Cultural Engagement

Compassion, Suffering, and Moral Convictions: The Response to Gender Reassignment Surgery

Tuesday, November 14, 2023

Does compassion demand that Christians affirm gender transitioning to relieve suffering? While Scripture commands Christians to be compassionate, I will argue the entire worldview of modern transgenderism is in direct conflict with Christian ethics. The example of gender transitioning provides an opportunity for us to explore how to join compassion, kindness to those who are suffering, and clear Biblical convictions.

Why Intersections? Revisited

Friday, November 25, 2022

We live at an exciting time in human history, when our medical interventions and technological innovations can do amazing, even seemingly miraculous, things. Yet, amidst all of this there is also a growing discontent with these marvels of our medically and technologically sophisticated age (or what we’ve shorthanded as the MedTech age).

Why Was “The Twitching Generation” So Popular on Bioethics.com?

Friday, August 19, 2022

At bioethics.com, I curate and post articles from the media that deal with bioethics issues. A typical post at bioethics.com is a title, link, and short blurb from an article in the mainstream media, such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Reuters, or the Associated Press. Over the past year, one bioethics.com post received more views in a single day than any other post, and it won by a large margin: “The Twitching Generation” by Helen Lewis at The Atlantic (See post here).[1] I posted “The Twitching Generation” on Monday February 28, 2022. On Saturday alone it received 2,512 views, and as of April 2022, it had 5,338 views. Those numbers are just for the bioethics.com post which serves as a thoroughfare to the actual article. The topic is apparently of interest to our bioethics readers, so let’s look at what we can learn from Helen Lewis’s article about teens and technology.

What American Mental Health Care Is Missing and How Churches Can Help

Friday, June 17, 2022

Ministry leaders who foster vital congregational community can constructively address the adverse trends in the growing national crisis regarding the upturn in mental illness. In the previous piece on ministry along the mental health continuum, the charge to ministry leaders was to be part of the solution: faith communities serve a stabilizing function that increase disease resistance by reversing isolation. Here, that challenge will be expanded. Ministry leaders can indeed be part of a larger social movement that promotes mental health and fulfills our Gospel calling. Awareness of trends in mental health care can assist clergy to customize and deepen the support offered to struggling parishioners.

The Pandemic Mental Illness Outbreak: A Ministry Perspective

Friday, May 20, 2022

Is the clamor regarding an uptick in untreated mental health cases an absurd prophecy or another conspiracy theory? The data would suggest otherwise. There is reputable evidence that increasing numbers of people are inwardly perturbed and exhibit symptoms such as sleep disturbance, suicidal ideation, and addictive behaviors. The COVID-19 pandemic itself brought evidence-based epidemiology—the data-driven study of patterns in health and disease—into the public spotlight.

Friendship with the Body and Gender Dysphoria

Friday, March 25, 2022

The body as we know it exists in a remarkable tension. On the one hand, Christians confess that the body is unquestionably good; the incarnation of Christ tolerates no lesser opinion, signaling God’s intent to redeem these very bodies. Nevertheless, the Apostle Paul also indicated that these same bodies possess an acutely felt awareness that such goodness is not an obvious feature of our ordinary lives. We still await “the redemption of our bodies” (Rom. 8:23), that ultimate transformation when the “Lord Jesus Christ…will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body” (Phil. 3:21). This, then, is the tension: we possess bodies that are good and divinely-affirmed, and yet these are also bodies that groan, feel burdensome, and are not quite the way they were meant to be.

Why Intersections?

Monday, October 10, 2016

Bioethics, Thoughtful Christians, and the Church

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

The 21st-century world of medicine and biotechnology is simultaneously characterized by hopeful promise and the challenging threats. The issues swirling in our culture at this time represent larger worldview issues. The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity at Trinity International University seeks to address these many and complex issues by helping Christians raise the right questions in the midst of a morally indifferent culture. Involved in these meaningful, thoughtful, and difficult explorations is a need to help followers of Christ develop a coherent and comprehensive way to see and understand the changing world in which we live.

