Community based approaches to primary health care
When I studied international and community health at Johns Hopkins in 1977, primary health care was a new emphasis. Our dean, Dr. Carl Taylor led a department full of passion about reducing illness and promoting health through primary care. But the amount of data about this approach was limited. Like…
Social concern by evangelicals in the 1800s
Once in a while it is good to remind ourselves that Bible believing Christians over the centuries have been in the forefront of social concern, demonstrating the character of Jesus by good works of compassion. Things changed somewhere in the early 1900s, but especially before that the church was a…
The Work of the New York Medical Missionary Society
I was recently at a meeting where the idea of a medical missions institute was proposed, in order to enable our healthcare missionaries to better flourish in their international settings. In fact over 65 different agencies send out missionaries from America; if we add Canadians, Indians, Australians, Nigerians, British, South…
An Upside down World. Distinguishing between home and mission field no longer makes sense. Christopher J.H. Wright
Chris Wright is the international director of the Langham Partnership. He wrote “The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative (Intervarsity, 2006). This CT article highlights the changes in Global Christianity, where the “old peripheries are now the center.” He speaks of our “blindness to the ways Western Christianity…
Love in action
In SIM we think a lot about how to integrate faith and good deeds. In our Western mindset these are often separate. One of our missionaries returned home this week and told us that in her country, Christian medical doctors put “faith” and “work” in separate categories. So it is…
Why health is more than medical care
Why is health more than just medical care? Here are some reasons: Medical care tends to address matters of the body but not of the spirit. As medical professionals we are trained to diagnose, treat and manage medical conditions. We seek to apply scientific evidence to our craft. And yet…
Why should public health be part of our Christian commitment to mission? Isn’t curative care enough?
There are a great many ways that public health skills are being used in preventive and community health programs around the world. Yet when we think of ‘medical missions’ over the last 200 years there has been a strong clinical (medical) approach. Why should a preventive approach complement this strong…
How should we do justice?
I’ve mentioned Tim Keller’s “Generous Justice” before. Today I’d like to underline a practical and theological issue about “how.” Keller tells us about Abraham Kuyper, a Dutch theologian and statesman who ‘remade the churches into voluntary institutions’ in Holland over a century ago. According to Kuyper, the church was both…