Religion and Healing in America

by Linda L. Barnes (Editor), Susan S. Sered (Editor)

Throughout much of the modern era, faith healing received attention only when it came into conflict with biomedical practice. During the 1990s, however, American culture changed dramatically and religious healing became a commonplace feature of our society. Increasing numbers of mainstream churches and synagogues began to hold held "healing services" and "healing circles." The use of complementary and alternative therapies-some connected with spiritual or religious traditions-became widespread, and the growing hospice movement drew attention to the spiritual aspects of medical care. At the same time, changes in immigration laws brought to the United States new cultural communities, each with their own approaches to healing. Cuban santeros, Haitian mambos and oungans, Cambodian Buddhist priests, Chinese herbalist-acupuncturists, and Hmong shamans are only a few of the newer types of American religious healers, often found practicing within blocks of prestigious biomedical
institutions.
This book offers a richly comprehensive collection of essays examining this new reality. It brings together, for the first time, scholars from a wide variety of disciplinary perspectives to explore the relatively uncharted field of religious healing as understood and practiced in diverse cultural communities in the United States. The book will be an invaluable resource for students of anthropology, religious studies, American studies, and ethnic studies, health care professionals, clergy, and anyone interested in the changing American cultural landscape.

552 pages, Paperback

First published December 30, 2004

About the author

Dr. Linda L. Barnes is an American medical anthropologist, an Associate Professor in the Departments of Family Medicine and Pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine, and a Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Her research specialty is religious history and the social history of Western responses to Chinese healing traditions.

Dr. Barnes received her BA in American Studies from Smith College, her Masters in Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School, and her M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University in Comparative religion and the allied field of Medical anthropology.

Mentored by religious historian John B. Carman, Chinese religion scholar Tu Weiming, and medical anthropologist Arthur Kleinman, her early ethnographic work centered on Chinese healing practices in the United States, particularly Boston. Her subsequent research explores the relationship between culture, religion and spirituality, and complementary and alternative medicines.

Since 1999, Dr. Barnes has been a member of the faculty of Boston University School of Medicine, where she founded and directs an urban ethnographic program—the Boston Healing Landscape Project (BHLP), an institute for the study of religions, medicines, and healing funded by the Ford Foundation. The BHLP’s research focuses on complementary and alternative medicine among the culturally complex patient communities in the Boston area.