Unsuspected Powers

Religion, it turns out, is good for what ails you. In fact, it may prevent things from ailing you altogether. That, at least, is what Harold Koenig, M.D., has found after much research into the connections between religion and health of mind and body.

Dr. Koenig, director of Duke University’s Center for the Study of Religion/Spirituality and Health, has a far-flung reputation for his findings in this field of study. His latest book, The Healing Power of Faith: Science Explores Medicine’s Last Great Frontier, carries his message beyond fellow scientists to a wide readership.

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Faith’s Surprising Power

If you want to live longer and better, try religion. At least that’s the advice given by a leading researcher at Duke University who has written widely about the connections between religious practice and good emotional and physical health.

Harold Koenig, M.D., is both a psychiatrist and a research scientist whose studies of faith/health connections have brought him a wide reputation. Director of  Duke University’s Center for the Study of Religion/Spirituality and Health, Dr. Koenig has carried out many projects that compare people for whom religion is important with others who do not find it so meaningful.

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Seeing Old Age Anew

Wanted: a new mentality, a new attitude, a new way of being, a new culture. Nothing less than this kind of revolution is what the Church of Rome thinks Catholics need in our stance toward older people.

Also needed is a new spirituality, one that is based on continual rebirth. For this spirituality the key text is the dialogue between Jesus and Nichodemus. “How can a person enter back into his mother’s womb?,”  the would-be convert asks. Jesus answers that only through water and the spirit can that happen.

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Saint Enough For Me

It is told that, a few weeks ago, William Alfred received a visit from an old friend who had come from London. The friend approached Bill’s house, rang the doorbell, and waited in vain. Concerned,  he peered in the front window and saw Bill struggling to get out of his chair.  Another part of his struggle, the friend noticed, was with his pants pocket: Bill evidently was fumbling in the pocket to make sure that he had some dollars to give to the panhandler who, he presumed, was at the door.

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Prophecy in Modern America

Jim Wallis does not look like much of a prophet. In appearance, he does not remind anyone of Jeremiah, Amos, or John the Baptist. No beard, no special clothing and no fire in the eyes mark his looks. To all appearances, he is an ordinary middle-aged fellow of medium height, genial and approachable.

But, still, this man feels himself to be on a serious spiritual mission. Like the prophets of biblical times, he has a vision of things as God wants them to be. Following their model, he has dedicated himself to changing people’s hearts so that all of God’s children may share in the common wealth of American society.

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The Faces of War

Among the images produced by the war in Yugoslavia, one of  the starkest is that of an old woman lying back in a wheelbarrow and pushed by male family members or friends toward the border of Albania . Though that woman is one among hundreds of thousands of refugees, she represents an entire people,  reduced to misery by the brutal forces that have swept over them.

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Things Falling Into Place

At age 19, Chris White chose to become a Baha’i. In doing so, he followed the religious faith of his mother who has belonged to that tradition all of her life. Now, some ten years later, Chris feels that he made the right choice because “things fell into place for me.”

Now ten years later, Chris is a candidate for a Ph.D. at Harvard in the field of religion. He also serves as a tutor to some of the sixty undergraduates choosing to major in this field.

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