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"Thou
hast made us for thyself," says St. Augustine of Hippo,
"and the heart never rests until it finds its rest in thee."
God created us to be spiritual beings, people who seek after
something beyond ourselves to give life meaning and purpose.
The apostle Paul preaching to the Greek seekers on Mars
Hill explained, "From one ancestor he made all nations to
inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their
existence and the boundaries of the places where they would
live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope
for him and find him--though indeed he is not far from each
one of us. For 'in him we live and move and have our being';
as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we too are
his offspring'" (Acts 17:26-28).
Our culture's current fascination
with spirituality should come as no surprise. That's the
way God made us. The soul's deep longing to know God is
a basic human need. However, the definitions of spirituality
in the nursing literature today differ widely. We are not
all talking about the same thing. Recently there has been
a strong movement away from defining it in religious terms.
On the other hand, a trend is developing toward investigating
other religions, including Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, shamanism
and Native American spiritualities. A pantheon of gods has
entered the American religious scene.
Paul observed the Athenians'
serious pursuit of a vast array of gods and spiritualities
in Acts 17, then went on to explain that he could tell them
about the Unknown God they were seeking. Nursing's interest
in spirituality presents us with a similar challenge. To
meet it, we need to know what kind of spirituality we should
be pursuing.
In this issue of JCN,
we will view spirituality as the whole person in dynamic
personal relationship with God. Our role in spiritual care,
then, becomes putting people in touch with God through compassionate
presence, active listening, witness, prayer, Bible reading
and partnering with the church community. When we compare
that to the definitions in recent nursing literature, we
may find ourselves in conflict. Part of the problem comes
from the fuzzy reasoning we experience as we find ourselves
floundering in the midst of shifting paradigms.
The modern worldview comes to
us out of the Enlightenment with science as the primary
authority. Most of us have been so immersed in this worldview
that we don't realize how deeply we are influenced by it.
We assume that if we can't prove something by empirical
research, it isn't real or true. God, though usually acknowledged
by modernists, is seen as distant, benign and disengaged
from the world. Spirituality, for the most part, is viewed
as superstition, and religion as a private matter that shouldn't
be discussed in intelligent company. This is also the worldview
of the medical model that so many nurses detest. It separates
the mind and body and does not leave room for interrelationships
between emotions, beliefs, environmental influences and
physical health. On the other hand, it has contributed amazing
advances to health care. None of us would want to return
to pre-modern days before antibiotics, immunizations, anesthesia
or modern surgical techniques.
The postmodern worldview is what
nursing calls the new paradigm. It grew out of an attempt
by 20th century philosophers to deconstruct the assumptions
of the Enlightenment and modernism. The effects of postmodernism
permeate many aspects of our culture, but it has radically
transformed the prevailing understanding of spirituality.
The trends in nursing literature show a spirituality increasingly
devoid of content and divorced from religious faith.1
Consequently, this spirituality is open to everything, for
there is no absolute standard of truth. Any spiritual practice
that brings comfort, strength or apparent healing is considered
equally good and can be incorporated into nursing.
To some extent we have all become
enculturated into postmodernism. We hesitate to offend people
by being judgmental, almost to the point that we don't make
ethical distinctions. We may think that our Christian beliefs
are right for us but assume that we should support people
who come from other religions in their belief systems.
On the other hand, we have been
even more deeply enculturated into modernism. Everywhere
I go, Christian nurses are expressing delight over current
medical research on prayer proving what we have known all
along. But does research prove or disprove God? How can
we measure God-at-work? Does prayer work only if we get
our way? God wants us healthy and instructs us to pray for
healing, but he doesn't answer acording to our criteria.
The biblical worldview looks
at spirituality differently from either modernism or postmodernism.
Actually, the term spirituality doesn't appear in the Bible
at all. God doesn't tell us to develop our spirituality,
because the spiritual is always personal in the Bible. We
develop spiritual relationships, and we are given a choice--either
for a relationship with God through Jesus Christ or to turn
to other spirits. The spiritual world is real, not a psychological
projection or a primitive superstition. It is not a neutral
world. God has warned his people repeatedly to avoid colluding
with any other spirits (gods), not because he wants to limit
our freedom but because it is dangerous. These spirits are
enticing, deceptive and manipulative, often masquerading
as "angels of light" (2 Cor 11:14).
Too often we approach spirituality
from the worldviews that have shaped us rather than from
a biblical worldview. We are pragmatic modernists when we
rationalize that religion--particularly Christian witness--has
no place in nursing. On the other hand, we are relativistic
postmodernists when we assume that we should encourage any
kind of spirituality, seeing it as benign or even good.
As we look at the prevailing
nursing trends in spirituality, we need to keep firmly rooted
in the solid grounding of Scripture, for it is only God
who heals us and satisfies that deep spiritual longing within
us. If we truly hope to meet the spiritual needs of our
patients, our spiritual care must be focused on bringing
people to Jesus so they can experience that healing personally.--JAS
1
Debra P. O'Neill and Elaine K. Kenny, "Spirituality
and Chronic Illness," Image 30, no. 3 (3rd quarter, 1998):
275.
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