Healthcare and the Christian Life

What features define human life? How do individuals and communities understand and withstand suffering and pain? What is good dying? In our time, these essential human questions are often viewed primarily as bioethics issues. In reality, these are not exclusively medical or bioethical enquiries. Rather, they are questions that all human individuals and societies ultimately wrestle with.

This course seeks to address these issues, bringing theological and medical ethics, as well as different views on what it means to be human, into conversation with each other. Using an approach that will both enrich the practice of medical practitioners and empower the engagement of lay Christians, we will consider the relationship between healthcare professions and Christian communities. We will also consider some specific issues – notably the death-and-dying debates of our own time – to highlight the valuable contributions of theological anthropology to present-day ethics conversations that are ongoing in both professional and lay settings. Learners will come away with tools to think about and engage with critical health issues that are confronting those who work in and those who access the medical system.