I noticed that attempts were recently made on social media to kick off a health-carers’ appreciation week. The context of that was the extra-ordinary effort that has been made by health-care professionals during this Covid-19 pandemic. In the various social media posts that I read it was especially our nurses who were singled out for commendation and applause – and rightly so.
However I wonder if people realise just how much modern nursing is indebted to the Christian faith. Let me put it even more strongly: health care is an area of social life that has always been of special interest to Christians. The Scriptures of both Old and New Testaments have a lot to say about the health and welfare of human beings. The Lord Jesus Christ was not a Saviour concerned only about the salvation of souls. It is an unbiblical aberration to be exclusively concerned about spiritual issues. To the contrary: it was classical Greek thinking and not Christian teaching which saw the body as a prison for the soul. In contrast Jesus showed concern for the health and wellbeing of the entire person. Think only of the many healing miracles He performed, making the lame to walk and the blind to see. One could also consider the meaning of the Hebrew word ‘shalom’ (meaning not just peace but also health and wholeness). Or one could trace the Bible’s rich theme of the bodily resurrection to realise why Biblical Christianity has always been concerned about the body and its health and wellbeing.
Not surprisingly then, in Christian circles health-care work has a long and respectable history going right back to Luke – the author of the Bible book by that name. He is referred to as ‘the beloved physician’, who accompanied the apostle Paul on some of his travels. In Christian history missionary activities often went hand in hand with medical work and the building of hospitals often preceded the building of churches. In fact in the very origins of modern nursing there are some very strong links to the Christian faith.
Florence Nightingale was raised in the English aristocratic society of the 19th century with all its wealth and superficiality. As she grew into adolescence she realised more and more that she didn’t fit into that sort of society. She felt discontented with her situation and that God was calling her to become a nurse. Her family was scandalised by this idea, since contemporary English nursing-facilities were in grave disrepute at the time.
Meanwhile in Germany Theodore Fliedner, son of a clergyman, was given charge of a small Christian community in Kaiserwerth, a village on the lower Rhine. There he developed an institution for training deaconesses to minister to the poor. They concerned themselves not only with the education of the poor but also with care for the sick and for women who had become social outcasts through having children out of wedlock.
Florence Nightingale visited Kaiserwerth in 1850 and returned to do their deaconess training course in 1851. She later utilised this method of training within the setting of her newly formed profession. The original nurses’ training course therefore has its roots in the training for the Christian diaconate.
It was when reports were received from the Crimean War about the terrible condition of the sick and wounded, that Florence recruited a band of nurses and led them to Scutari in the Crimea – there she transformed the hospitals, the sanitary conditions and the morale among those hospitalised. It was among these men, sick and wounded by war, that she became known as ‘the lady of the lamp’. It was in 1860 that she founded the institution for the training of nurses – the first such in the world. Modern nursing still recognises the huge contribution of Florence Nightingale.
Let’s applaud the work our nurses are doing in these trying times. But let’s not forget that Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing, was motivated by the love of Christ.
John Westendorp