Pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions for contraceptives. Surgeons who pray in the OR. Pro-life clinics and end-of-life interventions, intelligent-design activists and stem-cell-research opponents. Is this the state of modern medicine in America?

In Blind Faith, Dr. Richard P. Sloan examines the fragile balance and dangerous alliance between religion and medicine--two practices that have grown disconcertingly close during the twenty-first century. While Sloan does not dispute the fact that religion can bring a sense of comfort in times of...