Widows, women, and the bioethics of care.

Widows, women, and the bioethics of care must be understood within an authentic Christian ontology of gender. Men are men and women are women, and their being is ontologically marked in difference. There is an ontology of gender with important implications for the role of women in the family and the Church. The Christian Church has traditionally recognized a role for widows, deaconesses, and female monastics, which is not that of the liturgical priesthood, but one with a special relationship to care and therefore with particular implications for health care and a Christian bioethics of care in the twenty-first century. In the shadow of early male mortality, women as wives should turn to support their husbands and as widows to support those in need. Widows, in becoming authentic Christian monastics, can bring into the world an icon of rightly ordered women providing rightly ordered Christian care for those in need. They can enter the moral vacuum created by misunderstandings of the place of women and the service vacuum created by a disappearance of religious nuns in Western health care facilities with a presence that is at one with the Church of the Fathers.     

Why do we want to be healthy? Medicine, autonomous individualism, and the community of faith

Understanding health as empowerment to meet particular goals, we can distinguish a goal of Enlightenment individualism from a goal of creaturely dependent, as affirmed by the Christian community of faith. So argues Dennis Sansom, who traces many of the ethical problems in medical treatment to Enlightenment assumptions about health, and who therefore calls us back to distinctively Christian principles as the foundations for our conception of health and for ethical medical practice.     

Discovering Jesus Anew

In light of the political and ritual abuse of religion in India today, this article underlines the importance of Christian women’s engagement with women of all faiths to resist discrimination and violence. The Indian Christian Women’s Movement draws on Jesus’ liberative practice and teaching as women find creative and subversive ways to strengthen Christian women’s solidarity with women of other faiths. While all faith traditions carry embedded patriarchal biases that have been used to legitimize the second-class status of women, they also have streams of liberation motifs. The article employs a feminist epistemology to reconstruct dominant theological motifs and assumptions based on an ethic of care, compassion, and mutuality in relationships.     

Reclaiming alterity: strangeness and the queering of Islam in medieval and early modern Spain

ABSTRACT

This essay argues for the reclamation of radical alterity or the intentional embracing of difference/otherness/strangeness by Muslims as a location of solidarity with marginalized communities, who have been historically ostracized due to sexuality. As the initial social location of Islam vis-á-vis medieval and early modern Christendom, the rehabilitation of Muslim alterity/otherness today serves as a location for solidarity with other marginalized groups such as members of the LGBTQ community. The chosen historical timeframe of medieval and early modern Spain helps to situate this conversation both inside and on the fringes of European Christendom. This essay seeks to accomplish this by mining both Muslim and Christian sources in medieval and early modern Iberia with special attention being paid to discourses located at the intersections of Islamophobia and sexuality. The texts discussed allow for a more thorough investigation of Muslim alterity in the Iberian context, while serving as a launch point for deeper discussions of contemporary religious and sexual hierarchies.     

Contemporary ethics from an ambiguous past.

Kaveny recommends models drawn from the Gospel of John and the practices of the early church for modern Christians in their response to older women and their health needs. She draws upon a historical reconstruction of the early Christian Order of Widows to propose a normative standard of care for elderly women, one that attends seriously to their bodily needs but also to their needs for inclusion and engagement in the social and vocational world both as givers and recipients of care. This is also to serve as an overarching model for a bioethics that prizes the embodied existence of all women and rejects judgments of appropriate treatment based on their social utility. The following response raises questions about the exegetical and historical foundations of Kaveny's analysis. However, these caveats may not detract substantially from the normative usefulness of her work.     

The bioethics of care: widows, monastics, and a Christian presence in health care.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, with vocations to the Christian religious orders of the West in marked decline, an authentic Christian presence in health care is threatened. There are no longer large numbers of women willing to offer their life labors bound in vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, so as to provide a real preferential option for the poor through supporting an authentic Christian mission in health care. At the same time, the frequent earlier death of men leaves a large number of widows, some in need of care and some able to provide care. Drawing on the role of widows sketched in 1 Timothy 2, one can envision Christian widows entering a life of prayer and service in health care settings. As female monastics, such widows could reintroduce a salient Christian presence in health care. How one ties this response to the message of 1 Timothy 2 will depend on one's understanding of the status of Scripture, the significance of tradition, the nature of theological epistemology, the meaning of theology, the nature of the Church, and the ontology of gender. The position taken on these issues will define the character of a Christian bioethics of care.     

