Tag Archives: healthcare

Whither beauty, goodness, and truth in the modern American church?

Posted on September 12, 2022 | Leave a comment

The following argues that the re-integration of the spiritual and the material/social is the deepest task of both the faith & work movement today and the Christian Study Center (CSC) movement. I wrote it in 2016, after the national meeting of the Consortium of Christian Study Centers–hosted that year at Wheaton College.

The early church, per Robert Louis Wilken, Darrel Amundsen, C S Lewis, and many others, understood truth, beauty, and goodness to be intrinsic, inarguable, and universal goods (that is, to be secured for all people, as God wants all people to have them), as had the classical world before them. And drawing on the Christian understanding of the material world as intrinsically good (which the Pagan philosophers did not share), the early Christians were also able to add to these three values a fourth, bodily health and well-being—a value so vividly supported by the Incarnate Christ’s healing activity on earth.

The church then proceeded to say (again, per Wilken) that, while these four things are intrinsically and universally good, none of them provides, of itself (nor even do all four taken together), a suitable telos for humanity—and that indeed any of them become life-destroying idols when pursued in and of themselves, without the transcendent referent: the universal call to love and serve God. (This is the burden of Augustine’s theological discussion of uti love and frui love–that is, the loving of things that are not ultimate, and the loving of the ultimate, which is God–and it is also the burden of Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy.)

The early Christians responded to this transcendent referent by identifying three “theological virtues” – faith, hope, and love, which they added to the four classical (“cardinal”) virtues of prudence, courage, temperance, and justice.

The new Christian value of the good of bodily health, along with the Christianized classical values of truth, beauty, and goodness, each informed and amplified through the transcendent referent, and pursued with the help of all seven virtues, birthed in the Christian medieval West the institutions of the hospital, the university, the cathedral and liturgical art and architecture, and the ethical systems of the scholastics that would lay important foundations for modern jurisprudence.[1] This was the origin of huge swathes of the culture and the vocational arenas of today’s world.

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Five themes in Christian humanism (I)

Posted on August 27, 2022 | Leave a comment

Detail of Adoration of the Trinity, Albrecht Dürer [public domain]

Here’s a new way I’m thinking of for developing the faculty seminar on Christian humanism I’m doing for my friend the Think Tank Director. I like this one better than the more chronological one shared earlier. I’ll share this in a couple of chunks because I went a little crazy with editorializing on it.

This reworking suggests that we use the seminar to explore the hypothesis that Christian humanism has found ways to keep together key dyads: divine-human, faith-reason, virtue-grace, heavenly-earthly, reason-imagination (or truth-beauty). And that the REASON the tradition has been able to do that is its strong grounding in the Incarnation.* We could look at each of those dyads through readings across the different periods, in a way that could attend to historic development without bogging down in the chronology/history.

* Arguably it’s not just the Incarnation but the almost shocking organic unity of the God-human relationship in early soteriology that grounds this whole thing: that is, the theosis understanding of salvation. But interestingly, both Luther and Calvin were similarly quite mystical and organic about the human-God relationship – there are great readings from both that show this.

NOTE: Stupid WordPress has no idea how to deal with the automatic numbering in MS Word, and I don’t have time to go in and change it. So please ignore the plethora of “1s” in the following!

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Questions that arise about Christian humanism as foundation for the faith & work conversation

Posted on July 16, 2022 | Leave a comment

Portrait of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam with Renaissance Pilaster, wikipedia, public domain

I have argued that the faith & work conversation needs a stronger theological foundation, and that the long tradition of Christian humanism can and should provide that foundation. I recognize in making that argument that many questions now arise. So I am beginning to line up those questions. The following is a preliminary list, not yet carefully ordered nor comprehensive; I also recognize that any number of these overlap significantly with each other:

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A few more accessible, fully illustrated, scholar-written resources on faith and science!

Posted on June 28, 2022 | Leave a comment

Issue 134, 2020

For those who enjoyed my faith & science history series over the past couple of weeks, there’s a treasure trove awaiting: The recent Christian History issue(s) on the same topic. You can browse the issue in full color and download pdfs of individual articles here.

Which reminds me to say . . .

. . . if I had a nickel for every time someone has said they didn’t know that Christian History had re-started after its then 26-year run ended in the fateful year 2008 . . . well, I’d be able to buy a fancy coffee or two. And little did anyone know – leastwise the magazine’s editors and parent (non-profit) organization – that in 2022 we’d be cruising into CH’s 40th anniversary year (special anniversary issue coming – keep an eye out at this link!).

