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PubMed2002

Greek Christian Orthodox Ecclesiastical lifestyle: could it become a pattern of health-related behavior?

BACKGROUND: Although past research has globally supported the salutary impact of religion on health and health-related behaviors, it has not extensively examined the impact of the Christian Orthodox Church's way of living on people's health and health-related behavior. METHODS: Semistructured personal interviews were used to investigate a stratified sample of 20- to 65-year-old individuals in the greater Athens area. Constructs were compared to single items and indices, which varied across data sets. RESULTS: Multiple-regression analysis specify that persons adopting the Christian Orthodox Church's lifestyle were more likely to behave in ways that enhance their health (e.g., relaxation, life satisfaction, healthful nutrition, personal hygiene, and physical activity), after controlling for a set of socio-demographic factors and their current health status. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that the Christian Orthodox Church's lifestyle constitutes a pattern of health-related behavior.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Bioethics and Christian theology.

The authors of this essay suggest that the field of bioethics and Christian theology have a great deal to offer each other. The authors first argue that representatives from both fields must first make sure that they fully and correctly represent their respective position. In other words, scientists, ethicists, and theologians alike must make sure that they present their fields and not use their knowledge merely for personal gain at the stake of misguiding people. Once this is established, the authors then proceed to show the intimate relationship between Christianity and medicine that has existed throughout the ages. It is a call for a continuation of such a relationship that the authors suggest between bioethics and theology. Through an integration of bioethics and Christian theology, both scientists/physicians and theologians are able to gain greater insight into the human person--a focus in both fields.

Bioethics↗
PubMed2004

Sustainable and responsible design from a Christian worldview.

Many aspects of design require engineers to make choices based on non-quantifiable personal perspectives. These decisions touch issues in aesthetics, ethics, social impact, and responsibility and sustainability. Part of Baylor University's mission is to provide a learning community in which Christian life values and worldviews might be integrated into academic disciplines. In view of this institutional commitment, members of the Engineering faculty are investigating how Christian worldviews might interact with elements of engineering design in such a way as to produce uniquely Christian insights and inform the non-quantifiable aspects of the engineering process.

Christianity↗
PubMed2006

Does the periodic vegetarianism of Greek Orthodox Christians benefit blood pressure?

OBJECTIVE: The Greek Orthodox Christian (GOC) diet is a periodic vegetarian-type diet that shares all the characteristics of the Mediterranean diet. No study to date has investigated its impact on blood pressure (BP). METHODS: Thirty-eight devout Orthodox Christian fasters and 29 matched controls living in Crete, Greece, were followed for 1 year during 2001. BP data were gathered before (pre) and near completion (end) of the three major fasting periods of the Orthodox Christian calendar [Christmas (40 days)-Easter (48 days)-Assumption (15 days)] along with other information on their dietary and lifestyle habits, body measurements and blood samples. RESULTS: Throughout the study fasters had higher mean SBP and DBP than controls. No fasting period had a significant BP lowering effect on fasters. Fasters' prevalence of end-Christmas and end-Lent high-normal BP was significantly higher than that of the controls', while it was reduced during the Assumption and reached the very low levels of controls'. On the whole, compared to controls, fasters increased their fiber, magnesium and fruit and vegetable consumption during the fasting periods and decreased their sodium and calcium intake. BMI and blood lipids were significantly associated with SBP/DBP at almost all measurements. CONCLUSION: Religious adherence to a periodic vegetarian Mediterranean-style diet does not have an observable effect on BP. Further research is needed in order to establish conclusive evidence.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

The challenge of spiritual care in a multi-faith society experienced as a Christian nurse.

BACKGROUND: Understanding the spiritual dimension of holistic nursing care is arguably regaining its centrality in the assessment of patient well being in whatever area of care. However it is argued that we are still far from having a universal agreement as to what is meant by the concept of spirituality. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: This paper aims to explore some of the definitions and models of spirituality and determine what is meant by spiritual needs. Taking the perspective of a Christian nurse, the potential tension between the nature of spiritual care and evidence-based professionalism is explored. CONCLUSION: The exploration reveals the challenges faced by a nurse who wishes to administer this spiritual care and holds a personal commitment to the Christian faith. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: Acknowledging and debating the challenge of spiritual care is arguably the first step towards meeting optimally this need in our patients. The dilemma that may need to be further explored within the context of nursing care is how a nurse, holding and operating within one particular belief (e.g. Christianity) can offer the ideal of spiritual care to patients who hold other, quite different beliefs.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1999

Desperately seeking perfection: Christian discipleship and medical genetics.

The question of what, if anything, Christian theology as theology might contribute to ethical debates about appropriate uses of medical genetics has often been ignored. The answer is complex, and the author argues it is best characterized by an explanation of the analogous aspirations of the two: both have as their goal the perfection of the human being, both assert that the present disposition of the human body is on a fundamental level more often than not other than it ought to be, and both aspire to transform the present state of the body toward a future state in which present imperfections no longer exist. Given these analogous concerns, it would seem that one of the primary moral contributions that Christianity can make to debates about medical genetics is to ask whether and to what extent the Christian vision of embodied human perfection is compatible with the vision of perfection offered by the sciences pertaining to medical genetics. The author pursues a discussion of this analogy and its implications in this essay.

