Judging religion: Power, pluralism and the political control of medicine

Abstract

Summary Medicine now knows how to handle religion in patient care settings thanks to cultural competency. Because of this newfound awareness in medicine, it might seem that medicine has come to tolerate and even celebrate religious pluralism. We argue however that these efforts to tolerate religion in medicine are often based upon mischaracterizations of what religion actually is. Even supposedly tolerant scholars tend to base their tolerance off mischaracterizations of religion. Consequently, medicine's attempts at respecting religion can devolve into a patronizing attitude. Although cultural competency intends to be friendly towards religion, it resembles William Osler's attitude, who argued religion is a danger to medicine. Both cultural competency and Osler imagine religion and medicine as opposites; medicine is rational and objective, religion is irrational and subjective. Even the “tolerant” pluralists of cultural competency demand religion serve medicine as an efficient and effective form of biopsychosocial therapy. The only difference is that cultural competency scholars often believe religion can fulfill this goal as an alternative medicine technique or as a psychosocial coping mechanism, while Osler sees no therapeutic value in religion. Imagining religion and medicine like Osler does is a mark of modern secularity's founding myth. We will examine the genealogy of this secular belief and argue that it ultimately originated in propaganda to justify the nation-state's power. We will then briefly sketch a more accurate history to counter this founding secular myth, consequently problematizing Osler's simplistic understanding of the relationship between medicine and religion and challenging how cultural competency imagines religion.