Book Reviews

Faith in the Future Healthcare, Aging, and the Role of Religion Harold G. Koenig, MD and Douglas M. Lawson, PhD with Malcolm McConnell Journal of the American Medical Association—Chicago, IL—Vol. 97 No. 11 Book Review Digest Theological Studies—Milwaukee, WI Cleveland Daily Banner, Cleveland, TN Journal of Religion, Disability and Health—New Brunswick, NJ—Vol. 9, No. 4 Scientific and Medical Network, The—Gloucestershire, United Kingdom Christianity Today Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation—Vol. 56, No. 4 America—New York, NY Annals of Pharmacotherapy, The—Cincinnati, OH CHOICE Theology Digest—St. Louis, MO Living Church, The—Milwaukee, Wisconsin Christian Marketplace Library Journal Bookshelf-Post—Washington, DC Publisher's Weekly

Journal of the American Medical Association—Chicago, IL—Vol. 97 No. 11
11/1/2005

If the authors wanted the reader to become empowered to put their faith into action, their mission has been accomplished. As a clergyperson and a healthcare professional working and serving in a city where the disease burden for most chronic illness is high, working and serving in an epicenter for the AIDS epidemic where we are not witnessing increasing infection rates in African-American women, working and serving in a community known as "the borough of churches," I am challenged by the authors to put my faith into action. I am challenged to work so that my faith community becomes an epicenter of health promotion and disease prevention.

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Book Review Digest
10/1/2005

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Theological Studies—Milwaukee, WI
9/1/2005

Koenig and Larson provide an important response to the U.S. healthcare crisis. Their text offers practical steps for putting faith into action.

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Cleveland Daily Banner, Cleveland, TN
5/15/2005

In "Faith in the Future: Healthcare, Aging, and the Role of Religion" (Templeton Foundation Press), Dr. Harold Koenig examines one of the most serious issues in today’s society - the lack of adequate health care for a growing elderly population.

A sobering reality is that demographic and health-economic trends are on a collision course which many predict could be the most serious societal problem in modern history.

Costs, he says, have been steadily escalating, despite all efforts. The questions asked are: "How will we provide quality health care to older adults with chronic health problems and disabilities needing long-term care? Who will provide this care? How will it be funded? And how can we establish systems of care now that will continue to be in place as worldwide demographic and health-related economic pressures continue to mount?"

Koenig, along with Douglas M. Lawson and Malcolm McDowell, assess these challenges and suggest some solutions in "Faith in the Future." They begin with an overview of the problems faced, including the complications and frustrations of securing adequate, reliable care. They then consider the traditional concepts of professional health care, as well as personal and community responsibilities toward prevention and wellness promotion.

A source for optimism is found in the steadily growing body of scientific evidence that religious involvement is associated with better physical health, a greater sense of well-being, less depression and a reduced need to health services, including hospital stays. If faith has the potential to influence the health of individuals, what might religious institutions do to help alleviate the health crisis?

Drawing on the research and combined wisdom of international leaders in the fields of medicine, health care policy, religion, government and the media, as well as the personal experiences of lay members from various religious communities, the authors cite innovative opportunities which offer religious institutions chances to make a difference in society.

A vision is presented of faith-based volunteer programs derived from a partnership of government, philanthropy and religious communities that offers solutions to the mounting needs of our aging population.

Examples include:

• Congregational programs, such as parish nursing and wellness ministries.
• Volunteer programs like the Shepherd’s Centers of America and Faith in Action, among others.
• Churches, synagogues and mosques which are seeking ways to transform their congregations into more effective caring communities.
• Retirement communities which have active support networks built into them.
• Volunteer housing efforts, such as Habitat for Humanity and Rebuilding Together.
• Private philanthropies which have joined with religious institutions to meet community health care needs.

In the United States, there are 350,000 religious congregations which have the potential to prevent or lessen the looming crisis of health care for the aging. "Faith in the Future" challenges these mostly untapped resources to action, suggests ways government agencies should be prepared to assist the faith-based institutions and offers inspiration through practical, specific examples.

