Human death and the use of healthcare are inevitably framed by philosophical assumptions about the basic nature of human existence. Ubiquitous questions concerning one’s mortality are always situated (whether consciously or not) within larger narratives of meaning that govern every aspect of one’s life, including the process of dying at its conclusion. In the Christian tradition, these narratives of meaning are cultivated intentionally through a set of habituating practices that comprise important aspects of its formal worship. Worship, among other things, enacts and embodies a complex set of interconnecting convictions and value ascriptions that, when taken cumulatively, coalesce in a clearly defined sense of Christian identity. This narrative identity functions as the lens through which all of human life is understood. Modern healthcare, however, often implicitly assumes an alternative interpretation of life and death based upon a fundamentally discrete narrative of meaning. This alternative narrative likewise enacts its own sets of convictions and value ascriptions; formed, not by an intentionally selected group of habituating practices, but by a wide array of cultural customs and rituals that reinforce concealed assumptions about “the way things are.” These assumptions are “concealed,” by the apparent ubiquity of their appeal which often protects them from careful scrutiny. Like Christian worship, these practices and the assumptions they reinforce constitute a vision of human identity. When juxtaposed, it is clear that these two “visions” of identity presume parallel, dissonant, or even antithetical definitions of what comprises the essential “good” of human life. It cannot be assumed, then, that Christianity, in its use of healthcare resources, and the modern healthcare community are always necessarily pursuing the same end(s). This paper argues that prevailing trends in the contemporary use of healthcare in fact represent and manifest an alternative worship, the structure of which shapes many levels of its application.