Find solace and wise counsel in these classics of spiritual gerontology! In these days, when so many people live beyond the Biblical threescore and ten, the spiritual questing and questioning of the aged demands a meaningful response from clergy, family members, and nursing home staff. The essays and research studies reprinted in Religion and Aging: An Anthology of the Poppele Papers investigate the role of faith in older people's lives. Many of these classic studies have been updated with new information. These essays were originally published in the Quarterly Papers on Religion and Aging. This renowned journal was issued from 1984 to 1994 by the Poppele Center for Health and Welfare Studies at the Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Missouri. The issues of spiritual gerontology discussed in that journal are still powerfully relevant today. Because back issues of the journal are not widely available, the cream of its ten-year history is being reissued in permanent form. Religion and Aging offers unfailing wisdom and insight in a broad range of issues, including: training clergy to be more responsive to the needs of older people a historical perspective on the meaning of ”honoring thy father and mother” in first-century Judaism and Christianity the Psalms as a way to help nursing home residents deal with pain, loneliness, anger, and other difficult emotions original research into belief patterns of older Americans ways to give meaning to suffering suggested by the lives and works of Viktor Frankl, Martin Gray, and Rabbi Harold Kushner techniques of communicating with older people Religion and Aging is an invaluable resource to anyone who works with old people, whether in adult day-care programs, nursing homes, hospitals, or other senior citizens’groups. It will help chaplains, pastors, rabbis, and other clergy minister more effectively to the older members of their flock.

This book brings together key scholars and practitioners from a range of fields in order to advance epidemiological and gerontological research into the role of religion in physical, psychosocial and mental health. Part One addresses such issues as hope, forgiveness, the psychodynamics of faith and belief, and coping in a theoretical context. Part Two seeks to advance the methodological sophistication of research in this area, with an emphasis on measurement and design issues.

In this stimulating and timely book, experts examine the critical issues that will face professionals in the religious community as they work with the elderly in the coming decades. They look at the directions religious communities must be prepared to take and the problems to which they must respond if they are to be effective in the years ahead. Topics include responding to poverty and aging, suicide among the elderly, connecting gerontological training and religious professionals, and much more.

New Dimensions in Spirituality, Religion, and Aging expands the traditional focus of religiosity to include and evaluate recent research and discoveries on the role of secular spirituality in the aging process. Contributors examine the ways conventional religion and other forms of spirituality affect human development, health and longevity, and they demonstrate how myth-creation enables humans to make meaning in their lives. Taken together, the book points to further research to enhance current knowledge, approaches to care, and social policies.

Spirituality, Religion, and Aging: Illuminations for Therapeutic Practice by Holly Nelson-Becker is a highly integrative book written for students, professionals in aging, ministers, and older adults themselves. Readers will gain the knowledge and skills they need to assess, engage, and address the spiritual and religious needs of older persons. Taking a fresh approach that breaks new ground in the field, the author discusses eight major world religions and covers values and ethics, theories, interventions, health and caregiving, depression and anxiety, dementia, and the end of life. Meditations and exercises throughout the book allow readers to expand and explore their personal understanding of spirituality. Referencing the latest research, the book includes assessments and skill-based tools designed to help practitioners enhance the mental health of older people.

This book, first published in 1989, attempts to identify from within religious cultures those elements of tradition, behaviour and lifestyle that are health protective in that, by adhering to them, physical, mental and social wellbeing will be maintained as people grow old. It examines how different faith traditions view aging and its impact on health.

Since the 1971 White House Conference on Aging in the United States, the need to move from religiosity into new areas such as Spiritual Assessment and Spirituality has emerged. This movement has picked up momentum among scholars, particularly in terms of research in the area of Spirituality. While spirituality as a term is employed in many new studies, this term continues to defy the quest for a single definition and method. This book is divided into three sections. In the first the authors reflect on the philosophical and theological issues presented by these terms from a variety of both cognate and practical methodological approaches. The second section offers insights from the major professions of sociology, psychology, public health, nursing and social work. The final section offers insight and assistance to researchers and authors on specific religious traditions. This book will be important for anyone working to develop such practical tools as spiritual assessment forms to those who engage in more formal scholarly investigation.

