6th European Conference on Religion, Spirituality and Health (ECRSH) and 5th International Conference of the British Association for the Study of Spirituality (BASS)
Although many scholars are associated with both ECRSH and BASS, this conference was the first joint venture of the two associations. It took place from 17 to 19 May, 2018, at Coventry University, UK, with nearly 200 participants over the three days. As the Pro Vice-Chancellor of the University, Professor Guy Daly, noted in his introduction to the conference: ‘This joining together of great minds from across the world to focus on Forgiveness and Reconciliation … could not be held in a better city than Coventry – The City of Peace and Reconciliation.’
The University is situated within walking distance of the bombed-out shell of the old cathedral, destroyed during a Nazi air-raid in November 1940, and the adjacent new cathedral, completed in 1962. Notices, plaques and monuments, including the evocative ‘chapel of unity’ inside the new building, and the poignant statue ‘Reconciliation’ among the ruins, bear powerful witness to the efforts and quiet perseverance of the many individuals and organizations still seeking to build peace and security throughout the world today.
One of the eight keynote speakers at the conference, Sarah Hills, is Canon for Reconciliation at Coventry Cathedral. She spoke enthusiastically about the nature of the cathedral’s reconciliation ministry, both historically and in the present, and, drawing on specific examples, reflected on theological themes within reconciliation.
The opening afternoon and evening of the conference provided a rich diet of three keynote lectures, an ‘Oxford-style Debate’ and the Coventry Lecture – an event open to the public as well as conference delegates.
The first keynote was given by Anthony Bash from Durham University, UK. Focussing particularly on the nature of forgiveness and different approaches to it, including its relationship with spirituality, he asked provocatively whether ‘the terminological compromises we make in language to do with spirituality and forgiveness is worth the price, namely, loss of clarity of thought and linguistic exactitude!’
Jenny Hall (Bournemouth University, UK) then spoke with passion about her practice in nursing and midwifery. She pointed out that, although forgiveness of self, acceptance of forgiveness and forgiving others can be an important part of the healing process, there is little research on the topic in her field. She is currently engaged in work to rectify this and illustrated her talk with stories about guilt and forgiveness that nurses and midwives shared with her during a recent exploratory study.
Arndt Bussing, from Witten/Heidecke University, Germany – and Chair of the Conference’s Scientific Committee, gave the third keynote. He presented empirical data on patients’ needs to forgive and be forgiven and how these relate to inner peace and religion/spirituality. Without pause, Michael King (University College London, UK) and Harold Koenig (Duke University, USA) stepped onto the platform to debate the question ‘Is there a link between religion and mental health?’ Michael King argued that, despite strong claims that religious/spiritual beliefs are associated with better mental health, ‘much of this research is theoretically incoherent and methodologically flawed’. Harold Koenig presented the opposing view, supporting evidence for an association between religion/spirituality and better mental health. Their arguments prompted lively questioning and comments from delegates, halted only by the call to dinner.
Despite the academic nature of the conference, many moving personal stories emerged, often involving the most extreme provocation. In his well-attended Coventry Lecture, ‘Dimensions of forgiveness: a comprehensive overview’, Everett Worthington (Virginia Commonwealth University, USA) shared a shocking story about his mother having been attacked and killed in her own home by a night-time intruder. Even though he is a world-renowned expert on the subject of forgiveness, he said his first impulse was to ‘pulverise [the intruder] to death with a baseball bat’. He was eventually able to put into practice what he had been teaching others for many years and found in his first-hand experience that ‘Forgiveness can be a valuable turning point in life’.
This comment was echoed by many speakers throughout the conference. A strong link between forgiveness and spirituality was also made clear on numerous occasions. Other recurrent themes included:
Forgiveness as a universal phenomenon, cutting across many different philosophies and religions.
It is normally thought of as the one receiving harm forgiving someone causing the harm, but self-forgiveness can also be important, also (for some) forgiving and/or being forgiven by God.
A process of reflection is involved.
It involves an aspect of generosity, of giving a gift.
Forgiveness does not mean making excuses for the perpetrator of harm.
It does not mean abandoning the search for justice and restitution.
