The Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine

Spirituality, Religious Wisdom, and the Care of the Patient

Healing and Religion: A Protestant Perspective

Courtney Jane Bender, Ph.D.  

Courtney Jane Bender is Assistant Professor of Religion and Sociology at Columbia University. She was raised in a Mennonite community. She earned a PhD in Sociology from Princeton University and is the author of Heaven's Kitchen:  Practicing Religion at God's Love We Deliver, forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press.

The extensive resources available within varying Protestant traditions to define healing and health, and to assist in healing, extend well beyond psychological or philosophical interpretations of illness and health and include concrete daily practices. Rituals, practices, and the like are often overlooked by scholars who study Protestantism and healing, given the copious popular theological literature on healing, and the tendencies of many Protestants to discuss religion primarily in terms of belief and psychological disposition. Much of this literature has correctly called into question the various popular Protestant theologies that connect bodily and spiritual health, which can lead individuals to view sickness as punishment, or signs of personal spiritual failures. Certain Protestant (and broadly speaking, Christian) practices, including "faith healing," are rightly criticized for raising unrealistic expectations about divine intervention, which can lead to further self-abuse when such healing does not take place. Nevertheless, above and beyond these problematic practices, many involved Protestants experience healing within a network of caring others (whether family, friends, or congregation) who help to heal with a variety of daily practice.

In addressing how Protestants think about religion and healing, I have focused on two cases close to my experience and research; rural Mennonites in Pennsylvania, and urban volunteers at a New York City AIDS organization (many of whom are from Protestant backgrounds). In both the centuries-old Mennonite community, and in the recently formed community of volunteers caring for people with AIDS, two related aspects of healing and religion become very clear. First, healing has both physical (corporeal) and spiritual aspects, and both work in tandem from the onset of illness. In both communities, religion does not step in where medical science fails - it is not a last resort, an explanation or panacea. It is a powerful force in healing. Second, in both cases, religion is developed through mundane daily practices that concretely demonstrate theological principles of God's love, love for one another, and (at the end stages of life) the "final healing" that arrives through spiritual unity with Jesus after death. Religion in both communities is expressed by the community, and develops through a gathering of people who do the work of caring for the sick. These expressions include, most importantly, the physical presence of caring others, the stories and memory of others' illnesses and their triumph over physical pain and suffering, and the ministries of providing food and other basic essential daily needs to those who are sick. All such practices are deeply rooted in the lived expression of Protestantism, although they are not always exercised equally by all such communities.

While both of the communities that I have studied approach God differently (one is particular, the other universal), and both exhibit radically differing practices (one group sings hymns together, the other sings disco tunes from the 1970's) both find resources in their corporate experience of providing daily. These resources allow members to care for each other in prosaic ways - feeding each other, remembering to take care of each other. Both communities see themselves as integral parts of their members' care, and ultimately, as having great power to heal. Protestants in the United States have as much trust in the medical profession, and its tools, as any other religious group, and readily embrace the healing power of allopathic medicine. Nevertheless, Protestants (and all other religious groups) extend the notion of healing beyond physical health, to include stories and narratives that sometimes challenge medical culture's notions of healing and cure.

Protestant religious communities take many shapes: Mennonites provide a clear example of an intense, strongly knit religious community with clear history and practices; urban AIDS volunteers provide another example of what "community" might mean. Most practicing Protestants live in, and identify with, some form of group or collective - or feel the loss of one, if they are not so connected. The roles that these communities take on in individuals' healing, are often easy to overlook. For one, Protestants often lack the language to speak in religious or spiritual terms about such communal practices. In addition, many Protestant religious professionals (ministers, theologians, and academics) have focused their attention on the psychological and individual aspects of healing in the Protestant tradition, rather than the communal and experiential. On the whole, medical providers can do well to keep in mind that many patients live in communities of flesh and blood people who are concerned about their neighbors' health, and execute religious practices and rituals to help them heal. (At the same time, we must remember that some patients take part in religious communities that might assign blame to sick persons, and hence explicitly contradict "humanistic" interpretations of the reasons for illness.) Although community is not always a 'positive' force in healing, the force of the idea (and often the reality) of community in Protestant experience makes it an essential aspect of understanding Protestant evaluations of health and healing.

Susan Starr Sered, "Healing and Religion: A Jewish Perspective"
Healing: Introduction
Table of Contents

Published: January 28, 2002