Witnessing Whiteness in the Ethics of Hauerwas

Despite constituting one of the most pressing ethical issues of our time, most white Christian ethicists and theologians fail to engage the issue of white supremacy in their work. As one of the most influential and prolific Christian ethicists of the past half‐century, Stanley Hauerwas represents this tendency, and provides specific reasons for his silence. This essay analyzes those reasons, and argues that a commitment to Alasdair MacIntyre’s understandings of tradition and narrative frames his view on race and prevents his engagement of racism. It then highlights the ways this reflects the broader trends of silence, abstraction, and colorblindness among white Christian ethicists when it comes to the issue. Identifying these failures, the essay concludes by suggesting that Hauerwas’s first published essay in 1969, on Black Power, provides resources for theologically engaging the problems of white supremacy today.     

Sin,narcissism, and the changing face of conversion

Noting that current psychological discussions of conversion give far less attention to the sense of sin than did William James and his contemporaries, this article argues for renewed attention to sin and its role in the conversion experience. Using data from a survey of Christian laity on their attitudes toward the traditional deadly sins, the author concludes that the sins that trouble men and women today involve their narcissistic needs. As many seek relief from the tyranny of their narcissistic needs, the author contends that what would constitute conversion for them is the transformation of narcissism. Typical candidates for such conversion are adults, not adolescents.     

The Lost Voice: How Libertarianism and Consumerism Obliterate the Need for a Relational Ethics in the National Health Care Service

This article analyzes the contribution Christian ethics mightbe able to make to the ethical debate on policy and caregivingin health and social care in the United Kingdom. The articledeals particularly with the concepts of solidarity and subsidiaritywhich are essential in Christian social ethics and health careethics, and which may be relevant for the ethical debate onhealth and social caregiving in the United Kingdom. An importantargument in the article is that utilitarian and market-drivenpolicies in the National Health Service (NHS) and the socialcare system have marginalized the position of the elderly andhave seriously impoverished the quality of care for the elderly.The neglect of the elderly and other vulnerable groups is alsothe result of widespread consumerist attitudes among patientsand of libertarian models of noninterference which are affirmedby a public ethos of self-sufficiency and counter-dependency.Those who need care dare not make their need known to othersand ask for help, while simultaneously those who could helpare so intimidated by the public affirmation of privacy andnegative rights that they do not dare to offer help except ifthis is explicitly demanded. This distant and standoffish attitudeis in an important way responsible for the fact that the voiceof those in need is altogether lost to the public forum. Christianethics puts much emphasis on responsibility and solidarity withthe needy other but is not able to have much impact on the deliveryof care in a secularized society and health care system likethe NHS. Nonetheless, Christianity still has a powerful andrespected voice, by speaking up for those who cannot speak forthemselves, such as the elderly and the handicapped. Christianscan find allies in the ethics of care and other relational approachesin health care ethics in order to combat libertarianism, consumerism,and utilitarianism.     

Collective Resistance as Prophetic Witness

Authentic Christian witness today, marked by the mission from the margins, must engage communities of the marginalized at the structural level through collective solidarity resistance. This article first examines social structures themselves and their capacity to enhance or denigrate human dignity. Inherited structures of oppression can be identified and addressed. Christian witness has a particular exigence for and role in identifying and resisting oppressive structures for the sake of justice. Prophetic witness to kingdom values–saying no to unjust systems–involves joining with victims in active resistance through local and global mobilization for social change and celebration of life.     

Representing God's Presence

The article tackles two myths: the modern myth that God has vanished from human life, and the religious myth that the apostles, patriarchs, mystics and martyrs were in a more privileged position vis-´-vis God than we are. Dalferth argues that God has never been more present than today, has never been less hidden than today, and develops the thessis that the importance of God being present is central to the Christian understanding of God. Christian faith is faith in a present reality, not a set of beliefs about past events. The implications of this for the task of Christian communication are clear: the prime interest of Christian communication is to help those to whom it is addressed to develop a sense of the presence of God.     

Christianity and Feminism: Do they need each other?

Abstract

This article presents personal reflections on the relationship between Christianity and feminism. It argues that Christian ideas have influenced the historical development of feminism, and that there exists a continuing affinity between some debates of the contemporary secular women's movement and those of committed Christian feminists. It presents an historical example front the nineteenth century which shows how Christian and early feminist ideas were combined in the work of Florence Nightingale. It then discusses the global empowerment of women in relation to the challenge and opportunity this poses for the Christian churches, and reflects on the wisdom of women as an important source for Christian renewal. The article argues that Christianity and feminism both challenge and need each other for mutual transformation. Without a rightly understood feminism Christianity will not remain true to its own nature and, without Christianity or rather without religion and spirituality, feminism will lack an essential source of empowerment. It also raises the question of what difference the participation of women will make to the future of Christian theology.     

