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Deeply Woven Roots:
Improving the Quality of Life in Your Community By Gary Gunderson
Minneapolis, Fortress, 1997. 135 pp. $15.00.
Scripture calls us to be "restorers of broken walls, rebuilders of houses in ruins" (Isa. 58:12). But Scripture does not tell us how to mix cement or how to mortar a wall. Gary Gunderson does. Gunderson is the Director of Operations for the Interfaith Health Program of the Carter Center in Atlanta. This book is an outgrowth of that program's mission to "[e]ncourage faith groups to improve individual and collective health of their members and the local and global communities they serve." This is one of the most deeply spiritual books I have ever read, while at the same time being intensely practical. As social structures crumble around us, who can help rebuild them? The congregation can; the congregation that exhibits the eight strengths that Gunderson describes.
The Interfaith Health Program defines health very broadly. Gunderson quotes Alastair Campbell, "Health has both personal and social dimensions, each related to the holistic account of health and illness as the fulfillment or frustration of human aspirations and intentions." Access or denial of access to education, housing, safety, employment, and food are the fundamental indicators of an individual's prospects for well-being; Gunderson understands that they are also the fundamental indicators of the society's prospects or lack of prospects for well-being. What he calls health is what the Hebrew Bible calls Shalom. God intends that the world be whole, well, and one. The forces that break, divide, and impede Shalom are sin.
With public health today the province of aggressive cost cuts, it seems that everyone-government, social service and non-profit agencies, and health care providers-is suddenly discovering religious communities. They want to "borrow the power to persuade" without understanding where that power comes from. The power comes from the "deeply woven roots" in community that religious congregations nurture. But usually...