Learn how to make a more positive impact with your social work with the aged Religion is an important coping mechanism for many aging adults. Religion, Spirituality, and Aging: A Social Work Perspective presents the latest research that shows how religion and spirituality can improve quality of life for elders. Respected social work researchers and scholars provide insight and practical methods for fostering positive aging while also considering how spirituality and religion can affect practitioners themselves. The full range of advantages and ethical implications are discussed in clear detail from a social work viewpoint. Case studies plainly illustrate the positive impact that the inclusion of spirituality and religion in an aging person’s life may have on their physical and mental welfare. Organized social work in the early twentieth century actively tried to distance itself from its roots as a form of religious charity in favor of becoming a scientific and professional endeavor. Religion, Spirituality, and Aging once again bridges the gap between social work and spiritual matters by presenting penetrating articles that discusses the issues of the aging soul while examining ways to improve care. Creative strategies are offered to contribute to the spiritual side of aging while considering every implication and ethical question. The compilation is extensively referenced and includes helpful figures and tables to clearly illustrate data and ideas. Religion, Spirituality, and Aging discusses: the latest social work trends and attitudes toward spirituality prayer, meditation, and acts of altruism as interventions an empirical study of how social workers use religion and spirituality as an intervention ethical considerations and best practices religion and spirituality during long-term care the “Postcards to God” project dreams and their relationship to the search for meaning in later life a spiritual approach to positive aging through autobiography dementia and spirituality creating new rituals for sacred aging spiritual master Henri Nouwen’s principles of aging—and his approaches to caring for older people an interview study on elders’ spirituality and the changes manifested in their views of religion Religion, Spirituality, and Aging is a remarkable reminder that elders are our future selves. This erudite, well-reasoned examination of aging and spirituality from a social work perspective is crucial reading for social workers, human service professionals who work with the aged, and gerontology scholars.

Religion is the most fundamental, comprehensive of all human activities. it tries to make sense out of not simply one or another aspect of human life, but of all aspects of human experience. At the core of every civilization lies its religion, which both reflects and shapes it. Thus, if we wish to understand human life in general and our specific culture and history, we need to understand religion. What is religion? Religion is an explanation of the ultimate meaning of life, and how to live accordingly; based on a notion of the Transcendent. Normally it contains the four "C's": Creed, Code, Cult, Community-structure. CREED refers To The cognitive aspect of a religion; it is everything that goes into the "explanation" of the ultimate meaning of life. CODE OF BEHAVIOR, or ethics, includes all the rules and customs of action that somehow follow from one aspect or another of the Creed. CULT means all the ritual activities that relate the follower to one aspect or another of the Transcendent, either directly or indirectly, prayer being an example of the former and certain formal behavior toward representatives of the Transcendent, such as priests, of the latter. COMMUNITY-STRUCTURE refers To The relationships among the followers; this can vary widely, from a very egalitarian relationship, As among Quakers, through a "republican" structure as Presbyterians have, To a monarchical one, As with some Hasidic Jews have with their Rebbe. THE TRANSCENDENT, As the roots of the word indicate, means "that which goes beyond" the everyday, The ordinary, The surface experience of reality. it can mean spirits, gods, a Personal God, An Impersonal God, Emptiness, etc. This volume looks at the ways we humans have developed to study religion. However, a new age in human consciousness is now dawning: The Age of Global Dialogue, a radically new consciousness which fundamentally shifts the ways we understand everything in life, including religion. This global dialogical way of understanding life does not lead to one global religion, but it does lead toward a consciously acknowledged common set of ethical principles, a Global Ethic. The book looks at these two movements—the Age of Global Dialogue and inchoative Global Ethic—in order to help readers understand what is going on around them, So they might make informed, intelligent decisions about the meaning of life and how to live it. Author note:Leonard Swidleris Professor of Religion at Temple University.Paul Mojzesis Academic Dean and Professor of Religious Studies at Rosemount College.

Volume II picks up where Volume I left off--with practical advice and tools for ministry with the aging in a variety of settings. Gerontological and theological perspectives undergird the practical guidance and a final section treats of the unique ethical issues involved in ministry with the aging.