Reclaiming the Body: Christians and the Faithful Use of Modern Medicine » (ANN)

Joel Shuman (Ph.D., Duke University) teaches moral theology at King's College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. He is a frequent public speaker, the author of numerous articles about theology and medicine, and coauthor of Heal Thyself: Spirituality, Medicine, and the Distortion of Christianity.

Brian Volck, M.D., is a pediatrician. He teaches an elective on literature and medicine at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, and his essays, narrative nonfiction, and poetry have appeared in such publications as DoubleTake, America, and St. Anthony Messenger.

We live in an age of incredible medical technology, and with it, a great emphasis on health and well-being. We fully entrust the care of our bodies to the medical profession, often taking its solutions and judgments as gospel. But what role, if any, should our Christian faith play in all this?

In Reclaiming the Body, a physician and a theologian take a critical look at some of the assumptions we draw from the medical profession and explore what theology has to say about medicine, our bodies, our health, and the Body of Christ. The authors deal with such issues as suffering, caring for the sick, children and reproductive technologies, medicine and the poor, our obsession with physical perfection, and death and dying.

Publishers Weekly

Shuman, an ethicist, and Volck, a pediatrician, are on a mission to persuade Christians to stop worshiping the medical establishment and to start "using medicine as if God mattered." It is easy to put medicine in the place that only God should occupy: "The medical project of controlling life and defeating death is attractive... because a denial of our own mortalities and a desire to be in control is very near the center of our own disordered desires." Christian theology, however, teaches that "because we come from God, belong to God, and are destined finally to return to God, we need not fight without restraint to control all the circumstances of our existence, or to preserve our lives as they near their end." As they develop this theme through literature, contemporary stories and theological reflection, the authors affirm the goodness of the human body, the importance of the church as the gathered body of Christ and the necessity of hospitality toward the world's helpless and suffering. Brilliantly reasoned and artfully written, this quotable book should reach well beyond its obvious market of medical and spiritual caregivers to engage anyone concerned about human values in a technological age. (Feb.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.