Theology, Disability and the New Genetics

Theology, Disability and the New Genetics
Author: John Swinton
Publisher: Bloomsbury T&T Clark
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2007-08-21
Genre: Religion
ISBN:

A unique text which focuses on the theory and practice of the church, as it engages with the complex issues that are emerging in response to new genetic technology.

A Theological Diagnosis

A Theological Diagnosis
Author: Matt Edmonds
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Total Pages: 210
Release: 2011
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1843109980

Based on the author's thesis (M.Phil.: Cambridge University).

Disability's Challenge to Theology

Disability's Challenge to Theology
Author: Devan Stahl
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
Total Pages: 379
Release: 2022-08-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0268202966

This book uses insights from disability studies to understand in a deeper way the ethical implications that genetic technologies pose for Christian thought. Theologians have been debating genetic engineering for decades, but what has been missing from many theological debates is a deep concern for persons with genetic disabilities. In this ambitious and stimulating book, Devan Stahl argues that engagement with metaphysics and a theology of nature is crucial for Christians to evaluate both genetic science and the moral use of genetic technologies, such as human genetic engineering, gene therapy, genetic screenings, preimplantation genetic diagnosis, and gene editing. Using theological notions of creation ex nihilo and natural law alongside insights from disability studies, the book seeks to recast the debate concerning genetic well-being. Following the work of Stanley Hauerwas, Stahl proposes the church as the locus for reimagining disability in a way that will significantly influence the debates concerning genetic therapies. Stahl’s project in “genethics” proceeds with an acute awareness of her own liberal Protestant tradition’s early embrace of the eugenics movement in the name of scientific and medical advancement, and it constructively engages the Catholic tradition’s metaphysical approach to questions in bioethics to surpass limitations to Protestant thinking on natural law. Christianity has all too frequently been complicit in excluding, degrading, and marginalizing people with disabilities, but the new Christian metaphysics developed here by way of disability perspectives provides normative, theological guidance on the use of genetic technologies today. As Stahl shows in her study, only by heeding the voices of people with disabilities can Christians remain faithful to the call to find Christ in “the least of these” and from there draw close to God. This book will be of interest to scholars in Christian ethics, bioethics, moral theology, and practical theology.

Disability and Christian Theology

Disability and Christian Theology
Author: Deborah Beth Creamer
Publisher: OUP USA
Total Pages: 167
Release: 2009-01-05
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0195369157

This book provides a framework for a new theology of disability which begins with the notion that limits are an unsurprising element of human life. This profoundly challenges common sense categories of disabled and non-disabled and offers significant new images and possibilities for theological reflection and action

Disability and the Gospel

Disability and the Gospel
Author: Michael S. Beates
Publisher: Crossway
Total Pages: 192
Release: 2012-07-31
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1433530481

Michael Beates's concern with disability issues began nearly 30 years ago when his eldest child was born with multiple profound disabilities. Now, as more families like Michael's are affected by a growing number of difficulties ranging from down syndrome to autism to food allergies, the need for church programs and personal paradigm shifts is greater than ever. Working through key Bible passages on brokenness and disability while answering hard questions, Michael offers here helpful principles for believers and their churches. He shows us how to embrace our own brokenness and then to embrace those who are more physically and visibly broken, bringing hope and vision to those of us who need it most.

Well Played

Well Played
Author: Michael R Shafer
Publisher: Lutterworth Press
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2016-03-31
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0718844599

Should we allow performance-enhancing substances in competitive athletics? The first book of its kind, Well Played answers this question by urging us to a deeper appreciation for the purpose of sport. Giving special reference to performance-enhancing substances, Shafer challenges the incompleteness of the ethical arguments and contributes a Christian voice to the discussion. He initiates a theological conversation that is both scholarly and accessible, arguing that a distinctively Christian understandingof sport will have far-reaching implications for how we treat ethical issues like doping. The values, beliefs, and practices within the Christian tradition show an alternative that prioritizes humility and friendship, grace and gratitude over the 'win atall costs' mentality that drives the use of performance-enhancing substances for a competitive advantage. This ground-breaking book ventures into new theological territory as it explores the intersections of theology, philosophy of sport, and the ethics of doping. Theologians, ethicists, and pastors, as well as coaches, athletes, and sports fans will benefit from this book's thoughtful reflection on how Christians can play well in the modern sports culture.

