BiblioVault - Books about Religious Belief

The Conversion of Henri IV

Politics, Power, and Religious Belief in Early Modern France

Harvard University Press, 1993

Keeping Faith, Losing Faith

Religious Belief and Political Economy, Volume 40

Bradley W. Bateman and H. Spencer Banzhaf, eds.

Duke University Press

“Keeping Faith, Losing Faith: Religious Belief and Political Economy” considers the historical and current relationship between religious and economic schools of thought. The volume explores the integration of theology and economics that was prevalent before the twentieth century, the rise of secular neoclassical economic models in the middle of that century, and the recent trend toward examining economic behavior through the prism of religious belief.

Two of the essays examine the antagonism between Christianity and utilitarianism in postrevolutionary French economics and the rising influence of the materialism of the market vis-à-vis the declining authority of the Roman Catholic Church in eighteenth-century Europe. Other topics explored include the work of the great American neoclassicist Frank Knight, the combination of utility analysis and Christian principles among the “clerical economists” in America, and the effect of a crisis of personal faith on the theories of the English philosopher and economist Henry Sidgwick.

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When Sickness Heals

The Place of Religious Belief in Healthcare

Siroj Sorajjakool

Templeton Press, 2006

In When Sickness Heals, Dr. Siroj Sorajjakool draws on more than ten years of studies on health benefits in relation to spirituality, especially focusing on the function of "meaning." He expounds on his theory that healing is primarily the function of meaning, and meaning transcends sickness and even death itself. He concludes that what people ultimately seek in life is the healing of their souls.

Sorajjakool brings many Eastern and Western resources to his conversation on health, meaning, and healing. He incorporates the perspectives of theologians and philosophers like Paul Tillich, Carl Jung, Søren Kierkegaard, Raimundo Panikkar, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and John Macquarrie; as well as references to religious texts, including yin and yang, and alchemy.

A clear, distinct understanding of spirituality in clinical contexts is presented, with an argument for the role of meaning in the healing process, based on evidence that there may be healing even in the face of death. Sorajjakool identifies the transitional processes people may go through as they seek to make sense of their experiences during a health crisis. He suggests an alternative approach to spiritual assessment and provides methods of spiritual care that speak to the soul.

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