Death and the Church, Part I

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

We live in a Western culture in which we find ourselves caught between two opposing secular medical responses to the reality of suffering and death: 1) Suffering and death are the ultimate human foes and must be fought—and conquered—at all costs (often resulting in the over-treatment of patients); or 2) Suffering produces a diminished “quality of life,” so death should be hastened (often resulting in the under-treatment of patients).

The Hope and Hype of Medicine and Technology

Monday, November 28, 2016

[T]he progress that has been made, combined with this hype of decontextualized and often exaggerated claims by the media, continue to fuel the hope of medicine and technology: “If we could only accomplish a little more . . . .” But more is never enough. And hope, commingled with the fear of death (Heb 2:15), can fuel an attitude of “taking and keeping” (the “agency”), one that grasps at and clings to the technological hope of immortality. From here one can easily (and subtly) fall prey to worshipping technology and progress as gods.

Plagues, Parables, and Pundits (Part 1)

Friday, January 6, 2017

"For when people were afraid to visit the sick, then they died with no one to look after them . . . . The bodies of the dying were heaped one on top of the other, and half-dead creatures could be seen staggering about in the streets or flocking around the fountains in their desire for water."[1] Thus Thucydides (ca. 431 BC) paints a vivid—if morbid—picture of a plague in the classical world. This situation did not change for another seven centuries. We can learn much from what (and who) brought the change.

Towards a Christian Perspective on Gender Dysphoria

Wednesday, January 11, 2017

What are we to make of the claims that a person’s gender identity conflicts with his or her body? Should someone undergo gender-reassignment surgery to match one’s sense of identity, or should it be the other way around? Answers to such questions will depend fundamentally on our understanding of what it means to be a human being, an understanding that derives its intelligibility from the larger story (or metanarrative) in which it is situated. For Christians, this metanarrative is informed by Scripture, which attests to the creative, redemptive, and restorative activity of God as revealed in Christ Jesus.

Plagues, Parables, and Pundits: A Lesson from Church History (Part 2)

Thursday, January 19, 2017

Too frequently Christians in the West engage questions about medicine and healthcare from within our particular political binary—conservative or liberal. Our pundits endlessly debate the questions, “Who should have access to medical care?” “How should they get it?” And, most of all, “Who should pay for it?” Might Christians have more to say than our polarized political discourse allows? Our ancient brothers and sisters would answer with a strong, “Yes!”

Death and the Church, Part II

Friday, February 10, 2017

Given our secular culture’s confusing responses to suffering and death—death is either the ultimate human foe to be conquered at any cost, or is preferable to a “diminished quality of life”—many believers are co-opting a worldview that runs contrary to historic Christianity. While we are most appreciative of the fine and informative work of ministries such as The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity, the “think tank” cannot replace the local parish as the center of Christian education. In other words, bioethics (especially issues of death and dying) must be mainstreamed from the academy to the pulpit and pew. This will obviously require a fair bit of intentionality.

Me Before You and Physician-Assisted Suicide

Friday, March 3, 2017

When an idea or concept needs a push in popular culture, Hollywood often makes a movie about it. With the power of emotional drama and a film score designed to tug at the heart, Hollywood has the power to advance ideas that we would otherwise reject on moral grounds. Its most recent attempt uses the book-to-movie love story Me Before You to create sympathy for and acceptance of euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide (PAS).

The Challenge of Bringing Bioethics into Ministry

Thursday, March 16, 2017

Since then, however, my attention to bioethics has waned. So many other matters—the constant demands of pastoral care, leading a ministry staff, administrating programs and events, and weekly preaching, among others—have seemed more urgent, more necessary to the work I am called to do. My membership with CBHD lapsed. The bioethics books on my shelf have remained unread. My intention to educate church members about bioethics has gone unrealized. So, when the invitation came to write this piece I was surprised and, frankly, unprepared. My immediate thought was, “What on earth can I write about and not seem like a totally uninformed fool?” But it occurred to me that many pastors probably find it difficult, like I now do, to integrate bioethical education into the daily, monthly, and yearly work of local church leadership.