Christianity↗
PubMed2001

Associations between religious behavior and attitude to Christianity among Australian Catholic adolescents: scale validation.

In a sample of 1,166 Catholic high school students (age = 13-18 years), the author used confirmatory factor analysis to validate a 30-item instrument that assesses 6 dimensions of attitude to Christianity (viz., attitude to prayer, attitude to God, attitude to Jesus, attitude to the Bible, attitude to Christian practice, attitude to social justice). Goodness-of-fit indices for the proposed measurement model revealed that the model fitted the data very well, thus confirming the instrument's structure. A correlation analysis revealed associations between religious behavior and attitude to Christianity.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Sexual morality of Christianity.

After discussing the origin of religion, functions of religion, and the construction of meaning by religion, the author focuses on the connection between religion and anxiety. The permanent anxiety in religion is determined by guilt feelings that arise for example from the violation of norms in the area of sexuality. In a religion at enmity with sexuality, such as Christianity, the satisfaction of sexual desires is considered bad and sinful; the permanent production of anxiety and a guilty conscience are the result of it. Christian sexual suppression leads to the propagation of asceticism as the taming of corrupt sensuality that only religious virtuosi can maintain. One result of asceticism is celibacy, although passages from the Bible demand monogamy for bishops without prohibiting celibacy. In Catholicism, celibacy institutionalizes the enmity with sexuality and causes a permanent depreciation of real sexuality in favor of one projected onto the mother church and the Virgin Mary. A further consequence of asceticism is the reduction of sexuality to reproduction. In the section about the factual consequences of Christian sexual morality, the author connects sexual instinctual gratification with religious affiliation on the basis of an analysis of the sexual behavior of Germans. The weekly frequency rate of sexual intercourse amounts to 3.1 with male and female nondenominationals, 2.6 with Protestants, and 2.3 with Catholics; 39% of nondenominational men, 20% of Protestant men, and 12% of Catholic men in Germany use condoms. The connection of religion and aggression is empirically significant as well. The religiously most active men feel more inclined to use aggression to reach sexual goals than religiously indifferent ones.

Adult↗
PubMed2000

Between suffering and redemption. Religious motives in Jewish and Christian cancer patients' coping.

The aim of this research was to study the potential influence and significance of Jewish and Christian patients' religion on their coping with cancer. After intensive methodological experimentation, the Interpretive Biography-approach, an inductive unstructured research method was applied to collect and analyse the data. In this way 100 Jewish and Christian patients were interviewed. Document analysis was performed when patients' diaries were available. Comparative analysis of the patients' stories made possible the identification of a number of religious motives from which the patients drew meaning to explain their suffering. The findings show that Jewish and Christian patients utilize the same religious motives. The relevance of this research for nurses lies in the finding that, for many patients, their religiousness has great potential as a resource and it should therefore be supported by nurses.

Christianity↗
PubMed1995

Moral content, tradition, and grace: rethinking the possibility of a Christian bioethics.

Birth, suffering, disability, disease and death were by medicine's successes placed within a context of seemingly novel challenges that cried out for new responses. Secular bioethics rose in response to the demands of these new biomedical technologies in the context of culture fragmented in moral pluralism. While secular bioethics promised to unite persons separated by diverse religious and moral assumption, this is a promise that could not be fulfilled. Reason alone cannot provide canonical, content-full moral guidance or justify a moral community capable of binding all persons. Christian bioethics, as part of a way of life enbedded in authentic worship, offers content, meaning and understanding where secular bioethics has failed. For Christians, resolution of bioethical controversies will not be found through appeals to foundational rational arguments or isolated scriptural quotations, but only in a Christian community united in authentic faith.

Bioethical Issues↗
PubMed1997

Spirituality in nursing theory and practice: dilemmas for Christian bioethics.

Moral strangerhood is due in part to competing worldviews. The profession of nursing is experiencing a paradigm shift which creates ethical dilemmas for both Christian nurses and Christian patients. Nursing's new focus on spirituality and spiritual care presents itself as broadly defining a desired state or patient outcome -- spiritual integrity -- supposed to be applicable to all patients of all faiths. Analysis of nursing's definition of spirituality reveals assumptions and values consistent with an Eastern/New Age worldview which may cause hostility towards Christian patients stereotyped as dogmatic or noncompliant.

Christianity↗
PubMed1997

Trends in neonatal exchange transfusions at Yodogawa Christian Hospital.

