Suffering, meaning, and bioethics.

Suffering evokes moral and metaphysical reflection, the bioethics of suffering concerns the proper ethos of living with suffering. Because empirical and philosophical explorations of suffering are imprisoned in the world of immanent experience, they cannot reach to a transcendent meaning. Even if religious and other narratives concerning the meaning of suffering have no transcendent import, they can have aesthetic and moral significance. This understanding of narratives of suffering and of their custodians has substantial ecumenical implications: chaplains can function as general custodians of narratives and sustainers of a generic religious meaning. This understanding is contrary to traditional Christianity, which discloses a transcendent significance of human suffering found in a very particular history involving particular persons: Christ as the second Adam through the submission of the second Eve has taken on our nature so that we can be united with God. Human suffering is tied to human sin, not simply as a punishment for sin, much less as an opportunity to discharge a supposed temporal punishment due to sin. Human suffering is the result of our rebellious free choices. It provides an opportunity for humility and submission, so that, united to the cross of Christ, sin can be forgiven and suffering set aside in the Resurrection. Knowledge of this framing context for all human suffering is accessible not through rational argument. It is a knowledge garnered through repentance, purification of the heart, illumination by God's grace, and unification with God. Christian bioethics is embedded in the narrative of suffering, which is part of the history of salvation and which encompasses and places all of medicine in its terms.     

Eschatological Images of Prophet and Priest in Edward Schillebeeckx's Theology of suffering for Others

Eschatological images of Jesus as found in Jewish and Christian texts constitute the foundation of Edward Schillebeeckx’s positive orientation to suffering for others. Jewish prototypes provided the early Christians with an understanding of Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection as the advent of the eschaton. The pre‐existing biblical figures, which early Jewish Christians appropriated in the aftermath of the devastating crucifixion, provided traditional categories through which the life and death of Jesus could be meaningfully interpreted. Jesus as the eschatological prophet‐martyr and Jesus as the suffering, eschatological high priest of the Epistle to the Hebrews are the most prominent and complex of the ancient figures. In Schillebeeckx’s analysis, each of the two composite titles ascribed to Jesus is an amplification of a prophetic or priestly prototype. The use of both models is predicted on Jesus’ compassionate and redemptive response to suffering – healing the sick, comforting the bereaved, giving hope to the oppressed, and proclaiming eschatological salvation. Schillebeeckx’s historical‐critical investigation of Jesus’ perception of his anticipated death, as revealed in the Last supper narrative, and his analysis of the meaning ascribed to the crucifixion in primitive Christianity establish the basis for a theology of redemptive suffering in the early church. Schillebeeckx has critically examined three pre‐New Testament interpretations applied to Jesus’ crucifixion: (1) the death of the eschatological prophet‐martyr in the Deuteronomic tradition of the prophets whose proclamations were typically misjudged by Israel; (2) the fulfilment of the divine scheme of salvation through the suffering of the ‘righteous one’, who is ultimately exonerated by God; and (3) a vicarious, atoning sacrifice (the Jewish prototype that later influenced Anselm’s substitution theory). The interpretative categories examined by Schillebeeckx with respect to the crucifixion are closely related to the biblical images upon which his theology of suffering is based.     

Towards a Christian bioethics.

Rather than revealing itself as a single, unified, ecumenical faith, Christianity is sundered with Christians united neither in one communion nor in one baptism. Christian Bioethics seeks to examine the traditional content-full moral commitments which the Christian faiths bring to life, sexuality, suffering, illness and death within the contexts of medicine and health care. Seeking to understand the differences which separate the bioethics of Roman Catholics, Protestants, and the Orthodox, Christian Bioethics explores the manners in which the faiths diverge. The failure of the Enlightenment project to disclose a content-full communality that would bind mankind has left much to be reconsidered by Christians who face new ethical dilemmas in the novel guise of advances in health care technologies.     

Moral philosophy and theology: why is there so little difference for Roman Catholics?

