Healing Souls: Medical Limits in the Latter-day Saint Religion
Courtney Campbell, PhD, Hundere Professor of Religion and Culture, Oregon State University; Bradley Thornock, PhD, MPH, Rocky Vista University; and Shane Woods, University of Virginia
While the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) has become an increasing political and cultural presence on such matters as religious liberty, refugees and immigration, family life, race relations, and LGBTQ issues, the implications of this religious tradition for matters of soul and body in health care, medical professionalism, and bioethics have been largely undeveloped. This panel seeks to initiate a conversation on the nature of medicine and its goals and limits within an LDS theology of healing, and as focused by limits to community cohesion displayed in ecclesiastical responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and by limits to professional resiliency experienced by LDS health care professionals. The panel will present examples of these issues to facilitate interaction with attendees.
The justification for medicine within the LDS community resides in part on an understanding of the “soul” as comprised of a union of “spirit” (an eternal self) and “body” (the physical manifestation of self). It is only as an ensouled body or embodied soul that persons can acquire joy and meaning. Thus, “care for the soul” in the LDS community can be constructed as a form of healing that is genuinely holistic. Healing may be carried out through the ministrations of medicine, and/or practices of prayer, presence, and blessings by church elders. It follows from such convictions about the soul and of healing that religious beliefs may influence the moral formation of those who choose to enter the healing professions.
Practicing these convictions is a demanding challenge; as with many religious communities, and the broader society, the LDS community was riven with conflict and dissension in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. At a broad level, these conflicts over masks, in-person religious services, and vaccinations, manifested tension between core LDS moral and bioethical principles, including respecting the moral agency of persons and a collectivist ethos that emphasizes the sacrality of the social, the ideal of a “Zion” community, and the moral authority of prophetic leadership. The pandemic presented a “stress test” for the community to live with integrity by these values, and some candid ecclesiastical leaders felt the LDS community fell rather short of a healing response.
The pandemic also brought medicine and the medical profession up against some of its inherent limits regarding effective treatments and the demands of caring for more patients in need than available resources, which often produced burnout, fatigue, moral distress, and resignations. The question to be considered here is the extent to which the religious convictions and moral culture of the LDS community provide resources for resiliency and community for LDS health care professionals. Can and do the commitments to healing and the sacred social affirmed by the tradition in its healing of souls carry over into the professional identity and moral formation of LDS healing professionals and their relationships with patients?
Through this panel, attendees will:
1) Acquire familiarity with the general perspectives and principles that guide the Latter-day Saint community on the role, justification, and limits of medicine within the tradition;
2) Apply these perspectives and principles to a case study;
3) Understand how diverse ecclesiastical responses to the pandemic generated broader (and generalizable) communal tensions between agency and the sacred social (a Zion community);
4) Identify the modes by which religious convictions and values shape and constrain professional moral formation among LDS health care professionals.
The justification for medicine within the LDS community resides in part on an understanding of the “soul” as comprised of a union of “spirit” (an eternal self) and “body” (the physical manifestation of self). It is only as an ensouled body or embodied soul that persons can acquire joy and meaning. Thus, “care for the soul” in the LDS community can be constructed as a form of healing that is genuinely holistic. Healing may be carried out through the ministrations of medicine, and/or practices of prayer, presence, and blessings by church elders. It follows from such convictions about the soul and of healing that religious beliefs may influence the moral formation of those who choose to enter the healing professions.
Practicing these convictions is a demanding challenge; as with many religious communities, and the broader society, the LDS community was riven with conflict and dissension in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. At a broad level, these conflicts over masks, in-person religious services, and vaccinations, manifested tension between core LDS moral and bioethical principles, including respecting the moral agency of persons and a collectivist ethos that emphasizes the sacrality of the social, the ideal of a “Zion” community, and the moral authority of prophetic leadership. The pandemic presented a “stress test” for the community to live with integrity by these values, and some candid ecclesiastical leaders felt the LDS community fell rather short of a healing response.
The pandemic also brought medicine and the medical profession up against some of its inherent limits regarding effective treatments and the demands of caring for more patients in need than available resources, which often produced burnout, fatigue, moral distress, and resignations. The question to be considered here is the extent to which the religious convictions and moral culture of the LDS community provide resources for resiliency and community for LDS health care professionals. Can and do the commitments to healing and the sacred social affirmed by the tradition in its healing of souls carry over into the professional identity and moral formation of LDS healing professionals and their relationships with patients?
Through this panel, attendees will:
1) Acquire familiarity with the general perspectives and principles that guide the Latter-day Saint community on the role, justification, and limits of medicine within the tradition;
2) Apply these perspectives and principles to a case study;
3) Understand how diverse ecclesiastical responses to the pandemic generated broader (and generalizable) communal tensions between agency and the sacred social (a Zion community);
4) Identify the modes by which religious convictions and values shape and constrain professional moral formation among LDS health care professionals.