Confidentiality, Ministers and Church Members

In golf club to clearly identify the impressiveness of confidentiality within the church setting, it is vitally important to define the term, which basis mean so some different things to different people. due north Malony defines confidentiality as the act of protect from disclosure that which hotshot has been told chthonian the assumption that it will non be revealed without permission.1 In scathe of the relationship amidst ministers and church members, confidentiality may de defined as, respecting information given by or about an single(a) in the socio-economic class of a professional relationship bulletproof and secret from others.2 Ministers argon among those in society whose role necessitates that they are exposed to much more than confidential information than others. Confidentiality is fundamental to the maintenance of trust between a minister and his congregation.\nThis rule of professional confidentiality has been recognized for thousands of years. In th e Hippocratic Oath the Greek physician Hippocrates promised the following: What I may see or hear in the course of treatment or level outside the treatment in regard to the life of men, which on no account one must spread abroad, I will keep to myself, guardianship such things shameful to be spoken about. (cit. Marsden, 3) 3\nConfidentiality is owed equally to all people across the cultural spectrum; mature adults and unseasoned minors, as well as adults who lack the capacity to force decisions for themselves. Essentially, we are required to keep the confidences of anyone to whom we owe a responsibility of care as defined by the all-embracing biblical concept of a neighbor (Leviticus 19:18, Matthew 19:19). The contract to be confidential may even extend beyond the death of the individual. Joseph E provide states that, It is important, though, for members of the clergy to remember that their legal perquisite of silence and their moral business of confidentiality are both cerebrate to the dignity and rights of those who have confided in ...