The cardinal question in Christian moral theory and bioethics is whether the knowledge that Christians have (1) by grace and (2) by revelation (e.g., regarding the character of human and cosmic history as reaching from creation through the Incarnation and the Redemption to the Second Coming and the restoration of all things) makes a crucial contribution to understanding morality, as for example issues such as the good death and the morality of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia. This article argues that such a contribution is made by grace and revelation. The reduction of Roman Catholic moral theology and bioethics to secular bioethics is explored, as well as the necessity of the unique knowledge possessed by Christians for adequate end-of-life decision-making.     

How philosophy and theology have undermined bioethics.

This essay begins by distinguishing among the viewpoints of philosophy, theology, and religion; it then explores how each deals with "sin" in the bioethical context. The conclusions are that the philosophical and theological viewpoints are intellectually defective in that they cripple our ability to deal with normative issues, and are in the end unable to integrate Christian concepts like "sin" successfully into bioethics. Sin is predicated only of beings with free will, though only in Western Christianity must all sins be committed with knowledge and voluntarily. Without the notions of free will, sin, and a narrative of redemption, bioethics remains unable to provide itself with an adequate normative framework. Bioethics, and morality in general, remain a morass precisely because there has been a failure to translate Christian morality into fully secular and scientistic terms.     

Bioethics and Christian Theology

The authors of this essay suggest that the field of bioethics and Christian theology have a great deal to offer to each other. The authors first argue that representatives from both fields must first make sure that they fully and correctly represent their respective position. In other words, scientists, ethicists, and theologians alike must make sure that they present their fields and not use their knowledge merely for personal gain at the stake of misguiding people. Once this is established, the authors then proceed to show the intimate relationship between Christianity and medicine that has existed throughout the ages. It is a call for a continuation of such a relationship that the authors suggest between bioethics and theology. Through an integration of bioethics and Christian theology, both scientists/physicians and theologians are able to gain greater insight into the human person—a focus in both fields.     

Natural death and the work of perfection.

The historic or traditional Christian view of pain (suffering) and death, especially as preserved by the Christians East (i.e., the Orthodox), is radically opposed to the modern secular obsession with avoidance of pain. Everything about this life has its goal or aim in a mystical reality, the Kingdom of Heaven, for which earthly life is a preparation. While neither illness nor health are seen as ends in themselves, both are viewed as proceeding from the will of God for our benefit and have no ultimate meaning or purpose outside of eternal life. Death may be a relief or an ending of suffering, but in itself it is not "good" but evil. Because they are the embodiment of lived theology, saints' lives can be a sure guide to understanding how to die as a traditional Christian. To illustrate this, I have chosen some examples from the lives of relatively recent saints. I myself am from the Russian Orthodox spiritual tradition, so all but one of my examples come from pre-Revolutionary Russia. The question is not so much whether or not a traditional Christian can countenance physician-assisted suicide, but rather, what is the meaning or purpose of pain and suffering in general. Is it part of the "work of perfection" required of those who wish to enter the Kingdom of Heaven and therefore not to be completely denied?     

Christian Supersessionism,Zionism, and the Contemporary Scene

Postliberal theology has been a topic of considerable theological debate over the past few decades. In his 2011 book Another Reformation, Peter Ochs deploys a postliberal theological model for the purpose of developing a sophisticated understanding of the future of interreligious relations. Ochs argues that postliberal theology is a reparative theology focusing on alleviating human suffering. He argues that the Christian idea of supersessionism may be the most challenging for Christians to confront as they explore avenues for making interreligious dialogue more effective. Ochs critiques the Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder's understanding of Zionism as Jewish Constantianism for being an instance of an ostensibly postliberal theology losing its way. In this essay, I offer a critique of Ochs's reading of Yoder, claiming that Yoder's view actually mirrors an important intra‐Jewish debate about the relationship between political power and piety, and retrieves an ingenious contribution of both early Judaism and early Christianity that is effaced in today's growing Constantinian approach to Christian imperialism and Jewish nationalism.     

