1. Our Current Situation

Today, people go to the hospital when they are ill. Even those suffering from ailments who sought healing from Jesus in 1st-century Palestine now turn to hospitals. The demon-possessed go to psychiatry, women with a hemorrhage visit internal medicine, lepers consult dermatology, the blind go to ophthalmology, and those who are deaf or mute seek treatment from ENT specialists. This is the reality we face today.

The first hospital was established in the 4th century during the Byzantine era. The word “hospital” comes from “hospitality,” which means to “welcome” or “treat kindly.” Hospitals were places where the sick, the weary, and poor travelers could rest and recover their health. Historically, the first hospitals were created by Christian communities who practiced Jesus’ teaching to “love your neighbor as yourself.” Early missionaries in Korea were also doctors who spread the gospel and established modern hospitals.

However, from the start of Korean missions, scientific medicine and the Christian gospel have coexisted uneasily, like oil and water, with many people embracing Western medicine while disregarding faith. Even hospitals affiliated with Christian organizations today offer the same medical treatments as secular hospitals. While some hospitals have “God loves you” written on their walls, their medical practices do not differ from other hospitals.

Thus, Christians need a “guide to modern medicine,” which entails knowing how to live through life’s stages — birth, aging, sickness, and death — from a place of faith while wisely integrating modern medicine into their spiritual beliefs. This is a task facing all Christians today.

If not, they risk becoming overly dependent on doctors, medicine, medical techniques, or devices, fearing disease more than God, leading to confusion and potentially losing their faith entirely.

2. Breaking Down Barriers Between Modern Medicine and Christianity

The knowledge systems of modern society have become specialized, causing a perceived divide between modern medicine and Christianity, making it seem like they are unrelated.

However, our lives do not neatly divide these two. When we fall ill, we might wonder, “Did I eat something bad?” feel anxious, start praying, and reflect, “Did I do something wrong before God?” Chronic illness can also lead to theodicy questions like, “Why doesn’t God heal me?“

The words we use daily reflect this connection. For instance, the word “salvation” in English derives from the Latin “salus,” meaning “health.” In French, “santé,” meaning “health,” comes from “sanctus,” meaning “holy.” 

Philosopher Aristotle often employed medical knowledge about visible conditions like disease and health to explain intangible concepts like life and the soul. Likewise, Christian theologians and church fathers have compared “health, illness, and healing” to “creation, fall, and salvation,” guiding people toward faith.

The biblical term “shalom,” meaning “peace,” encompasses the health and wholeness of the body, mind, soul, society, history, nature, and the universe, aligning with both spiritual and medical goals. Yet, today’s situation leans more towards conflict. Modern medicine, armed with science and technology, infiltrates our daily lives, homes, and churches through a process of medicalization.

The church must understand and integrate this modern context, or risk losing its relevance and followers. Thus, we must develop a strategy: first contrasting modern medicine and Christianity, and then integrating them as spirituality becomes clearer.

3. Contrasting Modern Medicine and Christianity Through the Woman with a Hemorrhage

The story of the woman with a hemorrhage in Mark 5 provides an opportunity to contrast modern medicine and Christianity:

Mark 5:25-34 recounts a woman who had suffered from hemorrhaging for 12 years, enduring many doctors, exhausting her resources, and worsening. She approached Jesus, touched his cloak, and thought, “If I touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately, her bleeding stopped, and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. Jesus turned and asked, “Who touched my clothes?” His disciples responded, “You see the people crowding against you, yet you ask, ‘Who touched me?’” But Jesus kept looking to see who had done it. The woman came forward, trembling, and told him everything. Jesus said, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

Firstly, although modern medicine claims to be patient-centric, it remains largely disease-centric. In contrast, Christianity prioritizes interpersonal relationships.

In his book I and Thou, Martin Buber laments that relationships between people, which should be “I and Thou,” have turned into “I and It” due to science and technology. The focus on disease rather than the person reflects a concern more for the “disease” than the “suffering individual.” This is natural, given that modern medicine is based on “basic science,” primarily biological. “Science” aims to objectify what it studies to gain knowledge. Although this pertains to modern science, contemporary medicine is founded on it. Modern science, characterized by Cartesian dualism, splits “matter” and “mind.” Thus, the “body” of a sick person is seen as a material substance harboring a disease to be eradicated, and medical treatment becomes a “disease-eradicating technique,” potentially making doctors mere “technicians” repairing machines. This “medical gaze” sometimes makes us feel like a “lump of meat on the operating table” or a mere “mechanical means for childbirth.”

