In the COVID-19 pandemic, resistance to modern biomedicine (evidence-based medicine) occurred in droves and presented real problems to public health implementers trying to get us out of infections. Now that the pandemic is over, it’s worth spending time reflecting on how to better handle similar approaches in the future. This volume, from the British Academy, offers such an approach. Its vision is global in scope, not just localized to the British isles.
So what’s an “episteme?” Similar to the word epistemology (a set of knowledge), it’s a series of knowledge and practices on which people base their lives. Religions are prime examples of epistemes. Thus, the authors approach most of the social problems of COVID implementation from through the lens of sociology of religion.
They examine Daoism, yoga, ethnic Pentecostalism, Indian medicine, and other epistemes to look at how they approach items like COVID. They make a case that coexistence, rather than dominance, should have been the approach of biomedical practitioners. Of course, busy biomedical practitioners don’t always have the time to research religions on their own – which is why books like this exist.
However, the authors left important items unexamined. They did not examine the episteme of biomedical practitioners – that biomedicine answers all of life’s questions, even when there aren’t clear answers. And they did not examine American evangelicalism in depth, perhaps the loudest and most irrational episteme in the lot.
Overall, this book deserves examination because it advocates for religious syncretism, or the molding together of religious structures, by healthcare practitioners. A policy arguing for scientific dominance rather than coexistence is clearly not the best way going forward. Unfortunately, many academics and well-educated biomedical leaders are simply anti-religion instead of schooled in how to dwell together in peace. Like it or not, the humanities never linger far behind us.
Religion, Spirituality, and Public Health: Competing and Complementary Epistemes
Edited by Karen O’Brien-Kop & Suzanne Newcombe
Copyright (c) 2025
The British Academy
ISBN13 978-1836245643
Page Count: 298
Genre: Public Health, Religion
www.amazon.com