Praying nurses

[ciphergoth]

Nurse suspended without pay for offering to pray for a patient during a home visit - what do you think?

(Snowed in today, trying to work from home but it's not really a workplace atmosphere around here today :-)

Updated: the patient is described as a Christian in the article. One wonders if this means Christian as in really a Christian, or "Christian I suppose" which AFAICT is the majority religion of the UK. Updated: actually "have Christian beliefs myself" is more like the phrasing I'd expect from someone who takes it seriously.

Comments

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

She declined on the spot...

[andrewducker]

Declining politely is fine though. If a nurse offered to pray for me in casual conversation then I'd politely decline - and I wouldn't report her later, because she hadn't offended me.

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

Declining on the spot isn't offence. If someone offered me a cup of tea, I'd instantly decline because I hate tea, but that doesn't make me offended. In fact, I'd be pleased that they'd considered the fact I might want them to make me one - same logic applies here. Just because you don't want a prayer said for you doesn't imply that anyone who offers will offend you. Unless you're really touchy, I guess.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

In practice people mostly say "thank you" politely when people offer to pray for them, even if they don't welcome it at all. It's rare for someone to feel strongly enough to actually decline. This isn't true of tea.

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

But that's not my point. The point is that even if you do feel strongly enough to actually decline, surely you can appreciate that it's a kind gesture even if it doesn't fall into your set of beliefs?

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

OK, so we're no longer talking about how the patient did actually feel about it, we're now talking about how they should have felt about it...

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

Are we? Gosh.

Pretty sure that isn't what I said, but I'll bow out now, since it obviously is. :)

[henry_the_cow]

Surely the point is that we don't actually know what "it" was. We don't know who has decided to make this into a story, to write it up and attract the interest of the media. We don't know how the press report compares to what actually happened. We don't know if, when the patient said she thought that others might be offended, she was actually offended herself but too shy to say so, or whether she felt she ought to say something on behalf of other people who weren't actually offended, or some other interpretation. There are all sorts of things we don't know about this case.

We can, of course, talk about the general case. We might prefer, for example, our carers to show some individuality, or we might prefer them to keep themselves to themselves. On the particular question of whether we should be offended when someone offers to pray for us. On the rare occasions this happens, I feel slightly uncomfortable, but I generally take it as an indication that the person is wishing me well in their own way. If they tried to insist that prayer would heal me, then I might start to disagree with them (but more likely I would just edge away).