2022 Conference on Medicine & Religion

“Space for the Sacred in Care of the Sick”

March 13-15, 2022
Portland, Oregon

Contemporary medicine, by all appearances, is a secular domain, governed by the norms of science and industry and ethical principles that are ostensibly separable from religious traditions. Is there space in the medical domain for the sacred? If so, what does this sacred space look like? What is sacred about the work of medicine? What kind of attention to the sacred is fitting for medical practitioners? What relevance does the sacred and sacred space have for patients and practitioners who consider themselves spiritual but not religious? Can good spiritual care be provided in religiously neutral terms? What stories would foster more space for the sacred in contemporary medicine? Does the modern bureaucracy of healthcare provide space for the patient-clinician relationships that historically formed the cornerstone of ethical medicine? What religious norms and relationships can reframe understandings of care and of the patient-physician relationship?

The 2022 Conference on Medicine and Religion invites clinicians, scholars, clergy, students and others to take up these and other questions related to the intersection of medicine and religion. We encourage participants to address these questions and issues in light of religious traditions and practices, particularly, though not exclusively, those of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The conference is a forum for exchanging ideas from an array of disciplinary perspectives, from accounts of clinical practices to empirical research to scholarship in the humanities.

The Theology, Medicine, and Culture Initiative at Duke Divinity School is a co-sponsor of this conference.