The Challenge of Religious Pluralism: The Association Between Interfaith Contact and Religious Pluralism

This research contributes to increasing understanding of the ways in which Christians think about religious pluralism in the United States. It does so by empirically uncovering the relationship between inter-faith contact and the willingness of white Christians to support tenets of religious pluralism. To that end, this study largely intimates that religious identity reinforces a dualistic world view. For white Christians, it is likely that contact with Jews and not Muslims is salient to their religious pluralist understandings. Nonetheless, more so than other Christians, Evangelicals tend to embrace a theology that views their belief system as being in conflict and competition with non-Christians. To that end, it is plausible that even when Christians have positive contact experiences with Jews and Muslims, Evangelicals are less willing than are other Christians to recognize them as members of the American religious polity.     

Bioethics, Christian charity and the view from no place.

This essay contrasts the notions of charity employed by Traditional Christianity and by liberal cosmopolitan bioethics, arguing that: (1) bioethics attempts to reconstruct the notion of charity in a manner that is caustic to the Traditional Christian moral vision, (2) Christians are, on the whole, more charitable than proponents of bioethics' reconstructed view (even given the standards of the latter), and (3) the theistically oriented conception of charity employed by Traditional Christianity cannot be expressed in bioethics' purportedly neutral public vocabulary. The upshot is that, in the name of neutrality and pluralism, liberal cosmopolitan bioethicists seek to impose an impoverished moral vocabulary that reflects liberal cosmopolitan ideology while excluding input from Traditional Christianity and other non-liberal-humanistic moral visions.     

K. H. TING'S CONTRIBUTION TO THE CONTEXTUALIZATION OF CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA

The spirituality and theology of Chinese Protestant believers and pastors is rooted in the profoundly conservative Evangelical‐revivalist and Pietistic missionary background of the Chinese church. Bishop K. H. Ting (b. 1915), the most prominent church leader and theologian of the Protestant church of China during the last decades, intends to broaden the narrow theological scope of the Chinese Christians. He emphasizes Trinitarian theology, natural theology, the theology of creation, and ethical principles common to all human beings. On the basis of these concepts, Ting attempts to find points of contact between the Christian faith, on the one hand, and traditional Chinese culture and modern secular Chinese society, on the other. Some critics of K. H. Ting claim that he is trying to introduce into Chinese Christianity liberal theological views which would eventually destroy some of the main pillars of the Evangelical faith. The present essay argues that this, in fact, is not the case; rather, K. H. Ting speaks for theological perspectives which belong to the theological mainstream, the ecumenical heritage of classical theology commonly accepted by a large number of both Protestant and Catholic theologians. Moreover, the essay points out that the contextualization of Christianity in China has been successful in adapting the Christian faith and life to the social, historical, and political context where the Chinese Christians live today. But the cultural aspect of contextualization, or inculturation, is just in the beginning. Younger Chinese theologians have a great challenge in facing the question: How to relate the Gospel of Jesus Christ to five thousand years of Chinese cultural experience, and how to connect this with various global cultural, economic, and other influences which so deeply affect the life of all people on this planet?     

A Search for a Theology of Life

The COVID-19 pandemic offers the opportunity for theological meditation on several themes: life, death, illness, loneliness, fear, human relations, suffering, and social responsibility. This article addresses these themes only briefly, aiming not to build a systematic theological reflection but to share honest thoughts and concerns. Perhaps in our postmodern times we need, not so much theological certainties, but a theology that accompanies human life. Life and death are the only certainties, regardless of our worldview, perceptions, and theological convictions. The current global crisis has illuminated our shortcomings, failures, and disbeliefs on different levels. As Christians, we are united today also around our weakness, grief, and the loss of “normality.” We are challenged, together with the rest of humanity. Could this be a God-given opportunity for renewal in our theology and church life?     