A review was conducted to determine the trends in exchange transfusion (ET) of newborn infants at the Yodogawa Christian Hospital during the past 18 years. At that hospital in 1957, the first ET was performed on a term infant with severe hemolytic jaundice caused by rhesus factor (Rh) incompatibility. By 1989, ET had been performed in more than 1400 newborn infants. These cases of newborns who had had ET were retrospectively reviewed, with a focus on every 3 year period from 1974 to 1992. The total number of infants requiring ET noticeably decreased from 68 cases (14.0% of total admissions) in 1974 to 19 cases (6.1% of total admissions) in 1992. (chi 2, P < 0.001) There were three major significant changes in ET during those years. The first was a change in the subjects for ET. The incidence of ET for term infants showed a marked decrease, while the incidence of ET for preterm infants, especially for very low birthweight (VLBW) infants (< 1500 g), noticeably increased. The second was a change in indications for ET. There was a marked decrease in the need for ET as a result of hyperbilirubinemia, while the incidence of ET because of other etiologies, such as septicemia and/or disseminated intravascular coagulopathy, noticeably increased. The third was a change in the technical methods of ET. Now at the Yodogawa Christian Hospital, 100% of the infants are given ET with an automated peripheral two-site method, instead of the Diamond method. Although ET might still be a useful treatment for severe hyperbilirubinemia and other acute problems, the total number of ET noticeably decreased in accord with a decrease in the number of severe hyperbilirubinemia in term newborns. On the other hand, the incidence of ET in preterm infants increased relatively, accompanied by an increase in the survival of VLBW infants. The automated two-site method is the preferred technique for ET at the Yodogawa Christian Hospital, rather than the Diamond method. Further changes in ET might occur in accord with new alternative measures in future.

Christianity↗
PubMed2005

Defining forgiveness: christian clergy and general population perspectives.

The lack of any consensual definition of forgiveness is a serious weakness in the research literature (McCullough, Pargament, & Thoresen, 2000). As forgiveness is at the core of Christianity, this study returns to the Christian source of the concept to explore the meaning of forgiveness for practicing Christian clergy. Comparisons are made with a general population sample and social science definitions of forgiveness to ensure that a shared meaning of forgiveness is articulated. Anglican and Roman Catholic clergy (N = 209) and a general population sample (N = 159) completed a postal questionnaire about forgiveness. There was agreement on the existence of individual differences in forgiveness. Clergy and the general population perceived reconciliation as necessary for forgiveness while there was no consensus within psychology. The clergy suggest that forgiveness is limitless and that repentance is unnecessary, while the general population suggests that there are limits and that repentance is necessary. Psychological definitions do not conceptualize repentance as necessary for forgiveness, and the question of limits has not been addressed, although, within therapy, the implicit assumption is that forgiveness is limitless.

Adult↗
PubMed2003

Confidentiality and its limits: some contributions from Christianity.

The issue is whether Christianity, of its nature, would seek to prevent a justifiable breach of confidentiality or could endorse it, under certain circumstances, as the act which is fundamentally more loving or more truthful. The individualistic nature of Western Christianity is noted. The Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer is used to show Christian support for dynamic rather than literal truth telling, and for awareness of the contexts and power relations within which persons stand.

Christianity↗
PubMed2000

The hopeful pessimist: Christian pastoral theology in a pessimistic context.

Notes that contemporary caregivers minister in a situation characterized not only by cultural pessimism, but also by the decline of Christian pastoral theology. Argues that the current renewal in theology, which involves a shift to nonfoundationalism, holds promise for a corresponding renewal in pastoral theology that could lead to a retrieval of the unique grammar of the Christian practitioner; namely, the language of hope. Opines that nonfoundationalist Christian pastoral theology would set forth a hope that is particular, eschatological, and pessimistic in contrast to the foundationalist hope with its focus on the hopeful human person, a hope that is directed beyond the human toward the God of the Bible who promises life from the dead.

Attitude↗
PubMed2004

Challenges to preparing and conducting christian worship in nursing homes.

This essay explores and details the various challenges that are faced in the design of Christian worship within the nursing home environment. People in this setting have special needs-physical, mental, social, and spiritual. The physical plant itself demands special considerations when preparing for worship. Difficulties are defined and solutions presented for those who would provide intentional and accessible Christian worship that allows for action and response from the community in these settings. Sources include Christian liturgical reference materials and on-site interviews with chaplains and activity directors at three care facilities in southeast Michigan.

Christianity↗
PubMed2002

An exploratory study of different types of violence presented in early Christian and Islamic historical documents.

Source documents for Islam and Christianity were analyzed for violent themes. The two religions both condemned criminal violence, and neither supported random violence. Nonviolence was more common in the Christian sources while active violence was much more common in the Islamic documents. Although violence themes are a very small proportion of the content of the documents of either religion, those who seek to justify active violence against perceived enemies may find more support for their actions in early Islamic sources than in early Christian sources. Results are interpreted from a perspective of symbolic interaction.

Bible↗
PubMed1992

Israeli Christian, Druze, and Moslem adolescents' attitudes toward magazine alcohol advertisements.

This article summarizes the Christian, Druze, and Moslem part of an Israeli study which was carried out in 1988 in the framework of an international comparative project conducted simultaneously also in Australia and in the USA in order to compare the perception of a set of 64 magazine alcohol advertisements by youth from three nations and various cultural and religious groups within those nations. This study is a breakthrough in the Christian, Druze, and Moslem sectors, since it is the first project in the "alcohol domain" among high school students from those sectors. The article presents the results concerning Christian, Druze, and Moslem adolescents' attitudes toward magazine alcohol advertisements. The results have implications for prevention efforts among adolescents from those three religions.

Adolescent↗