- You are all warmly
welcome to today's seminar. Faith-Based Health Justice
in Times of Global Trauma and Transformation. Today here with us together,
we have a large group, over 120 policy makers, practitioners, and researchers and scholars. And together we share a joint interest and potentially also a joint passion for exploring and
learning more on the nexus and the area of health, justice,
and faith-based engagement. We have come to see in
the midst of the pandemic in the midst of the global health crisis we are all facing, the
importance of faith actors for realizing health justice. But it's not only
opportunities that we see, we also see a lot of challenges
and a lot of struggle, and a lot of tensions,
both when it comes to faith and politics, health
politics, health engagement, we see value conflicts,
but we also see a lot of constructive and strong
partnerships between governments at central and local
level of faith actors. We see partnerships between
faith factors in civil society and secular NGOs. We see constructive partnerships among indigenous faith
groups and local communities and other societal actors. And today we are here not
only to learn from each other and to explore how we can realize faith-based health justice. We are also here to
dig deeper into a book. So today is also a book launch
of a book that was launched and published in February this year. And you will hear more
from the authors later. But I want first to give the
words to Dr. Ayesha Ahmad who is here with us in the event. And she is a lecturer in global health at St. George's University of London. And she has specialized
in religion and culture when it comes to mental health
and gender based violence during conflict, disaster
and humanitarian crisis. And she is among the editors of the book we are launching today. And before I hand over
to Dr.Dr Ayesha Ahmad, I just also want to briefly
let you know who I am. So my name is Josephine Sundqvist. I have a PhD in the sociology of religion from Uppsala University. Today, I also serve as Secretary
General of LM International which is a faith-based organization that works to realize the right to health in more than 30 countries
across the globe. And I will serve as
moderator of today's event. With these words, I hand
over to Dr. Dr Ayesha Ahmad. - Thank you so much Dr. Josephine, and thank you to all for attending. First of all, I would just
like to convey my thanks to all our contributors especially my co-editors and our publisher for the opportunity to
explore such important aspects of what our health and the
struggles to achieve our health and wellbeing globally mean, especially from religious perspectives which continue to serve a fundamental role in our humanity and the
way we respond to suffering even in the advent of the advancements of
scientific medicine. I recognize that this is an opportunity amongst global tragedy
with the ongoing pandemic that we can focus on ways to
live on share our struggles of suffering in better ways. We thought we were writing this
book to inturbulent in times we had no idea what was on the horizon. And I feel that the
commitment to these topics are even more pertinent in present day than when we were writing the book. So on that note, my final words would be, from the perspectives of the work that I've been working on
and contributing to the book is how can we work to
transform in our traumas and the role of a faith-based
approach to health justice in creating such spaces to achieve this? The ways that we can seek
to heal from the suffering particularly of the pandemic. So I would contribute to,
as I believe I've created a wonderful platform to
begin this discussion. - Thank you so much, Dr.Ayesha Ahmad. And before we give the word
over to Fortress Press, the publisher of the book, I
would just also like to mention the organizers of today's events. The event today is
organized in collaboration between University of Helsinki in Finland and Uppsala University. And there, we also have Centre for Multidisciplinary Research
on Religion and Society. And then we have St George's
University of London and then we also have
Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs
at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. And of course all the
associated authors of the book and their affiliated
universities are with us as well, together, also with Fortress Press. So with this, I would like to hand over to Will Bergkamp, the Vise
President of Fortress Press. - Good morning to some of
you, good afternoon to others, and good evening to still others. It's an honor to be a part
of a truly global group today joining to learn more
about this fine book. I am Will Bergkamp, I've been a part of Fortress
Press for many years now close to a decade in editorial leadership. And on behalf of my team, in particular, Dr. Jesudas Athyal, who is
the editor of the volume, we're pleased to join
you today for this event. Over the last few years, Fortress has deepened its
commitment to publishing scholars from all over the world. We look for projects that take
fresh and contextual views on matters of great importance,
centering parts of the world that too often are not centered. And that's especially pressing in matters of health and justice. The conversation about the
book began as Ayesha said, prior to COVID, but the matters
only became more pressing as the pandemic swept the world. And so it's been an honor to
see the book come together. It was good to work with the editors. Rarely do we have such an easy path with people who are committed and who know what they're doing. And so I thank all of you
contributors and editors for an easy path to
such an important book. Publishing in spite of how it
often seems is humble work. It's about lifting up others. It's about giving voice to others. It's about improving arguments. It's about making important
messages widely heard and known. And so not only in the printed word, today, I look forward to learning and listening to people in person. Talk more about this important volume, and I'm glad that you've all joined. So thank you very much on
behalf of Fortress Press. - Thank you so much Will,
for those inspiring words, and for giving us a framing of the book. Now, we will have the
privilege to listen in to our keynote speaker of today's event. Someone who is greatly
known and recognized. I'm talking about Professor
Katherine Marshall. And for those of you who
may not know her background, she is a senior fellow at the
Berkeley Center for Religion Peace and World Affairs, where she leads the center's work on religion
and global development, and a professor of practice
of development, conflict, and religion in the World
School of Foreign Service. And she helped to create and now serves as the Executive Director of the World Faith Development Dialogue. She also worked in the
World Bank extensively from 1971 to 2006. And she has nearly five
decades of experience on the wide range of
development issues in Africa, Latin America, East Asia,
and the Middle East. And these regions also
represent the regions in the book volume, where we have managed and the editor had managed
to get a broad range of different faith
traditions and faith groups, bringing up their core
challenges and opportunities in bringing health justice. And what we also have followed
with great enthusiasm, Katherine is the work you have coordinated on bringing together faith
responses to the COVID during the pandemic. So now we will listen to
you in your keynote address under the framing of
gulfs, gaps and governance, COVID challenges. I hand over to you Professor
Katherine Marshall. - Thank you so much. And it's really a great
privilege to be with you today. And I look forward so much
to learning and hearing about the book. My challenge today, the
one you've put to me is to situate the issues
that you've raised in the context of the COVID
crisis that we are living. The book was essentially prepared, I think to a very large extent before the COVID pandemic broke out. So in that sense, what
I hope to be covering is not irrelevant, but
in fact will compliment, and I hope to a degree at least, challenge some of what
the authors will say and I hope that they
will also challenge me. So in these comments, I'm going to focus on three different areas. The first is I'm going to
make some general comments about faith, justice and health to situate this pretty put more in the context of the development world which
health is a very key part of. In fact in the 20 years
that I have been working on the challenge of engaging
religious actors and ideas, more explicitly in the
development context, health has often been the most effective the most meaningful entry point. So I'm comment a little bit on that, then spend more time focusing
on the work that we've done on the COVID challenges. And finally, launch what I
expect will be the primary focus of today's discussion of looking ahead. So you have raised in this
book, the interesting question of justice, faith justice, health justice, and to what extent they come together. So what does health justice involve today? What are some of the ethics involved but also the implementation,
the practical you're looking and we are looking at what
individual faiths bring which of course comes to the diversity of religious traditions in the world, but also what we call
multiple modernities, the greater recognition that there are different
paths to modernization. The distinctive challenges and traditions of different religious traditions, Protestant, Baptist,
Catholic, Buddhist, Hindu, but also looking to their shared concerns where we have of course, the Golden Rule, but also the parable or its
equivalent of the good Samaritan and this sense which we
hear echoed so often today of a shared humanity. So what we're looking at,
our changing challenges, we're looking at science,
