Abigail Rian Evans, The Healing Church: Practical Programs for Health Ministries. (United Church Press: Cleveland, Ohio), 1999. 262 pages.

The Healing Church is an unapologetic and enthusiastic endorsement of the church's unique role in health ministry and a challenge to churches to become a force for healing in our society. Abigail Rian Evans proposes that the church functions as a health institution and a healing community "by basing its ministry on a broader definition of health as wholeness, sickness as brokenness, and healers as those persons who assist us toward health." According to Evans, church-based health care is in a direct historical line from Jesus's healing ministry. Because of the failure of health care reform, the church must help reduce health care cost and expand care.

Evans's proposes four categories of health ministry central to the work of the church. The "sacramental/liturgical/devotional" dimension connects the church's healing work to the rituals of a faith community that are both time vehicles of grace and avenues of restoration to wholeness. Educational programs promote a healthier lifestyle, encourage better habits, assist people in making more informed health care decisions, and help them to solve personal problems. The church's educational thrust is prerequisite for its advocacy initiatives on behalf of the vulnerable and voiceless.

According to Evans, the church "delivers wholistic health care in a wide variety of ways." Church-based health care in response to addiction in its many forms illustrates how the church might engage in prevention, intervention, and treatment of health-related issues. Evans observes that the emergence of parish nursing gives new direction to health ministry at the congregational level. She also outlines methods for starting a health ministry and reports what health ministries look like in a range of settings, concluding with an exhortation to seize the moment ("now is the fullness of time") to respond to Christ's call to heal by developing new methods to help people endangered by our present health care crisis.

Evans's urgency about the church's involvement in health ministries is grounded in her conviction that reforming the health care system is the most important moral crisis facing us today. Those who agree will find this a useful book. Because the author's urgency is so great, a sympathetic reader will be inclined to overlook the uncritical presentation of differing perspectives on health and healing, from Larry Dossey to Herbert Benson, to Frank Lake, to Granger Westberg, to the Presbyterian Church (USA) Office of Health Ministries. According to Evans, the church must be responsible for health promotion and disease prevention to solve the nation's health care problems. Congregations who see more to do than they have resources for may, however, find such admonitions overwhelming.

Developing a health ministry may not require demanding, new programs. For example, "Meals on Wheels, nursery schools, homebound visitation, and prayer circles are part of a health ministry." A parish nurse would help "the family plan the funeral and make(s) sure that each member of the family has a role to play in the service." If the promotion of health and healing is the overarching aim of the church's ministry, then important distinctions between healing and other forms of care, like sustaining, guiding or reconciling, are set aside. Evans's regards any movement toward wholeness as healing. The book's argument would have been strengthened had the ministry of healing been put in a realistic context with other ministries.

It is easy to conclude from Evans's passionate presentation that health ministry is not only the principal work of a congregation—health is also the aim of Christian life. If my assessment is correct, The Healing Church is an uncritical extension of this society's tendency to make health an idol. Health is never an end in itself. We are healed in order to serve the world more effectively or to exercise our religious vocation more courageously and effectively. Healing is what we do, not what we expect. We are called upon to care even when we cannot cure. Therefore, a congregation's compassion for those who suffer is a sign that God is present even when health is absent. If we are clear that health is a penultimate reality, then a congregation is free to engage in ministries of healing that serve some values of health without simply becoming another health center.

Herbert Anderson, PhD, is Professor of Pastoral Theology at Catholic Theological Union, Chicago.