Spirituality and Religion Within the Culture of Medicine: From Evidence to Practice
'Tis God's Will, Sir, 'Twill come to us all' says Gerasim, the young servant, about his master's illness and death in L.N. Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich. The ailing Ivan Ilyich is overcome by not only physical pain, but also spiritual suffering caused by what he perceives as: 'other people's cruelty, and God's cruelty and God's non existence' (Tolstoy 2008) Through simple honesty, acceptance and non abandonment, Gerasim raises Ivan Ilyich's body and soul from the depths of corporeal pain and crisis of faith and spirit. This uneducated peasant lad does more for the patient than do his doctors, priest and bourgeois family. Gerasim possesses a natural gift, but for most of us doctors, understanding our patients' spiritual and religious experience in the context of illness, healing and death is, by necessity, an acquired skill. 'Spirituality and Religion Within the Culture of Medicine: From Evidence to Practice' edited by Michael J. Balboni and John R. Peteet is an invaluable resource for physicians, nurses and other clinicians in this quest. This volume is a tour de force of scholarship in clinical medicine, medical ethics, medical education, the social sciences, humanities, theology and the law. With contributions from 37 authors, leading experts in their respective fields, to its 22 chapters, this work has an authoritative, encyclopedic feel to it. In the introduction chapter, Balboni and Peteet outline the scholarly effort to explore the interrelationship between medicine, and religion/spirituality that is the foundation of this book. This effort includes both scientific knowledge that enhances our understanding of the significance of religion and spirituality for patients and clinicians, and a religious and/or spiritual language that provides the clinical encounter with context and meaning. The idea that empiric science has historically driven a wedge between religion and medicine, but
Journal of Religion and Health