Science, Religion, and the Human Experience
uneasy alliances 301
- A lot of the scholarly arguments in this vein over the past two decades have
come from medical anthropology. One early classic work making this argument is Ar-
thur Kleinman’sThe Illness Narratives: Suffering, Healing, and the Human Condition
(New York: Basic Books, 1988). Also influential and persuasive in its approach is Ar-
thur Frank’sThe Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness, and Ethics(Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1995).
- Anatole Broyard,Intoxicated by My Illness and Other Writings on Life and Death
(Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Books, 1993).
- For an exhaustive overview of data-based articles on this topic, see Harold G.
Koenig, Michael E. McCullough, and David B. Larson,Handbook of Religion and
Health(New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). While I was revising this essay for
publication, a colleague sent me a special January 2003 section ofAmerican Psycholo-
gist, with three densely referenced articles devoted to “Spirituality, Religion, and
Health” as an “emerging research field”: seeAmerican Psychologist58 (January 2003):
24–74. A sampling of recent editorials in the medical press (both arguing for the rele-
vance of the research for clinical practice, and warning against premature or unwar-
ranted conclusions) includes A. J. Slomski, “Should Doctors Prescribe Religion?”Med
Econ7.1 (2000), 145–59; C. Marwick, “Should Physicians Prescribe Prayer for Health?
Spiritual Aspects of Well-Being Considered,”JAMA(1995): 273; 1561–1562; H. G. Ko-
enig, E. Idler, S. Kasl, et al., “Religion, Spirituality, and Medicine: A Rebuttal to Skep-
tics,”International Journal Psychiatry Medicine29 (1999): 123–131; R. Sloan, E. Bag-
iella, L. Van de Creek, et al., “Should Physicians Prescribe Religious Activities?”New
England Journal of Medicine(2000); L. Gundersen, “Faith and Healing,”Annual Inter-
national Medicine132 (2000): 169–172.
- Dale Matthews (with Connie Clark),The Faith Factor: Proof of the Healing
Power of Prayer(New York: Penguin, 1999); Herbert Benson (with Marg Stark),Time-
less Healing: The Power and Biology of Belief(New York: Scribner, 1996); Harold G.
Koenig,The Healing Power of Faith(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1999); Jeff Levin,
God, Faith and Health: Exploring the Spirituality-Healing Connection(New York: John
Wiley and Sons, 2001).
- Herbert Benson’s version at Harvard University, which began in 1995 and
has regularly attracted upwards of one thousand people, is probably the best known
of these. The most recent description of the syllabus for his course can be viewed
online at http://cme.med.harvard.edu/syl/benson.htm.
- Some classic reference points in this literature include: L. F. Berkman and
S. L. Syme, “Social Networks, Host Resistance and Mortality: A Nine Year Follow-Up
Study of Alameda County Residents,”American Journal of Epidemiology109 (1979):
186–204; J. G. Bruhn and S. Wolf,The Roseto Story(Norman, Okla.: University of
Oklahoma Press, 1979); S. Wolf, “Predictors of Myocardial Infarction over a Span of
30 years in Roseto, Pennsylvania,”Integrative Physiological and Behavioral Science, 27.3
(1992): 246–257; K. R. Landis et al., “Social Relationships and Health,”Science
241.4865 (1998): 540–545.
- See, among others, James J. Lynch,Broken Heart: The Medical Consequences of
Loneliness(New York: Basic Books, 1985).
- For example, W. J. Strawbridge, R. D. Cohen, and G. A. Kaplan, “Frequent At-
tendance at Religious Services and Mortality over 28 Years,”AJPH87 (1997): 957–961.
