Health Care in Theological Context I

Catalog description

This is the first course in a two-semester sequence that engages modern health care from the perspective of Christian history, theology, and practice. Whereas modern biomedicine took shape within the past two centuries, Christians draw on more than 3000 years of reflection, struggle, and innovation around health and illness, suffering and care. This course explores ways that Christian thought and practice has influenced the development of modern health care as well as Christian practices and resources for engaging health, illness, disability, suffering, and dying. Students explore the meaning of health, the doctrine of the imago dei, the healing ministry of Jesus and the early church, the relation of Jesus' suffering to human suffering, the relation of Christian thought to modern biomedicine, the relationship of individual and community health, and the connection between health and justice.