Foundational Issues In Christian Spirituality And Ethics
Foundational Issues In Christian Spirituality And Ethics
Objectives:
- Explain the nature of spirituality and ethics according to the Christian worldview.
- Explain the limitations of science as it relates to ethics.
- Explain the current philosophical challenges to a Christian understanding of ethics in health care.
How can the perspective of Christian spirituality influence the way in which you demonstrate compassionate care?
Initial discussion question posts should be a minimum of 200 words and include at least two references cited using APA format. Responses to peers or faculty should be 100-150 words and include one reference. Refer to the “Discussion Question Rubric” and “Participation Rubric,” located in Class Resources, to understand the expectations for initial discussion question posts and participation posts, respectively.
American Association of Colleges of Nursing Core Competencies for Professional Nursing Education
This assignment aligns with the AACN Core Competency: 2.1
Patient-centered care focuses on providing respectful and empathetic care for patients. Spirituality and religion play an important role in health care. Spirituality has been recognized as a fundamental aspect of compassionate care as well as patient and family centered care (Bogue et al., 2022 p.302). Providing a holistic approach helps acknowledge the patients’ unique needs. Respecting the patients’ spiritual and religious beliefs is important to help create good patient-nurse relationships. Patients who create good patient-nurse relationships create and build rapport with nurses that helps improve patient outcome. Understanding more about the patient’s religion can help guide the type of care being provided. We must be mindful that there are many cultures and religions that require unique patient interventions and care. Being able to provide a safe environment for our patients is important. They should be able to feel safe and respected. Providing nonjudgmental care can help patients feel comfortable making informed decisions about their medical care. Meeting our patients’ spiritual needs can help reduce pain levels and provide physical healing. Christian spirituality has helped me provide compassionate care that is based on a holistic approach when caring for my patients. Spiritual care is an essential element of human healing and int occurs in human crises (Rhyu et al., 2023). Spirituality and religious beliefs can influence patients’ decisions regarding treatment. Being aware of this can help address medical issues and find different treatment options depending on our patient’s religion or cultural traditions.
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Bogue, D. W., Cota, M., De La Torre, V. J., Evans, K. A., Hoehner, P. J., Hogan, M., & White, N. H. (2022). Practicing Dignity: An Introduction to Christian Values and Decision-Making in Health Care (Third). Grand Canyon University. April 2, 2024, https://bibliu.com/app/#/view/books/B1B4SGSSID7LR/epub/TItlePage.html#page_2
Rhyu, K., Lee, G., & Baek, H. (2023). Association among workplace spirituality, spiritual well-being, and spiritual care in practice with multiple mediators for clinical nurses. The Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing, 54(2), 89–96. https://doi.org/10.3928/00220124-20230113-08
Sample 2
Compassionate care is essential in the healthcare field. Healthcare professionals offer compassionate care to help achieve holistic care and promote a positive healthcare experience (Goldberg, 2020). Compassionate care refers to providing medical care with kindness, empathy and understanding. Healthcare professionals offering compassionate care provide practical and emotional support to patients. The practice of compassionate care involves treating patients with dignity, respect and sensitivity to their needs and preferences and often focusing on promoting their wellbeing (Goldberg, 2020). Offering compassionate care involves understanding the patients’ emotions and perspectives, listening attentively to patients’ concerns, communicating honestly and effectively using simple language, treating patients with respect and dignity, providing physical comfort through pain management, recognizing that each patient is unique and tailor healthcare plans to meet their specific needs, involving patients and their families in decision making and respecting their input as well as ensuring a seamless transition between different healthcare providers and settings to maintain continuity of care and foster trust (Goldberg, 2020).
The Christian worldview advocates for treating others with dignity and compassion. It influences compassionate care in various ways including approaching patients with unconditional love and genuine compassion to promote healing, prioritizing the needs of patients above their own and serving others with kindness, fostering forgiveness in patient-provider relationships, offering holistic care that addresses patients’ emotional, spiritual and existential concerns as well as providing comfort, hope and strength during times of illnesses and suffering (Younas et al., 2023).
References
Goldberg, M. J. (2020). Compassionate care: making it a priority and the science behind it. Journal of Pediatric Orthopaedics, 40, S4-S7. https:// DOI: 10.1097/BPO.0000000000001502
Younas, A., Porr, C., Maddigan, J., Moore, J., Navarro, P., & Whitehead, D. (2023). Implementation strategies to promote compassionate nursing care of complex patients: An exploratory sequential mixed methods study. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 55(4), 805-824. https://doi.org/10.1111/jnu.12869
From the perspective of Christian spirituality and ethics, what is your understanding of compassionate caring that informs your approach to health and healing?
Initial discussion question posts should be a minimum of 200 words and include at least two references cited using APA format. Responses to peers or faculty should be 100-150 words and include one reference. Refer to the “Discussion Question Rubric” and “Participation Rubric,” located in Class Resources, to understand the expectations for initial discussion question posts and participation posts, respectively.
