Coherence Through Disciplinary Integration: Addressing Substance Use Disorders in Christian Churches in South Central Appalachia
Andrea Clements, PhD, East Tennessee State University and Uplift Appalachia, Johnson City, TN; China Scherz, PhD, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA; Abigail Mack, PhD, Weber State University, Ogden, UT; Tanner Clements, MDiv, Uplift Appalachia, Johnson City, TN; Brett McCarty, ThD, MDiv, Duke University, Durham, NC; Natalie Cyphers, PhD, DeSales University, Center Valley, PA; and Mary Jo Hedrick, MS, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN
Addressing issues as complex as substance use disorders necessarily requires a cohesive, multi-disciplinary approach. Building on this year's conference theme: "In Pursuit of the Great Coherence," we aim to pursue the possibilities that might be achieved through the integration of different disciplinary approaches to understanding and addressing substance use disorders. This session will bring together a diversely trained panel of individuals who have been engaged in work related to efforts of the Christian church in South Central Appalachia to address our nation's addiction crisis. Papers will be presented from the perspectives of ethics, church history, theology, healthcare, anthropology, and psychology. None gives a complete story, but all add depth and richness to our understanding. We will conclude with a discussion of the overlaps among our fields of study, our conclusions, and discuss the value of interdisciplinary efforts tackling difficult health issues.
Sectors: Theology/Ethics
Title: Addiction and Ethics as a Way of Life
Presenter: Theological ethicist and qualitative researcher
Standard approaches within ethics fail to fully grapple with the moral issues surrounding substance use issues. Medical ethics can constrain the moral gaze too narrowly, focusing on individual behaviors. Public health ethics can become too diffuse, focusing on improving mortality outcomes. Virtue ethics may offer better ways forward, but not necessarily so: 12-step programs can become examples of virtue ethics avoiding public action and communal responsibility. Addiction asks ethics to return to more fundamental questions: how might we live and care well, and what might a world look like where it is easier to be good? It is precisely at this point that the contributions of religious communities can be helpful. Drawing from empirical research on faith-based responses to substance use issues in southern Appalachia, this paper will explore how to move beyond modern ethical impasses surrounding addiction.
Sectors: Theology/Church History
Title: Progress, Abdication, or Collaboration: Government Social Programs and the Church
Presenter: Pastor/Nonprofit Trainer
This paper examines the faith community’s “ownership” of the responsibility to care for those who are poor, sick, or in need, or in the realm of this panel, addicted (Isaiah 1:17, Romans 15:1-2) in light of the establishment and availability of governmental social programs. There are some who think that these programs represent the expansion/growth of Christian principles (progress), some who think they enable Christians to abdicate their responsibilities (abdication), and some see the possibility of collaboration without compromising a scripturally-informed pursuit of flourishing. The tension between referring someone to others versus caring for them within a faith community will be explored, informed by our experiences in southern Appalachia.
Sectors: Psychology/Healthcare
Title: We’re on the Same Team
Presenters: Psychologist, Healthcare Professional, and Pastor/Nonprofit Trainer
A recent publication by some of these panelists representing psychology, healthcare, theology, and ethics titled Using Trauma Informed Principles in Health Communication: Improving Faith/Science/Clinical Collaboration to Address Addiction, recommended applying trauma informed principles including trust, collaboration, strength-finding, and others, to enhance cross-sector (e.g., faith, health) communication. This paper presents a case study of the application of this recommendation from one town in rural South-Central Appalachia as a religious nonprofit seeks to equip the faith community to partner with the addiction treatment and recovery community to support people who struggle with problematic substance use.
Sector: Anthropology
Title: Hopesick
Presenters: Anthropologists
For many Christians, the belief that God can and does act directly in the world can be a tremendous source of hope, even in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges. Against all evidence, there is a sense that events hold within them promises worked by divine hands. This might just be the time, and we must keep faith and act accordingly. And yet, things don’t always work out. In this paper, we explore this dynamic of hope and disappointment through the life of a young woman recovering from polysubstance use disorder, considering the theological and interpersonal stakes of hope and despair over the course of three years of longitudinal fieldwork in Virginia and Tennessee. We explore how theological understandings of God’s omnipotence and boundary keeping trouble easy distinctions between care and abandonment and allow people to keep hope along roads which suggest forms of love and the miraculous that require an ability to live within complex temporal horizons.
Sectors: Theology/Ethics
Title: Addiction and Ethics as a Way of Life
Presenter: Theological ethicist and qualitative researcher
Standard approaches within ethics fail to fully grapple with the moral issues surrounding substance use issues. Medical ethics can constrain the moral gaze too narrowly, focusing on individual behaviors. Public health ethics can become too diffuse, focusing on improving mortality outcomes. Virtue ethics may offer better ways forward, but not necessarily so: 12-step programs can become examples of virtue ethics avoiding public action and communal responsibility. Addiction asks ethics to return to more fundamental questions: how might we live and care well, and what might a world look like where it is easier to be good? It is precisely at this point that the contributions of religious communities can be helpful. Drawing from empirical research on faith-based responses to substance use issues in southern Appalachia, this paper will explore how to move beyond modern ethical impasses surrounding addiction.
Sectors: Theology/Church History
Title: Progress, Abdication, or Collaboration: Government Social Programs and the Church
Presenter: Pastor/Nonprofit Trainer
This paper examines the faith community’s “ownership” of the responsibility to care for those who are poor, sick, or in need, or in the realm of this panel, addicted (Isaiah 1:17, Romans 15:1-2) in light of the establishment and availability of governmental social programs. There are some who think that these programs represent the expansion/growth of Christian principles (progress), some who think they enable Christians to abdicate their responsibilities (abdication), and some see the possibility of collaboration without compromising a scripturally-informed pursuit of flourishing. The tension between referring someone to others versus caring for them within a faith community will be explored, informed by our experiences in southern Appalachia.
Sectors: Psychology/Healthcare
Title: We’re on the Same Team
Presenters: Psychologist, Healthcare Professional, and Pastor/Nonprofit Trainer
A recent publication by some of these panelists representing psychology, healthcare, theology, and ethics titled Using Trauma Informed Principles in Health Communication: Improving Faith/Science/Clinical Collaboration to Address Addiction, recommended applying trauma informed principles including trust, collaboration, strength-finding, and others, to enhance cross-sector (e.g., faith, health) communication. This paper presents a case study of the application of this recommendation from one town in rural South-Central Appalachia as a religious nonprofit seeks to equip the faith community to partner with the addiction treatment and recovery community to support people who struggle with problematic substance use.
Sector: Anthropology
Title: Hopesick
Presenters: Anthropologists
For many Christians, the belief that God can and does act directly in the world can be a tremendous source of hope, even in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges. Against all evidence, there is a sense that events hold within them promises worked by divine hands. This might just be the time, and we must keep faith and act accordingly. And yet, things don’t always work out. In this paper, we explore this dynamic of hope and disappointment through the life of a young woman recovering from polysubstance use disorder, considering the theological and interpersonal stakes of hope and despair over the course of three years of longitudinal fieldwork in Virginia and Tennessee. We explore how theological understandings of God’s omnipotence and boundary keeping trouble easy distinctions between care and abandonment and allow people to keep hope along roads which suggest forms of love and the miraculous that require an ability to live within complex temporal horizons.