Caring and Curing: Health and Medicine in the Western Religious Traditions

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Summary: A Critical Analysis of Caring and Curing
Review: Caring and Curing: Health and Medicine in the Western Religious Traditions is a conglomeration of the various views from Judeo-Christianity on illness and health care. The purpose of this work is to give the reader a religious understanding and approach on the subject by using Western traditions as its foundation. The book consists of essays from Judaism and seventeen different Christian denominations, from the more traditional views of Roman Catholicism to the perspectives of more recently emerging groups such as the Jehovah's Witnesses. A traditional and historical approach to medicine allows one to understand the views toward health in the past and how they can be applied today. The benefit of perceiving health care with a religious focus is that it transforms the relationship between medical practitioner and patient to realizing the power that takes place in healing and wholeness. It also causes the patient to ponder the meaning of sickness in one's life.

The Judaic understanding of illness is that it is a punishment from God due to sin. One has wronged God and because of this God has given this person an illness so that he or she may suffer for one's sin. Christianity has a whole contrary meaning toward illness and views it as sanctifying and redemptive. Jesus bore the infirmities and sin of humanity and put this to death with His death on the cross. Human suffering due to illness can be united to Christ's suffering to be used as a means to conquer sin, not as a result of being conquered by sin. Infirmity brings one to a deeper understanding of Jesus' suffering and can be used to enter more into His divine nature. While Judaism views illness as a scourge from God because of sin, Christianity sees it as a means that God permits to defeat sin in humanity and continue the redemptive mission of Jesus.

Judeo-Christianity recognizes the identity of God as the Healer. In the Pentateuch God revealed to the Jewish people that He is the Lord who heals them (Exodus 15:26). The Jews held a special honor for physicians because they are instruments of God's healing power. In the Christian tradition, it is universally held that Jesus performed miraculous healings to demonstrate His divinity and to substantiate His message. The medical practitioner must realize one's role as an agent administering the healing power that has been entrusted to them to be done for the service of God and to be His channel for His healing love to pass through. There is an emphasis on authentic love and care towards the patient when one actually understands one's relationship in this continuum. The patient must also recognize that the care given to them by one's physician is truly God caring for him or her through this instrument.

My opinion of Caring and Curing is it is effective in providing a religious perspective of medicine from various faith traditions and allowing the reader to see the historical underpinnings in viewing health care and note the similarities and differences each tradition holds with regard to health. It is clear that the authors of these essays have a solid understanding of medicine. What I did not appreciate was the theological errors I found within several essays. These inaccuracies were misrepresentative of these faith traditions and revealed a lack of real knowledge of the tenets in itself. Nevertheless, the work fulfills its purpose in bringing a religious perspective to the perception of health and medicine to gain a deeper realization of the sanctifying value in its practice.