David O. Moberg

Religious Activities and Attitudes of Older Adults in a Geriatric Assessment Clinic

Few studies have examined the prevalence, salience, and impact of religious beliefs, activities, and commitment among medical patients in later life. Surveys of the U.S. population aged 65 years and over reveal a high frequency of such beliefs and activities, which are reported to play a significant role in their lives. In this study, the religious beliefs, activities, and motivations of 106 consecutive patients (mean age 74.4 years) attending a geriatric outpatient clinic were examined. A high prevalence of orthodox Christian beliefs, religious community activity, private devotional activity, and intrinsic religious orientation was found. Levels of religious activity and intrinsic orientation were lower among patients with cancer, chronic anxiety, depressive symptoms, and those who smoked cigarettes or consumed moderate to large amounts of alcohol. Intrinsic religiosity was lower among men with hypertension. Patients with mild to moderate dementia tended to have higher levels of intrinsic religious orientation. The results of this study suggest that religion is a powerful cultural force in the lives of older medical patients and is integrally related to both mental and physical health.

Subjective Measures of Spiritual Well-Being

ion from reality. How to walk the tightrope of trying to avoid a misleading reductionism that implies one has fully measured the important parameters and yet of being sufficiently effective to fulfill scientific and practical needs is a particularly acute problem in dealing with a complexly multifarious topic like SWB. A strong dosage of humility is needed by all who work on this topic, for it borders upon transcendent and supernatural domains that lie beyond the scope of direct empirical observations even more than most conventional subjects of inquiry do. The indicators clustered into the respective indexes reflect an underlying phenomenon; they This content downloaded from 157.55.39.102 on Mon, 03 Oct 2016 04:08:49 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

Spiritual well-being: A neglected subject in quality of life research

The social indicators and quality of life (QOL) movements have given scant attention to religiosity, in spite of theoretical and empirical evidence that it is related to personal and social well-being. Reasons for this include the constitutional provisions pertinent to religion, problems of funding, the lack of measuring instruments, conceptual and theoretical difficulties, biases of researchers, and the lack of consensus regarding the definition of QOL. A partial solution to this neglec is to engage in conceptual, theoretical, qualitative, and empirical research on spiritual well-being (SWB). The authors indicate its potential and some initial steps toward bringing SWB into the QOL movement.

Aging and the religious dimension

Figures and Tables Foreword by Harry R. Moody Introduction: A Human Science Perspective on Aging and the Religious Dimension by L. Eugene Thomas and Susan A. Eisenhandler Theoretical Perspectives Values, Psychosocial Development, and the Religious Dimension by L. Eugene Thomas From Loneliness to Solitude: Religious and Spiritual Journeys in Late Life by Barbara Payne and Susan McFadden Case Studies From Sacred to Secular: Memoir of a Midlife Transition toward Spiritual Freedom by Richard B. Griffin The Way of the Religious Renouncer: Power through Nothingness by L. Eugene Thomas Historical and Literary Studies Aging and Spiritual Empowerment: The Stories of Oedipus and David by Stephen Bertman and W. Andrew Achenbaum Fairy Tales and the Spiritual Dimensions of Aging by Allan B. Chinen Spiritual Well-being, Maturity, and Aging: Biblical Illustrations by J. Gordon Harris Honor Thy Mother: Aging Women in the Jewish Tradition by Dena Shenk Participant Observation A Social Milieu for Spirituality in the Lives of Older Adults by Susan A. Eisenhandler Life Narrative and Spiritual Journey of Elderly Male Religious by Edward J. Quinnan Interview and Survey Research Generativity as Pragmatic Spirituality by Robert L. Rubinstein Religiosity and Fear of Death in Non-Normative Aging by Sheldon S. Tobin, Elise N. Fullmer, and Gregory C. Smith Gero-Transcendence: A Theoretical and Empirical Exploration by Lars Tornstam For Further Reading Index

The Development of Social Indicators for Quality of Life Research

Social indicators of spiritual well-being (SWB) are desirable for quality of life studies. They also are needed in the sociology of religion because promotion of spiritual health is a central objective of most religious institutions, because evaluation of the alleged functional and dysfunctional consequences of their endeavors is of increasing social significance, and because the claim that SWB is promoted more effectively by non-religious than by religious agencies should be tested.Several strands of exploratory research which aim at the eventual development of an index of SWB are summarized. For example, questionnaires of 123 respondents indicate that seven-tenths believe it is possible for people to know whether or not they possess SWB. Two-thirds believe they possess it, but most think that only few or half of the population have SWB.The conceptual, theoretical, and empirical problems which spring from diverse definitions and divergent criteria of SWB are typical of most subjects when they are first introduced into the social sciences.

