Handbook on Religion and Health

Hardback

Handbook on Religion and Health

Pathways for a Turbulent Future

9781802207989 Edward Elgar Publishing
Edited by James R. Cochrane, Emeritus Professor, Department for the Study of Religion, & Senior Scholar, School of Public Health, University of Cape Town, South Africa, Gary Gunderson, Professor of Faith and the Health of the Public, Wake Forest University and Teresa Cutts, Academic Liaison, Stakeholder Health. Formerly Research Asst. Professor, Division of Public Health Sciences, Wake Forest School of Medicine, US
Publication Date: August 2024 ISBN: 978 1 80220 798 9 Extent: c 514 pp
This revelatory Handbook explores the relationship between religion and health, emphasising the effects of organised religion and spirituality on community, population, and public health. While comprehensively summarising the current state of the field, it focusses on pursuing new pathways vital for human health in a turbulent world.

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This revelatory Handbook explores the relationship between religion and health, emphasising the effects of organised religion and spirituality on community, population, and public health. While comprehensively summarising the current state of the field, it focusses on pursuing new pathways vital for human health in a turbulent world.

Bringing together an impressive array of internationally recognised experts, the Handbook on Religion and Health outlines a number of conceptual and theoretical frameworks for the field. Chapters examine religion and health on the micro, macro, and meso levels, before analysing wider, more holistic understandings of religion and health, through ecological, de-colonial, and sociological perspectives. Chapter authors also assess religion and health from the grassroots, and the centrality of the community to experiences of disease and spirituality.

Expertly traversing an interdisciplinary area which is constantly expanding, this Handbook is a fascinating resource for students and scholars of health policy, religious studies, and cultural sociology. It will also appeal to practitioners and policy makers in global organisations operating in the public health sector.
Contents
Contents

Foreword xv
Acknowledgements xvii
Introduction: on (what was known as) religion and health 1
James R. Cochrane, Teresa Cutts and Gary Gunderson
PART I ‘RELIGION/HEALTH’: SCOPING THE FIELD
1 Grounding “religion” and “spirituality” 16
James R Cochrane
2 Scanning a moving field: religion and health 31
Matthew Bersagel Braley
3 Religion among the social determinants of health: micro-, meso-, and
macro views 47
Ellen Idler
4 Religiosity/spirituality, mental health, substance abuse: implications for
population health 62
Teresa Cutts
5 Hoist by our own petard: backing slowly out of religion and
development advocacy 78
Jill Olivier
6 Theogenerative life and practice 97
Gary Gunderson
PART II PLANETARY HEALTH – “HEALTH OF THE WHOLE”
7 Spirituality, health, and ecology: co-liberation, the climate movement,
and the quest for planetary health 114
Tobias Müller and Thandeka Cochrane
8 Interrelationship of religion and spirit in health, well-being, and equity 133
Somava Saha
9 Bio-ethics for a whole planet 151
Gerald R. Winslow
10 Infrastructures of hope: what will it take to build planetary health 165
Geordan Shannon and Jeremy Lauer
11 Point of inflection: epidemic of health 185
Heather Wood Ion
PART III ‘HEALTH FOR ALL’
12 Health, interreligious action, and solidarity 199
Katherine Marshall
13 Global health and religion 212
Christoph Benn
14 Life and health of the public: a field in motion 229
Kevin Barnett
15 The place of human rights and the people’s health movement 246
Leslie London
16 Faith-based health justice: what are the options? 265
Ville Päivänsalo
PART IV RELIGION/HEALTH FROM THE GROUND
17 Gendering religion and health: women’s religio-cultural vulnerability 281
Beverley Haddad
18 A founding moment: how members of religious congregations became
AIDS activists 296
Philippe Denis
19 Lifting the veil I – reflecting on Covid-19 in Africa 310
Elias Kifon Bongmba
20 Lifting the veil II—religion at the intersection of food security, health
and well-being: from the field 323
Craig Stewart and Nadine Bowers Du Toit
21 Religion, spirituality, and interpersonal violence 338
Naiema Taliep, Sandy Lazarus, and Marcellino Jonas
PART V NEW LANGUAGE, NEW VIEW
22 Disingenuous narratives, cognitive myopia: a neuroscientist’s view 353
Paul Laurienti
23 Meshworks, entanglements, and healthworlds 365
Thandeka Cochrane
24 The ought that lies within 378
Bastienne Klein
25 Communities emerging their potentials of faith and health 395
Daniel C. Taylor
26 Searching for the spiritual sources of shared stewardship: where can we
find the courage to stay human in dehumanizing times? 412
Bobby Milstein, Ella Auchincloss and Jane Erickson
27 Positive deviance: new parables for healthy communities 431
Arvind Singhal
PART VI BEYOND THE STREAM: RETHINKING KEY METAPHORS
28 The watershed of life: a river runs through it 443
Gary R. Gunderson, Teresa Cutts, and James R. Cochrane
Afterword: a new knowledge for a new world 459
Corey D. B. Walker
Afterword: integrating and reimagining health and spirituality – a call for leadership 463
Howard K. Koh
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