Conceptualizing "Religion": How Language Shapes and Constrains Knowledge in the Study of Religion and Health

Abstract

Despite recent advances in the field of religion and health, meaningful findings will increasingly depend on the capacity to conceptualize "religion" properly. To date, scientists' conception of religion has been shaped by the Enlightenment paradigm.However, recent developments in philosophy make the "objectivity" of the Enlightenment paradigm problematic, if not untenable. Contrary to common understanding, the secularism essential to the Enlightenment paradigm does not enjoy any special privilege over religious ways of seeing the world, because both religious and secular worldviews constitute self-referentially complete interpretations of the human condition. If there is no objective frame of reference from which to measure religiousness, then the study of religion and health is fundamentally contingent on the specific languages and contexts in which particular religions find expression. While applying this cultural-linguistic approach to religion would require significant changes in the existing methods for studying religion and health, such changes may generate a deeper understanding of this relationship.

Religious Attendance: More Cost-Effective Than Lipitor?

“…Furthermore, even if a patient did start attending church to get well, there are ethical, theological, and methodological problems with this instrumental approach to the associations between faith and health. 6,7 For example, it is not clear that the observed reduction in mortality would accrue due to religious attendance. From a theological perspective such instrumental use of religion is idolatrous.…”

“…Rather than approaching religious belief and practice as a health behavior, it may be more appropriate to approach religiousness as a demographic factor. 6 For example, the incidence of gastric cancer is higher among Japanese men, and knowledge of this fact might guide a physician to initiate early and frequent screening for gastric cancer among male Japanese patients. It is not possible to manipulate or therapeutically change a patient's ethnicity, but knowledge of the association between ethnicity and gastric cancer remains relevant for appropriate medical care.…”

“…Although religious attendance appears to be a "health behavior" like physical exercise, it is not open to conventional modes of therapeutic manipulation for both ethical and scientific reasons. 6,7 However, even if it is not therapeutically manipulable, there may be compelling reasons to study the association between religious attendance and mortality if the magnitude of that association is of sufficient practical importance.…”

Untitled

“…However, as I have argued elsewhere, I am convinced that meaningful findings in this field of research will depend increasingly on the capacity to conceptualize and operationalize "religion" in more sophisticated ways than are currently modeled. 10 I suspect this will require abandoning attempts to study "religion-in-general" in favor of measuring the associations specific to particular religions or spiritualities. I also suspect that such research will begin to describe the ways that particular religious traditions are both "adaptive" and "maladaptive" from the perspective of biomedical science-"take up your cross and follow me" isn't a promise to live long and prosper.…”

“…12 I even acknowledge that it is theoretically possible to design a randomized intervention through which physicians could encourage patients to attend religious services in hopes of improving some aspect of health (though I am not convinced such a study would or could yield meaningful findings). However, there are formidable philosophical, scientific and ethical challenges to "using" religion as a therapy, 10,13 and even if those hurdles are cleared, research may demonstrate that "religion" is not effective. Yet even if future research demonstrates that religious belief and practice cannot (technically) or should not (ethically) be manipulated as a therapeutic agent, I suspect religion will remain a relevant factor in the delivery of health care because like other demographic factors, specific religious traditions may be associated with patterns of disease, health, and value that can guide medical decision making.…”