systems and approaches that are all involved in
what we call development. And we've seen that evolve in recent years through the millennium development goals which were the outcome of the challenge of the turn of the
millennium in the year 2000. And now the sustainable development goals which go much further and much deeper. And against that is the
quite contested notion of the right to development. But the more human challenge,
to leave no one behind. But we also have a new focus on results on accountability and measurement. I'm always struck by Hans
Rosling, public health specialist from Sweden who repeated often that the seemingly impossible is possible, that we're facing new frontiers but that we need to do
that with discipline. So where do faith traditions come into it and what we hope to see and see often but not always the sense of
the focus on care for the poor, the ill and the marginalized. So some of the contextual
issues that we face are first, the role of public health,
which is in some sense, is not a very democratic
or participatory discipline and modern medicine and the
ways that they are involved. Issues of standards of expenditure. In other words, how
much of public resources should one be spending on health? And how does one measure that? Constant debates about the
relative merits and roles of the public and the private, the demand to focus on certain groups, especially children and the elderly. There are many issues around lifestyle that affect the roles of
religious participants. Now, one of the most striking is that a number of religious
communities focus in their presentations on the
benefits of vegetarianism and the need to shift diets. We also know that we need
to overcome various legacies of which perhaps the most striking are the bias against
women and women's health and issues of race. Medical ethics offers a great deal. Perhaps it's the field
of professional ethics that's the most developed
but it also is shifting from some of the basic issues
of the Hippocratic Oath and do no harm, to a
much greater focus now on unconscious bias and the roles of the information revolution. And finally of course,
we're constantly looking to pandemic preparedness
in this turbulent era. So looking ahead, what
kinds of transformations, this is your challenge that you have put of faith traditions in public policies do these health justice challenges demand? (mumbles) before I move
on the COVID per se, to focus on the fact that
some of these questions are not easy. Triage is an ancient, not
ancient but a longstanding demand for healthcare that one cannot
always deal with everything. So it is a question of
choices and ordering. In 1990, the State of
Oregon in the United States unveiled a healthcare priorities plan that involved basically
rationing of care based on need, but also on cost. So these are realities in
the lives of many people. Overall, and as Josephine has highlighted, I have worked for the past 20 years on the basic question
of, what's religions role in the basic development challenges? And one comment that I
still feel must be made is that religious ideas,
beliefs, institutions, and actors are rarely
systematically involved. They are vitally important. They're widely present as
providers of healthcare, for example, and as influencers. The levels of trust when
they're measured are higher, they influence lifestyles and they are, as many in the book are
mentioning part of the problem but also part of the solution. And yet the professional engagement, the professional involvement
of these religious actors is to say the least patchy. And I think right now we are
living a fascinating case study of this, where possibly we
may be opening new windows, looking to new experience
with the conflict controversy, and the opportunities
around COVID vaccinations which we could see as a living case study. It's described by some,
as a moral catastrophe. Some of the justice issues were laid out long before the vaccines were even ready. And yet we're still seeing
even over the weekend in the G-7 Debates,
the constant challenges for the vaccines. So I'm going to turn now to the issue of the COVID challenges specifically, and some of the ideas that are emerging from our work in our studies. So, first of all, what did we do? A small group that included
the Joint Learning Initiative, a colleague who had been
working with World Vision actually during the Ebola crisis, we had focused a lot on
previous health emergencies, Ebola, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis,
malaria, Zika, et cetera. And as the COVID crisis began to emerge, we saw a lot of basic questions but also a scattering of
reports that suggested that we should be tracking
this in a systematic way. And therefore in March, 2020, this group with the Berkeley Centre
Joint Learning Initiative World Faith Development Dialogue, set about collecting any
information that we could find and essentially trying to distill it both by drawing on webinars
and on a daily reports, now weekly reports of what we were hearing and what we were finding. And essentially we looked
at six different areas which we continue to look at. And I want to emphasize here
that we very much welcome your inputs, your challenges, and basically refining the basic questions that we are answering or trying to answer. The first area related to gatherings because those were the first
areas that people focused on. That religious communities coming together in some cases were seen as contributing to the spread of the disease and then the issues of
whether public authorities could call on religious
communities to stop gathering. In other words, to be part of lockdowns. Just as an aside, I had not realized but the World Health Organization
actually has a department on gatherings, which would
focus more on sports, political et cetera, but also now included some of the large religious gatherings. And some of them are
huge for example in India and other places. And then combined with the
gathering issue is practices. The most obvious, the
ones that have come under the most focus are funerals. The desire and need of people
to mark death with rituals and with coming together that
has been severely disrupted during the pandemic. We also though looked very much at the social protection roles
of religious communities. In other words, the response
to the broader suffering that has been part of the pandemic. Food, food pantries, food
banks, care for people who are evicted from their homes. All kinds of of areas in which
people have been suffering. How is that contributing to the broader government public efforts to respond to these needs? We've also looked at the
very predictable responses of communities to the fear
that comes with the pandemic and how that affects intergroup behavior. Stigma, discrimination,
the increase in tensions and violence and of
course, on the other side, the efforts to ease to smooth
those kinds of tensions to provide information,
to be peacebuilders. This has particular
relevance in fragile states some of which are a focus, of this book where the systems of governance are weaker where conflicts were
there before the pandemic, where the demands of
peacebuilding are growing. And finally, we've been
looking at the thinking that's behind a call to rebuild, to take the opportunity of this crisis because we all know that there
are opportunities in crisis for new thinking and new action
to rebuild in better ways, fairer that come afterwards. When we've been looking at
the response to the COVID, one overall comment that
I could make is that the complex roles of religious actors are very rarely systematically looked at. The World Health Organization has launched new kinds of initiatives to
bring in religious actors but they are not a core
part of the response of the public health community. So we are still facing
what some people call a sort of add religion and stir mentality, of taking it into account
when it's immediately relevant rather than seeing this religious response as a core element, which
coming out of the HIV/AIDS and Ebola pandemics, particularly, I think those of us who've been involved in this tracking effort feel
would make much more sense. So that is the very broad
implication of this. On the state of the art of where we are, I'm going to emphasize six different areas where we see issues and
opportunities emerging that are relevant for the seminar today and for the work that has
been done towards this book. And the first one, I think we
all know, it's not new at all, is the question of fragility. The COVID pandemic has highlighted that things we thought were
set in concrete are not, that fragility is not
limited to specific countries and societies but that it affects us all. So that's a general comment
that recurs constantly and reflections about this crisis. Second, which again affects
these religious responses is the interconnectedness among people, amongst sectors, among
countries among continents that the public health demands
spill over very quickly into education, into gender
roles, into family structures. If we needed to be reminded
of interconnectedness, this COVID crisis has starkly
highlighted those needs. A third, which is again,
highlighted in many of the studies that are reflected in this book, is the fundamental
inequities and inequalities that are a part of the
modern world, modern life. And they are very much reflected,
exemplified in many ways in the health sector but
spilling over into the same list that I just highlighted of
education, gender relations, race relations,
transportation, employment, every other sector is affected
by these inequalities. We also are aware of
new ideals and standards for basic healthcare that
are again exemplified in the outrage that people are expressing at the inequalities. And again, with our living
