Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 2, 1993 TAG: 9303020190
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
MEDICINE MEETS THE SPIRIT
For Dr. William Fintel, telling his cancer patients that "God works in mysterious ways" just wasn't enough.Fintel, an oncologist at Lewis-Gale Hospital in Salem, was pretty good at explaining what he calls the "science and art of medicine" to his patients.
Where he felt inadequate, he says, was in dealing with the spiritual dimension of disease and suffering. He felt strongly that his own Christian faith has many answers for his patients, but he didn't quite know how to express them in a way he was confident would be meaningful and not alienating.
Enter Gerald McDermott, Ph.D., associate professor of religion at Roanoke College.
Fintel and McDermott hit it off after McDermott gave a series of lectures on Reformation theology at Fintel's church in the fall of 1990. It was over lunch at Mac and Bob's later that they began what they now believe was a "providential" collaboration.
Fintel talked about how he wished there was a good book that offered "easy-to-understand answers to the toughest medical and spiritual questions" for his patients.
Before he and McDermott left the restaurant, they had sketched an outline for 12 chapters.
Two and a half years later, "Living with Cancer" - which now has 14 chapters - is being distributed nationally by the nation's largest religious publishing house, Word Inc.
Word was not their first choice for a publisher, the two men said in a recent interview on the Roanoke College campus.
"We never considered Word," while concentrating on getting a secular publisher, McDermott said. In fact, they were all but sure they had wrapped up a deal with Harper & Row at one point. A senior editor had already worked on the book, but the company's marketing division turned it down.
There were other rejections as well before Steve Wike, who publishes a national religion newsletter out of Roanoke, suggested Word to McDermott. Wike offered to pass a copy along to a friend of his who worked in marketing with Word.
Four months later, Fintel and McDermott got the call that Word wanted the book, and they now say they couldn't be happier.
"Word invested more than $100,000" just to get the book edited and 25,000 copies printed, McDermott said, a sign that the company has high hopes for its commercial success.
While they seem excited about that prospect, Fintel and McDermott seem genuinely passionate about fulfilling their original goal with the book - comforting those who must face the complexities and uncertainties of dealing with life-threatening illness.
`A little respect'
These are not the kind of guys who talk about people dying of cancer. Hence the title of their book: "A Medical and Spiritual Guide to Living with Cancer. A Complete Handbook for Patients and Their Families" (Word Publishing, $12.99).
Fintel and McDermott believe that their book is unique among the plethora of titles available that deal with cancer and suffering.
For one thing, it combines the medical and spiritual explanations in one volume, something the authors don't believe is available anywhere else.
The medical explanations - which make up the first half of the book - are designed to be understood by lay people. "I get down in the dirt and talk about the questions people ask," Fintel said.
The spiritual questions are answered "based upon biblical theological truth rather than New Age flights of fancy," McDermott said.
Fintel, 35, said his experience was that the medical books explaining cancer were inaccessible to his typical patient. So the first eight chapters are written to explain the "mysteries" of cancer - what it is, what causes it, how it can be treated, how to pay for it.
It includes a chapter on "patient rights" - including the "best care possible, good explanations, to stop if you want to, a second opinion, access to your records, ongoing care, a little respect, something for the pain."
"But," the authors say, "you do not have the right to determine who will die or when death will occur, even for yourself."
It is a strongly held view that pops up more than once in the book.
The transition from the medical to the spiritual sections of the book comes in a chapter on "recognizing false promises - medical and spiritual."
The authors blast those who promote unproven alternative therapies - from coffee enemas and laetrile injections to "radical faith healers," such as Kenneth Hagin, and popular author Bernie Siegel.
The danger in alternatives like the coffee enemas often lies as much in delaying conventional treatment as in the alternative itself, Fintel writes.
And they believe that - despite his success - Siegel's approach is just bad theology. Siegel writes that there are "no incurable diseases, only incurable people" in his best-selling "Love, Medicine and Miracles."
Fintel and McDermott see danger in the implication that the patient is at fault if healing doesn't come to those who follow Siegel's advice.
"We wanted to steer away from any notion that God causes cancer," McDermott said.
Though they agree with much of Siegel's approach - including its contention that medical science doesn't have all the answers when it comes to healing - they reject his basic conclusion that healing comes from within one's self. Learning from suffering
"Living with Cancer" examines many of the traditional Christian approaches to the problem of suffering. "Many pastors have a problem with evil," McDermott said, finding it difficult to reconcile its existence with belief in a God who is "infinitely good and powerful."
The book addresses that question, contending that an omnipotent God may indeed allow suffering - though not cause it - for a variety of reasons.
The authors join in the contention that there is a difference between healing and cure - that a person may be spiritually and emotionally "healed" while still succumbing physically to disease.
And, they say, "we have seen clear evidence that God sometimes works through the combination of medicine and prayer to cure cancer that otherwise seems nearly hopeless."
Learning from suffering
While they counsel patients with life-threatening cancer to "get their affairs in order," they also advise "soaking prayer" - continual, intense prayer - for healing by friends and relatives.
Central to their book is Fintel's question, "Who ever said there would not be suffering in life?"
He and McDermott contend that humans can learn from suffering and that Christianity offers a promise of companionship in suffering from a God who understands it.
"We've found that years down the road, if they survive, people come to see why it happened," McDermott said, even if God seemed silent at the time of the suffering.
For a scientist and academician, the publication of a book like this aimed at a mass audience holds some professional hazards.
When Fintel asked a noted cancer specialist to review the book, he wrote back that he "just can't comment on the spiritual questions."
Some doctors and other scientists will object that it is "not a totally scientific approach," he said, but will condescendingly approve "if patients like it."
Nurses, on the other hand, "are going to eat it up," Fintel believes, with their emphasis on "love, care and compassion."
McDermott, 40, said there may be similar skepticism by some of his professional colleagues who won't view the work as "serious theology."
This is "theologically middle of the road," he said.