The DOI matches its Crossref record.
Health and Spirituality as Contemporary Concerns
Abstract
One theme of particular importance in contemporary U.S. religion and quasi-religion is health and healing. Groups as diverse as Pentecostal Christians and New Age groups, women's spirituality groups and New Thought churches are promoting non-medical approaches to health and healing. Indeed, to many contemporary Americans, health and healing appear to be salient metaphors for salvation and holiness. Religious and quasi-religious attention to health is adamantly holistic in the belief that spiritual, emotional, social, and physical aspects of well-being are fundamentally interconnected. To understand the significance of this widespread focus on health and healing, we need to look beyond the religious groups themselves and appreciate some twentieth-century structural and cultural changes in the meanings of the body, the self, and the nature of well-being.
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“Several studies have identified within New Age groups a considerable overlap between those practices that are described as religious or as health-directed (Levin and Coreil 1986;English-Lueck 1990;McGuire 1993) among groups whose implicit worldview is decidedly non-Christian.”
From New Age Healing: Origins, Definitions, and Implications for Religion and Medicine (2022) · cites this paper as McGuire 1993
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Research works printed but not linked: 13
- 1. Quoted in Meredith B. McGuire, Ritual Healing in Suburban America (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1988), pp. 39, 97, 136. Descriptions of contemporary religious healing groups used in this article are documented in this book.
- 10.1525/maq.1987.1.1.02a00020 · DOI · Paper page
- 10.1525/maq.1987.1.1.02a00020 · DOI · Paper page
- 10.2307/3710963 · DOI
- Eliot Freidson, Profession of Medicine
- Paul Starr, The Social Transformation of American Medicine
- Deborah Gordon, Biomedicine Examined, 19
- 6. Irving K. Zola, Socio-Medical Inquiries: Recollections, Reflections, and Reconsiderations (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1983), p. 261.
- Peter Conrad, Deviance and Medicalization: From Badness to Sickness
- Emile Durkheim, 1969, Political Studies, 17, 26
- 10.2307/3710213 · DOI
- Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age
- Hans P. Dreitzel, Indigenous Psychologies: The Anthropology of the Self, 205
Cited by
New Age Healing: Origins, Definitions, and Implications for Religion and Medicine
Levin, J. (2022) · Religions · doi:10.3390/rel13090777 · Cited by 12
Metadata
- Authors
- McGUIRE, M. B.
- Corresponding author
- McGUIRE, MEREDITH B.
- Venue
- The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 1993-05
- Volume
- 527
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 144-154
- ISSN
- 0002-7162 (ISSN-L)
- 1552-3349
- OpenAlex
- W2128871164
- Cited by
- 33
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 1 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 2 · 2017: 3 · 2015: 2
- FWCI
- 0.59
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Health › Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Religious studies › Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Religion and Society Interactions
- Keywords
- health and healing, spirituality, religion and health, holistic well-being, Pentecostalism, New Age, New Thought, women's spirituality, meaning of the body, selfhood, quasi-religion
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- McGUIRE, M. B. (1993). Health and Spirituality as Contemporary Concerns. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716293527001011
