysis and might, with appropriate modification, be used to promote the exercise of compassionate relational care.

Healthcare

2021 ◽  
pp. 124-152
Author(s):  
Nicholas Freudenberg
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Private Equity ◽  
High Tech ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Medical Progress ◽  
Modern Capitalism ◽  
Prevention And Treatment ◽  
Human Need ◽  
Intensity Radiation

No disease strikes more fear than cancer and none is more resistant to medical progress. This chapter illuminates the weaknesses of a health care system driven by profit rather than human need in addressing cancer. It explains how modern capitalism has undermined progress in cancer prevention and treatment. Reducing tobacco smoking has succeeded in reducing cancer, but pharmaceutical and other industries have not emphasized this approach because it is not profitable. Instead, they develop precision medicines, high intensity radiation, and private equity-financed high-tech oncology centers. While these have helped some patients, they have made cancer care exorbitantly expensive, out of reach of many Americans, and bankrupted those who can afford them. In response, cancer patients and their families, oncologists and other providers, and public officials are demanding a new approach to cancer, one that puts less emphasis on profitable drugs and devices and more on integrated prevention, early intervention, and affordable treatment approaches.

scholarly journals VIII. Account of the Discovery of the Episcopal Rings of John Stanbery and Richard Mayo, Bishops of Hereford, during the progress of recent works of restoration at Hereford Cathedral. By the Very Rev. John Merewether, D.D., F.S.A., F.R.S., Dean of Hereford

Archaeologia ◽  
1846 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 249-253
Author(s):  
John Merewether
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Account ◽  
Future Time ◽  
The West ◽  
The Earth ◽  
East End ◽  
The Church ◽  
Ancient Remains

Amongst the important operations which the precarious state of many parts of Hereford Cathedral required, the strengthening of the foundations of the range of Norman piers running throughout the church, from the east end of the choir to the west of the nave, was found to be absolutely necessary, not only in those parts immediately circumjacent to the main piers of the central tower, but in several other portions. This has been achieved by the excavation of the earth to the depth of nine or ten feet, and the filling up of the cavities so laid open with concrete. In the course of this process many very curious and interesting discoveries have been made, both in the architectural department and in the disclosure of ancient remains, which at some future time may not be unworthy of a more detailed account. On the present occasion I propose to confine my remarks to two objects which claim particular notice—namely, two Episcopal Rings, which were discovered in the following manner:

“All Will Be Well”: Julian of Norwich's Counter-Apocalyptic Revelations

Horizons ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-210
Author(s):  
Christopher Denny
Keyword(s):  
Julian Of Norwich ◽  
Process Theology ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Divine Love ◽  
Divine Power ◽  
Divine Omnipotence ◽  
Catherine Keller ◽  
The Church

To resolve the impasse between various competing apocalypticisms, I suggest the writings of Julian of Norwich exemplify an eschatology that incorporates features of what Catherine Keller calls counter-apocalyptic while avoiding the risks of deconstructionist theology. Julian faced an impasse as she struggled to reconcile the traditional apocalyptic claim of the church that some human beings were damned with her own revelatory experience that “all would be well.” According to the long text of the Revelation of Divine Love, in facing this crisis Julian did not abandon the belief in divine omnipotence. Like Keller's position, Julian's apophatic counter-apocalyptices chews understandings of Christiane eschatology as the simple disclosure of divine power and justice. Instead, Julian's counter-apocalyptic is founded upon the vulnerability of Christ's body. Julian's vision of Christ's kenotic love transcends the impasse between eschatological determinism and Keller's process theology, and his love establishes a stronger foundation for a truly liberating eschatology.

Church and Bioethics in Greece

2011 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 415-427
Author(s):  
Metropolitan Nikolaos
Keyword(s):  
Medical Science ◽  
The State ◽  
Public Dialogue ◽  
Spiritual Perspective ◽  
The Face ◽  
Bioethical Issues ◽  
The Church ◽  
Of Greece ◽  
Secular State

The Bioethics Committee of the Church of Greece, headed by Metropolitan Nikolaos of Mesogaia and Lavreotiki, was founded a few years ago, bringing together clergy, medical and legal experts. In his address, Metropolitan Nikolaos explains the concerns and the conditions that led to its foundation and he outlines some of the activities and the principles of the Committee. This address, a somewhat broad-brush presentation of the state of bioethics in Greece, is offered as a proposal as to how the Church can work within a secular state, and how it can attempt to raise awareness about the spiritual aspect of bioethical concerns. Overall, the Bioethics Committee tries to promote public dialogue about sensitive bioethical issues, and to make sure that the spiritual perspective is duly informed by medical science. In addition, the Committee tries to make sure that the spiritual perspective is considered by the state in the face of existing or emerging law that touches on bioethical concerns.

‘Up Above the River Jordan’: Hymns and Historical Consciousness in the Cherubim and Seraphim Churches of Nigeria

2013 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vicki L. Brennan
Keyword(s):  
Spiritual Healing ◽  
Historical Consciousness ◽  
Church Members ◽  
Musical Practice ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Worship Practices ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

Bringing together historical and ethnographic materials, this article analyses how members of the Cherubim and Seraphim churches of Nigeria engage with and remember the history of the church through singing hymns, which thus serves as a mode of historical consciousness. In their performance of hymns church members articulate a conception of the relationship between musical practice and spiritual healing in Cherubim and Seraphim worship that draws on a particular conception of the past in order to legitimate certain worship practices. In doing so church members are able to attract God's power and to localise it in a particular space. Because of this hymns continue to be an important spiritual healing practice for church members.

From Tent Meetings and Store-front Healing Rooms to Walmarts and the Internet: Healing Spaces in the United States, the Americas, and the World, 1906–2006

2006 ◽  
Vol 75 (3) ◽  
pp. 631-647 ◽  
Author(s):  
Candy Gunther Brown
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Medical Science ◽  
Spiritual Healing ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Boundaries ◽  
Attractive Alternative ◽  
Past Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
Christian Churches ◽  
The World

The centennial of the Azusa Street revivals of 1906 provides us with convenient poles for charting shifts in the landscape of Christian spiritual healing practices during the past century. Alongside unprecedented achievements in medical science, nearly 80 percent of Americans report believing that God supernaturally heals people in answer to prayer. Individuals who need healing, even after trying the best medical cures, readily transgress ecclesiastical, physical, and social boundaries in their quest for health and wholeness. The promise of a tangible experience of divine power, moreover, presents an attractive alternative to seekers disillusioned with what they perceive as the callous materialism of medical science and the religious legalism of traditional Christian churches. This essay calls for new narratives of sacred space that map the ways that pentecostal and charismatic healing practices have proliferated, diversified, and sacralized a growing number and variety of physical, social, and linguistic spaces in the past hundred years. At the turn of the twentieth century, modernist epistemological assumptions that privileged reason over experience encouraged fine intellectual distinctions between the sacred and the secular. In esteeming bodily experience as more trustworthy than disembodied doctrine and in resisting linguistic binaries as culturally constructed, postmodern epistemologies have multiplied the number and range of places available to be endowed with sacred meanings. I argue that boundaries between the sacred and the secular are dissolving at the same time that new boundaries are being established, privileging particular places and defining a new relationship among the United States, the Americas, and the world.

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