Salus Forum December 3, 2025

Bill B

So, Walt could involve members of the clergy. A member of the clergy is someone whom I would sit down with because something’s just wrong in my life. And the pastor is someone who could begin to help me sort out where I might want to get help. Is it a financial issue? Is it a specific medical issue? Can I go here? Does my issue have a spiritual sense to it? Is there a sense of longing to do something important? We usually talk about the primary care physician being the professional who helps us sort things out. Could it also be the paster? For some people at least, there may be an earlier sorter-outer who helps people define where they’re going and where medical would make sense versus other things. Obviously, many people go to their medical doctor for a whole lot of things that have nothing to do with medicine.  And what would it look like if a pastor were trained in this broader base?

Bill G

I wonder if there is a solid evidentiary base suggesting that having a sense of spiritual grounding or a commitment to a spiritual center of any sort is really critical to health? Some would say clearly that it’s difficult to imagine a healthy life in a broader sense without some sort of spiritual grounding. But I don’t think that’s necessarily commonly accepted or proven in any way. There are certainly many people who would argue otherwise and many publications regarding health stick strictly to the secular domain.  So, how critical is having a spiritual dimension? Walt brought it up. But I’m not sure that all of us here necessarily buy into an evidentiary base for that conclusion.

Jeremy

There’s limited evidence. For example, I’ve seen things around prayer to reduce bleeding from surgery. I think there are sporadic studies out there that have shown influence, you know, whether it’s causality or not. But it certainly comes up in the hospital.

Jack

There’s a strong association between attendance at a faith community and quality of life and health outcomes. That’s been shown over and over. Those are from Pew surveys. There’s also an association between claiming that faith is really important and health outcomes, as opposed to faith being not important at all. Now, those are associations, not causation. So, you can’t tell which came first, but there are some associations.

I think that’s the level of science right now. And I think there is not one type of faith community that is better than others. It could be a synagogue, a Catholic church or a Protestant church. One of the blue zones in America is a big Mormon community in Loma Linda. So, the association between faith and lifestyle is hard to parse out. Those associations are there, but not causation.