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
More important still is the possibility that treatment, that might be
effective in the early stage of a disease, may be postponed until too
late, in order that a trial may be given to Spiritual Healing. It is
all very well to say that ordinary medical means are recognised and
that the follies of the Peculiar People and of the Christian Scientist
will be avoided; but it must be remembered that a literal reading of
the text of St. James undoubtedly may suggest to a deeply religious
person that medical methods are of minor importance. ‘The Prayer of
Faith shall save the Sick’: is it not possible that the sufferer may
possess a grain of that faith that will remove mountains? And in
the end that small focus of malignant disease, that might have been
eradicated by the surgeon’s knife, has extended and disseminated itself
until all hope of cure is gone. And such results are more likely to
follow while this treatment remains in the hands of untrained laymen.
There is great danger that an earnest person, with limited knowledge
both of theology and of medicine, may come to regard himself as
superior to theologian and physician, owing to the fervour of his
faith, combined possibly with a belief that he is endowed with special
powers. It is on practical points such as these that the medical man
is entitled to expect an expression of the views of the Church; and in
this connexion it is permissible to hope that in the examination of
‘special powers’ the authorities of the Church will be content to be
sceptics, in the true sense of the word, until irrefutable proofs of
the possession of these powers are produced.
In attempting to inquire how far the results obtained by Spiritual
Healing justify the movement, the medical man is met by the difficulty
that exists in obtaining evidence. It is true that there is a Society
whose objects are stated thus:
1. For the cultivation, through spiritual means, of both personal and
corporate health.
2. For the restoration to the Church of the Scriptural practice of
Divine Healing.
3. For the study of the influence of Spiritual upon Physical well-being.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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