· In August, participated in the Charitable Dialogue on Christians and Healthcare, sponsored by Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and Trinity Graduate School. She addressed imago Dei, the meaning of “health,” and the philanthropic ministry of the early church.
· Was interviewed by Christianity Today on parents’ prayers for miracle healing.
· In October, delivered the annual Witherspoon Lecture of Family Research Council, on “Markets and Consumers: The Commodification of Women and Girls.”
· Wrote “On Removable Limbs, Fairness & Upgrades” for Salvo magazine’s winter issue, addressing potential enhancement use of prosthetics.
· In October, attended the annual meeting of the American Society for Bioethics & Humanities in Washington, DC. While in DC, Michael had several meetings at Georgetown University, including a personalized research consultation with several staff from the Bioethics Reference Library to discuss acquisitions strategy for CBHD’s Research Library as well as trends in bioethics research and publications.
· Taught the Foundations for Cultural Engagement course for Trinity Graduate School in the Fall semester.
· Spoke at Christ Church in Lake Forest in November on “Genesis and Bioethics.”
· In November, Michael attended the annual meetings of the Evangelical Theological Society (in Milwaukee) and the American Academy of Religion (in Chicago). During AAR, he participated in a planning meeting for a new organization to facilitate Christian dialogue (pro and con) on human enhancement and transhumanism. If you are interested in becoming connected to this organization, please contact Michael directly at msleasman@cbhd.org.
· Interviewed in November on “religious ethics and the public square” as part of a qualitative research project for an upcoming monograph by a sociologist exploring this topic.
· Appointed as the chair of TIU’s Institutional Review Board in the Fall.
· Participated on a panel at Covenant Theological Seminary for the conference “Science and Faith: Friends or Foes?” (Oct 12-13) in a session entitled, “Human Origins and Human Uniqueness.”
· Presented in two session at the annual ETS meeting on “Sinning with Soul: Against Anti-Dualistic Biblical Scholarship” and “Original Sin, Christology, and the Virgin Birth: A New Response to an Old Conundrum.”
· Spoke at Christ Church in Lake Forest in November on “Reproductive Technology, Ethics, and the Christian.”
· Presented the paper “Lost Narrative, Lost Truth? Affirming the Communicative Potential of Systematic Discourse” at the annual ETS meeting on the transposition of cognitive content from narrative to non-narrative discourse forms at the Evangelical Theological Society's national conference.
· Organized and facilitated a series of student discussions on Jeffrey P. Bishop's recent book, The Anticipatory Corpse: Medicine, Power, and the Care of the Dying (University of Notre Dame, 2011).
In November CBHD hosted the first public consultation of the Academy of Fellows, “Theology and Ethics of Synthetic Gametes.” A trans-Atlantic team led by CBHD Fellow Dr. Calum MacKellar embarked on an interdisciplinary dialogue around this emerging topic. The session was live-streamed for those who were unable to attend, and the audio and video will be freely available in the near future on cbhd.org.
Through this initiative CBHD is providing free Christian bioethics resource kits to a number of seminaries and university libraries and other types of organizations around the globe. These kits include a collection of nearly twenty a collection of approximately 20 resources published through the work of the Center over our history. In the past year kits have been sent to institutions in India, Thailand, Lithuania, Slovakia, Canada, Ukraine, and the Philippines. In some cases these are the only bioethical resources that these academic institutions have in their entire holdings. If you know of institutions that would benefit from this program, please let us know by contacting Michael Sleasman at msleasman@cbhd.org.
CBHD continued its ongoing partnership with the Christian Medical and Dental Associations by again hosting the fall meeting of the CMDA Ethics Committee.
