Forgetting whose we are: Theological reflections on personhood, faith and dementia

Journal of Religion, Disability and Health

Volumn 11, Issue 1, 2007, Pages 37-63

  Swinton, John ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Alzheimer's; Bonhoeffer; Dementia; Faith; Memory; Personhood; Theology

Indexed keywords

EID: 34250221458     PISSN: 15228967     EISSN: 15229122     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1300/J095v11n01_04     Document Type: Article

References (51)

1. Post, S.G. (1995). The Moral Challenge of Alzheimer Disease (1st ed.), The Johns Hopkins University Press, p. 15.
2. I am grateful to my friend and colleague Donald Meston, assistant chaplain at Aberdeen's Cornhill Hospital for this quotation. Source unknown.
3. Keck, David. (1996) Forgetting whose we are: Alzheimer's Disease and the love of God. Nashville: Abingdon Press.
4. Alzheimer's Society. http://www.alzheimers.org.uk/ (Accessed 3/10/06).
5. http://penta.ufrgs.br/edu/telelab/3/dementia.htm (Accessed 3/10/06).
6. Singer, Peter. (1993) Practical Ethics. (2nd ed.). New York: Cambridge.
7. Locke, J. (1964) An essay concerning human understanding (1690). Woozley AD, ed. Glasgow: William Collins/Fount, p. 211.
8. Singer, Peter. Practical Ethics, p. 192.
9. Post, Stephen. "God and Alzheimer's A neurological reflection on religious experience, self, and soul." http://www.parkridgecenter.org/Page482.html (Accessed 3/10/06).
10. Rudman, Stanley. (1997), Concepts of Persons and Christian Ethics, Cambridge University Press, pp. 47-48.
11. Sacks, O.W. (1985) The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. London: Duckworth. Ch. 2.
12. Kitwood, Tom. (1995) 'Toward the Reconstruction of an Organic Mental Disorder.' In Alan Radley, Worlds of Illness: Biographical and Cultural Perspectives on Health and Disease, London: Routledge.
13. Tom Kitwood. "Personhood, Dementia and Dementia Care" in S. Hunter (ed.), Dementia: Challenges and New Directions. Jessica Kingsley Publishers 1997. Research Highlights in Social Work 31.
14. Kitwood in Radley, Allan. (1995) Worlds of Illness: Biographical and Cultural Perspectives on Health and Disease. Taylor and Francis, p. 153.
15. Swinton, John. (2000) Resurrecting the Person: Friendship and the care of people with severe mental health problems. Nashville: Abingdon Press.
16. Kitwood, Tom. (1997) Dementia Reconsidered: The person comes first. Milton Keynes: Open University Press, p. 8.
17. Macmurray, John. (1991) The Self as Agent. Humanity Books.
18. Anderson, Ray S. (1975) Historical Transcendence and the Reality of God: A Christological Critique Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, p. 194.
19. Macmurray. The Self as Agent, p. 109.
20. Price. 'Community and theology in the life of Ray Anderson.' In Todd H. Spiedell. (Ed) (2002) Essays in Celebration of Ray S. Anderson: On Being Christian... and Human. Origen: Wipf and Stock Publishers, p. 25.
21. Eccles here is using Karl Poppers' representational model of human neurological evolution. According to this model, the human brain evolved in three stages. (Worlds) World 1 is the world of physical objects and states, including human brains. World 2 is the whole world of physical subjective experiences or states of consciousness, i.e. perception, thinking, emotions, memories, imagination, etc. World 3 is the world of knowledge in the objective sense, i.e., the whole man-made world of culture including language. According to Eccles and Popper, It is in the interplay between World two and World one that a person develops a sense of self and a conscious place in the universe. Persons create world 3 experiences by using world 2 experiences. World 3 experiences in turn affect world 2 experiences in a continuing dialectical process which constitutes cultural and active human evolution. Eccles Op. Cit. pages 72-74. (Passive evolution is an opportunistic process whereby an organism seeks to adapt to a particular environment in an attempt simply to survive. Active evolution demands a higher level of consciousness, and occurs when an organism primarily human beings, seeks out particular ways of living and places to live in according to personal, self-conscious values and purposes. Eccles argues that it is primarily in this second sense that human evolution continues in the present.)
