As the year draws to a close many people around the world are gathering for religious celebrations and traditions. This week’s issue explores the convergence of religion, spirituality, and health. The six pieces included here touch on only a handful of the issues we would like to cover, but we hope they will inspire our readers to share ideas and articles on those topics with us in 2023.
In our first piece, a deeply moving personal essay on Islamophobia, a new physician copes with maternal health, death, and colleagues' prejudice against a patient’s cultural and religious identity.
An op-ed by a pediatrician from Nigeria explains the medical, legal, and ethical issues she navigates when children who need blood transfusions have parents who are Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Our next group of authors describes the rich religious and agricultural history of the iconic Jordan River and current efforts to address its degradation due to climate change, pollution, and overuse.
Our fourth piece turns to the evolving situation around abortion in Mexico City, where the procedure was decriminalized in 2007 although most people in the capital of Mexico, and the country (81 percent), identify as Catholic.
Ten percent of people in the United States claimed receiving the COVID-19 vaccine would have conflicted with the tenets of their faith and thousands of them requested religious exemptions from vaccine mandates.
Our next author interviews experts in law and ethics on using religious exemptions from vaccination and the role of religion in public health more generally.
The final piece in this series looks at a movement blossoming in the Philippines among health and religious leaders that incorporates spirituality into mental health and medical care.
Happy holidays, and as always, thank you for reading. —Thomas J. Bollyky and Mary Brophy Marcus, Editors
