The annual Conference on Medicine and Religion is a leading forum for discourse and scholarship at the intersection of medicine and religion. It exists to enable health professionals and scholars to gain a deeper and more practical understanding of how religion relates to the practice of medicine, with particular attention to the traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The forum is intended in a spirit that builds bridges between theory and practice, science and theology, the academy and lay communities, the various health professions, and the Abrahamic religious traditions.
Each year, the conference is organized by its advisory board of clinicians and scholars who work at the intersection of medicine and religion. Each conference features both keynote speakers and peer-reviewed paper sessions, panels, workshops, and posters. The inaugural conference, held in Chicago, May 23-25, 2012, was entitled "Responding to the Call of the Sick: Religious Traditions and Health Professions Today". Subsequent conferences were as follows: "What Does It Mean to Care?", (Chicago) 2013; "Responding to the Limits and Possibilities of the Body" (Chicago) 2014; "Spiritual Dimensions of Illness and Health" (Boston) 2015; "Approaching the Sacred: Science, Health, and Practices of Care" (Houston) 2016; "Re-Enchanting Medicine" (Houston) 2017; "Examining the Foundations of Medicine and Religion" (St. Louis) 2018; "My Pain is Always With Me" (Duke) 2019, "True to Tradition? Religion, the Secular and the Future of Medicine", (Virtual), 2021; "Space for the Sacred in the Care of the Sick" (Portland) 2022; and "At the Limits of Medicine: Caring for Body and Soul" (Columbus, Ohio) 2023.
2024 Event Details:
In Pursuit of the Great Coherence: Healing in the Spaces Between
DATE:
April 14 - 16, 2024
LOCATION:
Marriott Downtown
Indianapolis, IN
The 2024 Conference on Medicine and Religion invites clinicians, scholars, clergy, students, and others to take up the most frequently asked 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 various disciplinary perspectives, from accounts of clinical practices to empirical research to scholarship in the humanities.