Covenant Relationships in Antiquity: How the Early Christian Church Can Transform Healthcare Today
Chris Ha, B.S.Ed, Theology, Medicine and Culture Fellow, Medical Student. Duke Divinity School, University of North Texas Health Science Center
Given the modern landscape of healthcare – where a marketplace exists to procure health insurance, where the demand for physicians to see patients continues to increase, where technology and innovation have fostered a bounty of choice, and where language has shifted to that of “providers” and “consumers”– it is no wonder both physician and patient view their relationship with one another through the lens of transaction. Medical care, evolving under the auspices of the Baconian project, has become an entity devoted primarily to expanding choice and alleviating suffering. With this, however, the notion of the physician-patient relationship has largely become framed in terms of a contractual agreement, fraught with expectations and rules as well as consequences if certain terms are not met. A contract implies success and a cure, and is fearful of failure. Where does that leave room for trust, compassion, and faithfulness in medicine?
In this paper, I will argue for a move away from the contractual towards a covenantal relationship between patient and physician, and show how the idea of covenant was foundational to the early Christian church’s approach to the suffering. I will trace this idea by examining the concept of healing in the classical religion of the Greek god Asclepius, and show how the Christian church contrastingly offered a novel approach to care rooted in covenantal ideology. This is manifested in the former’s emphasis on cure, and the latter’s focus on care. Drawing from Dr. William May’s The Physician’s Covenant and Dr. David Beyda’s Covenant Medicine: Being Present When Present, I will then propose a paradigm by which participants in modern medicine can reimagine the physician-patient relationship according to this notion of covenant, guided by principles of trust, fidelity, service, and love. Lastly, I will offer the narrative of a patient I encountered in medical school who suffered from severe chronic pain, and for whom a covenantal patient-physician relationship proved instrumental in her own path towards health and healing.
Overall, this paper strives to show how the early Christians’ ministry to the sick, which introduced novel concepts of long-term care and compassion to classical notions of healing, embodied a covenantal approach to the suffering for which I argue contemporary medicine greatly needs to reclaim today. Through this work, I hope to further the dialectic on how patients and physicians can transcend the rigid transactional nature of healthcare and relate to one another in a new and meaningful way.
Given the modern landscape of healthcare – where a marketplace exists to procure health insurance, where the demand for physicians to see patients continues to increase, where technology and innovation have fostered a bounty of choice, and where language has shifted to that of “providers” and “consumers”– it is no wonder both physician and patient view their relationship with one another through the lens of transaction. Medical care, evolving under the auspices of the Baconian project, has become an entity devoted primarily to expanding choice and alleviating suffering. With this, however, the notion of the physician-patient relationship has largely become framed in terms of a contractual agreement, fraught with expectations and rules as well as consequences if certain terms are not met. A contract implies success and a cure, and is fearful of failure. Where does that leave room for trust, compassion, and faithfulness in medicine?
In this paper, I will argue for a move away from the contractual towards a covenantal relationship between patient and physician, and show how the idea of covenant was foundational to the early Christian church’s approach to the suffering. I will trace this idea by examining the concept of healing in the classical religion of the Greek god Asclepius, and show how the Christian church contrastingly offered a novel approach to care rooted in covenantal ideology. This is manifested in the former’s emphasis on cure, and the latter’s focus on care. Drawing from Dr. William May’s The Physician’s Covenant and Dr. David Beyda’s Covenant Medicine: Being Present When Present, I will then propose a paradigm by which participants in modern medicine can reimagine the physician-patient relationship according to this notion of covenant, guided by principles of trust, fidelity, service, and love. Lastly, I will offer the narrative of a patient I encountered in medical school who suffered from severe chronic pain, and for whom a covenantal patient-physician relationship proved instrumental in her own path towards health and healing.
Overall, this paper strives to show how the early Christians’ ministry to the sick, which introduced novel concepts of long-term care and compassion to classical notions of healing, embodied a covenantal approach to the suffering for which I argue contemporary medicine greatly needs to reclaim today. Through this work, I hope to further the dialectic on how patients and physicians can transcend the rigid transactional nature of healthcare and relate to one another in a new and meaningful way.