Westminster Dean encourages Christian nurses to share faith

The Dean of Westminster, the Very Rev John Hall, says Christians have increasingly been forced to keep their faith to themselves rather than use it as a force for good in public life.

Speaking to an audience of 2,000 nurses at the annual Florence Nightingale service, Dr Hall used his sermon to address the problems brought to light by Caroline Petrie, the NHS nurse who was suspended for offering to pray for a patient.

The Dean said, "Discussion of spiritual matters and of faith is often strange to people. We tend to keep our spiritual motivation and our faith to ourselves. That is a mistake but not surprising. We keep it to ourselves for fear of offending others or out of fear of contradiction or because we are unsure of the right language in which to express elusive concepts.

"And yet the human spirit and spiritual health is fundamental to healing and wholeness. So every health professional, every doctor, every nurse needs to be easy and familiar with the language of the spirit in order to express the almost inexpressible."

He added that offering to pray for someone should not be seen as an offence and was not a sin.

Dr Hall also said that prayer and emphasis on the spiritual was as important in the work of helping people as the physical.

"Those of us who have not suffered in these ways are full of admiration for the human spirit, for what can be achieved against the odds. The human spirit is capable of extraordinary and apparently impossible feats. Human beings are not body and mind alone, but body, mind and spirit.

"Our spirit has a huge part to play in our health and wholeness – and in our healing, working alongside all the scientific brilliance of modern medicine. Those of you who unlike me are health professionals will have seen this countless times.

"You will be well aware of the fact that it is the interaction of physical and mental healing with the human spirit that leads to health and wholeness. Spiritual care and spiritual healing are therefore fundamental to the work of doctors, nurses and all health professionals."