Not my will but thine be done: Church versus magic in contemporary Russia

In contemporary Russia, the Orthodox Church has started to assume its traditional but long‐lost role as a guardian of morality and a source of coherent ontological foundations. At the same time, magic and alternative healing have become pervasive and conspicuously public phenomena, thriving on the new institutions of the market and the free media. The article examines the nature of ideological offensive deployed by the Russian Church against magic and healing. It suggests that the controversy between Church and magic reflects conflicting ontologies of self and incompatible constructions of agency inherent in these respective cultural fields. It argues that magic and healing are built on the Western models of agency as empowerment of an autonomous individualistic self, and explores contrasting models of agency offered by the Orthodox Christianity. In the light of this argument, seemingly premodern practices of healing and magic appear as phenomena deeply embedded in globalised modernity.     

Psychoanalysis and Eastern spiritual healing traditions

An exploration of the theory and practice of healing in the Eastern spiritual traditions reveals the centrality of the idealizing transference in the patient-seeker's interaction with the spiritual teacher or the guru although the aim and development of the idealizing transference in the spiritual traditions are quite different from those of self psychology. In its emphasis on the guru's empathy and in claiming that its meditative practices radically reduce the noise and glare produced by the sensual self which is the chief obstacle to the teacher-healer's empathic understanding of the patient, the Eastern healing discourse goes considerably beyond most traditional psychoanalytic formulations on the nature and communication of empathy in the analytic situation. The Eastern traditions' claim of a significant enhancement of the teacher-healer's empathic capacity through meditative practices, and its communication to the patient/seeker through other channels besides the verbal one, can make an important contribution to the discussion on the role of empathy in psychoanalytic discourse and, if the claim proves true, to a place for meditative practices in psychoanalytic education.     

Reasoning matters: Transrational traits of healing in competing medical epistemes in Botswana

The WHO suggests integrating traditional health practices into national public health systems. However, cooperation between both systems of healing seldom works. Traditional healing practices often attract accusations of irrationality and mysticism. From a scientific point of view, inferences based on spirituality are not considered as having the same significance as those drawing on rational thinking. However, spiritual intuition is in line with abductive reasoning, which is a core element across all systems of thinking and central to the development of new hypotheses in the sciences. Traditional healing practices in Botswana serve to present the notion of transrationality, which appreciates the specific character of spiritual healing and thus may aid in establishing better cooperation between traditional and modern health practitioners.     

Sin and bioethics.

The essay starts out with defining the biblical concept of sin in the Old and the New Testaments. The literal knowledge of divine truth is distinguished from its truthful and spiritual interpretation. A further distinction should be made between the Creator of life (God) and the medium or "intermediary creator" (man) of life. I argue for the "single wholeness" of the human race and for the unity of human responsibility in bioethics. In delineating the teaching of the Church on abortion and family planning, I show that the healing of all human diseases, from traditional interventions to genetic ones, is a Christian duty and is in accordance with Christ's mission on earth as long as one has not been directly or indirectly involved in "reproducing" or "designing" one's descendants or destroying or damaging human life even at its very beginnings.     

Pierre De Bérulle (1575–1629) and the renewal of Catholic spiritual life in France

Pierre de Bérulle, founder of the Oratoire de Jésus (commonly known as the Oratoire de France), is a leading figure in the renewal of the Catholic Church in France in the first half of the seventeenth century. He is generally regarded as the founder of the French School of Spirituality (École française de spiritualité), though this term has been much criticised in recent years. He is often described as a ‘reformer’ of the Church in France, but this is a half-truth which obscures his real originality; he certainly shared the aims of those striving to create a clergy which would be better educated, more morally upright and more pastorally sensitive and zealous; but above all else he was concerned with the spiritual renewal of the clergy and with the Church in France generally. Lastly, he has often been accused of wishing to create chiefly, if not exclusively, a spirituality of the priesthood and to work for the ‘sanctification’ of the clergy. But his work and ideas must be seen here in a broader perspective, for Bérulle and his disciples shared with St Francis de Sales the aim, expressed in his Introduction à la vie devote (1608), of creating and promoting a spirituality available to all Christians. This article examines his conception of the Oratory, which he intended to be an intermediary between the religious orders and the secular clergy, his spiritual theology, what I have called his ‘spiritual pedagogy’, and his influence in France and elsewhere.     

The impact of the charismatic movement on the Roman Catholic Church

The Catholic charismatic movement (renewal) may not have fulfilled all the hopes of its adherents, but it has had more impact on the Catholic Church than many realise. The signs are that this influence will increase as the effects sink deeper into church life.     

