Healing Faith

Four people sing into microphones, the Reflecting Pool and the Washington Monument behind them. Black-and-white photo. — Bessie Jones and the Georgia Sea Island Singers, an African American gospel and folk group, perform in front of the Washington Monument at a Peace March and Rally for the Poor People’s Campaign.
Photo by Diana J. Davies, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives

A woman, framed by microphones and a bouquet of flowers, speaks at a podium. Black-and-white photo. — Coretta Scott King speaks at the Bishop Charles Mason Temple in 1968, in the midst of the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike and after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Photo by Diana J. Davies, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives

A man in a suit, facing away, speaks at a podium into several microphones to a packed room. Black-and-white photo. — A crowd gathers in the Bishop Charles Mason Temple in 1968, days after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and in the midst of the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike.
Photo by Diana J. Davies, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives

A crowd of people, all wearing face masks, bow their heads, some with their hands outstretched on the shoulders of the people in front of them, as if in prayer. One person at center holds a hand-written sign: Black Lives Matter. Black-and-white photo. — In June 2020, Black Lives Matters protestors on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., mourn together after the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.
Photo by Albert Tong

Religions have developed deep reservoirs of “healing faith”—cultural wisdom and spiritual practices to lament brokenness, promote healing, and transform painful circumstances. Religious traditions and institutions, too, are not exempt from causing harm and brokenness. Creative Encounters asked individuals and groups to assess how their practices and beliefs can be both a source of healing and in need of healing themselves.

Today, people are experiencing trauma, grief, and anxiety in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, continued violence against marginalized groups, threats to the natural environment, and many more of life’s challenges. Once symptoms have been diagnosed, a serious question remains: how do we heal after experiencing or even causing significant harm? By talking with religious practitioners from across the nation, we explored how religion and spirituality can be medicine for the spirit, the body, and the body politic.

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