case study of vaccination, the inequities of the
vaccination campaign. We are, I think struck
in what we see in here by the urgency that is
a part of the pandemic. Now that the time pressures
are very much part of thinking about response and implementation
as well as preparedness. So the common theme of change
and behaviors takes time, bumps up against the
fact that we are facing an urgent crisis which
has an existential quality as to whether and how
we will make it through. And then finally, this theme
that I mentioned before of the opportunity, what we
sometimes call the Kairos moment which is a moment of
grace and opportunity. We have to ask, will we
ever have another chance to make the kinds of fundamental
changes in public health, for example, in dealing
with those left behind and dealing with inequities
that we have today, now that there's so much disruption, so much need, much more
awareness of the need, et cetera. So the COVID experience has put new faces and new understandings on faith and health and it has presented a
whole set of new questions. I'm going to pause briefly
and tell two stories. And Josephine, you will let me know when you want me to shift and move on. As I understand it, I have
another 10 or so minutes. - You have four minutes and
then we have Q and A session. So four minutes to round up. - Okay, well when four
minutes comes, tell me. But I will quickly tell
just two of my stories that have colored me. First, when I was in the World Bank, I was the Country Director
for Sahel and visited Niger at a time when there
was a lot of controversy and effort around education. And what stands out for me is being there where the average class
size of the 22% of children who weren't in school was about
100 for the primary grades sitting outside in the
sun or under a tree, the gross injustice of that situation but then returning to
visit potential schools where my son would be going
and the color, the debates around whether computers
were necessary or a good idea in primary schools or
whether they were unfair. So just the stark gross
inequity facing me personally as I was looking to this. And then another case
of operating in Nigeria when the cholera epidemic
came and I was a young student and called to try to help
with this cholera epidemic. And a doctor coming up
to the young teenagers who were working in a mission hospital and telling us basically, first of all, that we would not be
affected by by cholera because it was a disease of poverty but also strongly
emphasizing that it was good to be caring for people individually but that the critical
issue was one of systems and that the systems which were there were leaving the children,
the older people, and women in their houses. So looking ahead, we're looking
at the threads of religion and health coming together
with our notions of well-being, suffering and global disasters. Various political and
conflict related magnitudes. And we're looking to repair and to regrow our global health systems and to transform trauma to justice. And it is, as I said before, not a question of simply
adding religion and stir. In other words, just
suddenly bring religion as a peripheral issue, but to come with a sophisticated
understanding of what that means which means a full
recognition of its diversity, that not all traditions are
involved and not all places but to draw on experience
and partnerships in explicit and deliberate ways. I often say that the estimates
that I hear of the share of religious engagement in public health have ranged from seven to 70% which reflects both the
lack of understanding and the need for much more
rigor in understanding those but also the extraordinary
diversity of situations where religious systems are
basically running healthcare in some countries and are
much less involved in others. So we need to understand
also the shifting balance from charity, which drove
healthcare in its early years. Compassion, care for the
individual to this focus of the book and of our
discussion today on justice and human rights. And to preserve what is
good in both of those. Focusing on the individual, two systems bringing professionalism together with compassion. Looking at patterns of exclusion and bias for example, on race
and ethnicity and gender into a much richer understanding
of the ethics essentially that are presented in health care. So we're talking about the
questions of spiritual care which comes up again and again in the reflections on the crisis on ways of overcoming
bias on the gender roles. So some of the keys and
I will end with this, are the themes of preparedness
and how religious actors can be more involved in
pandemic preparedness in the multi-sectoral
multinational multi-disciplinary challenges of being prepared
for what we know will be the next challenge. Secondly, taking these
lessons and these observations into communications and education. At a systems level, to
look country by country, as well as in institutions like the World Health
Organization, the World Bank, UNDP, UNICEF, the UN refugee organizations to look at the ways in which
the religious perspectives, institutions and actors are integrated into their understanding of
systems and that spilling over into collective accountability
and more focused advocacy for this core objective, which
is leaving no one behind. And meanwhile, in the
most immediate future, we have our living case
study of vaccination justice which is immediate and demanding,
and which in many senses, brings each one of these
challenges of science and faith of different approaches,
different language, different challenges
from different traditions into an immediate focus with
a life or death outcome. So with that, I will stop and
would be delighted to engage in the conversation during this seminar. - Thank you so much,
Professor Katherine Marshall. Now I will open up for
one to two questions. You use the Q and A button
in the webinar system. If you look below at the bottom, you can find the Q and A button and you can just post in
writings, your question there, and then we will address it
with Katherine right away. While I'll wait for
potential more questions, I want to ask you, Katherine,
you have been overseeing the responses from different
faith actor and faith groups globally in different regions and you were also mentioning the diversity in some countries representing 7%, in some countries representing
70% of the health care system or services or actors. Can you tell us, do you
see any clear global trends with certain regions moving
in certain directions that has changed over
the time during pandemic? - Yes, there are certain patterns. Though I need to clarify
that these are estimates of the aggregate of the whole. And they also would, where
people have an understanding of the diversity of the
history and the present, they would see the differences
among different countries. The legacies of the
colonial missionary effort are very stark (indistinct) present. And I think you see that
in Tanzania, for example but also in the Democratic
Republic of Congo and in much of Anglophone
Africa, some other countries. You see that the fact that the Protestant and Catholic mission
enterprise in many countries was very closely associated
with health and or education. So in some countries
it was more education, some countries more health,
it depended on the order that was involved and the tradition. But what has complicated that is that you've had very
different histories in different countries. So in some countries, the full missionary health
enterprise was nationalized. And then in some countries
then denationalized, and nationalized again. So you've had, if you don't
have some understanding of the complexity, you will
not be able to understand the roles that these institutions play. What you also have though
is quite a range of ways in which public health systems at the national level have varied. So in some countries, Ghana,
for example, and Kenya, you have clearly worked out
memorandum of understanding that include the finance and other aspects so that the Christian, particularly Christian health associations are well-integrated
into the national system but you have others where
they're almost in opposition. And there are some countries where we don't have much
information because of fear that there will be attacks
on religious institutions. In other words, coming into some of the inter-religious
tensions, which is part of why we have such a poor idea
of the overall scope. In other words, the aggregate statistics, but also even in individual countries of what role these are
playing and their quality. And that's one reason
why I think your book is a wonderful response, but
this constant call for evidence and what is the evidence? Some of the bad questions I think are, is religious healthcare better or worse, because that is unanswerable, but I think much more having
a sense of how the markets, so-called markets work and how they might best looking
ahead, fit into the goal of universal health coverage
and working towards systems that in fact serve all of the population. - Thank you so much,
Professor Katherine Marshall, we really appreciate your keynote address and you have really placed
us in the midst of the book and the dialogue among the book authors, but also in the midst of the
pandemic where we still are and where we still see a
lot of suffering around us. Now we will move to the second
session of this event today where the second session will be chaired by Dr. Ville Palvansalo. And he is among the editors of the book. He's also an adjunct
professor in theological and social ethics at
University of Helsinki. He currently serves as the lecture at the Diaconia University
of Applied Sciences in Helsinki. And he has looked specifically at the philosophical and
ethic base for health justice and faith-based health justice. And I will now hand over to you Ville to chair the second session on faith-based health
