Dr. Harold Koenig - Spirituality and Health

photo of Doctor Koenig

Harold Koenig is vitally interested in studying the relationship be religious faith/practice and healing, both mentally and physical and has led more than 25 studies documenting an astonishing correlation between religious devotion and health. He is the founder of the Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health at Duke University Medical Center.

Harold started out as a registered nurse, became an medical doctor, then a psychiatrist and a biostatistician. He is a Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and an Associate Professor of Medicine at Duke University Medical Center.

Music Featured:
Jesus Can Work It Out - Kurt Carr Singers
Healing In This Night - Bob Franke
Spirits In the Material World - The Police
See Me, Feel Me - The Who

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Spirit in Action

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SIA-000054

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Dr. Harold Koenig - Spirituality and Health
Difference between religion and spirituality
Dr Koenig studies mental/physical effects correlated to religion, not spirituality - because you need something well-defined to do a scientific study!
What are his credentials?
Dr. Koenig has amassed a number of credentials which make him particularly well-suited to observe, measure and correlate the effects of religious faith.
Why does Koenig study these things?
What calls Koenig to this work - he's lived in the "trenches", and saw something going on, and knew there was something that needed to be understood.
Healthy Religious Mindset
There can be helpful and hurtful ways to approach religion, and Koenig considers an open and searching mind to be part of positive health.
History of the Scientific Bias against Religious Study
The studies that Dr. Koenig conducted starting in the 1980's had to work against an anti-religious bias reaching back about a century, a bias that dismissed any study related to religion, even a carefully constructed scientific study, because of an historical antagonism between science and religion.
The nature of the anti-religious bias in scientific studies
Scientists are supposed to be objective, but biases affect even that discipline and, for a long time, have prevented research into the objective effects of religious faith on health.
Dramatic effects on health of religious practice
Dr. Koenig outlines some of the results of results of the carefully crafted studies on health and religion, things like the fact that it appears that regular religious participation implies a longer life span, of somewhere between 7-14 years!
Non-denominational Christian
Dr. Harold Koenig
Center for Spirituality Theology and Health
Duke University Medical Center

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Dr. Harold Koenig

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