Health and medicine in the Evangelical tradition

This is the first extensive study of evangelicalism in the context of health and modern medicine. The book, like the others in the series, has two purposes. One purpose is to help health care professionals, who themselves come from various religious traditions or perhaps none, to understand how the evangelical tradition is related to issues of health and medicine so that they can serve their evangelical patients with greater sensitivity. The book is also written to help evangelicals understand more fully the relation of their tradition to the issues of health and medicine, as well as for those with a general interest in this rather widespread spirit or mood that has swept across American religious life. Leonard Sweet assigns four specific characteristics to evangelicalism. First and foremost is a biblical faith, a belief in the binding and bonding authority of the Bible.^ "Evangelicals," he says, "spend their time discussing not who wrote the Bible but what in the Bible is being written in their hearts; not whether the Bible is true, but whether they are true to the Bible." Second, evangelicals stress a personal relationship with God through faith in the atoning death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This does not mean that evangelicals are therefore strictly doctrinal. Their doctrines, in fact, have usually been ones in which believers could move with some degree of freedom. Evangelicals trust that people's hearts tend to be nearer right than their heads. Third, evangelicals value conversion, that is, they assign a high priority to the evangelization of the gospel - to being born again. Conversion is for them a spiritual decision to "follow Jesus" and to participate in the mission of God in the world. Finally, evangelicals strongly believe that moral absolutes exist and that truth is more than private meaning.^ Evangelicals do not consider health an end in itself, nor do they consider ill health something to be avoided or ashamed of. Sweet quotes a mid-nineteenth century evangelical publication: "Health is a glorious thing, but, like money, not so much for itself, as to be spent. - Squander it not, for you know not what moment you may need it to lay upon the altar of love, or friendship, or duty - to yield it up for the sake of its Great Giver, and of your fellow man." Here, then, is a fascinating look at an evangelical understanding and proposal regarding faith, sin and suffering, the question of theodicy, sexuality and morality (including abortion issues), cleanliness, prayer and healing, and aging and dying.