Pastoral Burnout and the Impact of Personal Spiritual Renewal,Rest-taking,and Support System Practices

Pastors risk burnout because of inordinate ministerial demands, which may drain their emotional, cognitive, spiritual, and physical energy reserves and impair their overall effectiveness. Burnout advances across three dimensions: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced accomplishment. The debilitating effects of pastoral burnout were examined through a survey of 270 pastors. Relationships between burnout and three potentially preventative or mitigating factors, spiritual renewal, rest-taking, and support system practices, were explored. The results identified spiritual dryness as the primary predictor of emotional exhaustion, the stress dimension of burnout. In the published literature, no other work to date has empirically substantiated a link between pastors’ spirituality and burnout. These findings expand the burnout construct and promote leader self-care practices that foster resilience, vitality, and well-being.     

What Spirituality Means for Patients and Families in Health Care

This research focuses on the spiritual care experiences of patients and families at a hospital in Australia. Twenty-four patients and 10 family members were interviewed. Results indicate the importance of relatedness: being treated as a person, reminded of your capabilities and conversations about what matters. Maintaining contact with friends and family, sustaining religious and spiritual practices, music therapy and pet therapy were also significant and contact with the natural world and shared activities. The results indicate the importance of spirituality offered through pastoral care, and that all those involved in health care can contribute to the spiritually nurturing environment that reinforces healing.

     

Divestment of pastoral authority: A model for healing

Traditionally the pastor has come to be responsible for the pastoral care needs of a congregation. This model suggests that by sharing this authority a pastor can empower the faith community and its members to bring about healing in a dynamic way. Healing is defined not in terms of physical rehabilitation but as the movement toward growth, wholeness, and maturity. The role of the pastor is redefined as one who leads the faith community to a new awareness of the mission of the church as a healing community.Reverend Lydic is Pastor of the Dixon Church of the Brethren, 215 N. Court Street, Dixon, Illinois 61201.     

Fresh Expressions of Church and the Mixed Economy

The term “fresh expressions of church” has been used since 2004 in the Church of England to refer to small contextual churches that start alongside but aim to be different to parish churches. What is characteristic of a fresh expression of church is not its newness, but its ability to pass on and contextualize inherited theology, ecclesiology, tradition, and spiritual experience. The ecclesiology of fresh expressions of church can be summarized as a dialogical‐relational ecclesiology that is focused on a theological centre. There may be around 2,100 of them in the Church of England, both urban and rural. During the past 15 years, the self‐understanding of the Church of England, a traditional state church with its parish structure, has changed. The mother church of the Anglican World Communion claims since 2008 to be a mixed‐economy church: one that supports and recognizes innovative ecclesial spaces (fresh expressions of church) as church, as well as parish churches. It is the goal to have an innovative diversity of churches in a pluralistic society. At the same time, these churches should be recognizable and contextual. It is the concept of the mixed economy that manages a fair cooperation between parochial and fresh expressions of church. In the meantime, the concept of mixed economy is received not only in the UK, but in different national and free churches in continental Europe, the US, South Africa, Canada, and Australia. Lately, the concept has been taken up by the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe (CPCE).     

Dreaming for the World: A Jungian Study of Dreams During the COVID-19 Pandemic1

This project explores what dreams might reveal about the collective psyche’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic in its first year, before the development of vaccines. A brief survey, distributed to Jungian colleagues and organizations, and to various social media sites, invited people to submit online a dream related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Four hundred and thirty-six dreams were submitted. Forty additional Russian dreams were collected and submitted by Russian colleagues. Using qualitative research methods based on phenomenological hermeneutics, the researchers categorized and counted the range of COVID imagery. In addition, the researchers describe a range of psychic responses to the pandemic, including horror, grief, sickness, social discord, and violence, but also images of healing and transformation, increased sense of community, and spiritual renewal. Several healing nightmares are presented. Healing alchemical and anima/animus imagery is described. Twelve dreams are introduced and presented. It is concluded that the collective psyche, rooted in the Self, is a healing resource for social and cultural trauma. This project supports Beradt’s (1968) inspirational study of dreaming in Nazi Germany, as well as recent studies of COVID-related dreams and recent publications on the social nature of dreaming.     

The renewal of the diaconate and the holistic mission of the Church

Research on the diaconate in recent years has provided a stimulus for discussion on possible reform and renewal of the ordained ministry. Whilst some critics see this as arising merely from an attempt at a uniformity which might further the search for unity in the Church, this article argues that there are in fact certain natural reasons for reforming the diaconate. The author focuses on the relationship of mission and diakonia and the renewal of the diaconate with each other. Though the term ‘mission’ is not often used, the article follows the central points of ecumenical missiological discussion, addressing the crucial question, ‘What is the place of diakonia and the diaconate in the holistic mission of the Church?’ There is thence a certain logic in the argument, leading to the conclusions the author finally draws.     

