Not infrequently, Christian patients and families provide religious justifications for an insistence on aggressive medical care near the end of life. Four commonly invoked reasons are (1). hope for a miracle, (2). refusal to give up on the God of faith, (3). a conviction that every moment of life is a gift from God and is worth preserving at any cost, and (4). a belief that suffering can have redemptive value. For each of these 4 reasons, however, there are alternative Christian interpretations that point in the direction of limiting medical intervention under certain circumstances. When clinicians believe that an intervention is medically inappropriate or inhumane, they are not necessarily obligated to provide it simply because it is demanded on religious grounds. Instead, clinicians-preferably assisted by chaplains or clergy-should discuss alternative religious interpretations with the patient or family, and should attempt to reach a consensus on the appropriate limits to life-sustaining treatment.
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For the sake of its own enrichment and relevance, Christian anthropology today must be informed by what we are learning from the biosciences, including the theory of biological evolution. The two quite different paradigms of theology and biology should be seen as complementary to each other, with theology recognizing the biological foundation of human nature. This necessitates a repudiation of the traditional body/soul dualism and re-conceptualizing the concept of soul as a metaphorical expression rather than a spiritual entity. It affirms the spiritual dimension of human life that relates us to God and neighbor. Biblical scholarship affirms this psychosomatic, holistic view of the human being.Key Terms: human nature, biological evolution, body/soul dualism, relationship (humans as relational beings), image of God Shaped by EvolutionThe questions, "Who are we?" and "Why are we here?" have been a central part of Christian theology, requiring clear and perceptive answers on the basis of the biblical revelation. A critical factor in answering these questions, however, is the cultural setting which gives form and shape to those answers. Living in a culture that has been profoundly shaped by the scientific and technological revolutions of the modern age, we cannot address these questions without recognizing the impact of the natural sciences, and particularly the biological sciences. The theory of biological evolution stands prominently in the cultural environment in which the Christian theologian works, and consequently must be addressed in any reflections having to do with human nature and identity. 1 This fact is a reminder of the evolving character of theology itself, Paul Jersild is professor emeritus of theology and ethics at Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, Columbia, SC. Among his publications is Spirit Ethics: Scripture and the Moral Life (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2000).
Anticlericalism has been a reality in France for over a millennium. Its current form dates from the beginning of the Enlightenment and can be described as the struggle of an increasingly educated citizenry contending with a clerical refusal to surrender traditional control over key aspects of culture and public life. As such it rose in intensity fairly steadily throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and came to a peak at the beginning of the twentieth with the Dreyfus case, the Association Laws, and separation of church and state. Since then it has gradually moderated. Joseph N. Moody has traced the deepening and broadening intellectual mood of opposition to the church as it is to be found in nineteenth century French literature. Although the genres treated include history and the short story, his emphasis is upon the novel. The examination of many of the luminaries is fairly cursory but Moody devotes a chapter each to Stendahl, Balzac and Anatole France, and an extended analysis of three whole chapters to the literary career of Emile Zola. The intensity of anticlericalism varies, of course, from writer to writer, and from story to story of any particular author. Moody's conclusion is that it was typically the social optimists, those who proclaimed the secular hope of humane republicanism and commitment to science, who gave voice to the strongest anticlericalism. Ironically, as he points out, now that the church is relatively free of the stigma that secular power once brought it, a new indictment of irrelevance and abdication of political and social responsibility is commonly heard.
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