Clicking here will take you to the Book Review

Sarah Masters reviews two audio CDs

Blessed and Raise Your Voice!

Any Chaplain seeking inspiration might want to tune into two very uplifting gospel CDs, each having a unique way of uncovering spiritual truth: Blessed, performed by the Soweto Gospel Choir and Raise Your Voice by Sweet Honey in the Rock.

Southern African gospel music incorporates vocals with background drums and Blessed reflects that tradition along with the Western church styles of music absorbed by the African culture. Members of diverse backgrounds form the Soweto Gospel Choir, and the listener will hear uplifting music sung in Zhosa, Zulu, Sotho and English. The choir won the prestigious Australian Performing Arts Award in 2003 and has supported music legends from Bono to the Eurythmics.

Raise Your Voice! is a compilation of two live concerts performed by Sweet Honey in the Rock, a Grammy Award-winning African-American female a cappella ensemble. The six women who form the group perform moving renditions steeped in the sacred music of the black church. From “In the Morning When I Rise” to “Old Ship of Zion,” Raise Your Voice! captures the magic that flows between Sweet Honey and the Rock and the audience and the tremendous on-stage presence and energy of this group.

Blessed
Completed: 2005
Running Time: 50 Minutes
Shanachie Entertainment Corp.

Raise Your Voice!
Completed: 2005
Running Time: 70 Minutes
EarthBeat! Records

If you are interested in purchasing this film, you can do so at www.hartleyfoundation.org. Just click on “Sacred Sounds” on the homepage for more information. The cost for Blessed is $19.98 /CD and the cost for Raise Your Voice! is $16.98/CD.

Book Review

Nancy Berlinger, PhD, reviews

Theological Bioethics: Participation, Justice, Change

Theology is a troublesome word for chaplains. Like denominational clergy, chaplains are products of theological training and ministerial formation, but unlike these clergy, chaplains must “forget” their denominationalism if they are to succeed in multifaith ministry to patients, families, and staff in health care organizations. Chaplains must be prepared to respond to tough theological questions, while being mindful that their own theological language and symbols are not universal and may not translate well. They may try to steer clear of “theology” altogether, particularly if they work in institutions where the role of chaplaincy is not well defined, or is reduced to “meeting religious needs.”

Lisa Cahill, one of the nation’s most distinguished Catholic theologians, reminds us that theology is “a process of reflection on religious experience,” and that religious experience has much more to do with stories, symbols, and rituals than with abstract principles. In Theological Bioethics, she focuses on how religious experience – the real beliefs and real practices of real people – intersects with the decisions we make about health care, and the systems we create to deliver, improve, or deny health care within communities and across societies. Chaplains work inside these systems, and Cahill’s book will be of special interest to those in Catholic health care systems, or who are affiliated with the Catholic Health Association (CHA), the Community of Sant’Egidio, and other organizations whose work in health care is informed by Catholic teachings on social justice. Her clear discussions of traditional and influential Catholic tools for moral reasoning, such as the principle of double effect, and how these tools may be most authentically and productively applied to contemporary problems in health care, will be of interest to any chaplain involved in the teaching or practice of clinical ethics.

Her takeaway message applies to all chaplains (and to all religious ethicists working in health care, for that matter). As we have cast our professional lot with the organized delivery of health care, we have a moral obligation to work – really work – to improve care and access to care, globally as well as locally. For Cahill, there is no divide between activists and the rest of us. As her book’s subtitle suggests, theological bioethics means participating in the lives of the sick by acknowledging and attending to their spiritual needs, but it also means seeking justice, by working from our own faith commitments to change the conditions that perpetuate suffering.

Lisa Sowle Cahill, Theological Bioethics: Participation, Justice, Change (Georgetown University Press, 2005); 310 pp.

Do you have thoughts about these reviews you’d like to share with your colleagues? Send an e-mail to info@PlainViews.org