Hostility to Hospitality

Michael J. Balboni, PhD is on faculty at Harvard University and a theologian-in-residence in the Department of Psychiatry, Brigham & Women's Hospital, Boston. His social science research has centered on the intersection of spirituality and medicine. He serves as a congregational minister at Park Street Church and the Longwood Christian Community. Tracy A. Balboni, MD is an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School and serves as the Clinical Director of the Supportive and Palliative Radiation Oncology Service at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham & Women's Hospital. She is an internationally recognized leader and researcher at the intersection of spirituality, palliative care, and oncology.

1. Introduction: A Rising Hostility in American Medicine

Part I. Empirical and Sociological Perspectives on the Separation of Medicine & Spirituality
2. The Spiritual Event of Serious Illness
3. Spirituality and End-of-Life Outcomes
4. The Frequency of Spiritual Care at the End of Life
5. What Hinders Spiritual Care? Empirical Explanations
6. Social Structures Separating Medicine and Religion
7. The Secular-Sacred Divide in Medicine

Part II. Theological Perspectives on the Separation of Medicine & Spirituality
8. Defining Religion and Spirituality
9. Toward a Theology of Medicine
10. Theology within the Patient-Clinician Relationship
11. The Sacramental Nature of Medicine
12. A Spirituality of Immanence

Part III. Restoring Hospitality to Medicine
13. Why Medicine Should Resist Immanence
14. Problematic Rapprochement Strategies
15. Structural Pluralism for Medicine and Religion
16. From Hostility to Hospitality