CSWR Resources: Religion and Health

The Center for the Study of World Religions has fostered the cross-cultural study of the intersections of healing and religion through individual events, the work of its scholars, and, most notably, through the Religion, Health, and Healing Initiative conducted from 2000 to 2004. That initiative turned rigorous intellectual attention to the many ways in which religious practices, beliefs, and institutions construct (and are constructed by) experiences of illness, health, and healing within and across cultures. It collected data on religious healing in the greater Boston area: papers based on that research are available in the publications section below.

As an interdisciplinary program, the Religion, Health, and Healing Initiative (RHHI) worked collaboratively with a variety of partners, both inside and outside of the academy, both within medical institutions and within religious communities. One of those collaborations, Women Healing Women, with funding from the Germeshausen Foundation, gathered together women healers from different disciplines (physicians, nurses, alternative and holistic practitioners, ministers) over a period of 20 months and sponsored pilot projects by some of the women involved. The video of the culminating conference in which those women presented their results can be accessed below. Some further information about the work of the RHHI is available in the history section of this website. The two books listed at the end of the publication section derived from the work of the RHHI.

In 2007-08, the CSWR plans to return to this topic area through the theme "What Does It Mean To Be Human?" Our tentative plans for programs include examining the ethical issues raised by current medical and biological technology within particular religious traditions.

Lecture

• Women Healing Women Conference (March 2004; video)

Publications

• Religious Healing in Boston: First Findings, edited by Susan Sered and Linda L. Barnes (published 2001, book of May 2001 symposium papers; PDF)
• Religious Healing in Boston: Reports from the Field, edited by Susan Sered (published 2002, book of May 2002 symposium papers; PDF)
• Religious Healing in Boston: Body, Spirit, Community, edited by Susan Sered (published 2004, book of May 2003 and May 2004 symposium papers; PDF)
• Religion and Healing in America, edited by Linda L. Barnes and Susan S. Sered (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005)
• Uninsured in America: Life and Death in the Land of Opportunity, by Susan Starr Sered and Rushika Fernandopulle (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005)