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Religion, spirituality, and genetics: Mapping the terrain for research purposes
Author(s) -
Churchill Larry R.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
american journal of medical genetics part c: seminars in medical genetics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.419
H-Index - 101
eISSN - 1552-4876
pISSN - 1552-4868
DOI - 10.1002/ajmg.c.30195
Subject(s) - spirituality , existentialism , destiny (iss module) , epistemology , meaning (existential) , context (archaeology) , sociology , identity (music) , psychology , philosophy , medicine , aesthetics , biology , physics , alternative medicine , pathology , astronomy , paleontology
Genetic diseases often raise issues of profound importance for human self‐understanding, such as one's identity, the family or community to which one belongs, and one's future or destiny. These deeper questions have commonly been seen as the purview of religion and spirituality. This essay explores how religion and spirituality are understood in the current US context and defined in the scholarly literature over the past 100 years. It is argued that a pragmatic, functional approach to religion and spirituality is important to understanding how patients respond to genetic diagnoses and participate in genetic therapies. A pragmatic, functional approach requires broadening the inquiry to include anything that provides a framework of transcendent meaning for the fundamental existential questions of human life. This approach also entails suspending questions about the truth claims of any particular religious/spiritual belief or practice. Three implications of adopting this broad working definition will be presented. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.