American Association of Colleges of Nursing Core Competencies for Professional Nursing Education
This assignment aligns with the AACN Core Competency: 9.2
Compassionate care involves accompanying an individual on their journey through illness and providing care for their mental, physical, and spiritual well-being. It requires understanding and acknowledging our own personal struggles, as well as those of others. By offering compassionate feedback, we can help alleviate suffering within ourselves and our clients (Gilbert, 2020). It is important to note that compassion should not be mistaken for pity or sympathy, as these concepts often overlook the true essence of compassion.
On the other hand, empathy fatigue can be referred to as an individual producing wall surfaces between themselves and the suffering they witness in self-preservation. Usually, we are additionally hypercritical of ourselves. Recently, self-care has become a neologism in healthcare literature. Nevertheless, I recommend we additionally cultivate actions of self-compassion. According to Andreeva and Green (2024), self-compassion is becoming a friend to ourselves instead of our best movie critic. I believe if we cultivate self-compassion, we have a higher ability to hold empathy for others and bolster loving kindness. From the point of view of Christian spirituality, I believe many people remember historical numbers such as Mom Teresa when clarifying what thoughtful caring looks like in practice. Directly, thoughtful feedback to suffering has a balance Foundational Issues In Christian Spirituality And Ethics. To function objectively, I need to stabilize my concern for my clients with personal borders to ensure that I do not end up being so psychologically included that I become unable to provide top-quality care. I think you can respond with empathy, yet rather get rid of the scenario to maintain yourself.
References
Andreeva, I., & Green, M. (2024). Testing the role of narrative modeling on self-compassion. Journal of Media Psychology: Theories, Methods, and Applications.
Gilbert, P. (2020). Compassion: From its evolution to a psychotherapy. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 586161.
Worldview Analysis and Personal Inventory
This assignment will introduce you to the concept of worldview. It will also provide you with a fundamental understanding of Christian spirituality that looks to the union of body, mind, soul, and spirit, along with how those beliefs inform a unique ethical awareness and decision-making in professional practice. In addition, you will gain knowledge about your own personal beliefs, according to your own worldview.
After reading topic Resources, you will complete the “Worldview Analysis and Personal Inventory” document, which includes prompts related to the following:
- Christian perspective of the nature of spirituality and ethics
- Scientism and two of the main arguments against it
- Ultimate reality
- Nature (origin) of the universe
- What it means to be a human being and purpose in your existence
- What knowledge is and sources of knowledge
- Ethics and where the knowledge of right and wrong comes from
- Purpose of human life and existence
- Influence of personal worldview values in decision-making within current or future professional practice
Support your response using only Chapter 1 from the textbook Practicing Dignity: An Introduction to Christian Values and Decision-Making in Health Care and two other Topic 1 Resources.
While APA style is not required for the body of this assignment, solid academic writing is expected, and documentation of sources should be presented using APA formatting guidelines, which can be found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center.
This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.
You are required to submit this assignment to LopesWrite. A link to the LopesWrite technical support articles is located in Class Resources if you need assistance.
American Association of Colleges of Nursing Core Competencies for Professional Nursing Education
This assignment aligns with the AACN Core Competency: 1.2
Worldview Analysis and Personal Inventory
Quality patient outcomes are always achieved when both the patient and the healthcare provider collaborate, precisely in terms of communication. The relationship formed between the patient and the healthcare provider is however limited by world views from either the healthcare provider or the patient. To be precise, the patient’s cognitive orientation highly contributes to their major decision making in terms of their health. On the other hand, a healthcare provider who believes in different worldviews may not provide the healthcare standards as expected by the patient. It therefore follows that healthcare providers should understand the different world views to facilitate a better understanding of different patients when they seek healthcare services.
Christian perspective of the nature of spirituality and ethics in contrast to the perspective of postmodern relativism within health care
The Christian perspective of the nature of spirituality and ethics has its basis on God being the supreme and the bible being His guide towards spirituality. The basis of Christian world view therefore relies on the teachings of the bible concerning spirituality. Just like the healthcare role, spirituality in the life of a Christian is meant to maintain the wholeness of the body and spirit (Weathers 2018). Spirituality in the bible is depicted as both theological and symbolic. The global Christian symbols in healthcare are explained to point out the particular powers that these symbols represent in reality. For instance, an anchor was initially meant for commitment to religion during Christian persecution. However, in healthcare, the same anchor symbol is signifying one holding their values in times of illness, thus signifying resilience and hope after going through a tough experience.
Postmodern relativism on the other hand is very different from Christian perspective. In post relativism, absolute truth is absent unlike in the Christian perspective. In this case the supreme being is not considered to be offering guidance towards moral decisions. The implication of post relativism therefore asserts that every ethical affiliation and argument is correct when making any critical decision (Ambasciano & Coleman III, 2019). A good example of such scenario is health professionals taking new roles of multidimensional care approach while handling their patients through spiritual, physical and psychosocial approaches. It is a world view that guides the nurses towards handling all the patients from different cultures and spiritual affiliations in an equal way.
