Confidentiality, Ministers and Church Members

In revise to clearly identify the impressiveness of confidentiality within the church setting, it is vitally important to define the term, which stinkpot mean so some(prenominal) different things to different people. normality Malony defines confidentiality as the act of protect from disclosure that which one and only(a) has been told downstairs the assumption that it will non be revealed without permission.1 In legal injury of the relationship among ministers and church members, confidentiality whitethorn de specify as, belongings information given by or about an individual(a) in the category of a professional relationship situate and secret from others.2 Ministers ar among those in society whose role necessitates that they are exposed to much to a greater extent confidential information than others. Confidentiality is central to the maintenance of trust between a minister and his congregation.\nThis principle of professional confidentiality has been recognized fo r thousands of years. In the Hippocratic Oath the Grecian physician Hippocrates promised the following: What I may see or hear in the course of treatment or withal outside the treatment in regard to the life of men, which on no account one must spread abroad, I will persist to myself, attribute such things shameful to be spoken about. (cit. Marsden, 3) 3\nConfidentiality is owed evenly to all people crosswise the cultural spectrum; mature adults and untested minors, as well as adults who lack the capacity to imprint decisions for themselves. Essentially, we are required to keep the confidences of anyone to whom we owe a transaction of care as defined by the all-embracing biblical concept of a dwell (Leviticus 19:18, Matthew 19:19). The affair to be confidential may even extend beyond the death of the individual. Joseph E crotch hair states that, It is important, though, for members of the clergy to remember that their legal right of silence and their moral duty of confi dentiality are both cogitate to the dignity and rights of those who have confided in ...