The Journey into God: Healing and Christian Faith

By Kenneth L. Bakken

Book Overview

The Journey into God challenges the adequacy of the biomedical model alone in addressing the symptoms and causes of physical and mental illness. While allowing that the biomedical has its place in the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0806640480
• ISBN13: 9780806640488
• Release Date: January 2000
• Publisher: Augsburg Fortress Pub
• Length: 264 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 0.8" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

Medical and spiritual insights united in healing

Kenneth Bakken, clergyman and physician, in his book The Journey in to God seeks to revive the numinous, the holy, amongst Christian believers. As a deeply believing Lutheran Christian pastor he somewhat surprisingly states that publishing the Bible in common tongues so that the multitudes could read was not all gain. "Without the Holy Spirit, the gospel remains an idea--a message with no power to live by. With the Holy Spirit, however, it becomes a life-changing reality." Healing also requires the undergirding of caring friends who "should be nonjudgemental and self-accepting." Not simply concerned with prescribing pills he describes the healing power of laughter stimulating 'the brain to secrete endorphins and enkephalins, powerful chemical pain relievers, adrenaline and similar hormones are released, which stimulate the heart and lungs." While believing in God's unlimited power, at the same time he recognizes some patients may continue to suffer and die while being healed in the innermost being, the soul.