Sin and the Limits of Theology: A Reflection in Conversation with Julian of Norwich and Martin Luther

While the confession of divine transcendence entails that all theological speech faces intrinsic limits, the problem of sin brings theology’s limits into focus in a very particular way. For while Christians confess that God has been uniquely and unsurpassably revealed in Jesus Christ, insofar as they do not claim that even this revelation explains the place of sin in the divine economy, the ongoing mystery of sin and evil presents the theologian with a stark alternative. On the one hand, if the grace of God revealed in Christ is emphasized, less attention will be given to the mystery of sin that remains hidden in God; on the other, if theologians emphasize what is hidden, the light of Christ will be obscured. This article explores the tension between these two alternatives with reference to the Showings of Julian of Norwich and Martin Luther’s Bondage of the Will.     

Between morality and repentance: recapturing "sin" for bioethics.

Distinguishing within "sin" the dimensions of anomia, hamartia, and asthenia makes it possible to analyze in greater detail the contrary manners in which traditional and post-traditional Christianities in this issue of Christian Bioethics endeavor to recapture what was lost when secular bioethics reconstructed the specifically spiritual-context-oriented normative commitments of Christianity in one-dimensionally moral terms. Various post-traditional attempts at securing moral orientation and resources for forgiveness, both of which secular bioethics finds increasingly difficult to provide, are critically reviewed. Their engagement of secular moral concepts and concerns, and even their adoption of an academically philosophical posture and language, is presented as responsible for their failure to adequately preserve what in traditional Christianity would count as prohibited vs. permitted, and advisable vs. non-advisable, or what would allow to resolve "tragic conflicts." The deeper reason for this failure lies in post-traditional Christianity's restricting the Christian life (with its central tension between love and the law) to what can be captured by cognitive categories. As the survey of several traditionally Christian accounts of sin in bioethics makes clear, both moral orientation (along with the resolution of "tragic" conflicts) and the sources of forgiveness are available, once that Christian life is framed in terms of persons' spirit-supported practical involvement in ascesis and liturgy, and once bioethical reflections are situated in the experiential context of such involvement.     

Chinese exploration of Orthodox theology: a critical review

ABSTRACT

In spite of the small number of Orthodox Christians in China, Chinese publications relating to Orthodox Christianity, in which many Chinese theologians from other Christian denominations or scholars without formal religious affiliation have been involved in exploring Orthodox theology, have mushroomed in recent years. It is noticeable that these explorations have been shaped not only by the renaissance of Orthodox theology in the twentieth century, but also by the Chinese context. In terms of scope, many of them are related to the Chinese context, including the relationship between Christianity and Chinese culture. In terms of depth, due to the religious backgrounds of the researchers, some of these Chinese explorations fail to integrate the theological, liturgical and spiritual dimensions of the Orthodox tradition, and exhibit difficulties in interpreting, for instance, Orthodox mystical theology. These limitations can be overcome through dialogue with contemporary Orthodox theologians.     

Christian bioethics as non-ecumenical.

A community's morality depends on the moral premises, rules of evidence, and rules of inference it acknowledges, as well as on the social structure of those in authority to rule knowledge claims in or out of a community's set of commitments. For Christians, who is an authority and who is in authority are determined by Holy Tradition, through which in the Mysteries one experiences the Holy Spirit. Because of the requirement of repentance and conversion to the message of Christ preserved in the Tradition, the authority of the community must not only exclude heretical teaching but heretical communities from communion. Understanding Christian bioethics requires a focus on the content of that bioethics in terms of its social context within a right-believing, right-worshipping community. Christian bioethics should be non-ecumenical by recognizing that true moral knowledge has particular moral content, is communal, and is not fully available outside of the community of right worship. The difficulty with Roman Catholicism's understandings of bioethics lies not just in its continued inordinate accent on the role of reason apart from repentance (as well as in its defining novel doctrines), but in Roman Catholicism's not recognizing that the contemporary, post-Christian age is in good measure the consequence of its post-Vatican II failure to call for a return to the traditional pieties and asceticisms of the Fathers so that all might know rightly concerning the requirements of Christian bioethics.     