It does not require repentance, remorse or the wish to be forgiven by the perpetrator, who may actively avoid or reject forgiveness;
However, when an apology is forthcoming, it makes reconciliation much easier.
Overcoming self-blame by forgiving oneself, and the forgiving of others, both benefit one’s health.
This may be because anger (sometimes in the form of a kind of toxic rage) is often repressed and can compromise health. It can also damage existing relationships and make successful new ones harder to form.
Forgiveness interventions and therapy can help to cure unhealthy anger.
People studied and found to have benefitted from such interventions include incest survivors, people undergoing drug rehabilitation, cardiac patients, emotionally abused women, people who are terminally ill, and elderly cancer patients.
According to keynote speaker, Robert Enright (known, according to Time magazine, as ‘the forgiveness trailblazer’), there are four phases in the process of forgiveness:
Preliminaries: Clarification
Who hurt you? How deeply? A specific incident to focus on? What were the circumstances? What was said? How did you respond?
Phase 1: Uncovering anger (also shame, guilt etc.)
Have you been obsessed about the injury or the offender? Do you compare your situation with that of the offender? Has the injury caused a lasting change in your life? Has the injury changed your worldview?
Phase 2: Deciding to forgive
Decide that what you have been doing hasn’t worked. Be willing to begin the forgiveness process. Decide to forgive. Start by committing to do no harm to the one who hurt you.
Phase 3: Working on forgiveness
Work towards understanding (including personal, global and cosmic/spiritual perspectives). Work towards compassion. Accept the pain. Give the offender a gift.
Phase 4: Discovery and release from emotional prison
Discover the meaning of suffering. Discover your need for forgiveness. Discover that you are not alone. Discover the purpose of your life. Discover the freedom of forgiveness
In her keynote lecture on the ethics of forgiveness after adverse events in childbirth, Katja Schroder (University of Southern Denmark), spoke movingly about the impact that such events can have on the healthcare professionals involved in them. She, too, acknowledged the problem of creating ‘pressure to forgive’ and suggested that, in order to support professionals working through the complexities of guilt and forgiveness arising from their practice, organizations need to move beyond a medico-legal standpoint and to adopt a moral-philosophical perspective.
Deborah Lycett (University of Coventry and hard-working local convenor of the conference) also addressed the complexities of guilt and forgiveness in her keynote – in relation to obesity. She argued that obesity involves more than physical energy balance: not only do the psychological and spiritual factors that drive eating need to be considered but society needs to adopt a more compassionate and non-judgemental approach to it. She described an on-going church-based programme that has been designed to tackle such issues.
The final keynote speaker, Carlo Leget from the University of Humanistic Studies in Utrecht, Netherlands, provided a number of reflections on the relationship between forgiveness, reconciliation and the end of life. He asked whether forgiveness and reconciliation are the best possible ways of dealing with guilt. He noted, however, that in a study of nurses who had been working with dying patients, many described occurrences of ‘peaceful deaths’ following acts of forgiveness and reconciliation as ‘miraculous’.
The whole conference affirmed that it is good to forgive, a wonderful, healthy, healing thing – and this last talk served to remind us that it is never too late!
With its mix of keynotes, symposia, parallel sessions and posters (not to mention a medieval banquet!), the joint nature of the conference created a broad, rich and stimulating tapestry of events. For some BASS members, it perhaps placed too much emphasis on spirituality in ‘medicine and health’ and not enough on ‘social sciences’ (or arts and humanities); and the packed non-stop nature of the programme left little space for the more contemplative sessions, including morning meditations, that have characterized previous BASS conferences. It is to be hoped that members will forgive the omissions – while acknowledging the 2018 conference as testimony to a successful collaboration between two associations dedicated, albeit in slightly different ways, to the study of spirituality.
The Sixth International BASS Conference will be held in May/June 2020.
We look forward to seeing you there!
Notes
* With his permission, this report draws and builds on some of the material written by conference delegate, Larry Culliford, in a blog entitled Spiritual Wisdom for Secular Times (Post 116: 11/06/2018, see: https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/spiritual-wisdom-secular-times/201806/forgiveness) [Accessed 29/08/2018]