Daniel E. Fountain Thirty years on mission in Central Africa changed Dr. Daniel Fountain’s thinking about his professional training, about current medical practice overseas and at home, and about the responsibility of the entire Christian community to promote health initiatives. Digging into biblical precepts and patterns, he has developed a theology of human wellness that […]

John Kilner Kilner explores what the Bible itself teaches about humanity being in God’s image. He discusses in detail all of the biblical references to the image of God, interacts extensively with other work on the topic, and documents how misunderstandings of it have been so problematic. People made according to God’s image, Kilner says, […]

“Hauerwas, professor of ethics at Duke’s Divinity School and an authority on biomedical ethics, has written a consensus-shattering volume. Arguing forcefully for a radical reexamination of the assumptions of personal freedom, self-determination, and the utilitarian “bottom line” that pervade current bioethical decision making, he demonstrates how profoundly medicine and theology are intertwined when we address […]

Hans S. Reinders Does what we are capable of doing define us as human beings? If this basic anthropological assumption is true, where can that leave those with intellectual disabilities, unable to accomplish the things that we propose give us our very humanity? Hans Reinders here makes an unusual claim about unusual people: those who […]

Peter Greer and Chris Horst “Keeping an eternal perspective is essential in our work. Mission Drift gives a clear message inspiring and challenging us to intentionally keep Christ at the center of all efforts. As Paul commands us, ‘Whatever you do, whether in  word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord […]

James K. A. Smith A wonderful book that tries to speak to both academic and popular audiences. Addressing themes like the theology of culture, liturgy, and formation, Smith argues that what we love determines how we live our day to day lives and the “liturgies” that accompany this. Ultimately, it is these habits and practices […]

“Modern medicine has tended to look back to Hippocrates and Galen as the only ancient source and inspiration of modern medical practice. But this presents a very incomplete picture. As one physician pointed out,” – Morton T. Kelsey Get this book.

Drawing on New Testament studies and recent scholarship on the expansion of the Christian church, Gary B. Ferngren presents a comprehensive historical account of medicine and medical philanthropy in the first five centuries of the Christian era. From Publisher Get this book.

In Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church, top-selling author and Anglican bishop, N.T. Wright tackles the biblical question of what happens after we die and shows how most Christians get it wrong. We do not “go to” heaven; we are resurrected and heaven comes down to earth–a difference […]

In recent years, a movement stressing a causal relationship between spirituality and good health has captured the public imagination. Told that research demonstrates that people of strong faith are healthier, physicians and clergy alike urge us to become more religious. The religion and health movement, as it has become known, has attracted its fair share […]

Leslie Newbigin A longtime missionary to India returns to the UK to realize that a bigger missionary challenge lies in the modern West. Newbigin gives a historical account of the roots of the conflict between Christian “liberals” and “fundamentalists,” paving the way for confident affirmation of the gospel as public truth in a pluralistic world. […]

Dietrich Bonhoeffer A classic text on Christian community, this story of a unique fellowship in an underground seminary during the Nazi years reads like one of Paul’s letters. The WWII martyr gives practical advice on how life together in Christ can be sustained in families and groups through a rhythm of solitude and community. The […]

Marva J. Dawn Dawn summarizes the church’s teaching about principalities and powers, expanding our understanding of their modern structural equivalents and exhorting us to tame them by embracing our weakness and trusting in the Spirit’s greater power. From Ed. Get this book.

Jean-Claude Larchet This book offers us fresh insight into the mystery of evil, sin, and illness, and their place within our struggle towards holiness… It gives us renewed hope, by locating the “problem of pain” in a profoundly theological framework, in which ultimate resolution of the mystery of illness and suffering is provided by the […]

Paul Tournier Tournier was a Swiss physician and author of over twenty volumes on the interface of medicine, theology, and personhood. A contemporary of C.S. Lewis, he has a similar combination of evangelical piety, brilliance, and sacramental mindset. From Ed. Get this book.

Mother Teresa On the last day, Jesus will say to those on His right hand, “Come, enter the Kingdom. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was sick and you visited me.” Then Jesus will turn to those on His left hand and say, […]

Mary Eberstadt A must-read for non-catholics. Forty-years after Humanae Vitae, Eberstadt shows the prophetic voice of this important work. From Ed. That Humanae Vitae and related Catholic teachings about sexual morality are laughingstocks in all the best places is not exactly news. Even in the benighted precincts of believers, where information from the outside world […]

The Hebrew prophets described the flourishing that God intends for creation as shalom, which we could today translate as health in the deepest and most holistic sense.  And nowhere is the lack of shalom more evident today than some of the most broken and economically-deprived places.  We would do well to work toward to health […]

Joel Shuman and Brian Volck One of the best books dealing with the intersection of faith and medicine. Written by a Catholic pediatrician and a Methodist theologian. Very thought-provoking for medical professionals and “laity” alike, especially in its polemic against “medical Gnosticism. From Ed. Get this book.

“In this excellent book Reynolds weaves his personal narrative into a complex cultural and theological exposition of the construction and theological practice of disability. . . . There is no doubt that Tom Reynolds has made a very useful contribution to the theology of disability in this work.”–John Swinton, Practical Theology As parents of a […]

The Wounded Healer is a hope-filled and profoundly simple book that speaks directly to those men and women who want to be of service in their church or community, but have found the traditional ways often threatening and ineffective. In this book, Henri Nouwen combines creative case studies of ministry with stories from diverse cultures […]

“The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind.” So begins this award-winning intellectual history and critique of the evangelical movement by one of evangelicalism’s most respected historians. Unsparing in his judgment, Mark Noll ask why the largest single group of religious Americans–who enjoy increasing wealth, status, and […]

How now shall we die? Death will come to us all, but most of us live our lives as if death does not exist. People are living longer than ever, and medicine has made dying more complicated, more drawn out and more removed from the experience of most people. Death is partitioned off to hospital […]

Margaret E. Mohrmann Mohrmann is a pediatrician and philosopher at the University of Virginia who thoughtfully examines how Christians should approach medicine. Well worth the price of the book for her chapter on the idolatry of health and medicine. From Ed. Get this book.

This book is for anyone who has ever wept and wondered, “Why?” Peter Kreeft observes that our world is full of billions of normal lives that have been touched by apparently pointless and random suffering. This account of a real and honest personal quest is both engaging and convincing. Written from a deep well of […]

Raymond Downing offers a bold critique of western medicine and sees medical care as one of the fallen “principalities and powers” in need of redemption. But Downing’s hope lies beyond biomedicine in biblical healing, especially the healing miracles of Jesus. In conversation with the Bible, Ivan Illich, William Stringfellow, Susan Sontag, and others, Downing revisits […]

Art of the Commonplace gathers twenty essays by Wendell Berry that offer an agrarian alternative to our dominant urban culture. Grouped around five themes—an agrarian critique of culture, agrarian fundamentals, agrarian economics, agrarian religion, and geo-biography—these essays promote a clearly defined and compelling vision important to all people dissatisfied with the stress, anxiety, disease, and […]

©1991 Taskforce of United Methodists on Abortion and Sexuality, Inc. Downloaded Nov 26, 2012 from lifewatch.org/abortion.html Foreword Serious theological and moral reflection during a session of a United Methodist annual conference is about as rare as a March snow at Cape Hatteras. The word is rare, not impossible. During the l990 meeting of the North […]