Him Before All: Wisdom to Inform Bioethical Conversation

Thursday, March 23, 2017

Bioethical dilemmas are being explored everywhere. Moral questions embedded in the application of medical technology are not reserved for elite medical roundtables. Rather, ethical decisions are the prevailing substance of entertainment. Stories do touch our souls.

Him Before Us: Wisdom to Inform Bioethical Conversation

Friday, March 31, 2017

The prevailing cultural narrative, woven into routine dialogue and highlighted throughout the entertainment industry, turns on how the individual alone must define what is good using one’s internal moral compass. The frame of reference for making optimal moral choices is exclusively located within the uniqueness of the autonomous person, who applies private and personal criteria to achieve happiness, wholeness, and significance.

Death and the Church, Part III

Wednesday, June 28, 2017

I have intentionally titled this series, “Death and the Church.” Given the highly individualistic character of Western culture, many complex human issues are viewed as personal concerns to be dealt with in a manner that keeps friends, neighbors, and even family at a distance. The well-known expression “It is none of your business,” epitomizes an isolationism that has become a core value of American culture.

A Review of Christian Bioethics

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

From birth control to dementia, the world of bioethics touches us all. And in a world in which cultural norms are moving further away from Christianity, leadership in the church must be informed and aware of these issues and consider them from a biblical perspective. Pastors and teachers must learn to shepherd their flock through the stormy waters of our MedTech age as they make bioethical decisions. Christian Bioethics is a compass that can help navigate these waters.

What Is Human?

Wednesday, August 23, 2017

Christianity provides the radical answer that humans are created in the image of God, or the imago Dei (Gen 1:26–27). But what exactly does this mean? Until the mid-twentieth century, Christian thought on the imago Dei focused on uniquely human capacities, usually reason and morality.[1] But if a capacity is absent, or damaged, does this mean that the imago Dei is degraded? A focus on capacities risks dehumanizing the very old, the very young, or those with disabilities. Recent advances in archeology and history provide scholars a much richer context for understanding how the Bible uses the word “image”—one which goes beyond mere capacity.[2]

When Christians Face Infertility

Friday, September 22, 2017

It is crucial that churches help believers make ethical decisions regarding fertility treatments by first instilling a gospel framework for suffering in general, and infertility in particular, into the congregation’s imagination. In order for the church to counteract believers’ culturally conditioned attitudes about infertility, pastors must present a fully Christian vision of what a virtuous struggle with infertility looks like.

Peter Lawler’s Stuck with Virtue—and Technology

Friday, November 10, 2017

All too many of us (both those outside the church and sadly too many within as well) look to technology as a kind of savior, believing it will alleviate all our pain and afflictions, leaving us with nothing but happiness. Such an idea, Lawler says, is futile. Not that happiness is wholly elusive; rather it “is more than a chemical problem that has a technological or biotechnological solution.”[1] Even if these means can solve some of our ailments, they will undoubtedly introduce new problems. Lawler points out, “we will never live in a world without the reality of catastrophes, without sin, suffering, loneliness, profound disorientation, dementia, and death.”[2]

Advent Hope for a MedTech World

Wednesday, December 6, 2017

“Advent” comes to us from the Latin adventus meaning “arrival” or “coming to.” We celebrate this beginning with the lighting of the hope candle. It reminds us of the promise of a coming savior, the messianic hope—a hope that as Jesus said to his disciples that “many prophets and righteous people longed to see . . . and to hear” (Matt 13:17 NIV). We remember this hope, as it was realized in the coming of the Christ in the most vulnerable of human forms, an infant. And yet, in this very same hope we remember that the fulfillment of the first Advent, was also marked by the promise of a second Advent, the blessed hope. As the Nicene Creed affirms, having been seated at the right hand of the Father, Jesus Christ “will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom shall have no end.”