22. Eccles, John C. (1989) Evolution of the Brain: Creation of the Self. London: Routledge. pp. 221-222.
23. Kitwood Dementia Reconsidered. p. 151.
24. Kitwood Dementia Reconsidered. p. 151.
25. Kitwood Dementia Reconsidered. p. 152.
26. Kitwood Dementia Reconsidered. p. 152.
27. Kitwood Dementia Reconsidered. p. 62.
28. Kitwood Dementia Reconsidered. p. 55.
29. Macmurray, J. (1961) Persons in Relation. London: Faber and Faber. p. 24.
30. Anderson, Historical Transcendence, p. 248.
31. Swinton, John. (2000) From Bedlam to Shalom: Towards a practical theology of human nature, Interpersonal relationships and mental health care. New York: Peter Lang.
32. This concept of perichoresis is developed by Jurgen Moltmann as it pertains to the personhood of God within the Trinity in: The Trinity and the Kingdom of God: The Doctrine of God. (1993) London: SCM Press Ltd. Pp. 174 ff, and as it applies to God's relationship with His creation in his: God in Creation: An Ecological Doctrine of Creation. (1985) London: SCM Press Ltd.
33. Feenstra, Ray S., & Plantinga, C. (1989) Trinity, Incarnation and Atonement: Philosophical and Theological Essays. Indiana: Notre Dame Press, p. 27.
34. 1 John 4:8.
35. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Christ the Center 1978 [1966]. trans. John Bowden from the German Christologie (in Gesammelte Schriften III, 166-242). New York: Harper & Row. Abbreviated CC, pp. 47-48.
36. Bonhoeffer. Christ the Centre, p. 216.
37. Jenson notes that "He [God] does not change who he is because he is insufficient; he extends himself freely and lovingly to include humanity in his own glory." In John de Grucy (ed.), (1996) The Cambridge Companion to Dietrich Bonhoeffer Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 152.
38. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Sanctorum Communio: A Theological Study of the Sociology of the Church (1998) DBW Vol. 1. Translated by Reinhard Krauss and Nancy Lukens. Edited by Clifford Green. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress.
39. Robertson, Edwin. Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Prison Poems. (1999) Grand Rapids: Zondervan, p. 51.
40. Robertson, Edwin. Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Prison Poems. Robertson relates it to Jesus being ministered in his agony by Mary and John. We might also reflect on it in the light of Matthew 25 and Jesus suggestion that when we minister to the poor, the broken and the outcast, we are actually ministering to him. Again we might reflect on Jesus' experience in Gethsemane and the significance of being available to God in this way.
41. Matthew 5:45. "He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous."
42. Although hope and faith in Christ inevitably brings rewards, one of which is the knowledge that God will never leave nor forsake us.
43. John 15:15. "I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you."
44. Hutchison, Margaret G. "Unity and Diversity in Spiritual Care." Paper originally presented at the Sydney University Nursing Society First Annual Conference for Undergraduate Nursing Students in NSW, September 1997.
45. Iozzio, M.J. (2005) "The writing on the wall... Alzheimer's disease: A daughter's look at mom's faithful care of dad." In Journal of Religion, Disability and Health. Vol.9 No. 2 pp. 49-74. Page 57.
46. M.J. Iozzio. "The writing on the wall... Alzheimer's disease," p. 51.
47. Romans 8:39. "Neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
48. p. 64 (italics added).
49. Elsewhere I have explored the significance of the sacraments, liturgy and worship for the process of re-membering and resurrecting the personhood of people with dementia Swinton Resurrecting the Person.
50. Post. The Moral Challenge of Alzheimer's, p. 17.
51. Luke 23:43.