Spirituality and aging: Research and implications.

ABSTRACT Increasing attention to spirituality is an important trend in gerontology, human services, and health sciences. Spirituality is complex, overlaps with religion, infuses all human life, and therefore is difficult to study. Diverse methods are used in its investigation, and numerous scales measure its components. Almost all of the research reveals its significant connections with health and other aspects of well-being. Professional applications of the research findings have been limited by complex religious and cultural values, insufficient research, and ethical considerations. Unlimited opportunities for further study include the need to evaluate the impact of all religions and ideologies that claim to enhance spirituality.

Spiritual Maturity and Wholeness in the Later Years

SUMMARY Nuturing spiritual wellness is a prominent goal of most religious groups and is central to wholistic health. Although spirituality is very important to most older people and spiritual well-being and maturity are relevant to gerontological theories, consensus on criteria for evaluating them is not yet complete, and mainstream gerontology tends to ignore the subject. Two paradigmatic orientations are dominant; one extrinsically seeks self-gratification; the other is intrinsic, self-denying, and self-centered. It is important to face the divergent values about this and related topics like death and dying, the afterlife, the “new ageism” in services with and for the aging, the value-denying compromises of alleged neutrality, the danger of reification, and the tendency to ignore spirituality by meeting only empirically observable human needs.

Disabilities, Spirituality, and Well-Being in Late Life: Research Foundations for Study and Practice

ABSTRACT Under the impact of increasing longevity and other trends, the number of aging people with disabilities and accompanying limitations and problems is growing. Some disabilities are pre-existing conditions to which aging adds complications. Others represent completely new circumstances to the person for which each lacks habitual coping techniques. Disabilities generate complex ethical issues for individuals and society. They also tend to arouse the personal awareness of spiritual needs. Quantitative, qualitative, and clinical research investigations have demonstrated the predominately beneficial effects of spiritual interventions on the well-being of disabled elders. The findings provide many insights on the importance of including appropriate attention to spirituality in professional interventions, the services provided by lay caregivers, and informal therapies like the spiritual life review. Yet, despite significant progress, spiritual interventions still face many limitations, problems, and deficiencies. Research on relationships between disability and spirituality is still in early stages of development. Future progress in both the research and its applications to services with and for disabled older persons hinges upon resolving complex issues of defining, measuring, applying, administering, and evaluating the intangible phenomena that are subsumed under the label of spirituality, as well as on extending the research to include cross-cultural studies that are a requisite for global applications.

Compartmentalization and Parochialism in Religious and Voluntary Action Research

The operational definitions for religion in voluntary action research generally include only the participation that occurs in subsidiary associations of churches and synagogues, excluding membership and activity in the primary religious bodies. Latent consequences of the separation of church and state and religious liberty help account for this neglect of religion. Ironically, some attacks upon the idea of voluntary action in churches and other associations are made by people in the context of their own volunteer activities. Church members are more likely than nonmembers to be active in other community organizations, and they tend to remain socially engaged in their churches long after aging forces them out of other groups. Differential motivations in various kinds of voluntary action and the covariation of voluntarism and sectarianism deserve research attention. Significant symbiotic relationships between voluntary action research and research on religion should be strengthened.

Does Social Class Shape the Church

A sense of smugness about the status of their intergroup relations seems to characterize many churches since policies for integrating non-whites into their congregations have been initiated or strengthened. Accepting racial integration on paper is not the end of such problems for the church, however; it often is but the beginning. Negroes in America belong predominantly to the laboring or lower classes. The majority of white Protestant churches have a membership that is drawn chiefly from the middle classes. Problems of integration across social and economic boundaries will therefore complicate the problems of racial integration. We may with some justification ask if churches which are unable to integrate with lower-class white people ought even to propose that they try to integrate with lower class Negroes.