But since 2011, the magazine has indeed lived again – and what a run it’s been, under the indefatigable editorial leadership of scholar/editor/writer/priest extraordinaire Jennifer Woodruff Tait. Among the topics we’ve covered just in the past few years: America’s love affair with the Bible; CS Lewis’s friends & family and their influence on him; Christian support for the common good in science, healthcare, higher education, the public square, and the marketplace; Christianity and Judaism; plagues and epidemics; Latin American Christianity; the women of the Reformation; the Quakers . . .

And for those interested in topics churchly/scientific, check out the following issues:

Hard to believe that last one, my very first issue as (short-lived) managing editor, came out a full 20 years ago! And I’m still proud of it . . .

Thanks y’all for reading my blog. I hope you enjoy these resources!

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Christian foundations of science and technology innovation, part VII (final)

Posted on June 27, 2022 | 1 comment

Miniature from 1450 taken from a copy of “Horologium Sapientiae” written around 1330 by Constance Henrich Seuse, Bibliothèque Royale Albert 1er, Bruxelles

. . . continued (and completed) from part VI

But though intellectual curiosity or the expectation of a lawfulness in nature mirroring the rationality of God did help drive the rise of science, it was not the only factor. Another, more practical consideration also contributed, and this brings us to Fact #9. That is, that medieval Christians also saw their rational study of creation as helping fulfil the cultural mandate of Genesis by developing new tools for better living.

In other words, the pursuit of scientific knowledge was already, even among the medieval scholastics, a matter not just for speculative or devotional interest, but also a way of contributing to human flourishing. The scholastics understood that God wants us to live in full enjoyment of his creation as well as his fellowship. God will not allow this full enjoyment and flourishing to be completely destroyed by the disobedience of humans in the fall, and so he works with and through human reason to improve every area of human life through new technologies, advances in medicine, and every other field of material culture.

Thus medieval theological education fostered every science and art—the quadrivium of the maths and sciences (arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy) as well as the trivium of the humanities (grammar, logic, rhetoric). Though theology remained the “queen of the sciences,” every medieval university student, in order to earn a bachelor’s degree, had to study arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy as well.

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On how, and why, whole sectors of modern work were birthed from the heart and mind of the Christian church

Posted on September 15, 2019 | Leave a comment

Been very busy over the past few years, and a bad blogger – not posting much at all.

Among other pieces I’ve posted elsewhere but forgotten to link here at the Grateful To the Dead blog is this one, featured at The Public Discourse blog – run by the Witherspoon Institute at Princeton. The piece is a fairly brief meditation on what the Incarnation has meant in Western culture. It contains some ideas that I first published in the Medieval Wisdom book, and that I’m looking forward to extending in my next book. That book will most likely explore how entire sectors of human work that foster and support the material and social dimensions of human flourishing emerged ex corde ecclesia – from the heart of the church (and informed by the mind of the church!):

Christianity is so much more solid, and real, and human, than the “spiritual, but not religious” imitations of today. Christian faith touches every aspect of our lives—material, social, cultural. It does so because our God was born as a human baby in a stable and nurtured by a teenaged girl named Mary.

. . .

Out of a desire to imitate Christ’s compassion for those suffering from bodily illness, they poured the work of their hearts into a new institution called the hospital, succored (especially) the poor sick, and so birthed not only modern medicine but also our whole non-profit sector.

Out of fidelity to Christ’s command to “love God with their minds,” they poured the work of their minds into a new institution called the university, and so laid the foundation for the scientific revolution.

And out of aching devotion to the beauty of God’s holiness, imaged forth in Christ, they poured their imaginations and craft and labor into the glorious, soaring beauty of the Gothic cathedrals, and so nurtured and fostered artists in all media from then to now.

Healthcare. Education. Culture. To us, who labor in every kind and corner of modern human work, medieval incarnational faith speaks a “word in season.” It tells us:

Our bodies matter.

Our minds matter.

Our relationships matter.

Our work matters.

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C S Lewis’s quasi-medieval ministry of mercy – part II

Posted on September 29, 2013 | Leave a comment

C.s.lewis3 (1)Here is the rest of the conclusion of the “compassionate ministry” chapter draft from Getting Medieval with C S Lewis (the first part is here). Here we see more of how Lewis applied the classic medieval virtue of mercy in his own life, as well as how he accused modern materialists of forgetting that we cannot solve all of our problems by application of better and better techniques.