Scientism and its Arguments
Scientism asserts that genuine knowledge and absolute truths can only be derived from hard sciences, thus terming them as the superior scientific knowledge. Scientism has its origin from the long reliance of ancient Greek philosophy as well as the Judeo-Christian scripture (Mietzner, 2020). These ancient authorities however got challenged by the emerging learning system that was introduced by scholars over the years. These scholars have therefore developed arguments that challenge the major foundations of scientism.
The first major argument is the false dilemma of differentiating science from other disciplines/fields. The scholars who came up with the word scientism had put more trust in natural science than any other parlance. Just like the ancient opponents of the scientism, today’s opponents also believe that philosophy, theology or any other non-science discipline are negatively influenced by scientism. Some of the opponents as stated by Ambasciano & Coleman III (2019) go to an extent of comparing scientism with scientific imperialism. Many proponents have argued that adding other sciences into scientism while excluding natural science would imply excluding anything from science. By doing so, the same authority over issues of scientism such as natural science would be shared among theologians and philosophers implying that scientism would mean nothing.
The self-referential incoherence is the second major argument of scientism. The argument asserts that the thesis of scientism of acquiring knowledge from natural science is derived as a byproduct of natural science (Mietzner, 2020). The thesis therefore lacks sufficient information that define fundamental scientific research. An individual’s inability to embrace and critically think scientism implies lack of sufficient evidence to prove it. Thus, there are no sufficient reasons to believe in it and hence arguments will always occur between opponents and proponents.
Ultimate Reality
Ultimate reality is a term used to illustrate the supremacy or finality of a particular power in reality. In my view of understanding ultimate reality, every human being has their origin from the environment. Due to this reason, the environment is responsible for controlling the behaviors and actions of human beings. For instance, if a child is born from an Islamic background, there is a high percentage that they will embrace polygamy than a child born from a Christian background. It therefore implies that ultimate reality is the effect of experiences of people and how these experiences influence them during critical decision making.
Nature of the Universe
The universe encompasses everything that existed, current existence and everything that will exist in future. The universe has always been strained under various changes due to the laws related to the environment and energy in different countries of the world. According to Weathers (2018), time is relative and flexible, and illusion is the only existing difference between the present and the future. Reality is attributed to timelessness and the only thing that can be done to timelessness is striving to create a better illusion for the future. This can only be achieved through developing a quality environment as well as living a healthier lifestyle.
Human being
From a Christian point of view, human beings are complex God’s creatures that He made through His image and likeness and assigned to procreation as their major role in the universe. Human beings have also been mandated to critically think towards different choices while fearing God as well as obeying His commandments. From a biological point of view, human beings were formed as bi-products of evolution through natural selection, where they overcame environmental challenges (Mietzner, 2020). The selective superior characteristics obtained from evolution include knowledge, personal identity, freedom, awareness and responsibility. These characteristics have enhanced human beings to make different complex decisions that continue making life easier even for future generations Foundational Issues In Christian Spirituality And Ethics.
Knowledge
Knowledge has been termed as an awareness, understanding and familiarity of things or people through different ways such as learning or experience. Knowledge through experience encompasses engaging through practical activities to gain knowledge. On the other hand, Knowledge through learning is acquired through education, by either attending formal or informal arrangement to theoretically acquire knowledge. These two methods therefore prepare one towards handling complex decision-making in future. For instance, a nurse going to nursing school acquires theoretical knowledge while a working nurse acquires the practical experience knowledge.
My basis of Ethics
I have a moral principle from my inner conviction that I should do what is right in all my encounters. It is my personal opinion that has greatly been influenced by the law of the environment of either doing the right or wrong. Due to this reason, my morals are focused towards doing the right things and at no point shall I engage in immoralities such as rape, theft, forgery or any other form of immorality. I am also a person who respects and adhere to the standards of profession of other colleagues during my line of duty. Doing so helps me to maintain my professionalism as well as respecting the universal ethical standards. For instance, I always ensure that my patients’ information is private and confidential as stipulated by my profession’s ethical standards.
Purpose of my Existence
Just as stated in the bible and like any other human being, I have a purpose to procreate and take responsibility of my future generations. This encompasses marrying a wife, siring kids and ensuring that I provide for them. I also have a professional duty of making the members of the society live comfortable lives through the practice of patient care. Ensuring the wellness of an entire community is a good guarantee that my future generation will thrive well. Most of all and as a Christian, I have an ultimate role of fearing God and acting according to His commands. Foundational Issues In Christian Spirituality And Ethics
References
Ambasciano, L., & Coleman III, T. J. (2019). History as a canceled problem? Hilbert lists, du
Bois-Reymond’s enigmas, and the scientific study of religion. Journal of the American
Academy of Religion, 87(2), 366-400. https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfz001
Mietzner, M. (2020). Populist anti-scientism, religious polarisation, and institutionalised
corruption: How Indonesia’s democratic decline shaped its COVID-19 response. Journal
of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, 39(2), 227-249. Foundational Issues In Christian Spirituality And Ethics
https://DOI: 10.1177/1868103420935561
Weathers, E. (2018). Spirituality and health: A Middle Eastern perspective. Religions, 9(2), 33.
https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9020033
