American Medicine as Religious Practice: Care of the Sick as a Sacred Obligation and the Unholy Descent into Secularization |
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Authors: | Margaret P Wardlaw |
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Institution: | (1) The Institute for Medical Humanities, The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, 1019 Ball, Galveston, TX 77550, USA |
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Abstract: | Modern medicine serves a religious function for modern Americans as a conduit through which science can be applied directly
to the human body. The first half of this paper will focus on the theoretical foundations for viewing medicine as a religious
practice arguing that just as a hierarchical structured authoritarian church historically mediated access to God, contemporary
Western medicine provides a conduit by which the universalizable truths of science can be applied to the human being thereby
functioning as a new established religion. I will then illustrate the many parallels between medicine and religion through
an analysis of rituals and symbols surrounding and embedded within the modern practice of medicine. This analysis will pay
special attention to the primacy placed on secret interior knowledge of the human body. I will end by responding to the hope
for a “secularization of American medicine,” exploring some of the negative consequences of secularization, and arguing that,
rather than seeking to secularize, American medicine should strive to use its religious features to offer hope and healing
to the sick, in keeping with its historically religious legacy. |
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