The book also synthesizes the latest research on the link between spirituality and health. Religious faith and practice appear to foster better health among older people, reducing the need for repeated hospitalizations as well as the length of hospital stays. There are provocative findings on religion and longevity. Research also indicates it is possible prayer has a significant impact on the immune function. In addition, studies show volunteering significantly reduces the level of toxic stress in our lives, thus offering protection from depression and perhaps even from some physical illnesses. So, for both the person needing help and the person offering help, there are significant health benefits.

There is a traditional link between faith and caring for those in need. Today and in the future religious institutions ranging in size from a small alliance of congregations to an entire denomination can once again lead a critical effort to help alleviate a potentially major social disaster. By sponsoring effective volunteer programs that reach out to those in need, faith in action can effect beneficial social change.

"Faith in the Future: Healthcare, Aging, and the Role of Religion" is available at most bookstores, or visit web site: www.templetonpress.org.

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Journal of Religion, Disability and Health—New Brunswick, NJ—Vol. 9, No. 4
4/1/2005

No issue is left untouched in this book—everything from housing, companionship, worship, preventive care, social supports, clinics, hospice care, and educational groups are addressed, and more. Faith in the Future can serve as a handbook to congregations, allowing them to pick and choose what would work in their community and congregation. Resources are listed in the form of both contact information for individual programs and printed reference materials.

As relevant as this book is for our time, programs presented here are probably only the tip of the iceberg as to what is possible for congregations to achieve in this realm.

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Scientific and Medical Network, The—Gloucestershire, United Kingdom
3/20/2005

To raise awareness of the problem, to mobilize resources, and to initiate action . . . if we are thinkers from the USA, perhaps with links to Think Tank policy makers, and if our Faith world is evangelical Christian, then for putting Faith into action, Faith in the Future, there is an agenda.

And there certainly is, Christian Congregational Health: a faith movement to glorify God and prevent chronic and life-threatening illness that threatens the body, mind and spirit. With tools such as the power of prayer (and the EBM supporting literature). And the evidence that shows religious activity is a good coping strategy. And that combating secularism is good medicine, for instance the ’Higher Power’ of the 12 steps for Alzheimer’s disease.

There certainly is.

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Christianity Today
1/1/2005

The closing words of the introduction say it well: "Those among the 7 million health-care and social-service professionals, desperately searching for resources to provide care for aging patients, will find practical direction and guidance on how to prepare to meet this need by drawing on the resources of volunteers and religious congregations."

The health-care world is desperately searching for what the church desperately offers. This book should help connect the two.

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Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation—Vol. 56, No. 4
12/1/2004

This book is relevant because soon there will be an increase worldwide in older people with chronic health problems requiring chronic care. Demographers guess that the American population of people aged 85 and above will jump from four million in 2000 to eighteen to thirty million in 2050. Parallel to the increase in demand for such services will be an increase in their costs. This raises such questions as: How can quality healthcare be provided for those with chronic illness or disabilities needing long-term care? Who will provide this care; how will it be paid for? And how can solutions be implemented via international systems and cooperation?

The book’s four parts contain eleven chapters, an introduction, and an index. In addition, for those who would like to volunteer, an appendix is provided with links to social-service organizations. A second appendix gives a bibliography of resources on aging, caregiving, religion, and volunteerism.

Harold Koenig, researcher on the efforts of religion on health, and Douglas Lawson, fund-raising consultant, are both previously published authors. Koenig is identified by Newsweek as a "pioneer faith-and-medicine researcher." Their appropriate book dedication reads "to all those who give of themselves because of their faith."

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America—New York, NY
11/15/2004

What are the challenges facing health care in America, and will the members of America’s 350,000 religious congregations be able to help prevent or lessen the looming health care crisis unleashed by relentless demographic pressures and rising costs? That is the question addressed in this book. Despite the apocalyptic tone of the question, there is a measured, even hopeful reply offered by the authors, Harold Koenig, MD, whose research has focused on the benefits of religion on health, and Douglas Lawson, PhD, who is an expert on volunteering.