The Problem of Criteria and the Necessity of Natural Theology

Most streams of Christianity have emphasized the unknowability of God, but they have also asserted that Christ is the criterion through whom we may have limited access to the depths of God, and through whose life and death we can formulate the doctrine of God as Triune. This standpoint, however, leads to certain complications regarding ‘translating’ the Christian message to adherents of other religious traditions, and in particular the question, ‘Why do you accept Christ as the criterion?’, is one that Christian thinkers have attempted to answer in different ways. There are two influential responses to this query in recent Christian thought: an ‘evidentialist’ approach which gradually moves from a theistic metaphysics to a Christ‐centred soteriology, and an ‘unapologetic’ standpoint which takes God's self‐disclosure in Christ as the perspectival lens through which to view the world. The opposition between these two groups is primarily over the status of ‘natural theology’, that is, whether we may speak of a ‘natural’ reason, which human beings possess even outside the circle of the Christian revelation, and through which they may arrive at some minimalist understanding of the divine reality. I outline the status of ‘natural theology’ in these strands of contemporary Christian thought, from Barthian ‘Christomonism’ to post‐liberal theology to Reformed epistemology, and suggest certain problems within these standpoints which indicate the need for an appropriately qualified ‘natural theology’. Most of the criticisms leveled against ‘natural theology’, whether from secular philosophers or from Christian theologians themselves, can be put in two groups: first, the arguments for God's existence are logically flawed, and, second, even if they succeed they do not point to the Triune God that Christians worship. In contrast to such an old‐fashioned ‘natural theology’ which allegedly starts from premises self‐evidently true for all rational agents and leads through an inexorable logic to God, the qualified version is an attempt to spell out the doctrinal beliefs of Christianity such as the existence of a personal God who interacts with human beings in different ways, and outline the reasons offered in defence of such statements. In other words, without denying that Christian doctrines operate at one level as the grammatical rules which structure the Christian discourse, such a natural theology insists on the importance of the question of whether these utterances are true, in the sense that they refer to an objective reality which is independent of the Christian life‐world. Such a ‘natural theology’, as the discussion will emphasize, is not an optional extra but follows in fact from the internal logic of the Christian position on the universality of God's salvific reach.     

Solution-Focused Brief Therapy and the Kingdom of God: A Cosmological Integration

The core cosmological dimension of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) and Christianity emphasizes a similar truth—the future is now. As humans live in their preferred realities, they experience the future, problem free solution for their lives from a SFBT perspective. The Christian tradition emphasizes the in-breaking Kingdom of God beginning with the Christ event. The end has entered the now. However, the final consummation of the end-times is still as yet in the future which means that sin and death are part of the world. This Christian understanding of sin and fallenness provides humility to SFBT’s inherently positive view of the world (Bidwell, D. R. Am J of Pastor Couns, 3:3–21, 1999), while SFBT encourages Christians to see the kingdom of God in the now instead of the future.     

Love for the Neighbour as Lived Theology

The aim of this article is to identify the theological potential for interreligious relations as embodied in the everyday life of ordinary Christians in South India. The empirical study that underlies the discussion is based on interviews with lay churchgoers and pastors from Pentecostal and mainline Protestant churches in Bangalore. The beliefs they articulate, as well as the practices they carry out in their daily lives, are defined as their lived theology. This is analyzed through the terminological framework of theology in four voices. Interviewees express beliefs that emphasize the superiority of Christianity over other religions and the importance of evangelism. Nevertheless, in everyday life they prioritize respect for religious others and maintenance of relationships with them over sharing an exclusivist message about Christ. Their lived theology emphasizes relatedness across religious boundaries and the priority of showing love for the neighbour in practice.