E. Anthony Allen, Contributor
(The following is an excerpt of a paper entitled 'Proclaiming while healing' presented by Dr. E. Anthony Allen, theologian, consultant psychiatrist, at the 13th World Congress International Christian Medical And Dental Association held last July in Sydney, Australia.)
In our mission as Christian health professionals, we are daily faced with a global spiritual landscape that could easily be cause for alarm. Looming large on this landscape is this crisis of desperate spiritual need. The cause of this crisis is that many persons have not discovered the "controller of destiny" who can guarantee their well-being. This is occurring in the face of the crises of human injustice and satanic evil found in the physical, socio-economic, cultural and political areas of our existence. Many have turned to various false "gods of destiny", and the failure of these 'gods' has compounded human uncertainty.
This lack of discovery of Christ as a saving controller of destiny results from a lack of faith in Him. This lack of faith stems partly from the fact that various spiritual world trends have emerged at this time in history to present serious challenges to our mission of proclamation of the healing Christ. The stifling effects of these competing spiritual trends on our evangelism help to threaten the existence of the widespread faith in Christ that our world needs today. Where there is no faith in Christ then there is despair or lack of hope. This then is the crisis of desperate spiritual need.
The healing Christ?
What are these trends that challenge the success of our mission to proclaim the healing Christ? Within the old 'Christendom' of the west, especially in Europe, the secularity of materialism has led to a massive attrition in church involvement. There is a growing biblical illiteracy where fewer people truly study and understand the meaning of the teachings and rituals of their traditional faith. Thus, the Christian faith has become either neglected or distorted in a kind of dysfunctional way. And, in its place there has been the mushrooming of non-Christian spiritualities.
This growing plurality of spiritual options has come to the people of the West with the massive waves of migration from around the planet, of persons of differing faiths drawn from various world religions and indigenous practices. All this is accompanied by increasing political pressures for the assertion of religious and cultural rights of religious minorities. In addition, the New Age movement has led to the rise of Western assimilation of Eastern religions and a growing popularity of the occult.
In all corners of the globe, Christianity has to contend for recognition as part of the assault of the rising militant spirituality of ethnic and nation-state centred religious fundamentalism involving various world religions. Alongside this is the growing legitimising of indigenous spirituality within many counties.
With the global mass communication systems of migration, satellite, cable and Internet, all these spiritualities could now be present in the house next door to anyone in the world or on his or her radio, television or computer screen. Even Rastafarianism from Jamaica is now a global phenomenon! Within the context of this growing globalisation of non-Christian Spiritualities, the spiritual warfare of demonism, as portrayed in scripture, is also becoming an increasing reality among those ministered to by Christian health professionals.
Cutting through all of these trends, what is perhaps the most insidious of all is the amorality and agnosticism of post-modernism. This is another cancerous global ideology and is influenced by transnational market forces. It threatens to make many young persons more aware of such as MacDonald's fast food, hip-hop music and pornographic stars than of the precepts of their religious traditions.
In this so-called post-modern era, there are now no meta-narratives or universalised understandings relating to truth and principles. Alienation has led to a moral relativism where all are judged by subjectivity, pragmatism and fashion. In this context, terrorism also thrives as even the moral principles of some world religions and various political movements have become abandoned by some for a five-minute blaze of escape from disaffection.
The Gospel of the existence and the claims of Christ needs to be more assertively proclaimed amid our global crisis of spiritual need and more so in the face of the undermining of the Christian faith by modern competing spiritual trends. As we contemplate this we need to recognise that within this, very crisis of desperate spiritual need, we are confronted by an opportunity of a global sense of spiritual hunger.
Though many persons may lack faith in Christ, these same persons manifest genuine spiritual hunger. And because all of us as human beings are created in God's image, all of us will have a spiritual capacity, the capacity and tendency to search for some form of faith in a transcendent reality as part of our quest for a certainty of well-being. As long as persons are starved of faith in Christ, they will experience an unsatisfied spiritual hunger. The search often leads persons to competing spiritualities. Yet this should be no cause for despair in our evangelism. This is because, paradoxically, it is within the frustrating disappointment of not finding true hope in these competing spiritual alternatives that unmet spiritual hunger can grow stronger and lead to the discovery of Christ.
Renewed interest
An example of this opportunity of spiritual hunger is that, in recent times, in the west, there has been a renewed interest in spirituality and medicine. This is partly related to the concerns of many patients that scientific medicine has moved so far with its emphasis on technology that it has left the human person out of the picture. Thus, patients are made to feel like objects.
A growing interest in alternative medicine, rooted in Eastern religion, demonstrates a new renaissance of popular interest in integrating spirituality and health and putting the individual back at the centre in making choices for health. This window of opportunity must be grasped now by Christian health care professionals.
Given the deep spiritual hunger to which I refer, it is my experience that many patients would welcome discussion of spiritual issues. For example, the 1990 Gallup survey found that the majority of Americans felt that religion was central to their lives and that spiritual faith could aid recovery from illness. In a 1996 U.S.A. Weekend health survey, 66 per cent of patients surveyed believed that it was good for doctors to talk with patients about spiritual beliefs.
Yet only 10 per cent reported that doctors had discussed such issues with them. In several countries of the so-called 'developing world', such as Africa and Latin America, Christianity has been growing rapidly. The same is true also in some Eastern countries, such as Korea. Thus, discussions about spirituality would be welcomed by many. Even in countries where Christianity is the minority religion, there is hunger for a spirituality that heals and transforms. A proclamation accompanying a demonstration of the work of the Healing Christ can cut through all barriers if it is persistent, wisely integrated and divinely guided.
Mental, spiritual suffering
Patients experience not only physical pain but pain related to mental and spiritual suffering and to what Puchalski describes as an "inability to engage the deeper questions of life". Such questions include, "Why is this happening to me now?" "What will happen to me after I die?" "Is there a God? If so, will He be there for me?" "Will I have time to finish my life's work?" Puchalski states that compassionate care involves helping patients find meaning in their suffering by addressing their spirituality. This is what true healing is about: accepting one's illness and experiencing peace with one's life. "This healing - is at its core, spiritual."
All this new renaissance of an interest in spirituality challenges us to read the landscape of today and take advantage of the opportunity of the reality of unsatisfied spiritual hunger amid the crisis of spiritual need.
This World Congress would have fulfilled its goal if we were to commit ourselves to minister to the spiritual needs of our patients as we simultaneously minister healing in the physical, mental and interpersonal realms - proclaiming the Word while healing. We need to be vigilant and seize the moment!
Dr. E. Anthony Allen, is a theologian, consultant psychiatrist and a consultant in Whole Person Health and Church-based Health Ministries. He may be reached at edwardallen1@hotmail.com. His website is www.eanthony allen.yourmd.com. Send feedback on Mind&Spirit to mark.dawes@gleanerjm.com.
