There is evidence from outside the United Kingdom to show that physicians’ religious beliefs influence their decision making at the end of life. This UK study explores the belief system of consultants, nurse key workers and specialist registrars and their attitudes to decisions which commonly must be taken when caring for individuals who are dying. All consultants ( N = 119), nurse key workers ( N = 36) and specialist registrars ( N = 44) working in an acute hospital in the north-east of England were asked to complete a postal questionnaire. In all, 65% of consultants, 67% of nurse key workers and 41% of specialist registrars responded. Results showed that consultants’ religion and belief systems differed from those of nurses and the population they served. Consultants and nurses had statistically significant differences in their attitudes to common end of life decisions with consultants more likely to continue hydration and not withdraw treatment. Nurses were more sympathetic to the idea of physician-assisted suicide for unbearable suffering. This study shows the variability in belief system and attitudes to end of life decision making both within and between clinical groups. This may have practical implications for the clinical care given and the place of care. The personal belief system of consultants was not shown to affect their overall attitudes to withdrawing life-sustaining treatment or physician-assisted suicide.

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Christian bioethics springs from the worship that is the response of the Church to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Such worship is distinctively political in nature, in that it acknowledges Christ as Lord. Because it is a political worship, it can recognize no other lords and no other prior claims on its allegiance: these include the claims of an allegedly universal ethics and politics determined from outside the Church. However the Church is called not just to be a contrast society, but also to witness to the freeing of the world from salvific pretensions in order that it may embrace its proper temporality. The implications of this for the distinctiveness of Christian bioethics are brought out in three movements: first, the Church's itself learning how it is to conceive bioethics; second, the Church's role in unmasking the idols of secular bioethics; and third, the Church's witnessing to the freeing of medicine from idolatrous aspirations.

Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. IntroductionChristian theology teaches the goodness of the material world, a goodness that was declared in creation, vindicated in the resurrection, and will be fulfilled in the world's redemption. The material world includes the human body, and acceptance of the body as the gift of a good Creator, as something neither to be worshipped nor to be escaped, lies at the heart of Christian thinking about the practice of medicine. It has also grounded a critique of those technological modes of thought characteristic of the modern world that explicitly or implicitly suggest the desirability of disembodiment and celebrate the freedom of the self to live unencumbered by the fatedness of gross matter.The critique of the technological mind-set is extremely attractive, and has rightly received much attention. 1 Nevertheless in its outworking in relation to modern medicine, it runs certain dangers, particularly when it treats of certain experiences, standardly treated as psychiatric disorders, in which people find themselves in some sense alienated from and in conflict with their bodies. The most obvious example of this is the experience of transsexualism, where a person finds himself or herself feeling at odds with his or her anatomical sex. The affirmation of the goodness of the body might suggest that the clinical response must be psychotherapeutic in nature, and must eschew sexual reassignment surgery. 2 Yet the case may not be so straightforward. I will explore this, not through a study of transsexualism, which involves broader questions of sexuality and gender, but through the much more unusual situation in which individuals desire the amputation of a healthy body part. By considering the appropriateness of a surgical remedy for psychological distress in this situation, we may be able

This paper explores the experiences of members of faith groups deciding whether or not to use new reproductive or genetic technologies (NRGTs). It is based on 16 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with people with direct experience of NRGTs. Participants identified as members of Christian or Muslim faith traditions and had been faced with deciding whether or not to make use of novel forms of fertility treatment or genetic testing. The findings show that members of faith groups may experience specific barriers of access, and distinctive ethical difficulties, when considering the use of different forms of NRGTs. Both Christian and Muslim interviewees reported difficulties in obtaining information on the official faith teaching, or found that their faith group had not yet crafted an official position. Participants' needs for information, and the opportunity to discuss the faith implications of their clinical choices, were not being met in either the clinic or the faith setting. This paper concludes that clinics should indicate more clearly their acknowledgement of patients' faith concerns. Appropriate training is needed for both healthcare professionals and chaplains, while faith groups should be encouraged to engage with healthcare providers to ensure that guidance is available to their members. ARTICLE HISTORY