Medicine and the Church: Being a series of studies on the relationship between the practice of medicine and the church's ministry to the sick
Religion
Medicine and the Church: Being a series of studies on the relationship between the practice of medicine and the church's ministry to the sick
Medicine -- Religious aspects; Pastoral medicine
‘We have on the one side those who really seem to have forgotten the
message of the Gospel of the body, who practically in their teaching
and even in their own belief simply think of the Gospel as addressed to
the soul. They seem to have forgotten that, in our own Holy Communion
Service, we pray that our sinful bodies may be made clean by His
Body, and some of St. Paul’s most stirring passages are about the
body. “Glorify God in your body.” But in their teaching and in their
belief they have lost to a certain extent the idea that the Gospel
has a message to the body at all. While on the other hand--and it is
so very characteristic of the history of the Church that this should
happen--outside the Church, with great exaggeration--and with, in my
opinion, much false teaching--people are calling the attention of the
Church to a forgotten truth. Yes--but with two very grave mistakes.
First, they ignore the learning and teaching which God has given us
through medical study and investigation about His laws and about His
will, and still more they ignore those blessed means of grace which
Christ Himself has laid down as the means of our communion with His
life.’
Or again, in a diocesan letter of May last year the Bishop of
Winchester (who was Chairman of the Lambeth Committee) emphasises the
right of medical science, of healing, and of nursing, to their due
place in the Church’s spiritual life, to a part in her prayers and
thanksgivings.
‘At the recent Lambeth Conference the view was expressed that we as a
Church have failed to show sufficient sympathy with the great works of
healing, of conflict with disease, and of the alleviation of suffering
carried on by the medical and nursing profession. The Divine blessing
vouchsafed in modern times, through the progress of knowledge and the
advancement of skill, have only in too small a degree been allowed to
enter into the prayers and thanksgivings of the Christian Church. It is
right that, with greater faith and a larger intelligence, the Church of
Christ should acknowledge that the gifts of healing and the discoveries
of science come from the Spirit of God, and should seek more
systematically to include this and kindred subjects in intercession and
praise.’
Not only, however, do we find the Bishops laying stress on the Church’s
duty in the matter of healing; but we also find eminent physicians,
who are also Churchmen, welcoming the priest in the sick room. In a
remarkable article contributed to the _Guardian_, Sir Dyce Duckworth
wrote:
‘Next, I will express my opinion that our twentieth-century Christendom
is generally lax and feeble in offering earnest prayers for the sick in
all stages and for a blessing on the remedial means employed. We should
look to a higher Power than that of man to aid us at the bedside, and
as thoughtful physicians we do seek these means to aid us.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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