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Christian Bioethics Advance Access originally published online on March 23, 2009
Christian Bioethics 2009 15(1):86-100; doi:10.1093/cb/cbp001
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© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press, on behalf of The Journal of Christian Bioethics, Inc. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

This article appears in the following Christian Bioethics issue: European Bioethics II-Disparate Hopes and Fears [View the issue table of contents]

Christian Bioethics in a Western Europe after Christendom

H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr.

Rice University, Houston, Texas, USA

Address correspondence to: H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr., PhD, MD, Department of Philosophy, MS-14, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, TX 77005, USA. E-mail: htengelh{at}rice.edu


  Abstract

Europe has taken on a new, post-Christian, if not a somewhat anti-Christian character. The tension between Western Europe's ever more secular present and its substantial Christian past lies at the heart of Western Europe's current struggle to articulate a coherent cultural and moral identity. The result is that Western European mainline churches are themselves in the midst of an identity crisis, thus compounding Western Europe's identity crisis. Christian bioethics in Europe exists against the backdrop of these profound cultural cross currents that define the European condition, engender conflicts regarding the meaning of being Western European and being Christian, and bring the public significance and role of Western European bioethics, especially Western European Christian bioethics, into question. The dominant culture of the public forum is post-Christian and post-traditional, although traditional Christianity still asserts its voice. Denis Müller in his paper has clarified the choice between a traditional-fundamentalist Christian Bioethics and a revisionist, progressive Christian Bioethics.

Keywords: bioethics, Christian ethics, fundamentalism, secularism, theology


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