Spirituality

The New Cult of Health Care

Did you know that the accrediting organization (Jacho) for hospitals, hospices and other medical institutions dictates the requirements foe pastoral care in the medical field. This is done is conjunction with Medicare as well. Medicare has stipulations called conditions of participation which spell out the nature of pastoral care in our health system. In other words, local hospitals and hospices are prohibited by law from introducing any form of pastoral care outside of these constructs?

What does this new form of pastoral care look like? First, it is no longer called pastoral care because that has too many Christian connotations. Instead, it has been renamed spiritual care. Spiritual care is a generic term which by definition excludes a belief in God and equates the human search for meaning, purpose and emotional conjunction with faith. Spiritual care states that it is altogether different from religious expression and that in fact, religion has nothing to do with spirituality. Spirituality exists in a vacuum outside the necessity of God. In government sponsored spiritual care, all religious beliefs are seen as equally valid. There is no distinction between them. The predominant belief in spiritual care is that there are many pathways to God and everyone will reach Him. This is something akin to the idea of Universalism but minus its Christ roots. In the cult of spiritual care, God does not even have to exist. He has shrunken to a "higher power" of your own choosing.

The Bible speaks of this clearly when it says that "everyman did that which was right in his own eyes". Spiritual care in medicine has become a cult because, it continues to deceive patients by using aveneer of Christianity with its hospital chapels and staff chaplains. But hospital staff, including chaplains are prohibited from reading the Bible, offering Biblical counsel, praying for patients unless they are specifically asked. If patients are wrestling with thoughts concerning God, faith or the fear of death, chaplains and nurses are not free to share the answers that they have found in Christ because they would committing the one deadly sin in spiritual care in hospitals: "imposing their beliefs on their patients or failing to provide non-judgmental care." There are only two mortal sins in spiritual care: imposing beliefs and being judgmental" For this there is no atonement and the result is a pink slip in your final check.

Spiritual care in medicine meets all the stipulations of a cult. It has an entity it worships -- Medicare. It has its own belief system -- a form of spirituality that denies God. It has its own clergy -- chaplains. It threatens its staffs and forces them to adhere to its principals through the use of retribution. The other thing that is so frightening about the cult of health care is that it allows the free practice of all religious beliefs except than Christianity.