Ransoming Embryos

Friday, January 18, 2019

Throughout various points of the church calendar we are reminded of how God establishes the value of human life, namely, by the incarnation of God the Son—Christ. No doubt, this divine affirmation is needed now more than ever in a context where discussions on the value of all human life are a part of everyday conversation. But this post isn’t a typical bioethical argument, although it has implications for it given the importance of the subject, namely the human embryo. While other issues could be discussed, for our purposes here we offer some suggestions for thinking through one important issue concerning the embryo, the problem of so-called embryo glut (i.e., excess), which, we think, affords Christians an opportunity for redemptive action, i.e., the rescue of a human life frozen in a perpetual state of inactivity.

Disincarnation and the Digital Era

Friday, February 8, 2019

In a small way, this illustrates the power of digital technologies. On the plus side, they connect us with people we otherwise could not meet, such as the researcher in Australia I only know through a Skype video call. On the negative side, these technologies have the power to dis-connect us from people, by creating virtual relationships with nameless strangers, whether on Words with Friends or Facebook. When I occasionally—and ever more rarely—drop in to Facebook, I notice posts from people I do not even recognize. (How did they “friend” me?) If I met them in person, no name would come to mind. What aspect of friendship, or even mere acquaintance, could I attribute to these “Facebook friends”?

Celebrating WALL-E’s 10th Birthday

Thursday, February 28, 2019

For those with eyes to see, the movie WALL-E (Disney and Pixar, 2008) can be something of an apocalypse, revealing God’s Kingdom and stoking a Christian imagination. 800 years from now the remnant of humanity exists on the Axiom, a space cruise ship. The high-tech deck chairs supporting their overfed/corpulent bodies double as hovercraft to move them around the ship. All interaction between humans is mediated by a device. Every hobby is virtual. Every meal comes in a cup. The trip on the Axiom was initially billed as a five-year cruise. But 700 years later, the remnant is unaware of any other existence, or indeed, of their ancestral home which had been so thoroughly trashed (literally) that it can no longer support life of any kind.

Bioethics in Transition: Why Academic Conferences Still Matter

Monday, March 11, 2019

Thoughtful Christian engagement with contemporary challenges requires careful examination, taking time to think through implications, and learning from experts. I have observed this kind of Christian thinking in action since I first began working at The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity (CBHD). But in all the busyness of life, how can someone who is not an expert keep up with such things, especially with all of the pressing issues arising in medicine, science, and technology that impact our everyday lives?

Death and the Church, Part IV

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

In our death-denying culture (including the evangelical church), it is very rare to hear sermons on Christ’s resurrection except at Easter. Even then, many messages tend to be apologetic in nature, namely, how the empty tomb vindicates Christ’s claims to deity. While I have heard many pastors sermonize on Paul’s “resurrection magnum opus” in 1 Corinthians 15, too little time has been spent on the extensive treatment that the Apostle gives to its implications for believers facing the reality of even untimely earthly death (cf. vv. 35–58).[3] This existential absence has, in my opinion, only exacerbated a secular-like trust in the achievements of modern medicine in the Christian community.

Christian Ministry in a Digital Age

Wednesday, May 1, 2019

Many studies in neuroscience report that extensive usage of social media and screen technology changes the human brain in ways that make it difficult for a person to maintain sustained levels of concentration. Nearly thirty years ago, Jane M. Healy argued in her book, Endangered Minds, “that we are rearing a generation of ‘different brains.’”[1] How much more might this be the case today than it was then? Such changes raise important questions. How are all of these technologies shaping us? And, what ramifications does this have for worship, preaching, and religious education?

Thinking as Christians about Love, Compassion, and Suffering at the End of Life

Thursday, July 18, 2019

As I have reflected on those conversations, two aspects stand out: 1) their questions represent the public, secular views about death and dying popularized in American culture; and 2) they were more interested in avoiding physical pain than in thinking Christianly about the problem. I want to briefly describe the view they seem to have absorbed, and the consequences we already see from legalization of both euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (PAS).

The ‘Slippery Slope’ of Euthanasia

Wednesday, May 29, 2019

One of my favorite parts of getting around Washington, D.C. is the Metro system. The zzzip of the Metro fare card that opens the turnstile, the flashing lights that announce the incoming train, and the garbled announcements of the upcoming station create a vivid collage. Even more, the long entrance/exit rides, such as on Rosslyn station’s 270-foot escalator, induce a bit of vertigo. The wide stainless steel divider might tempt brash or drunk riders to emulate their childhood prowess on the playground slide, but large discs mounted at strategic intervals along the divider deter all but the most foolhardy. It is dangerous to descend that slippery slope.

