CHURCH AND MEDICAL UNION. A Church of Eng land Union or Society founded in 1908. The founda tion seems to have been suggested by the work of healing carried on at Emmanuel Church, Boston, U.S.A. (see EMMANUEL CHURCH MOVEMENT). The object of the Union was to promote co-operation between the medical profession and the Church in the healing of the sick. A Committee, before the formal constitution of the Society, had undertaken " to collect as much evidence as possible in regard to the various healing movements both within and without the orthodox Christian Churches, and to endeavour to discover what was good in them and what was not." The principles of the Union as formally con stituted were embodied in certain paragraphs in the Lam beth Report of 1908. They are these : (1) " The Com mittee believes that Christ still fulfils in Christian experience His power to give life, and to give it more abundantly; and that the faith, which realises His Pre sence, is capable of creating a heightened vitality of spirit, which strengthens and sustains the health of the body. The Committee believes that sickness and disease
are in one aspect a breach in the harmony of the Divine Purpose, not only analogous to, but sometimes at least caused by, want of moral harmony with the Divine Will: and that this restoration of harmony in mind and will often brings with it the restoration of the harmony of the body." (2) " The Committee believes that medical science is the handmaid of God and His Church, and should be fully recognised as the ordinary means appointed by Almighty God for the care and healing of the human body. The Committee believes that dis coveries in the region of medicine and surgery come to man through Him who is the Light and the Life, the Divine Word." The work of the Union seems to have met with some success. See Psychic Healing: An Account of the Work of the church and Medical Union, 1910.