Now in its third edition, On Moral Medicine: Theological Perspectives in Medical Ethics, has become the standard resource for theological reflection on issues related to medical ethics. Stephen E. Lammers and Allen Verhey were the editors of the first edition (1987) and the second edition (1998), and now M. Therese Lysaught and Joseph J. Kotva Jr. have taken over as the editors of this updated and significantly expanded third edition. As Lysaught and Kotva put it in the preface, ‘if the first edition was big and the second edition bigger, the third edition is . . . well, even bigger’ (p. xiii). While scholars and libraries may still want to own a hard copy of what the editors rightly describe as a ‘behemoth’ of a book, the volume is also now available as a searchable e-book, making it much more accessible and useful for students and scholars alike. The new editors have made many significant changes, in both structure and content, to a volume which underwent only very minor alterations in its second edition. These changes reflect both the nature of recent theological discourse on medical ethics as well as the particular theological sympathies of the editors.
Along with new introductions to chapters, the structure of the volume has been almost completely overhauled. There are 156 essays, 93 of which are new to this edition. The previous editions divided the volume into three parts (I: ‘Perspectives on Religion and Medicine’; II: ‘Concepts in Religion and Medicine’; III: ‘Issues in Medical Ethics’). The new edition divides the volume into six parts. Part I (‘Method’) contains essays on questions of method and the relationship between religion and medicine and theology and medical ethics. Part II (‘Christianity and the Social Practice of Health Care’), as the editors highlight, is intended to frame the rest of the volume by situating the questions and issues which arise in medical ethics within the context of broader social and economic realities. Part III (‘Patients and Professionals’) emphasises the significance of the patient in the professional–patient relationship. At the same time, these essays seek to expand the limits of who counts as a ‘professional’ in health care by including other players such as nurses and chaplains. Part IV (‘Vulnerable Persons’) includes substantive essays on ageing and the elderly, as well as chapters on persons with mental illness and disabilities. Part V (‘The Beginnings of Life’) contains chapters on children, contraception, assisted reproductive technologies, abortion and genetics. Part VI (‘The End of Life’) reflects on dying and death as it relates to questions of dignity and indignity.
Readers of previous editions will find many of the same ‘classic’ texts reflecting a wide variety of theological perspectives, including important essays by Karl Barth, Paul Ramsey, James Gustafson, Joseph Fletcher, Stanley Hauerwas, Richard McCormick and Oliver O’Donovan. The new volume, however, contains the welcome addition of more voices from non-mainline, free church and Anabaptist perspectives, including essays by John Roth, Chris Huebner and Joseph Kotva. Reflecting the particular theological leanings of the editors, the new volume contains more essays on virtue ethics within a broadly ‘Hauerwasian’ perspective, including essays by M. Therese Lysaught, D. Stephen Long and David M. McCarthy. Regrettably, this new edition still draws predominantly from the perspectives of white male Euro-American theology, including only a few essays from Latin America, Africa and Asia, and little in the way of emerging liberationist and feminist voices. Notwithstanding this major shortcoming, the third edition of On Moral Medicine is a welcome contribution to scholars and students of theology and medical ethics.
