MEDICAL RITES
‘PRIESTLY’ POWER IN MODERN HEALTHCARE
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/hscc.v12i1.18Keywords:
suffering, ritual, healthcare, liminality, chaplaincyAbstract
Patients and their families are often concerned to find a material cause for suffering rather than to accept the mystery of its ontological necessity. In modern healthcare settings, in which medicine is rightly based upon the reductionist empirical scientific method, spirituality is therefore likely to be seen as a bolt-on extra to medical care rather than as a truly alternative worldview. In this article I argue that suffering needs to be rehabilitated as an experience rather than a cosmic mistake, and that chaplains are better equipped than medical staff to offer this insight into transcendent reality.
References
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TURNER, V 1969 The ritual process: structure and anti-structure. Harmondsworth Middx, Penguin.
VOLF, M 1996 Exclusion and embrace: a theological exploration of identity, otherness and reconciliation. Nashville, Abingdon Press.
WALTER, T 1994 The revival of death. London, Routledge.
WALTER, T 1996 The eclipse of eternity: a sociology of the afterlife. Basingstoke, Macmillan.
WEBSTER, A 2002 Wellbeing. London, SCM.
BRODY, H 1992 The healer’s power. New Haven: Yale University Press.
BRODY, H 2003 Stories of sickness, 2nd edn. Oxford, OUP.
BURKERT W. 1996 Creation of the Sacred; tracks of biology in early religions. Harvard University Press
FRANKL, V E 1965 Man’s search for meaning. New York, Pocket Books.
VAN GENNEP, A 1960 The rites of passage (translated into English by M. B. Vizedom & G. L. Caffee), London, Routledge & Keegan Paul.
GIRARD, R 1986 The scapegoat, translated into English by Y. Freccero. London, Athlone Press.
GIRARD, R 1995 Violence and the sacred, translated into English by P. Gregory. London: Athlone Press.
GIRARD, R 2001 I see Satan fall like lightning, translated into English by J. G. Williams. Leominster, Gracewing.
GREEN, J 1997 The gospel of Luke (The New International Commentary on the New Testament). Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.
HALLSTEIN, A L 1992 Spiritual opportunities in the liminal rites of hospitalization, in Journal of Religion and Health, 31(3), 247-254.
HAUERWAS, S 1986 Suffering presence. Notre Dame IN, University of Notre Dame Press.
HAUERWAS, S 1990 God, medicine, and suffering. Grand Rapids MI, Eerdmans.
JONES, W H S 1923 Hippocrates vol II (English translation). London: William Heinemann.
LOUGHLIN, G 1996 Telling God’s story: Bible, church and narrative theology. Cambridge, CUP
MCNAMARA, B 2001 Fragile lives: death, dying and care. Buckingham, Open University Press.
NEW SCIENTIST 29 March 2008 p 16 at http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19726494.6 00-neanderthal-body-art-hints-at-ancientlanguage.html.
ROHR, R 1996 The wild man’s journey: reflections on male spirituality, revised edition. Cincinnati, St Anthony Messenger Press.
ROHR, R 2003 Everything belongs: the gift of contemplative prayer, revised and updated edition. New York, Crossroad.
RUDMAN, S 1997 Concepts of person and Christian ethics. Cambridge, CUP.
TURNER, V 1969 The ritual process: structure and anti-structure. Harmondsworth Middx, Penguin.
VOLF, M 1996 Exclusion and embrace: a theological exploration of identity, otherness and reconciliation. Nashville, Abingdon Press.
WALTER, T 1994 The revival of death. London, Routledge.
WALTER, T 1996 The eclipse of eternity: a sociology of the afterlife. Basingstoke, Macmillan.
WEBSTER, A 2002 Wellbeing. London, SCM.
Published
2013-04-06
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Nelson, S. (2013). MEDICAL RITES: ‘PRIESTLY’ POWER IN MODERN HEALTHCARE. Health and Social Care Chaplaincy, 12(1), 18-23. https://doi.org/10.1558/hscc.v12i1.18