A Review of "Love Thy Body" by Nancy R. Pearcey

Monday, June 10, 2019

In her 2018 book, Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions about Life and Sexuality,[1] Christian apologist Nancy R. Pearcey tackles a variety of hot-button ethical issues including abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, hookup culture, and transgenderism. Chapter by chapter, Pearcey makes the case that Western secularism denigrates the human body by embracing each of these practices, and she defends the holistic realism of Christian ethics in response.

A Podcast for the MedTech Age: An Interview with Zac and Sally Crippen

Tuesday, July 2, 2019

Zac and Sally Crippen host Vernacular, a podcast that explores human flourishing through a broad range of categories, from sports, creative media, and food to philosophy and science. This interview highlights their work, experiences, and advice relating to bioethics.

Is the Old Testament Relevant to Our MedTech World?

Thursday, August 22, 2019

Our brave new world is here, thanks to a new gene editing technology called CRISPR. (And it’s cheap! Maybe you qualify for a free CRISPR kit? Google it.) The potential applications of the technology are myriad.

Understanding and Ministering to Church Members Who Need Organ Transplants

Wednesday, September 25, 2019

Pastoral and congregational care for my family and me was critical to help us through this time of uncertainty. We needed someone to come alongside us and regularly offer help and encouragement. My wife was affected even more than I was. Because I could not obtain more life insurance, she faced the prospect of raising children on her own with no financial safety net. The compassion and financial assistance from our church and its members significantly helped to ease our minds as we entered this new phase of our lives.

5 Questions: Bioethical Education Beyond the Need for Response

Tuesday, October 22, 2019

Dr. Keith Plummer specializes in apologetics, hermeneutics, and pastoral counseling at Cairn University. Read his responses to five questions exploring his work as a professor and offering advice for Christians today.

Ministry to Trauma Victims: Lessons from the Prophet Joel | Part I

Thursday, November 14, 2019

Ministry in the context of trauma can be a challenge. Having survived a devastating traumatic event myself, and having a profession that requires me to respond to students who face trauma every semester, the question of how to respond to situations when it seems there is nothing suitable to say is always before me. Although sometimes trauma occurs as the consequence of unwise decisions, many traumatic situations impact people who are seemingly innocent. This is also the case with the prophet Joel who ministers during a time of a locust plague that has created a nation-wide crisis.

Ministry to Trauma Victims: Lessons from the Prophet Joel | Part 2

Thursday, December 5, 2019

In the first part of this reflection into how Joel responds to trauma, we have seen seemingly innocent people experiencing a national crisis. We have also seen a prophetic encouragement to return to God in the midst of trauma. In this second part, we consider the implications of this biblical model for us today.

The Good Death in Antiquity and the Middle Ages | Part 1

Monday, January 13, 2020

In older Christian books on moral theology or ethics, the usage of the term euthanasia was common. However, these works interpret it in a fashion entirely different from how it is currently employed. The word euthanasia is a Greek composite term (eû + thánatos) meaning nothing but “good death,” “beautiful death,” or “pleasant death.” Accordingly, older Christian textbooks presented “euthanasia” as a Christian preparation for death. But what exactly was meant by that?

The Good Death during the Reformation and Modernism | Part 2

Tuesday, February 11, 2020

Only four years after the publication of Staupitz’ book, Martin Luther also authored a writing on the good death: Ein Sermon von der Bereitung zum Sterben (“A sermon on the preparation for death”). Unlike Staupitz, who called for a mystical imitation of Christ’s death, Luther emphasized the connection between Christ and a Christian which is established solely through faith in the forgiveness of sins on the basis of Christ’s complete work on the cross. Christians have a living hope beyond death because of the righteousness of God which was established on Golgotha. It is from this perspective that Luther answers of what constitutes a good death.[1]

Preparing for a Good Death Today | Part 3

Friday, March 6, 2020

Preparing for a good death in a society which focuses on the temporal world is not easy for a Christian. On the contrary: it is a struggle. Professionals attempt to relieve the dying from pain, to feed him artificially, and to give him breath with a ventilator. While it is commendable that medical advances are utilized, a tension may arise between the necessary medical procedures and the need for counseling at the end of life. For instance, in order to pray with the dying Christian, to read Scripture with him, and to talk to him about the imminent journey in a confident manner, undisturbed privacy is necessary.

