Health and Medicine in the Lutheran Tradition


MARTIN E. MARTY
It is now widely recognized throughout the medical and allied professions that holistic health care is an idea whose time has come, an idea that must be implemented through every means possible. One of the means is to draw on the major religious bodies with a view to "assembling, assessing, and applying the wisdom of the faith traditions....to issues of health care faced by individuals, families, and society." That quotation is from the agenda of Project Ten, an international program of the Lutheran General Medical Center in Park Ridge, Illinois. The books resulting from Project Ten show how the beliefs and practices of the various faith traditions shape and are shaped by encounters with issues in health and medicine.

Martin E. Marty's book on the Lutheran tradition-the first in the series and the first on its subject in the over 450 years of Lutheran history-is a fascinating blend of history, theology, medical lore, and pastoral wisdom. From a definitely Lutheran perspective, but open to the insights of other faiths, Dr. Marty discusses such issues as illness and madness, suffering, caring, healing, sexuality, life-passages, and the meaning of dying. The result is a book that is of interest not only to Lutherans and not only to health-care professionals, it will appeal as well to concerned lay people and to teachers and pastors.

MARTIN E. MARTY is Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor at The University of Chicago and co-editor of the series Health/Medicine and the Faith Traditions.



Contents
Preface    ix
 
Part I: WELLNESS AND ILLNESS     1
Chapter 1. Traditions and the Lutheran Tradition     3
Chapter 2. Illness and Madness: The Issue of a Divine Role    33
Chapter 3. Suffering: The Theology of the Cross    50
 
Part II: CARING AND CURING    65
Chapter 4. Caring: Institutions, Roles, Practices    67
Chapter 5. Healing: The Acts of Healing, the Arts of Prayer    82
Chapter 6. Morality, Ethics, and Justice: Being Good and Being Well    98
 
Part III: PASSAGES   123
Chapter 7. Sexuality, Family Life, and Generativity   125
Chapter 8. The Passages of Life, the Phases of Faith   139
Chapter 9. The Completion of Being, the Meaning of Dying   157
 
Postscript     169
 
Notes     175


Back to Pastoral Care Book Reviews

Back to Pastoral Care Services main page