Long before the rise of modern medical science and technology, religious traditions held deep wisdom about health and healing. They recognized that healing was connected to sources beyond the individual self, and they understood that health concerned the well-being not of isolated individuals but of persons in community. Attending to a tradition's rituals, scriptures, and prescribed practices (such as dietary restrictions or quarantining of the sick) helped to sustain health and promoted healing, both individually and communally. In addition, religiously based aid societies cared for the ill and the poor.
Despite the resources that these traditions contain, however, the contemporary dominance of science and technology has often relegated religion to the margins of medical attention. Spirituality and religion have often been devalued or simply gone unrecognized in contemporary health care. At the same time, congregations and their leaders have often lacked the benefit of in-depth education about their tradition's perspectives and historic practices in health and healing. Sometimes, believers know of their tradition's historic involvement in medicine, but lack a contemporary vision of what that interest and involvement could look like or how it could be rekindled.
Building on its years of research in this area, and with financial backing from the Chicago Community Trust and Wheat Ridge Ministries, the Park Ridge Center has inaugurated a two-year project titled Congregations, Health, and Healing in conjunction with five congregations in the Chicago area. This initiative, which involves both Jewish and Christian congregations, will turn to the traditions to examine anew their understandings of the relationship between faith and health. Equipped with the findings of this fresh exploration, Center staff will work with congregational representatives to educate clergy and lay leaders about the resources that their tradition offers in the area of health and healing.
This educational effort will then extend more widely as working groups develop a nationally distributed, comprehensive educational program which will include a trainer's guide, student workbooks, and an educational handbook. This will provide a concrete model for congregations to emulate in retrieving their tradition's healthcare legacy.
The time seems ripe for a project such as this. A renewed interest in religion and spirituality as factors affecting health has emerged in many quarters. The public, hungry for healing, is struggling to understand what health is and where it can be found in all its fullness.