Biblical Exhortation in a Time of Crisis | Part 1

Wednesday, April 22, 2020

Of note here are three exhortations, all begun by the phrase “let us”: (1) “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith”; (2) “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering”; and (3) “Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.” The astute reader will notice that the three exhortations encompass faith, hope, and love, common themes in the biblical story. How might we apply these three injunctions to the COVID-19 crisis?

Biblical Exhortation in a Time of Crisis | Part 2

Friday, May 8, 2020

In my previous piece, I discussed the first of three exhortations given in Hebrews 10:19–25 to Christians in a time of spiritual crisis. The first exhortation is to draw near to God with a pure heart. Now I will discuss the second exhortation: “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful” (ESV; v. 23).

Biblical Exhortation in a Time of Crisis | Part 3

Friday, May 22, 2020

Previously, we saw that the author of Hebrews exhorted those who were going through a time of crisis to draw near to God and to hold close to the faith they have confessed. In his final exhortation, he encourages his readers to “consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Heb 10:24–25). How does this apply to our own time of crisis?

Is Always On Always Good?

Friday, August 21, 2020

We are at a relatively early stage in developing digital social networks. With Facebook, smart phones, and GPS, we can find what we are looking for and track our friends with comparative ease. Interconnectivity is developing to the point at which, when we are sent electronic communications, algorithms identify what we might like on the basis of the included content. Satellite and CCTV offer some degree of surveillance, but not to the extent provided by the Bentham Grid. The narrator tells us that in 2023 “you can’t do anything in New York City without the Grid knowing who you are and where you are.” Merely science fiction? Read on.

Opportunity in the Midst of Pandemic

Thursday, September 24, 2020

This moment in time has created a unique opportunity for pastors and church leaders who are concerned with bioethics. Now more than ever before, people are interested in the questions that bioethics seeks to address. While it would be easy to leave teaching on these matters to experts and news outlets or to focus any teaching on COVID-19 specifically, I believe this misses the opportunity this moment offers. COVID-19 has provided an opening for broadening congregants’ thinking on bioethical issues beyond the current pandemic, and to do so from a distinctly Christian perspective. This chance should not be wasted.

Reawakening Medicine’s Twentieth Century Demons?

Friday, October 30, 2020

Throughout the last century, the spirit of the age exhibited a voracious appetite for human life. Medicine became the source for myriad racial enmities and immoral projects catalyzed by ascendant science and reckless medical research that was completely oblivious to the dignity of human life. The contingent bioethical lapses reflected the impact of social Darwinism on an age of physicians who primarily acted as scientists, not healers.

Embracing the Art of Dying in the Church Today

Friday, January 29, 2021

In this essay, I want to provide some practical ways in which Christians can approach the end of their lives both individually and as a believing community. Some of these will be relatively easy to implement; others will both require and lead to drastic changes in our thinking. Once again, these recommendations are largely drawn from Rob Moll’s excellent book The Art of Dying: Living Fully into the Life to Come.[1]

The Importance of Theological Grounding

Thursday, April 1, 2021

Many “in the pews” lack the theological categories needed to respond to the challenges of our MedTech age. Congregants look to the Bible for answers, but the authors of the Bible did not envision a world where babies could be crafted in a lab, tested and rated to determine which is the “best,” and then transferred into someone who may or may not be the biological mother. They did not foresee machines that could keep a person’s heart beating and lungs breathing even though the brain had ceased functioning. They could not comprehend a device that could access the world’s accumulated knowledge and be stored in a pocket.

