The pandemic, police brutality, deportations, evictions, hate crimes, and other threats against marginalized groups have reignited debates in religious communities about the sanctity and care of vulnerable strangers. .
Unfortunately, such conversations often do not include the perspectives of public servants who directly care for strangers, such as nurses, therapists, educators, and social workers. Many of these experts are trained in a scientific method that is indifferent, if not hostile, to the spiritual qualities that make humans special. At the same time, society expects us to provide “humane” care that affirms the ultimate worth of the individual. Although they are not religious activists, they still play an important role in incorporating religion into society. imago deithe idea that all people are created in the image of God,into public life.
Sociologist Max Weber foresaw this tension more than a century ago in his book on the place of religion in modern society. He pointed out that for most of human history, care was limited to family and friends. It was not until the Axial period (800-200 BC) that communities first began to recognize all humans, including foreigners and other strangers, as spiritual beings worthy of protection. This spiritual revolution greatly expanded the scope of care and prompted the creation of public institutions that (at least in theory) used fair standards to ensure that all people had their needs met. I did.
But Weber predicted that as scientific authorities take greater responsibility for the well-being of individuals, clergy and others may push back, arguing that care should be left to churches, charities and families. Weber understands this objection, and as bureaucracy and advanced technology permeate Western society and become more rationalized, it has been fostered by care workers to recognize the dignity of vulnerable strangers. They feared that it could erase human qualities, such as spiritual ones, and thereby erase those worker qualities. “A passion for caring for others.”
Ironically, Weber never asked about the experience of the professionals helping on the front lines. Perhaps this is because care has traditionally been provided by some of the least powerful people in society: slaves, servants, people from lower castes, especially women, and thus its value has been devalued. It’s possible. Or perhaps Weber, like many scholars, believed that care workers simply followed the rules of the institution and exercised little, if any, agency.
In reality, precisely because they interact with the most vulnerable populations, front-line professionals often have to balance the rationalist understanding advocated by science with the more humanistic or religious understandings such as: A balance must always be maintained. imago dei. Indeed, in response to growing customer dissatisfaction with the dehumanizing nature of modern bureaucracy, hospitals and other institutions are increasingly recognizing individuals as biologically, psychologically, socially, and spiritually constructed. We are beginning to promote our approach to holistic care. These efforts to legitimize themselves in the eyes of potential clients effectively make it incumbent on care professionals to reconcile science and spirituality.
And as responsibility for human care shifts from family and friends to large, science-based institutions, care workers increasingly serve as surrogates for loved ones. This has been most evident during the COVID-19 pandemic in hospitals and nursing homes, where patients were not allowed to receive visitors and only nursing staff were able to cover their absences. But when we assign responsibility for people at risk (young, old, poor, sick) to public systems run by scientific authorities, the responsibility for caring for the human spirit is placed on frontline staff. , they request that others not interfere with their sober behavior. Methods and procedures. To counter the callous nature of these organizations, personnel who interact directly with the public are expected to show empathy and act as moral surrogates.
In my study of nursing staff in public teaching hospitals, almost half of the nurses said they believed spiritual care was more important than these religious authorities, contrary to the traditional belief that spiritual care is the domain of chaplains. We found that they answered that they provide care. The majority of nurses also said they were completely comfortable discussing psychological issues about the meaning of life, illness, and death. And they reported workplace experiences that had a significant impact on their understanding of spirituality. These stories (e.g., about how a nurse tried to help a patient cope with disturbing test results) often not only make spirituality plausible, but also connect science and spirituality. are created in a way that suggests how they can coexist.
Of particular importance, nurses who considered their work a vocation interpreted a variety of situations as warranting spiritual intervention, and responded to patients’ needs with a wide range of approaches, from prayer to simply being there. This is the development of practice. Therefore, they were actively involved in reminding patients of their divine self in a dehumanizing environment.
Understand why promotions for care workers are so important imago deiconsider what political scientist Joan Tronto identifies as the four stages of care. I be concerned (recognize that caution is required), take care (determining who should manage care); nursing care (directly respond to needs) receive nursing care (How the care recipient experiences it).
During the discussion about how to place imago dei In practice, we tend to focus on where care is needed (caring) and who should provide it (caring). However, this focus can exclude those who are tasked with providing immediate help (care) and giving dignity to the vulnerable (thereby improving the experience of receiving care). Sadly, this omission reflects the tendency for care work to be dispersed across wider society. The simplest and most recognized tasks of care are performed by powerful actors, while the most difficult and invisible tasks are relegated to those with less power.
Professional care work provides countless opportunities to respect the dignity of vulnerable strangers. It is also necessary to apply protocols and techniques that can do the opposite.If people of faith want to defend imago dei, we need to include people in the conversation who do this balancing act on a daily basis. Better yet, champions of this ethic should immerse themselves in the world of care. There they can begin to fully appreciate the creativity and effort required to implement transcendent and universal ethics in real-world settings. In an age of religious decline, if vulnerable strangers were to be respected, it would probably depend on secular workers who had a sacred duty to care for all. They may come to understand.