justice across contexts. - Thank you very much Josephine and thank you very
much, Professor Marshall for your very inspiring presentation. So I will share just a couple of slides. So faith-based organizations
are no new comers in the field of global health. Medical mission movement global already in the late 19th century. And despite being faith inspired,
it brought modern medicine and nursing to create many
regions around the world. Thereafter, the mission
hospitals (mumbles) handed over to the locals, the colonial legacy was to be left behind. And today, we are to
promote global health across contexts together dialectically
across regions, cultures, and traditions of faith. In the present volume, we
have a chapter for example on Hinduism and health justice, and several chapters on Islamic contexts. Beyond faith organizations, relative traditions
influence our understandings of health, wellbeing, and values from sexual health that the
healing of entire societies. So has been the case with for
example, HIV/AIDS pandemic. So also the United nations,
the World Health Organization et cetera, do well if they
develop their COVID-19 programs in a keen dialogue with faith traditions. Most urgently caring for
the health of our neighbors near and far means emergency
care and humanitarian aid. However, the stronger the
health systems in each region, the less there are emergencies and the more those systems
exemplify just the balanced right and responsibilities, the
less we need to improvise about rescuing the most vulnerable people in each slum village or refugee camp. What to say then about matters
of justice across contexts? First, the realities of oppressed. Whenever we mean, our children
or any vulnerable group or individual are being oppressed both protective and corrective
measures are needed. This definitely includes
oppressed relatives minorities and their right to health. Second, consistent and
transparent rule of law akin to the business sector. This is for the protection of the patients and off the person now in the
faith-based sector as well. For example, although faith
traditions often inspire (mumbles) the baseline
of just the contracts implies (mumbles) salaries
for the work done. Overall, consistency and transparency generate trust and
support, accountability. Third, the importance
of religious liberty. Even under the spread
of the COVID-19 virus, and the decisions on religious liberty should be very well grounded and always fairly and
transparently applied. Fourth, justice implies
the set of true evidence and understanding. It is very clear, whenever
there are alleged wrongdoings in any community or organization. Through full analysis of
relevant medical issues, as well as social realities
are to be conducted. And the evidence presented
as clearly as possible. People of faith themselves must
look at the medical evidence whenever needed to avoid any
harmful healing practices or harmful alternative medicine. However, so also medical authorities should seek to understand
religious (mumbles) to support their wellbeing when possible. But overall, the more the
secular authorities take part in dialogues with people
of faith, the better. They can understand the issues involved and promote health for all. This involves, for example, in the case of vaccine hesitancy, learning
to distinguish analytically between matters of faith
and the matters of evidence but the state based sector
is a great health asset. It stems from an age old
heritage of (mumbles) and prophetic justice,
and from understandings of human fragility and holistic health and from pioneering
examples of medical care and to nursing. Hence the more we have dialectical
efforts to ensure justice across contexts in the delicate
field of health, the better. So let us now move on to
hear some of the (mumbles) of the recent volume on these issues more. Thank you, I think I
noticed that Elina Hankela has been able to join
us from South Africa. So Dr. Elina Hankela, Associate Professor University of Johannesburg
wrote a chapter to our book. And the title of the chapter was, "Negotiating the Healing Mission: SOCIAL JUSTICE AND BASIC HEALTH AT TWO METHODIST INNER-CITY
MISSIONS IN SOUTH AFRICA." - In my chapter, I
explore the relationship (indistinct) between
pastors and concrete service at two Methodists in a city
missions in South Africa. Based on my involvement
with these missions, I argue that in a socioeconomically
highly unequal context in South Africa, social
justice cannot be simply about working towards defeating injustice at a structural level but
necessarily also involves concrete social service
but allows people to cope with the challenges. (mumbles) missions run a
number of social projects that were motivated by a vision
of affirming human dignity. Among the projects,
with those that address basic health issues directly
like an HIV and AIDS testing and counseling center. Other projects rather
address tell from a holistic societal perspective. While these projects address
the needs of individuals, they were underpinned
by a theological vision that oppose the privatized
understanding of faith and rather understood the
role of faith community to be part of the city and responsive to the needs of the
surrounding neighborhood. Both of the case that the
missions had gone through, what could be called the reopening, towards the needs of the
city, some (mumbles) ago. And when now observing
their work, I argue, as I've already said, that within their theological
framework, social justice, here understood as the
actualization of respect for human dignity and basic
health emerged as organic not hierarchical aspects
of a single mission. You could have basic health initiatives without social justice but you cannot have social justice without also caring for
people's basic health needs. Yet, as I also completed the chapter, the relationship between
coping and defeating caused for further interrogation. Based on the data used in this chapter, I cannot say much about
the protest societal impact or lack thereof of, these missions in challenging the inequality in the city. So while the chapter
highlights the importance of hands-on service in the context of justice driven ministry,
it does not aim to undermine the importance of structural change. So at the present moment,
as COVID-19 is shining light on global inequality,
these case study chapter speaks to a broader context if we position South Africa as a microcosm of global inequality. The South African Methodist
wisdom and experience would then draw their
attention to the potential of faith communities in
caring for communities that are struggling with the virus. But this case study also
calls for discussion on the theological assets
faith communities may have, if we wish, do not only address
coping with the pandemic, but also call people of faith
to expose global injustice and imagine new alternatives of dignified being in the world. - Thank you so much Dr. Hankela. So now we move on to
Tanzania, Josephine Sundqvist, So you serve currently
as Secretary General of LM International Stockholm and you have written in our
book a chapter that is titled, "Toward Basic Health Justice:
GRASSROOTS CHALLENGES IN CHURCH-RELATED HEALTH
SERVICES IN TANZANIA." So the floor is yours. - Thank you so much Ville. And I think it's really
interesting, Katherine, when you noticed in your
key address countries with a strong history
of missionary societies, you were mentioning countries
like DRC and Tanzania and that's that's example of countries where LM International operates today with local faith partners
to run health care services. And what I've looked into in the research that gives and serves as the
foundation for the chapter is a study that took place
during five years in Tanzania. And I conducted the
research in close dialogue and cooperation with a Tanzanian
sociologist of religion, Thomas Ndaluka, So we
have written and presented the chapter in the book together. And we looked into the
public private partnership in health in Tanzania. And we were trying to
see what struggle occurs when faith actors enter into
these public relationships with the minister of health and local public health
facilities and authorities. And what we seen in the
chapter that you can read is that one of the challenges regardS the critical voice
function because suddenly, civil society actors that were previously
funded internationally for their services, are now in a more of a financial dependency with the state. And when the state is not moving
in a democratic direction, it becomes challenging to
act as a critical voice, criticizing the same government that is funding your core services. And in the sharp situation
where you have to make a choice, it can be really tough. Should you stand up
and defend human rights and see more suffering
in your communities? And that has come out clearly in the study as a struggle for all the
concerned faith organizations including the Lutheran Catholic
and Pentecostal Movement in Tanzania. Second point I want to
quickly mention is about integration of faith-based health services into the national health
system, both when it comes to contribution in
comprehensive health planning but also SDG data on SDG
3, the right to health. There are several struggles here because faith actors
often wants to contribute but they lack the resources or the capacity to tap
into the national system. On the other hand, ministers of health and the local authorities
in the case of Tanzania as for this chapter, do
not have the right means and methodologies to apply
a public private composition in comprehensive health planning. It is based on more of
a single public system. So there needs to be a
transformation in this. Finally, I want to raise innovation- - But please, quickly, yeah.