Publicly Accessible Intuitions: "Neutral Reasons" and Bioethics

This article examines Leon Kass's contention that a choice forphysician-assisted suicide is "undignified." Although Kass isJewish rather than Christian, he argues for positions that mostChristians share, and he argues for these positions withoutpresupposing the truth of specific religious claims. I arguethat although Kass has some important intuitions, he too readilyassumes that these intuitions will be shared by his audience,and that this assumption diminishes the force of his argument.An examination of the limitations of Kass's argument is helpfulinsofar as it illustrates the real challenge faced by religiousbelievers who wish to defend their beliefs in the "public forum."For it illustrates that what needs to be made "accessible" isthe Judeo-Christian understanding of man and his place in theworld. While I do not wish to claim that this task is impossible,I do think that it is far more difficult than most realize.Like all important tasks, however, unless we wrestle with thedifficulties it raises, our arguments will strike many as unconvincing.     

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF "HOME" TO OLDER WIDOWS

Elderly widows are increasingly choosing to remain alone in their homes following the deaths of their husbands. For a number of reasons they are a more vulnerable group than married older women, and thus were expected to have less positive attitudes toward being homeowners. In the present study widows (N = 70) who live alone were compared to married women (N = 74) who who lived with only their husbands. Both groups lived in single-family dwellings. Subjects responded to an empirically derived Likert-type scale which measures four factors relating to "attachment to hom". Results indicated that widows had significantly higher scores on the Traditional Family Orientation factor and on the Competence in a Familiar Environment factor. One explanation of these findings is that the home may take on new meanings for widows as they reflect on earlier family experiences or as they discover that they can competently manage an independent lifestyle for themselves.     

PHILOSOPHY AS A FEMINIST SPIRITUALITY AND CRITICAL PRACTICE FOR MARY ASTELL

The question of how gender might inflect and affect philosophy as a way of life has been somewhat neglected, as has the role of philosophical modes of living for historical female philosophers. This essay draws on Michel Foucault’s multifaceted, Hadot-inspired conception of philosophy to show how transformative philosophical practices of the self function as feminist praxis in the work of the early modern feminist philosopher Mary Astell. Philosophy in Astell’s texts, the essay argues, is a spiritual practice of the self that at the same time functions as a feminist critique both of sexist social structures and of the self that undertakes the practice. It facilitates women in achieving internal freedom. Finally, the essay discusses potential feminist concerns about Astell’s proposed philosophical way of living, before suggesting that it may have value for women today.     

Coercion,Care, and Corporations: Omissions and Commissions in Thomas Pogge's Political Philosophy

This article argues that Thomas Pogge's important theory of global justice does not adequately appreciate the relation between interactional and institutional accounts of human rights, along with the important normative role of care and solidarity in the context of globalization. It also suggests that more attention needs to be given critically to the actions of global corporations and positively to introducing democratic accountability into the institutions of global governance. The article goes on to present an alternative approach to global justice based on a more robust conception of human rights grounded in a conception of equal positive freedom, in which these rights are seen to apply beyond the coercive political institutions to which Pogge primarily confines them (e.g. to prohibiting domestic violence), and in which they can guide the development of economic, social and political forms to enable their fulfillment.     

In the world but not of it: managing the conflict between Christian and institution.

Christian physicians, nurses and other health care workers must manage a daily conflict of conscience between their Christian faith and predominantly secular health care institutions. This essay examines various efforts for managing these conflicts: a turn towards social justice or a seeking of holiness. Seeking social justice, however, is theologically empty. Traditionally, the Christian requirement that we be "in this world but not of it" requires a journey along a narrow path to holiness. Christian medical morality must, therefore, be understood within this light. However, just as there cannot be generic health care, but rather health care for a particular person's needs and problems there cannot be generic holiness, but only a holiness grounded in worshiping God rightly. In so worshiping the Christian will be assisted in negotiating the inescapable and perilous vocation of being in the world but not of it.     

Women's new liberty of decision with regard to motherhood

Homologous (spouse) versus heterologous (anonymous donor) artificial insemination, which began in the 1950s, extracorporeal conception, in-vitro fertilization (test tube babies), and implantation of embryos in surrogate mothers are described. A government committee was formed to discuss medical, legal and ethical questions and to establish professional and medical guidelines. The status attached to motherhood in a modern emancipated society is given a fair evaluation. 30% of all sterility cases in women are assumed to derive from psychogenic factors and may be solved through psychoanalytic therapy. Hidden emotional motivations, negative or positive, may explain a willingness to put up with cost-intensive and time-consuming trials needed for extracorporeal conception. Sometimes subconscious aggression against the mate may trigger a decision for choosing heterologous conception. Women today have found a mighty ally in modern medicine which renders them virtually independent any specific male partner if they wish to become pregnant. Various degrees of emotional bonds exposed by mothers toward their artificially conceived babies are related to certain maternal archetypes. The prospect of a mother feeling thrill, awe and a sense of magic toward her newborn baby in spite of the blase "make-a-child" attitude that modern biotechnology might confer, is assessed optimistically.