Health Care Provider and Faith Diversity - Essay Example

Christianity’s perspective of spiritual healing identifies diseases and disorders as a manifestation of the sin that emanates from the absence of God’s established order. According to faith, God created human beings for perfect health, a condition that God’s power preserves. Diseases however develop when such control ceases through alienation of man from God. In sin, human body mechanisms are weakened leading to diseases or disorders that kill the soul and the spirit before eventually killing the body. Restoration of God’s initial order through separation from sin however eliminates the diseases and infirmities to establish healing. Unhealthy conditions are therefore a result of sin and healing comes from repentance from sin. This identifies righteousness and repentance as the fundamental principles of healing. Consequently, a Christian will be keen to avoid religious practices from a care provider with a different faith but welcome a provider who sets aside their own faith to facilitate healing according to Christian beliefs. This is because other religious practices are considered unrighteous (Elder, 2006).

The Baha’i has a dual approach to spiritual healing. While healing is predominantly non-spiritual, though is believed to be God’s manifestation, a person can also seek divine powers for healing. The most critical component of healing is the direct care that a patient receives from a caregiver. A Baha’i faithful will therefore focus on the offered treatment, rather than the faith towards healing. Consequently, a person from another religion can offer the care, contrary to a Christian perspective, without a patient’s reservation because healing is not attached to spirituality. This identifies less restrictive beliefs as compared to the Christian perspective of healing (All, 2012).

The Buddhists have a relatively weak spiritual perspective on diseases, illnesses, and healing. Its faithful believe that diseases are caused by complications of body organs and a disturbed mind. A person’s well-being can therefore be achieved by remedying an organ that may have failed to function (Ratanakul, 2004). This, however, is a temporary approach and permanent healing is attainable though settled mind from emotional stability. The religion, therefore, lacks a spiritual perspective to healing and its critical concept to healthy living is a healthy state of mind. Its perspective on healing also bears no relationship to the religion of the caregiver, contrary to the Christian perspective (Hawker, n.d.).

Native American Beliefs that consist of traditional spirituality involve sacred ceremonies for evoking spirits into actions such as healing of the sick (Spiritalk, n.d.). This identifies a significant similarity with Christianity’s perspective, though with different supreme powers. The core spiritual perspective is the existence of supreme authority that can be invoked into healing. Critical components of the religions’ healing are sacred practices in ceremonies and faith. The religious’ basis means that a caregiver must not act contrary to a patient’s spirituality and a caregiver who can sacrifice personal beliefs for the patient is welcomed. This is the same as the Christian approach to healing (Cancer, 2008).