- Yes. And this is my last point
and innovation was not built into the public private reforming health. So faith factors have been compensated for the services delivered,
but in terms of expanding and innovating in health, there is a lack of financing for that which also causes of course struggles, but also opportunities to work in new, innovative partnerships. I stopped there, thank you. - Thank you so much,
Dr. Josephine Sundqvist. We will continue on Tanzanian issues. So we have here Professor Auli Vahakangas professor of practical theology from the University of Helsinki
and her chapter in the book in question was titled, "Traditional, Christian,
and Modern Approaches to Masculinity: HEALTH-CARE
VOLUNTEERS IN TANZANIA." So Auli. - Thank you very much Ville. Very nice to continue after Josephine because our chapters link so nicely. So my chapter analyzes the
construction of masculinity among male care volunteer of a Christian palliative care
program in Northern Tanzania doing the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The findings of the study
indicate that it was important to have both male and female volunteers to take care of the dying
members of the community. The presence of male
volunteers also reduced stigma of the HIV virus in the community. The findings further
reveal that male volunteers construct the masculine
identities primarily from a traditional male identity and central in it is the leadership and the role of counseling
in the community. At the same time, men adopt
a modern masculine identity. So the studied volunteers
act as good example of transforming masculinities
in the face of a pandemic. The most important
lesson into the situation of Corona pandemic is that when talking about faith based health justice, it is essential to have the
support of the whole community to combat the pandemic. For a real transformation,
we need flexible gender roles which make it easier to
construct one's identity in a challenging situation. The transformation of masculinities among the study healthcare
volunteers reflects the search for wholeness
in which goal is to reach balance in life. In Swahili, wholeness,
uzima is a broader concept than the English single word wholeness. Uzima can be translated
as vitality, adulthood, completeness, energy, existence,
maturity, and perfection. All these are threatened by pandemics. - Thank you so much,
Professor Auli Vahakangas. So now we move on to Islamic contexts and we should have here Dr. Abu Sayem, Associate Professor in the
Department of World Religions and culture, at the University
of Dhaka, Bangladesh. He has written on "Islamic
Faith for Health and Welfare in the Globalizing South
Asia: THE CASE OF BANGLADESH." - Okay, thank you so much
for giving me an opportunity to share my ideas with you all. (speaks in foreign language) in the name of Almighty God,
most merciful, most gracious. Please take my (mumbles) greetings, (speaks in foreign language) and blessings of God be upon all of you. So as you did hear that
title of my chapter was, "Islamic Faith for Health and Welfare in the Globalizing South
Asia: THE CASE OF BANGLADESH." So in this chapter, first of all, I address this Islamic
moral guidelines for health and welfare in human life. So according to Islamic principles, health is a holistic idea which
includes four basic things. Number one is (mumbles)
soundness of a person. Number two, the physical
capability of the same person. Number three, mental
fitness, and the last one, number four the social fitness. So we can't make differentiate. I've been doing spiritual
and (mumbles) mental and social fitness. So all these things are very
accumulated and connected. So how do we talk about the hell, that means we also talk and connect but it's based on mind of the same person. So without these spiritual soundness, we can't make the person act
physically fit and capable. That's why the first things is, according to Islamic belief
systems, the physical, sorry, the spiritual sound
which is very, very important. Islam believes that it is also that (mumbles) all over the world, that prevention is better than cure. So as our (mumbles) he always suggests to his followers that, when you are going to
practice good things, you have to control some very vital issues for example, food habits. So basically the disease
comes from food habits and the bad practices. So that's why the prophet
said, that when you take food you have to think that you can take food only one third of your stomach, and one third should be kept for water, and another one third
should be keep for bedding. That it is very (mumbles). So, and at the same time,
of course, so someone said that you have to continue a life (mumbles) that must be imbalanced
and ideal and model. So if we make up our life, balancing with the environment without astounding surrounding existence, I think it makes me happy. So in (mumbles) Islamic concept of health dealt with two basic things. Number one, (speaks in foreign
language) that means belief. And the other thing is,
(speaks in foreign language) that means practices. So (speaks in foreign language)
means strong faith in God. So when a person has
a strong faith in God, his spiritual soundness
will be very stronger and that can do some kind
of pressures and stresses and anxieties and other things that to reduce the physiological
illness and sickness and other things. Islamic concept of health
(mumbles) grace of God. So if we, if really pray to God that God has given me a
chance to live on this earth and we have to praise and glorify God for this kind of grace, this
kind of special realization make us happy. So then I look to the case of Bangladesh. Bangladesh is a predominantly
Muslim countries in this country, we are following. In some (mumbles) Islamic
traditional medicine systems. But you know that in the modern medicines, this is very common to all countries. That's why our traditional
analytical systems and treatment systems are not prioritized. If we compare that in modern system, modern medical system, treatment systems in healthcare systems, there are some faith-based organizations like- - Sorry, could you please
come to your conclusions? - Oh, okay, okay, okay, okay. So my finding is that in
public medical centers, they are giving some free
treatments for the patients, but their quality is very, very poor. On the other hand, we
have some private medical and health healthcare facilities, they are selective, but
only this person can get the medical facilities from them. On the other hand, with (mumbles) that we have some
faith-based organizations which can give some health
facilities for poor person, for middle class people, for risk persons. So if the government can
get some as subsidiaries and some helps and donor organizations can get some promotions to
faith-based organizations, I think that equity problem in our country in regard to health sectors. So in the private-public
partnership, and especially with the some non-government organizations and faith-based organizations, (mumbles) is for Bangladesh people. Thank you so much (mumbles), thank you. - Yeah, okay, thank you so much for this very important
message from Bangladesh. And we may have time for one question after the following
presentations, but now we move, so you can (mumbles)
already to the Q and A field if you want to ask one question, but now we move on to
issues of Saudi Arabia and Dr. Hana Al-Bannay
seems to be present. So she said, a training
and development manager from Souroh Management Consultants. (mumbles) Saudi Arabia and
she wrote on our book on "Islamic Health Justice
for Women in Saudi Arabia." So Dr. Hana Al-Bannay, the floor is yours. - Thank you Ville, thank you everyone. I am Dr. Hana Al-Bannay,
the author of the chapter, "Islamic Health Justice
for Women in Saudi Arabia." I wrote this chapter at
the time when Saudi Arabia, my home country was
undergoing major social and political transformations. The Saudi culture has become
integrative to human rights and (mumbles). Interestingly, the
restarted reform actions to woman's drives in Saudi
Arabia depict the change to woman status during early Islam. In my observation, they X
Saudi generation has embraced this cultural transformation and the concept of gender equality. When I study Islam, however, I find that although Islam
treats men and women equally in a spirituality and
in their capabilities to perform in (mumbles), it has considered the physical
and psychological differences between a man and woman. For example, men are
obligated to provide emotional and financial securities to women, while women are expected
to center them their roles in social education. Health justice the women
in Saudi Arabia corresponds with the principles of
gender equity in Islam and also the theory of
health and social justice. That's actually the core of my chapter. Thank you. - Thank you so much Dr. Hana Al-Bannay, and now be move back to Europe
and in particular to Finland, we have here Dr. Henrietta Gronlund, Professor of Urban Theology,
University of Helsinki, and her chapter in our book was on "Empirical Perspectives on
Religion and Health Justice: THE CASE IN FINLAND AND ACROSS CULTURES." So Henrietta, you're welcome. - Thank you so much. Indeed, my chapter in the
book focuses on the roles of religion and religious
agents in health justice and also social services
in today's Western diverse and from some new points
also secularizing context, particularly Finland. And in the book I conclude based on recent empirical
research that despite changes in religious landscapes,
religion continues to hold an important place in questions of health and social justice, also
in Western contexts. This conclusion has
once again been affirmed by recent research and
also my own reason projects where we research COVID-19
related social work and community resilience. Our preliminary results show that the role of religious agents has been crucial. Also, in a welfare state like Finland. For example, the City of
Helsinki, the Capital of Finland and the Evangelical
Lutheran Majority Church jointly organized an extensive
service for residents over 70 years of age
who were in quarantine in the spring of last year. The servings combined a proactive helpline and food and medicine delivery. And the service organization
was actually built on local congregations. One leading city official even said that in our research interview
that the city provided public service through the church and that the city could not
have provided this service on its own. Another example has been the
role of religious community in supporting a region migrant groups who for example needed
