Book reviewed in this article: Suffering Presence: Theological Reflections on Medicine, the Mentally Handicapped, and the Church. By Stanley Hauerwas.

The revolutionary changes in mental outlook that took place in Western Christendom some three or four centuries ago, and that produced the modern scientific movement, are the major cause of the crisis in which the world finds itself today. Yet the terrifying consequences of the practical exploitation of modern science are usually attributed not to modern science as such, but simply to its misapplication and abuse. This book attacks such misconceptions head-on and at the deepest level. By setting the modern (...) scientific picture of the universe and man's place in it against the pre-Christian cosmology, and anthropology, the author shows unambiguously how our acceptance of this picture has literally enslaved us to a vast collective whose ramification in the major spheres of our thought and action cannot but vandalize and desecrate both ourselves and the world we live in. Its thesis is presented with great clarity, eschewing sensationalism and appealing only to the disciplined intelligence and its capacity for coherent discour. (shrink)

The Protestant ethic — a moral code stressing hard work, rigorous self-discipline, and the organization of one's life in the service of God — was made famous by sociologist and political economist Max Weber. In this brilliant study (his best-known and most controversial), he opposes the Marxist concept of dialectical materialism and its view that change takes place through "the struggle of opposites." Instead, he relates the rise of a capitalist economy to the Puritan determination to work out anxiety over (...) salvation or damnation by performing good deeds — an effort that ultimately discouraged belief in predestination and encouraged capitalism. Weber's classic study has long been required reading in college and advanced high school social studies classrooms. (shrink)

This work examines contemporary views on medical ethics, such as preventing death, defining family relations, and reproductive and disabled issues.