As people live both longer and more productively, aging becomes increasingly a significant "moment" in the human life span. Informed by an understanding of aging rediscovered in our religious traditions, those for whom the time for aging has come and those who accompany their aging can do so from that ultimate perspective characteristic of religion. If Carl Jung is correct, a positive experience of aging depends upon spiritual growth. That suggests, not a rescue operation from aging but a commitment to it as the culminating phase in the life cycle, worthy of the respect traditionally accorded it in Hinduism and Islam, for example. This is faith in a future that offers a rather different approach to understanding and providing for successful aging. Instead of stepping in where the government has irresponsibly stepped out, religion, even as it performs the corporal works of mercy, must work singlemindedly at this critical juncture for a society in which the aging can realistically live with the expectations expressed in the Rig Veda (1.116): "Let me be lord over this world, with good cattle and good sons; let me see and win a long life-span and enter old age as if going home."

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CHOICE
10/1/2004

The authors offer practical guidelines on the establishment of partnerships for individuals and institutions. They provide good evidence that religious faith can play a key role for individuals and communities in addressing America’s many health-care needs. This is a book that should be read by all concerned about health and aging in America. Summing Up: Recommended. All levels.

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Annals of Pharmacotherapy, The—Cincinnati, OH
10/1/2004

Many authors approach faith-based answers to health care as a commodity, almost as if faith were a genie-in-the-bottle that we just need to learn how to control. Koenig and Lawson avoid that trap, while at the same time successfully describing how faith does move mountains. If you buy this book as a how-to manual, you will be discouraged. If you buy this book to be inspired by practical and workable answers, you will be richly rewarded.

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Theology Digest—St. Louis, MO
9/22/2004

This book presents a synthesis and expands on the themes of a March 2001 conference on "Faith in the Future: Religion, Aging, and Healthcare in the 21st Century," held at Duke University. Dr. Koenig of Duke University, an internationally known writer of faith and medicine, is frequently interviewed by the media. Douglas Lawson is a fund-raising consultant to many organizations. The two authors vividly describe one of the most serious problems in modern history: the dramatic increase in numbers in our aging population, among whom many live with disabilities and need long-term care. Koenig and Lawson see a reason for optimism in the faith and compassion of the 350,000 faith communities and congregations in the United States. They treat the dilemma and the challenge; some solutions; the role of caring communities; and the implementation of their vision for the future.

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Living Church, The—Milwaukee, Wisconsin
6/6/2004

Readers will discover a fine manual of humanitarian service in this book, but keep in mind that the authors have not given us a panacea.

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Christian Marketplace
5/1/2004

Later in the season Faith in the Future: Healthcare, Aging, and the Role of Religion will assess the developing crisis in healthcare for the growing elderly population, and suggest solutions. The book also examines the latest research on the link between spirituality and health. Religious faith and practice appear to foster better health among older people, reducing the need for repeated hospitalizations as well as the length of hospital stays. There are provocative findings on religion and longevity. Research also indicates it is possible that prayer has a significant impact on the immune function. Additionally, studies show that volunteering significantly reduces the level of toxic stress in our lives, thus offering protection from depression and perhaps even from some physical illnesses. So, for both the person needing help and the person offering help, there are significant health benefits.

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Library Journal
4/15/2004

Published by the well-known sponsor of prizes for science and religion, as well as spirituality and health, this book is about successful aging from a faith perspective, yet it will also be useful for students of public health and social welfare. Warmly recommended for public, academic, medical, social work, and seminary libraries. —Ellen G. Detlefsen, Sch. of Medicine, Univ. of Pittsburgh Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

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Bookshelf-Post—Washington, DC
3/13/2004

One of the biggest religion stories at the turn of the century was increased evidence of a link between spirituality and health. At first, the discussion of how to use that connection focused on introducing spirituality into treatment programs. Now, with hospital costs soaring for a growing elderly population, talk has turned to ways that religious communities can supplement the work of traditional social and health-care institutions.

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Publisher's Weekly
1/26/2004

Combining demographic predictions with current examples, Koenig et al. make a convincing case that religion will be an important resource for coping with the coming elder care crisis, which will begin in earnest in 2011 when the first Baby Boomers turn 65.

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