information in their own language. These recent experiences
highlight once again the continuing role of
religion and religious agents in health and social justice. And in some Western societies,
religion is sometimes viewed as something that is disappearing or something that should be
isolated from public space. And I think it now remains to be seen whether these recent
developments strengthen a more public role of religion
and whether religion will be increasingly viewed as
an asset and opportunity and joined joined efforts
for health justice. Thank you. - Thank you, Professor
Henrietta Gronlund very much and last but not least, we will still have one
author from our book. There are many more authors, but here we have Dr.Thomas
Renkert from the Institute of Diakonia Science,
University of Heidelberg. And he's a chapter in the
book in the book was titled, "Healing and Salvation: THE
RELATION OF HEALTH AND RELIGION IN THE CONTEXT OF CHRISTIANITY." So Dr. Renkert, the floor is yours. - Thank you very much. Thanks everybody for
inviting me to this talk. Yes, my paper tries to
outline a sort of grammar on how to understand the relationship between health and faith
from a Christian perspective. When I wrote this paper,
I wanted to give a couple of general remarks on how to
think about this relationship, religious hope on the one hand, salvation, redemption,
deliverance, and medicinal hope. Being here from an illness,
staying healthy into old age or being able to live with a disability. Religion plays a major role, not only for how a society
understand sickness, old age, disability and health,
but also how individuals are able to make sense
of the personal fate and cope with the suffering. I was looking at different examples at the time I wrote this article but now the corona pandemic
has brought these kinds of entanglements into focus. Entanglements between universal
idea and variation of health on the one hand, and the whole
set of background variables like culture, subcultures,
faith, political convictions and so on, on the other hand. And then most societies
hit with the coronavirus, the debate has started whether or not religious communities should protest more against governmental
restrictions due to the virus or whether they should step aside and as not to cause even more suffering. But back to my paper,
after an introduction into some of these relationships from the standpoint of Christianity, I then go on and develop
a preliminary typology, a set of models that should
help interpreting these kinds of entanglements by
using a sort of grammar. The paper closes with
the idea of global health as a future task. But yeah, COVID-19 has made it clear that this future is
already very much here. Thank you very much. - Thank you so much, Thomas Renkert. There's one rather long question here so I will return to it in a moment, but could you please say, well for me, meanwhile I would ask a short
question on Dr. Al-Bannay. So how about COVID-19 in Saudi Arabia? What sort of impacts the pandemic have especially on women in Saudi Arabia? - I think like this situation
for both men and women are not very different really,
but what I find here is that some women especially
those who have children find the pandemic especially
during the lockdown an opportunity for them to
reconnect with the family, to be together with their
husbands, to be together with their children and
re-establish, to re-think through that relationship. As you may know, lifting the ban on driving cars has been
long in this country but it was very unfortunate. When us women were allowed
to drive, like, I mean, even for me, my car stayed in the parking for about two or three
months because the curfew. So yeah, it's something
that in a way has intervened with all the changes and
the situation to women. But I think it's more
like it was a barrier for further developments
or further improvement to women's situation. When I talk about, when
I linked it to how, I think I should link it more
to the psychosocial health to women because I'm sure
the pandemic has an impact on everyone, regardless of their gender, but with women in Saudi,
like they were so excited. I mean, we were so excited
for all the changes that integrated woman rights but then the pandemic was just a barrier to absorb that observation,
that improvement. - Okay, thank you so much, and we will take this one
question from the Q and A. So this is, I think this goes
to Professor Elina Hankela because it is about on
South African context. So the one who is asking
is a little bit worried about the training of local
churches person matter on the topic of healthy
issues and especially the ones that go beyond a spiritual health. So how do you see Elina the
situation in terms of training of a pastor and other people
who are somehow involved in the health sector work in South Africa. - I'm a typical academic, I'm
not gonna answer the question but I'm gonna answer something
that relates to the question. So I think that, what is it (mumbles), I think I missed the name. Anyway, the question
points us to the direction of power relations and buy in and thinking of whose projects are these
and whose vision is this. So I think that's, I don't
know the American context here and obviously the person
asking the question knows that much better, but in the context of my own
chapter, I do also discuss it. And I have written about
it elsewhere as well, how many of the members
of the local congregation, even the congregation
with the projects were run would not be that involved in
every day of those projects. So I think that it could be,
it could be very different, but it could have something
similar to it off of that. How does the broader faith
community, the people of faith together find this kind
of visions life-affirming and speaking and resonating
with their faith? So I think training is then the next step. And I mean, in the context that the question comes from maybe, there are additional
issues with obviously, but I think that's where I would start, start wondering what
the direction should be of the conversation. - Thank you very much Elina- - I think somebody else would also answer, I think it's not a south African specific. So if somebody has like- - Yeah, maybe we have one
minute if some of the panelists want to add their the issue of training of especially professional people of faith in the context of health projects. - I could respond just briefly and say that this has also
come out clearly in my research from the Tanzanian context, the need for management
program for hospital directors and health directorates
within faith organizations. Because often, the leadership
has grown over time in an authentic way but
not to the same manner in a professional sense. So I would say that there
is a severe need to invest in management training for the realization of health justice, and
also for the incorporation of faith-based health entities
into systems approaches. - I can also comment that World Vision has done a lot of work on this with the Channels of Hope program
that essentially use texts in engagement with religious leaders. - Thank you, yeah, would you like to continue still Professor Marshall a bit or? Okay, (mumbles). - Reproductive health is clearly one of the more sensitive issues and other things that come
out of various studies is that the language used
can be very important. And it is because there
is a lot of conflating, of family planning and
abortion, and a lot of mythology that is a part of the discourse. - Thank you so much. I think we are now, it
is now time to move on. So (mumbles) I will ask, session three, and this will be chaired by Dr.
Ayesha Ahmad, Ayesha please. - Thank you so much. So (indistinct), I'm going to introduce our second keynote speaker,
Professor Simon Dein. So he, Professor Dein has many accolades that I can attribute to his career. He's a consultant psychiatrist
joining us from his hospital at the moment, working
in palliative medicine and also has a career as a anthropologist with much experience with
the worlds of spirituality and religion and mental health,
particularly from Jewish and Islamic communities,
including in the UK. I've learned a great
deal from Professor Dein throughout my career
and I'm very privileged to have this opportunity to
extend my thanks to him here for that, but also for his
contributions to the chapter, which he co-authored
with another colleague, Dr. Khaldoon Ahmed who is
unable to join us today. So Professor Dein's
talk is called religion, coping on trauma and I think
he's a great speaker to have to close this event and thinking
ways we can move forward from the pandemic and the role in religion in responding to the mental health aspects that we've all been
suffered from globally. So I'll hand over to you now, Simon. - Thank you for the lovely introduction. Hello to everyone is baking
hot in London at the moment. So we've almost evaporated. I'm gonna be fairly
different from everyone. So I'm not specifically
gonna talk about the book. Although Dr. Ahmed and
myself did write a chapter on psychosis amongst Bangladesh. Most of my field work as an anthropologist over the last 20 years has
centered on the question of religion and coping and
particularly the question of trauma and how religion
helps cope with trauma but more so what effect has
trauma have on religious belief? Does religion diminish
or does it accentuate religious belief and why? And one of the areas I'm
currently researching is the area of theodicy. The question if God is good,
omnipotent and omniscient, how do people explain
suffering in the world? So just to put things into context, much of my PhD field work,
my writing over the last, so I suppose decade has looked
at cognitive dissonance. I lived amongst a group of
ultra-Orthodox Jews in London who were messianic. They believe that their religious leader (mumbles) Menachem Schneerson
who was 92 years of age when he died was the Jewish Messiah. So I lived amongst a
group called Lubavitch and I followed them up over about 20 years when their leader died. And I looked at how they dealt
with cognitive dissonance. So my question was, if they really believed he was a Messiah what happened to their religious beliefs? And as Festinger who wrote in 1957, "When Prophecy Fails"
wrote their key text. In fact, I found not
only when this man died did they believe he hadn't actually died, he was in (mumbles), he
was hidden, or in fact, that he was dead, but he
would be resurrected very much like the Christian belief. I found the belief in
him being the Messiah and the fact that the world, the redemption would arrive imminently actually intensify remarkably. So what I actually found was that when prophecy is disconfirmed, far from losing religious beliefs, in fact people actually can intensify it whether they do or don't
