HEALTH AND RELIGION. Since the mid-1980s, there has been increasing interest in the relationship between religion and health. Consider that a MEDLINE search of all scientific literature on religion or spirituality and health between 1980 and 1982 revealed forty-six articles; between 2000 and 2002, however, that number had increased to 393 articles. Similarly, a PSYCHLIT search of the psychological literature on religion or spirituality between 1980 and 1982 revealed 101 articles; between 2000 and 2002 the number had increased more than tenfold to 1,108 articles. Although much of the research on religion and health has been conducted in the United States, hundreds of studies have also been reported from other areas of the world, including Canada, Great Britain, Australia, continental Europe, Norway and Sweden, India, Israel and other parts of the Middle East, China, Korea, and Japan (see Koenig et al., 2001). Many of these studies found similar relationships between religion and health. Nevertheless, this...