More concretely, Lewis was also lavish in his almsgiving. He said this on giving: “Giving to the poor is an essential part of Christian morality. I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I’m afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, and amusement, is up to the standard common of those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little. . . . For many of us the great obstacle to charity lies not in our luxurious living or desire for more money, but in our fear – fear of insecurity. This must often be recognized as a temptation.”[1]

Barfield, who was Lewis’s trustee as well as his friend, observed how Lewis followed this principle in his own life. “He gave two-thirds of his income away altogether and would have bound himself to give the whole of it away if I had let him. . . . There were substantial donations to charitable institutions, but what he really liked was to find someone through a personal connection or hearsay whose wants might be alleviated. He was always grateful to me for suggesting any lame dog whom my profession [as a lawyer] had brought to my notice.” (14) Nor did he worry about wasting his money on undeserving types. Instead, he reflected, “It will not bother me in the hour of death to reflect that I have been “had for a sucker” by any number of impostors; but it would be a torment to know that one had refused even one person in need.” Continue reading →

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C S Lewis’s quasi-medieval ministry of mercy – part I

Posted on September 28, 2013 | Leave a comment

Kindly Lewis photoHere is the first bit of the conclusion of the “compassionate ministry” chapter draft from Getting Medieval with C S Lewis (the second part is here). Here Lewis helps us see the breadth and spiritual dimension of the classical medieval virtue of mercy:

How can we benefit today from this consistent though evolving medieval witness to compassionate charity through healthcare? For one thing, I believe we can see in that witness a clear reminder of the supreme role of mercy in living out the gospel. Lewis, who knew the tradition well, insisted that “if one virtue must be cultivated at the expense of all the rest, none has a higher claim than mercy.”[1] He understood, of course, the teaching of the scholastics that mercy both is and is not Christianity’s highest virtue. It is not the highest virtue, as Aquinas taught, because the theological virtue of caritas, love for God, must be counted greater, since its object (God) is greater than that of mercy (humans). But as far as “external works” are concerned, we know that “the sum total of the Christian religion consists in mercy.”[2]

This puts individual acts of mercy in the right context: they are agape, caritas, made concrete through action. “Agape in action,” as Lewis put it in a letter to a Mrs. Ashton, who has taken in a poor illegitimate child to her household. “Charity,” he wrote to her, “means love. It is called Agape in the New Testament,” which is the kind of love that “God has for us,” which is “all giving, not getting.”  As the word was used by the medievals: not just throwing a few dollars at a problem—though giving money can be one kind of charity—but actualizing one’s love, which is why “to give time and toil is far better and (for most of us) harder.”

The unfortunate history of the word “charity” actually illustrates the breaking of this holism between acts of mercy (social ethics) and Christian love (personal ethics, character). Continue reading →

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Medieval lay ministry to the sick – joining in their sufferings to meet Christ

Posted on September 27, 2013 | Leave a comment

medieval-doctorsAnd here is a bit more from Getting Medieval with C S Lewis on the “charitable revolution” in late medieval Europe, with its outpouring of personal care to the sick – founding of hospitals, waiting upon the sick hand and foot, entering into their sufferings with compassion, and finding in all of that the personal presence of Jesus Christ, just as Matthew 25 promised.

A paragon of the new model of lay involvement in healthcare was Elizabeth of Hungary. A wealthy laywoman on the model of the ancient Roman Christian hero Fabiola, the 13th-century lay saint Elizabeth began, after her husband’s death, to feed, wash the feet of, sew clothes for, and bury the sick poor. No arms-length philanthropist, she delighted in the unpleasant, humiliating labor of personally attending – after the manner of a modern nursing assistant – to the basest and messiest physical needs of her charges.

One might interpret such devotion to healing tasks as self-interested, since the theology of the day at times seemed to virtually assure salvation to those so engaged. No doubt this was a motivator, but theologians also stressed the attitude of the heart in ministering to others. Because Matthew 25 clearly showed that charitable acts to the needy were, in fact, done to Christ himself, physical charity wove itself into the fabric of one’s heart relationship with God (see “affective devotion” chapter).

In fact, Elizabeth’s actions represented (and promoted) a new, strongly affective theology of healthcare: in com-passion, the empathetic experiencing of others’ pain and suffering, she—and increasingly the Western church at large—found redemptive value because it brought them closer to Christ. By helping the sick and poor, they were not only imitating the example of Christ, but at the same time pouring out their love to him “in the most intimate and sacrificial way.”[1] Continue reading →

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The medieval charitable revolution: Healing as “the Jesus thing to do”

Posted on September 27, 2013 | Leave a comment

Works of Mercy

Works of Mercy (Photo credit: jimforest)

More from the “hospitals chapter” of my Getting Medieval with C S Lewis:

During this time, a new theology of sickness sprang up: “like monks, martyrs, saints, and finally apostles, the sick could function as mediators between God and His people. Their intercessional prayers on behalf of patrons and caregivers were believed to be valuable.”[1] This was an important development, and in the 12th century, in a more urban and more economically stable and flourishing Europe, it would contribute to a massive uptick in the foundation of hospitals by wealthy lay donors.

And that was a good thing – the “charitable revolution” of the 12th century – because by the 11th, monasteries were nearing the end of their hospitalling. The culprit? Economic change: Continue reading →

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