depends on many factors. One particular factor is
a degree of social support which they have surrounding
that religious belief. So recently I've written a
paper for a journal coach, "Mental Health, Religion, and Culture," where I've looked at the Holocaust and I looked at how 70
years after the Holocaust, Jewish belief persists. And I looked at what happened
during and shortly after the Holocaust in the concentration camps, how did the Jews persist
in their religious beliefs? What sorts of theodicies did they have? So basically we view the
literature on trauma. What we find commonly
amongst religious populations both in Christianity, Islam in Judaism, is amongst Orthodox populations, highly religious populations, religion is the primary source
of coping with adversity particularly prayer, consultation
with pastors or rabbis, joining and support from
religious communities. I think that's particularly,
well-proven now. One of the person who
has written links on this is Professor Ken Pargament who's in Bowling Green
University in the United States who actually has argued
that religious coping can be of two sorts. It could be positive where
we see God as being friendly, close, as a source of support. It can also be negative
in the sense we see God as being angry, adversity
as a punishment from God. And also if you feel that God
is distant or deserted you and interestingly demonic attributions. If you attribute adversity
to demonic attribution within Christianity, all these forms of negative religious coping can cause intensified mental health problems. And there's no doubt if
you see God is punitive or God as having a abandoned you, levels of depression are much higher than if you see God as being supportive. So that's the literature so far. So there is some evidence
now that with adversity in particularly, mass trauma, religious belief behave
in very different ways dependent on the various
rationalizations that people use. So let me explain, there's
some very good work on 9/11 from looking the
role of religious beliefs, both in coping with the
adversity and amongst Muslims, prayer and amongst Christians as well was the most important coping
strategy beyond practical ways of helping like seeking
out psychological support. And there is evidence that
those who prayed frequently actually did better in
terms of mental health but what happened to religious belief? What happened to Islamic beliefs? And in fact, there is a good
literature now suggesting in the wake of 9/11, that religious belief did
not diminish generally for the vast majority of people who suffer, who lost relatives,
if anything, it intensified. And one of the main reasons this was, because many people saw
it as a trial from God or thought that God was
trying to assess their faith. And this was almost as though theodicy, wasn't God allowed this to happen, something demonic happened. It was more so that we
don't understand God's ways of suffering and therefore
this helps us cope. Ultimately, although we can
never understand this as humans and I hope I don't offend
anyone by this at all, but in fact, in many religious faith including Judaism,
Islam, and Christianity, the idea that God does
something alternately for the greater good,
although we as humans have very limited knowledge
of divine motivation, this is actually very protective theodicy, and in fact can help
people cope very well. So I've been on for the last year, examining faith during
and after the Holocaust, looking at the texts which examined faith during the time in Auschwitz and Birkenau and various other concentration camps. And what we actually find
from a number of authors is that during the Holocaust, and this is not a well-known fact, the very Orthodox Jews
continued practicing, although secretly their religion, even though they were starving to death they would keep a small piece
of bread for the Sabbath. They would make makeshift
(mumbles) out of fabric from their clothing. So even at a time when
they're suffering immensely, we know that religious faith gave them a very potent way of coping. But the interesting
question is, how was it that some people survived their religion, that religion survived after Auschwitz and various other
aspects of the Holocaust? And one of the main findings from surveys of Holocaust survivors was
that those who actually saw God as punishing them, which is
contrary to what I said earlier, the punitive cognitions may
actually worsen mental health. In fact, those who saw the
Holocaust as a punishment were actually able to keep
their relationship with God. At least God did something. If they saw the Holocaust
as a trial of faith, they couldn't understand why God did it but he must have a positive purpose in assessing their faith. Again, for most people,
their faith persisted, even in the wake of
extreme inhumane suffering. In fact, the people who
lost their religious faith during the Holocaust,
particularly when we interviewed Holocaust survivors for the women, it was often seeing the horrific deaths of very young children, which actually made them lose their faith. There's nothing in the Hebrew Bible which ever guarantees life
will always be smooth. We'll always have trials and tribulations. We always can never completely
understand God's ways. And that's part of the story of Job. So for women, those who
witnessed the horrific deaths of children, often lost of faith. It wasn't because they felt
that God had let them down because they couldn't reconcile
the loss of their faith or loss of children with
God's intentions, okay. For men, it was very different. For men, those who loss of faith, it was because of the way
that the women were treated on mass, often being taken away directly to the gas chambers. So it wasn't directly their belief in God and God letting them down. It was actually what they saw going on in the concentration camps. Now, finally, there is
an emerging literature which suggests the following. Following adversity of any
sort, a hurricane or a war or a pandemic, those who
lose their religious faith, or those who don't hold a strong theodicy. In other words, there are
no protective cognitions which actually protect
God from disconfirmation. So obviously one major
disconfirmation with adversity is, there's no God there in the first place. But again, we'll be getting to find that theodicy protects
religious cognitions, apart from in one major
set of circumstances, those who suffer with post
traumatic stress disorder are unable to process the
experience of adversity using religious cognitions. In other words, you're more likely to
lose your religious faith if you experienced adversity
and at the same time experience PTSD. And there's something about
PTSD, which actually inhibits cognitive processing of
religious experience. So I'm just gonna summarize, I realize I've got a very
short period of time to talk but I just want to summarize. So something comes very
strongly from a lot of things that people have written in this book, which is question of
suffering and adversity. What keeps people maintaining faith? I argue, we need more
empirical studies of theodicy. There are actually very few studies in the empirical literature,
objectifying theodicy, how you measure it, and actually how it's
operationally defined. So I call for more work on theodicy, say not just on empirical
quantitative studies, but I think we need now both in theology and psychology of religion, to
look up qualitative studies, what does diversity mean to
the people who experience it and what's its role in ameliorating or dissipating religious cognitions? Thank you. So that's just a very short overview. I'm sorry if that was a bit rushed. - Thank you, Simon. That was excellent, it was perfect. And it fits so well with
the themes of the book and how we hope these
conversations can continue. I think we could have chance
for just a one question that I'll take as privilege to ask is, what lessons do you
think from the research and your experience so
far with the traumas that you've observed from
your patients' experiences? Now there's a more of a collective sense because of the traumas
that health professionals are experiencing that are akin to the ones that their patients are experiencing. What lessons do you think are
important to carry forward when developing mental health globally? Often mental health systems
that in low resource countries, what are the lessons that
we need to carry forward for how we can transform
the traumas in the pandemic? - Yep, that's an excellent question. Having worked for a year, having had COVID and having worked through COVID, and having seen several
patients die with COVID, I think that the attitude of health service staff now has changed. I think in many ways,
it's made many people more compassionate and to realize as well, there's not a great gap between
patients and staff, okay. I think tragically, the questions
about how COVID pandemic has impacted on mental
health staff globally is not something empirically
has been looked at, but I think that what
we've learned is that you are human and you have
limits to what you can do. And I think in a very
overstretched service, particularly in countries low
to middle income countries, I think there would be an urgent need to provide extra support to staff who are looking after people with COVID. But unfortunately, I don't think that's imminently going to happen. One of the things I found with COVID which I find most tragic, is
that although we predicted back over a year ago,
the demise of inequality and I think global
capitalism as we know it, unfortunately the rich
have prospered over COVID and the poor have become poorer. And I think, although we
thought that attitudes may well change towards inequality, I don't think that's
really been born out over the COVID era. But in response to Ayesha, I think that what we've actually learned is that people need a lot more support than they've actually been given. - Thank you, Simon. I mean, that's quite a simple thought, but it's also very important
that we know that we need to have better ways of (mumbles)
and also receiving suffering. And with that, hopefully we
can counteract the inequalities that have become magnified
rather than enhancing them as we continue forward. I'll handle over, thank
you so much, Simon, on behalf of us all- - Lovely, have a nice evening everyone, I hope it's warm me up countries where you are and let's meet up, Ayesha, I haven't seen you for about two years. (mumbles) around (mumbles)
- Thank you Simon. - Bye everyone. Bye-bye.