This is not solely a problem of doctors or medical personnel, but a distortion of the current medical culture. Studies show what angers both doctors and patients. Doctors get most upset when patients “discontinue treatment arbitrarily,” “miss appointments,” “ignore important medical advice,” or “hide information about illnesses that pose health risks.” Patients, on the other hand, get angry when doctors “fail to provide sufficient explanation or information about their disease or prognosis,” “use incomprehensible medical jargon,” “speak without concern for the patient’s response,” “ignore the patient’s questions,” or “leave them lying around like objects in places where medical staff come and go.” All these instances show that neither side respects the other as a person, reducing the relationship to “I and It.“

However, Jesus always met lives in an “I and Thou” manner. To the woman with the issue of blood, He said, “Daughter, your faith has healed you; go in peace and be freed from your suffering.” Even when crowds overwhelmed Him, He didn’t declare, “All here, be healed,” but met each individual, respecting their uniqueness and journey, healing them personally.

Secondly, while modern medicine instills a paternalistic view through specialized education, mature doctors may adopt a more reciprocal attitude. Jesus, despite being God, met with sufferers, such as the woman with the hemorrhage, at their lowest points. 

I’ll give a clear example of a paternalistic perspective. In the early 20th century, a patient might enter a hospital unconscious and wake up to find a leg missing. When they, in shock and fear, asked their doctor what happened, the doctor might respond, “It was a matter of life or death, so we amputated it.” The patient’s response would often be muted by the doctor’s professional authority. This was just 100 years ago. But today, doctors are increasingly shifting from being “guardians” to “consultants,” with patients participating more actively and independently in the decision-making process. Yet, the paternalistic view, “I use my expertise to treat you,” still dominates modern medicine.

However, when the woman with the issue of blood was healed, Jesus said, “Daughter, your faith has healed you.” What does this mean? We often say, “Medicine cured me,” “The doctor cured me,” “The drugs cured me,” or “Medical technology cured me.” So Jesus might also have said, “I healed you. I cured and saved you. Without me, you couldn’t be healed.” But instead, He said, “Daughter, your faith has healed you.” He acknowledged her suffering, years of being treated as an unclean woman, her loss of wealth to doctors, and her fear of being stoned to death by Jews, yet her faith to approach Him, risking her life, brought her healing. He said, “Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.“

It’s important to note that her healing wasn’t a deliberate act of Jesus. Being love itself, when the woman approached in faith, believing she would be healed by touching His cloak, His love immediately flowed out, bringing healing. The Gospel of Mark records that Jesus knew power had gone out from Him. Like water that flows to the lowest places without contention, but nurtures life, His love descending to our lowest points allowed her faith to be the “conduit” for her healing, not her “merit.”

Finally, modern medicine’s dualism, reductionism, and mechanical view contrast sharply with Christianity’s holistic perspective. The biomedical paradigm views the human body as a machine, leading to treatment focused on repairing or replacing malfunctioning parts. Efforts to shift away from this paradigm are indeed occurring within the medical field, and clinical physicians strive to think and act differently. However, the certainty of medical knowledge in the healthcare arena still largely rests within the biomedical paradigm.

However, the human body is not merely a machine. A mechanistic understanding is just one interpretive approach, akin to “seeing through the lens of a machine.” Therefore, the diseases of the body cannot simply be fixed by repairing one part as if it were a malfunctioning component. Unfortunately, adopting such a perspective in medical practice has led to the saying, “Doctor treats a disease, and creates diseases for others.”

However, Christianity views humans as holistic beings with dimensions of soul, mind, and body. Therefore, thoughts like, “As long as the body is fixed, the soul and mind don’t matter,” or the belief that only specialized organs or vessels need fixing, while disregarding any other side effects, emotional wounds, or secondary pain inflicted on the patient’s family, are results of the loss of human “wholeness.” Of course, it’s a positive development that many hospitals are adopting a team approach, where doctors from various specialties treat patients collaboratively to overcome the limitations of specialization.

Jesus, by saying, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering,” healed people holistically—soul, mind, and body. Particularly noteworthy was the immediacy and completeness of His healing, with no aftermath or side effects, hence the term “divine healing.” Of course, as creatures, we cannot replicate it, but we must learn His perspective and purpose. His healing ministry was holistic, aimed at manifesting Jesus’s Christhood, the Kingdom of God present within His personality, and the sanctity of Jesus and God’s glory.

4. Using Modern Medicine Wisely in Faith

Christians should neither worship medicine nor fear diseases, but understand and utilize modern medicine confidently as God’s children.

The Bible recounts how King Asa, suffering from a foot disease, sought help only from a foreign doctor, neglecting God, and ultimately died. Similarly, King Ahaziah fell and, despite Elijah’s presence, sent messengers to the god Baal-Zebub for a prognosis, leading to his death as foretold by Elijah.

However, we need not revert to a pre-scientific era. By standing firm in Christ and utilizing medicine and science wisely, we can navigate the relationship between modern medicine and Christianity in a healthy and prudent manner.