El. knyga: Heal Thyself: Spirituality, Medicine and the Distortion of Christianity [Oxford Scholarship Online E-books]

Heal Thyself argues that our popular culture's fascination with the health benefits of religion reflects not the renaissance of the world's great religious traditions but the powerful combination of pervasive consumer capitalism and a deeply self-interested individualism. A faith-for-health exchange, say the authors, serves to misrepresent and devalue the true meaning of faith. Such a utilitarian approach renders the content of faith superfluous, allowing a generic, highly personalized description of faith to take the place of a specific, confessional commitment to what one believes and does as a member of a community of faith.
From the Christian viewpoint, the religion and health movement is dangerously deficient. Christians do not believe in the self-revelation of God in Jesus Christ in order to be healthy. For Christians, learning to be religious does not mean enlisting faith as a vehicle to get what we want, but rather learning by faith to want the right things at the right time and to live with a spirit of gratitude and hope.

In recent years, a movement stressing a causal relationship between spirituality and good health has captured the public imagination. Told that research demonstrates that people of strong faith are healthier, physicians and clergy alike urge us to become more religious.
The religion and health movement, as it has become known, has attracted its fair share of skeptics. While most root their criticism in science or secularism, the authors of Heal Thyself, one a theological ethicist, the other a physician, instead challenge the basic precepts of the movement from the standpoint of Christian theology.
Heal Thyself argues that popular culture's fascination with the health benefits of religion reflects not the renaissance of religious tradition but the powerful combination of consumer capitalism and self-interested individualism. A faith-for-health exchange misrepresents and devalues the true meaning of faith.
For Christians, being religious does not mean enlisting faith as a vehicle to get what we want--be it health or wealth--but rather learning by faith to want the right things at the right time, and to live with a spirit of gratitude and hope.