Introduction. Future Perfect: What Should We Hope For?
Peter Scott and Celia Deane-Drummond.
Chapter 1. Ted Peters
Chapter 2. Gordon Graham
Chapter 3 Soren Holm
Chapter 4. Elaine Graham
Chapter 5 Michael Northcott
Chapter 6 Gareth Jones
Chapter 7 Gordon McPhate
Chapter 8 Neil Messer
Chapter 9 Jenny Kitzinger and Clare Williams
Chapter 10 Ulf Gorman
Chapter 11 Maureen Junker-Kenny
Chapter 12 Celia Deane-Drummond
Chapter 13 Brent Waters
A collection of essays focussing on the implications for an
understanding of human
identity in light of the current possibilities in medical
science.
Celia Deane-Drummond is Director of the Laudato Si' Research
Institute and Senior Research Fellow in Theology, Campion Hall at
University of Oxford, UK.
Peter Manley Scott is Senior Lecturer in Christian Social Thought
and Director of the Lincoln Theological Institute, University of
Manchester.
'Together with faith and love, hope has for centuries been
identified as one of the chief theological virtues. The
essays in Future Perfect? help us to ponder what Christian hope
should mean in the face of technological and medical advances that
transcend old limits, that give us the power to reshape how
and how long we live, and that threaten (or promise) to
transform even the meaning of human identity. In
thinking theologically with the authors of the essays
collected here, readers will be invited to reflect upon the sort
of future for which we should hope.'Gilbert Meilaender,
Duesenberg Professor in Christian Ethics, Valparaiso University,
USA
'Breakthroughs in technology are about to transform human
life. Will we still be human? Will we split into more
than one species? Will we live forever or merely for hundreds
of years? Shock and horror, some say, while others proclaim a
new era of technological salvation. Here at last we find
something better-sober reflection and honest talk by serious
religious intellectuals. The technologies are many:
nanotechnology, genetics, cognitive, and computers/robotics.
The expected convergences are profound: silicon chips implanted in
brains, nanobots destroying cancer or rebuilding organs cell by
cell, or genetically enhanced stem cells making aging brains better
than new. And the stakes are high: the future of
justice, equality, and human nature itself. The time for deep
reflection is now. As if for the first time, we need to ask
the perennial questions all over again. Who are we?
Where are we going?'Professor Ronald Cole-Turner, Pittsburgh
Theological Seminary, USA
'The editors of Future Perfect are renowned scholars of
theology, ethics, and science. They have assembled an
impressive array of colleagues who take to a new level the
discussion of innovations that are as morally baffling as they are
culturally perilous. The meanings of nature, health,
suffering, technology, modernity, "perfection," and change
are probed with uncommon nuance, with no fear of hard questions,
and with creative appeals to Christian concepts such as creation,
salvation, eschatology, and love. The international dimension
of this work is essential to confront the global scope of the
challenges before us. This is a book no one who thinks
seriously about such challenges should miss.' Lisa Cahill,
Professor of Theology, Boston College, Massachusetts, USA
Future Perfect is a first rate collection of essays by a
distinguished group of international experts in a wide range of
bioethical issues. American readers will particularly benefit from
the European perspective on issues relating to religion, science
and ethics. The authors also provide excellent models for
integrating religious and scientific issues.. This is an important
addition to the bioethical literature.
*Thomas A. Shannon, Professor Emeritus of Religion and Social
Ethics, Worcester Polytechnic Institute*
Mention in Church Times, 1st February 2008
*Church Times*
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