What Do We Make of the COVID-19 Vaccine?

Friday, April 30, 2021

As more and more of our friends, neighbors, and family members get vaccinated, it occurred to me that it would be helpful to offer some biblical counsel on the topic. As Christians, we must take every thought captive to Christ (2 Cor 10:5) as we consult both God’s Word and His world (i.e., scientific research) to discern whether the COVID-19 vaccine(s) are helpful and wise. To that end, I want to offer a set of biblical touchpoints to consider as you think about this issue.

Transgenderism, Science, and Scripture: A Book Review

Thursday, June 3, 2021

Against such claims, Branch states his thesis as follows: “Transgenderism is not a trait like hair or skin color but is in fact an identity rooted in multiple causes and is completely inconsistent with Christian ethics” (p. 4). However, he is also quick to add an important qualification about his approach: “My goal is to join conviction and compassion in an evaluation of transgenderism. Since the vast majority of us have never experienced gender dysphoria, it can be challenging to understand someone’s subjective experience of this condition” (p. 4).

Chasing Methuselah: Theology, the Body, and Slowing Human Aging

Wednesday, July 21, 2021

In Chasing Methuselah, Todd Daly examines the modern biomedical anti-aging project from a Christian perspective, drawing on the ancient wisdom of the Desert Fathers, who believed that the Incarnation opened a way for human life to regain the longevity of Adam and the biblical patriarchs through prayer and fasting. Daly balances these insights with the christological anthropology of Karl Barth, discussing the implications for human finitude, fear of death, and the use of anti-aging technology, weaving a path between outright condemnation and uncritical enthusiasm. Below is an interview with Daly on his book.

A Discerning Look at Prenatal Testing

Friday, August 20, 2021

Now, an increasing amount of information can be derived through various tests, screenings, and monitoring of the child through its earliest days. For example, genetic tests have become a standard aspect of pregnancy care in medically advanced countries such as the United States.[1] Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing (NIPT) is one such test, and it continues to grow in popularity.[2] Much as going to college is often the assumed next step following high school graduation, prenatal testing is generally accepted as “what you do” when a woman is expecting. It might be prudent, therefore, for Christians to honestly grapple with some of the ethical considerations these tests raise.

You Think What You Consume: Implicit and Explicit Messaging in "The Good Place"

Friday, September 24, 2021

The Good Place is a popular comedy show that follows four humans and their experience in an imagined afterlife where people accumulated points based on their good and bad actions on earth and were then sent to either “the good place” (effectively heaven) or “the bad place” (hell) depending on how they lived. As the main characters experience all that the afterlife has to offer, the show consciously addresses a number of moral and philosophical questions revolving around what it means to be a good person and how one can live a moral life.

Holey, Wholly, Holy Discipleship

Thursday, November 18, 2021

If the risen and glorified Jesus is holey, wholly, holy, and our aim in discipleship is to look more like Him, then how do we disciple in brokenness (holey)? How do we embrace the whole, not simply neurological, person (wholly)? How do we form followers of Christ who look like Him (holy)?

Sanctity of Life Sunday

Sunday, January 16, 2022

The questions regarding the sanctity of human life are complex with developments like this. No longer direct questions of who lives and who dies, but questions like “What does it mean to be human?” Where are the boundaries between the human and the non-human? Where is the line between correcting things that are broken and enhancing abilities and even creating new capabilities?

Review of Ethical Approaches to Preaching

Friday, February 18, 2022

In Ethical Approaches to Preaching: Choosing the Best Way to Preach About Difficult Issues, John S. McClure creates a guide by which preachers can do precisely what the subtitle of the book states—preach about difficult issues. At the core of his premise is the conviction that ethics and theology are interconnected and not different modes of instruction. McClure states: “No matter how interior or transcendent theological ideas may seem, they always harbor implicit or explicit ideas regarding how we ought to live and behave as Christians” (8). Thus, preachers ought to embrace their craft as both a theological and ethical activity.

No Compromise for Christian Bioethics: A Review of the Book Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity

Dignity Vol. 11, No. 1 (Spring 2005)