After this course, you will be able to:

• demonstrate insight into the contemporary position of religion in the public sphere; 
• apply some of the concepts from this insight to the characteristics and conditions of healthcare;  
• point out and analyse relevant issues in healthcare that are relevant to religion, and you take into account basic varieties among world religions in their interpretation of suffering;
• critically discuss your own position regarding the religious significance in caring for human suffering;
• demonstrate transparent exposition of the above in an academically sound paper.

This course is part of the minor 'Religion in the Public Sphere'. This course on religion and care will introduce you into the study of a core notion in religion, namely suffering and our felt responsibility and capacities to deal with that in support of those in need of help and support. I will confront spiritual notions of suffering and salvation with public notions of pain and illness, and its relief in medical care. The course starts with an introduction that first clarifies the course requirements and outlines the issue for the upcoming lectures. During the following lectures in the first block, I will clarify the concept of religion and its problematic position in the public sphere of modern society. This position is made transparent by presenting theories of life-world (Habermas) and social capital (Putnam) that explain certain tendencies in modern societies that religions may have problems to adapt with. In subsequent sessions, we will look into the actual characteristics of (Dutch) public health, the historical relationship of religion and health, and the changing healthcare policies. After that, I will demonstrate that in various elementary care issues, religion mostly represents a latent phenomenon that is present in notions of spirituality and morality but lacks explicit institutional significance. At the macro-level of the care organisation, we will however start with an exception, namely spiritual care as a profession. At the meso-level of interdisciplinary care, we will focus on moral sensitivity, as it represents an important - if latent - topic of communication between care disciplines. Finally, at the micro-level, some existential life issues will be discussed that refer to the beginning and the end of life, and that features as an issue relevant to worldview and ethics in healthcare. We will conclude our course by a summary session, in which you will present an outline for a topic of your choice. You will elaborate that topic in a paper, which will be handed in later to serve as an assessment.