The Anticipatory Corpse

The Anticipatory Corpse
Author: Jeffrey P. Bishop
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
Total Pages: 432
Release: 2011-09-19
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0268075859

In this original and compelling book, Jeffrey P. Bishop, a philosopher, ethicist, and physician, argues that something has gone sadly amiss in the care of the dying by contemporary medicine and in our social and political views of death, as shaped by our scientific successes and ongoing debates about euthanasia and the “right to die”—or to live. The Anticipatory Corpse: Medicine, Power, and the Care of the Dying, informed by Foucault’s genealogy of medicine and power as well as by a thorough grasp of current medical practices and medical ethics, argues that a view of people as machines in motion—people as, in effect, temporarily animated corpses with interchangeable parts—has become epistemologically normative for medicine. The dead body is subtly anticipated in our practices of exercising control over the suffering person, whether through technological mastery in the intensive care unit or through the impersonal, quasi-scientific assessments of psychological and spiritual “medicine.” The result is a kind of nihilistic attitude toward the dying, and troubling contradictions and absurdities in our practices. Wide-ranging in its examples, from organ donation rules in the United States, to ICU medicine, to “spiritual surveys,” to presidential bioethics commissions attempting to define death, and to high-profile cases such as Terri Schiavo’s, The Anticipatory Corpse explores the historical, political, and philosophical underpinnings of our care of the dying and, finally, the possibilities of change. This book is a ground-breaking work in bioethics. It will provoke thought and argument for all those engaged in medicine, philosophy, theology, and health policy.

The Social Contexts of Disability Ministry

The Social Contexts of Disability Ministry
Author: Albert A. Herzog Jr.
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2017-09-29
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1532607717

This book provides pastors, seminarians, and interested laity with the background necessary to understand the need for disability ministry and the contexts out of which the church's ministry among people with disabilities must emerge. This is true not only for descriptions of ministries over the past sixty years, but also the challenges disability poses for biblical studies, church history, Christian theology, and ethics. Insights are gained not only from mainstream secular and religious sources but from evangelical and other conservative materials. The blending of items from different religious resources reveals just how ubiquitous disability is and the need for disability ministry--now and for many years into the future. The book's format is such that either it can serve as a text for courses on disability ministry, or individual chapters can be employed in various courses on selected topics in biblical studies, history, theology, and ethics. Pastors and lay leaders will enjoy the depth of coverage for each topic. This is a book about a serious subject, for serious readers. Its materials are designed to inform, stimulate, and promote disability ministry as a topic worthy of serious study.

The Therapy of the Christian Body

The Therapy of the Christian Body
Author: Brian Brock
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2018-09-27
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 149823352X

The troubles and ills of the church today can only be understood and healed when Christians begin to face up to their hidden alliances with the Corinthians of the first century and embrace both the Apostle’s diagnosis and therapy offered in the epistle. This is the challenge of The Malady and Therapy of the Christian Body, a two-volume commentary by two leading theologians that presents the fruits of a reading strategy that deliberately reflects ecclesial commitment by “reading the Apostle over against ourselves.” Sharing their discoveries about the way Paul deals with questions of factionalism, sexuality, legal conflict, idolatry, dress codes, and eating habits, Brock and Wannenwetsch demonstrate how neither the malady nor the therapy that Paul describes conforms to dominant analyses of the malaise of the contemporary church, which tend to be as “organ centered” as modern medicine. The authors describe the way the Apostle engages in “feeling-into” the organic whole of the body in order to detect blockages to the healthy flow of powers by redirecting their vision to how God is working among them toward the “building up” of the Christian body. The book breaks new ground in crossing the traditional disciplinary boundaries between biblical studies, systematic theology, and theological ethics.

Reconsidering Intellectual Disability

Reconsidering Intellectual Disability
Author: Jason Reimer Greig
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2015-11-02
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1626162441

Drawing on the controversial case of “Ashley X,” a girl with severe developmental disabilities who received interventionist medical treatment to limit her growth and keep her body forever small—a procedure now known as the “Ashley Treatment”—Reconsidering Intellectual Disability explores important questions at the intersection of disability theory, Christian moral theology, and bioethics. What are the biomedical boundaries of acceptable treatment for those not able to give informed consent? Who gets to decide when a patient cannot communicate their desires and needs? Should we accept the dominance of a form of medicine that identifies those with intellectual impairments as pathological objects in need of the normalizing bodily manipulations of technological medicine? In a critical exploration of contemporary disability theory, Jason Reimer Greig contends that L'Arche, a federation of faith communities made up of people with and without intellectual disabilities, provides an alternative response to the predominant bioethical worldview that sees disability as a problem to be solved. Reconsidering Intellectual Disability shows how a focus on Christian theological tradition’s moral thinking and practice of friendship with God offers a way to free not only people with intellectual disabilities but all people from the objectifying gaze of modern medicine. L'Arche draws inspiration from Jesus's solidarity with the "least of these" and a commitment to Christian friendship that sees people with profound cognitive disabilities not as anomalous objects of pity but as fellow friends of God. This vital act of social recognition opens the way to understanding the disabled not as objects to be fixed but as teachers whose lives can transform others and open a new way of being human.