- Bye. Bye Simon. I'll hand over to my
colleague now, Dr. Martha, who's going to chair the closing comments. - Thank you so much. And I think the first word in the comments was to go to a colleague from the Diak in Helsinki,
Mikko Malkavaara. And I'm lucky to have the last word today. So I will hand straight over to you Mikko. - I really want to thank you all for these fine presentations
we have heard today. And as you said, Martha,
I greet you on behalf of the Diaconia University
of Applied Sciences, an organization to which
(mumbles) joined last year. Diaconia University or
Diak as we call it shortly, got its somewhat biblical name in 1996, when it was founded by church based educational institutions. There was a big renewable
of higher education system in Finland and then those
church based institutions noticed they had to join together if they wanted to lift their degrees on the academic higher educational level. Diaconia means service but
it means also social care, Christians social practice
and Christian nursing. Nowadays, Diak is the biggest
educational organization in the field of social services in Finland and also a quite big factor in nursing. But while we are today
celebrating the book of "Faith-Based Health Justice", we can say the book represents the essence and very care or very core
of the Diaconia University. With these emphasizes of his expertise, Ville has come to a house
where this kind of thinking and this kind of skills
are highly appreciated. Diaconia University of
Applied Sciences was founded by church based organizations
and about one quarter of its students have chosen their studies. So they are able to work within the church but naturally the value basis is plural. And therefore, maybe we could say that more than church-based or faith-based, the Diaconia University is value-based. And if I try to define
how it is value-based, I could describe it, human rights-based. And when I think about the new book, I regard it very much of Ville's book. I think maybe it has something to do that Ville has just finished also this, "Justice with Health." large book. And therefore, I think
about the role of Ville, of this kind of thinking and
in one of his earlier works, Ville Paivansalo formulated
a reconstructive account of justice referring to
it as earthly justice. He defined it, its broader framework in terms of neighborly love, cooperation, and narrative sensitivity. As the key criteria of
justice in this account, he defended lawfulness,
fairness, merit, truthfulness, and faithfulness to one's conscience. And furthermore, Ville
presents his readers the call to brave thinking and
to a bold defense of justice. I'm very proud of my new colleague Ville and I greet this new book
of a sign of brave thinking and bold defense of justice. I thank you all for this very
pleasant and interesting event and its fresh ideas. I feel privileged when I had
the possibility to participate. Thank you. - Thank you so much Mikko. And that means that I get
the chance to give the word to myself to round off today's discussion. Before I thank all the participants and round off completely,
I'd like to give a couple of reflections from my perspective. As Josephine said at the start, my name is Martha Middlemiss Le Mon. I'm the Director of the Center for Multidisciplinary Research
on Religion in Society at Uppsala University where Josephine is an
affiliated researcher. This is an organization which
focuses as its name says, on research on religion
and the intersection with other societal
issues, focuses on looking at these in a
multi-disciplinary perspective. And therefore I was delighted
to get the opportunity to say something today and want also to
highlight a book like this which has done just that. Really born down in detail,
in excellent research, but done so in dialogue
between different disciplines into a field of research
which is of crucial importance to the development of societies
around the world today. And at our research center,
we have hosted for 10 years for a research program
called the Impact of Religion Challenges for Society, Law and Democracy, and strive to continue researching it under that (mumbles)
the impact of religion. What impact can religion have on society and developments around the world? And also what impact can developments have on the development of religion? And I think the discussion
that's been had today shows that the work that
we interested in doing along alongside international
partners is of key importance at least in the health
wellbeing, welfare area, which is one of the topics
that we also focus on. And the key question I often ask myself, when I'm at events like this
then, is where are the gaps? Where is the need for new research or the intersection of
these important issues? I'd like to thank Professor Marshall particularly for the beginning
of of our session today for highlighting the fact
that it is the complex roles of religion and religious
access in this field are rarely looked at. This is something, what's
being done in this book is something that not many
people have been worked on and where there's a lot left to be done. That's both of interest
to the research community but also for practitioners
trying to grapple with these issues on the ground. It's something that we've
noticed at our research center in many areas beyond the
health field as well, that religion is really taken seriously as it has been in the
studies in this volume. It's been good to see work on
the intersections of religion that's shown in this volume with markets, with historical legacy,
with law, with governments and with government. And so I look forward to
seeing further collaborations come out of the interaction
that this volume has brought. And I'd like to conclude by
just highlighting two issues which I've seen handled a
little bit in this volume which are discussions
today, which have taken even more of a focus on the COVID pandemic and the implications that that have had, that I sort of came to my
mind when I was reading and also listening to you here today. The first one is issue
of religion blindness that is often discussed. And that I thought came to my mind particularly when Professional
Marshall was talking about the add religion and stir method. From a Swedish perspective,
and here, I recognize myself in my Finnish colleagues talking as well. It's not often a case of
add religion and stir, but rather take religion out of the recipe and see what we can do
without it, perspective. And Ville talked about leaving
the colonial legacy behind, this issue of what does
the colonial legacy do? In the formation of the
Swedish welfare state, there was often an attempt to leave behind religious involvement to
say, thank you and goodbye to the religious actors that
have been an important aspect of the health care system. And so what I think is
interesting in this volume that it brings back into a debate certainly in the Western European context of where are we religion-blind
in relation to actors in the welfare sector? There's plenty of evidence that supports in the Swedish context, what
Henrietta Gronlund was saying about the Finnish context. But then the COVID pandemic,
the Church of Sweden has been one of the major
actors in supporting individuals under the pandemic and has also been one of the civil society organizations that has received the
most government funding to support its work in this area. So again, this sort of
financial recognition of the fact that it's providing
a service of importance. I'd also like to pick up on what Simon Dien was talking about in terms of coping strategies and the problems of religious blindness, the problems that religious
blindness can bring in and that sort of aspect. I was talking to a colleague recently who's retiring and but it
was also started taking on some more clinical work, given
the huge need for support in mental health areas during
the COVID pandemic in Sweden. And she was rung up by a
referral patient who said, with some surprise in his voice, "I've been told that you
can work with religion, is that true?" And I think that's a
very interesting example of how we deal in this
Swedish and to a large extent, the wide Western European context where even bringing
religion into a discussion of these sorts of issues of
health and wellbeing is still, it's still the strange bird in the room. The second thing that
I would like to mention just very quickly is, if the
combination of the things we're talking about today with the interesting religious shifts that are going on (mumbles)
both within individual context but also also globally. We see it as several people
have already talked about today, a huge legacy of the colonial
past that defines the way that religious actors work within particular health care systems. That historical legacy
remains and is very powerful. At the same time, we're
seeing considerable shifts. One example being the rise
of Pentecostalism globally as a religious movement within
this Christian expression of Christianity, for example. And how that shift in religious adherence doesn't necessarily connect
to the way that religion acts as an actor within healthcare systems. And I think that the work
that's been done in this book and several of the chapters
here highlights the fact that we need more knowledge about that if we're going to be
able to, as researchers, support that knowledge
need that's on the ground. So I would say therefore
to end my comments by saying, thank you so
much for everybody today for taking part, through the
discussions that have gone on, thank you to all of the authors, both those who commented today, but the authors also who wrote chapters that we didn't have time to present today. And I would recommend those of
you who haven't had a chance to see the volume yet, to
go out to get hold of it and read it. There's a wealth of information there that is a start to this conversation. As the editors wrote in the beginning, they were finishing this volume as the COVID pandemic
started to take hold. And there's a whole new
volume to be written, Ville and Ayesha, I think when
you've got your breath back, you can just start again
on the next (laughs) on the next project. So with that, I would like to
say thank you to all of you, particular thanks to our special guests, who gave our keynote lecture
today to Professor Marshall and to Simon Dien for
these inputs that they put. And I would like to, and
to all of my colleagues and the other partners for
organizing this webinar, it's been great fun to collaborate
with you on this as well. And I hope that everybody, after this, goes and gets hold of the
book and have some fun, summer reading to take with them. Thank you very much. And good morning, good
evening or good night to all of you wherever you are.