Healing as Constitutive of Jesus’ Mission Handed to the Church

After a basic statement of the Catholic doctrine on healing ministry, this article adopts the understanding of the World Council of Churches’ document Healing and Wholeness: The Churches’ Role in Health, adopted in 1990 by the central committee. The document views health, healing, and wholeness not just as medical issues, but as embracing the political, social, economic, cultural, and spiritual dimensions. Building on the above, this article proposes an integral approach to sacramental healing for the African Catholic Church, arguing that alongside healing of physical ailments and deliverance from evil and malignant forces, healing must include working for social justice and peace for the people.     

Reflections of a Midlife Lesbian Feminist Therapist

In this paper the author evaluated her own work as a lesbian feminist psychotherapist form a critical perspective. Using the work of Kitzinger and Perkins, Carter Heyward and Samuel Sandweiss, she suggests that psychotherapy, as constructed today, has become primarily behavioral, cognitive, apolitical and disconnected from its original purposes. After describing her own midlife spiritual crisis she details, through journal entries, a journey toward a deeper and more absorbed state of mental health. The author then questions how a therapist might utilize techniques drawn from spiritual and body work practices that might help a client find a place inside that is more soul healing, rather than just of the mind.     

Causes and Means of Healing: An Islamic Ontological Perspective

Journal of Religion and Health - Healthcare practitioners are increasingly aware that patients may utilize faith-based healing practices in place of conventional medicine based on their spiritual...     

The Church in St Ambrose of Milan

Abstract

A brief account is given of the life of St Ambrose and of modern scholarly views on his work. The Church was favoured by the Emperor Constantine and Christianity established as the state religion by the Emperor Theodosius. Ambrose might have been expected to have been interested in promoting the interests of the Church as an institutional and juridical organisation but he was in fact overwhelmingly interested in its spiritual aspect, as von Campenhausen asserts, opposed by Morino. The Church is seen in Ambrose's writings as the City of God and as the Kingdom of God into which believers are received. His understanding of the Church is markedly christocentric and biblical and is closely linked with his thinking on the Holy Spirit. This article also examines his attitude to the see of Rome, of which he did not recognise a general supremacy. The relevance for Christians today of Ambrose's experience of the Church as a unique spiritual fellowship is touched on.     

Teaching Tradition: Diverse Perspectives on the Pilot Urban American Indian Traditional Spirituality Program

Many urban American Indian community members lack access to knowledgeable participation in indigenous spiritual practices. And yet, these sacred traditional activities remain vitally important to their reservation‐based kin. In response, our research team partnered with an urban American Indian health center in Detroit for purposes of developing a structured program to facilitate more ready access to participation in indigenous spiritual knowledge and practices centered on the sweat lodge ceremony. Following years of preparation and consultation, we implemented a pilot version of the Urban American Indian Traditional Spirituality Program in the spring of 2016 for 10 urban AI community participants. Drawing on six first‐person accounts about this program, we reflect on its success as a function of participant meaningfulness, staff support, mitigated sensitivities, and program structure. We believe that these observations will enable other community psychologists to undertake similar program development in service to innovative and beneficial impacts on behalf of their community partners.     

Neither public nor private religion: the Russian Orthodox Church in the public sphere of contemporary Russia

Cross-country comparative studies of religion (e.g. the Religion Monitor) do not cover some important issues regarding the religious situation in Russia. The problem of contemporary Russian religiosity is beyond individual religiosity or religiosity as a spiritual phenomenon. In Russia—one of the countries which experienced Communism as a period of enforced secularization, there are very few people who have had any religious socialization or who have the experience of belonging to the Christian Church or to any religion. The main point of this article is that what is happening with religion in post-Soviet Russia cannot be adequately explained by the concept of ‘public religion’ and the dichotomy of public vs. private religion, due to the practices of private religion manifesting at a very low level among the Russian population, despite the fact that a large number of Russians consider themselves to be Orthodox Christians. However, the representation of the Church in the public sphere has little to do with what concerns Russians who are in some way involved in parishes. As an alternative tool we propose to describe the religiosity of Russians through the methods of network analysis. Results of a content analysis of contemporary Russian and Soviet media, survey data of the Russian population, and data obtained in a network analysis of parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church are used for substantiating this conclusion.