Reminders of the Sacred: The Anointing of the Sick and Modern Medicine
Aaron Klink, MAR, MDiv., ThM., Chaplain, Pruitt Hospice
Before the rise of scientific medicine, many believed spiritual problems caused illness. Hence, connecting medical and religious care seemed natural. The situation has now changed. Ethicist and physician Dan Sulmasy argues, “With the dawn of molecular medicine, technology seems to hold even greater promise. Religion has been relegated to quackery and superstition and feeble attempts to cure that have no objective efficacy.” 1 In my chaplaincy work patients often say that they want clinicians to see them holistically, and know about the life story disrupted by illness. Medicine's emphasis on statistics, procedures and test results reduce complex experiences of illness to biological facts. They feel under the “clinical gaze” to borrow from the work of Foucault. They can intellectually affirm God's presence, but have difficulty experiencing that presence.
For centuries, Christians across denominations have, and do respond to illness, with a specific practice, the anointing of the sick. The Biblical book of James exhorts , “Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil.” (James 5:14-15) I will argue that anointing is a crucial practice in re-enchanting medicine for patients. Anointing in a physical way to re-connect the ill to the body of Christ, reminding them they are watched over by a resurrected even when the clinical practices make them experience their bodies as “disenchanted” by the scientific gaze. As M. Therese Lysaught observes, “While moral agents live their lives within particular, substantial, concrete communities, for moral purposes they must disembed themselves from these attachments if they want to function in the public moral domain. Often, patients who are ill for an extended period find that their inability to attend church to be one of the most difficult part of their experience, not because they fear it is unfaithful to God, but because it deprives them of the chance to hear their lives narrated before God in preaching, and be with people whom they consider to be supports as part of the body of Christ. The loss of that community can make the ill feel especially prone to the “medicalization” of their lives.
Because of the biblical counsel to anoint the sick= I will argue chaplains should offer the rite to Christian patients Anointing is a ritual reminder that bodies are sacred and loved by God, especialy to hospitalized patients who can feel their bodies most disenchanted. Understanding the anointing this way allows the rite to provide a ritual reminder of the ill body's connection to God, and to the body of Christ, even when illness means they cannot gather for communal worship, the normal way in which Christians remember their life before God. Anointing thus is a physical action, a practice, that reminds the ill that their bodies are not only biological entities testable and changeable by bio-medicine, they can and are also seen boy God and part of the body of Christ.
Before the rise of scientific medicine, many believed spiritual problems caused illness. Hence, connecting medical and religious care seemed natural. The situation has now changed. Ethicist and physician Dan Sulmasy argues, “With the dawn of molecular medicine, technology seems to hold even greater promise. Religion has been relegated to quackery and superstition and feeble attempts to cure that have no objective efficacy.” 1 In my chaplaincy work patients often say that they want clinicians to see them holistically, and know about the life story disrupted by illness. Medicine's emphasis on statistics, procedures and test results reduce complex experiences of illness to biological facts. They feel under the “clinical gaze” to borrow from the work of Foucault. They can intellectually affirm God's presence, but have difficulty experiencing that presence.
For centuries, Christians across denominations have, and do respond to illness, with a specific practice, the anointing of the sick. The Biblical book of James exhorts , “Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil.” (James 5:14-15) I will argue that anointing is a crucial practice in re-enchanting medicine for patients. Anointing in a physical way to re-connect the ill to the body of Christ, reminding them they are watched over by a resurrected even when the clinical practices make them experience their bodies as “disenchanted” by the scientific gaze. As M. Therese Lysaught observes, “While moral agents live their lives within particular, substantial, concrete communities, for moral purposes they must disembed themselves from these attachments if they want to function in the public moral domain. Often, patients who are ill for an extended period find that their inability to attend church to be one of the most difficult part of their experience, not because they fear it is unfaithful to God, but because it deprives them of the chance to hear their lives narrated before God in preaching, and be with people whom they consider to be supports as part of the body of Christ. The loss of that community can make the ill feel especially prone to the “medicalization” of their lives.
Because of the biblical counsel to anoint the sick= I will argue chaplains should offer the rite to Christian patients Anointing is a ritual reminder that bodies are sacred and loved by God, especialy to hospitalized patients who can feel their bodies most disenchanted. Understanding the anointing this way allows the rite to provide a ritual reminder of the ill body's connection to God, and to the body of Christ, even when illness means they cannot gather for communal worship, the normal way in which Christians remember their life before God. Anointing thus is a physical action, a practice, that reminds the ill that their bodies are not only biological entities testable and changeable by bio-medicine, they can and are also seen boy God and part of the body of Christ.