Our Academy of Fellows met in February of this year for a weekend of research sharing, intense discussion, and fellowship. We welcomed two new Fellows, Mihretu P. Guta of Biola and Adam Omelianchuk of Stanford.
CBHD Annual Conference
Our 29th annual summer conference, Integrity and Conscience: Bioethics and the Professions, was a smashing success. We held it as a hybrid event with about two-thirds of the participants in person and the rest joining online through the Whova app. We had a full slate of plenary addresses, workshops, paper presentations, and more.
Details for next year, our 30th annual summer conference, have been set. The theme will be The Christian Stake in Bioethics Revisited, and we have a terrific lineup of plenary speakers already in place, including Peter Jaggard, Bryan Just, Christina Bieber Lake, Adam Omelianchuk, Scott Rae, and others. In addition, we will be pulling from our video archives to hear from past speakers like Edmund Pellegrino, Allen Verhey, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Robert Orr, and Harold O.J. Brown. Save the date so you can join us in Deerfield, June 22-24, 2023!
Staff News
In June, Curtis Pierce, our Communications and Marketing Manager, and his family moved to Holland, Michigan. His wife, Dr. Madison Pierce, begins a new position as Associate Professor of New Testament at Western Theological Seminary this fall. Thankfully, Curtis will continue working with CBHD from a distance.
In February, Executive Director Matthew Eppinette presented a three-hour pre-conference workshop on “The Bible and Bioethics” for the Evangelical Free Church of America's (EFCA) 2022 Theology Conference.
In March, Dr. Eppinette spoke on end-of-life issues for Wellspring Family Church in St. Louis, Missouri.
April saw him visiting Madison, Wisconsin to present “Navigating Taking, Making, & Faking Life in our MedTech World” to the EFCA's Forest Lakes District conference.
Publications
Just before the conference, we published a special report entitled “Fetal Tissue Research and Christian Bioethics: A Review of the Scientific Developments, Policy Landscape, and Ethical Considerations.” It will be something of a “living” resource that has been posted on our website and will be updated as developments in the field warrant.
Pastoral Care and Support
As a part of the preconference workshops, CBHD hosted a free workshop for pastors on reproductive technologies. D. Joy Riley and Dennis Hollinger guided a group of pastors through the major reproductive technologies available today and the ethical questions connected to them.
