Body of Compassion

Here, Shuman presents a theological treatment of contemporary bioethics, weaving together personal experience, a critical treatise on bioethics and an exploration of a Christian theological alternative. The author first draws readers towards a consideration of the current state of bioethics by relating the story of his grandfather, a hard-working man with deep attachments to family and land who died a solitary death, unaccompanied by loved ones, in the unfamiliar and sterile world of a hospital. Troubled by how his grandfather died, Shuman takes the reader along as he explores how modern medicine has distanced itself from dealing with people as living beings beyond their immediate physicality. He examines how various approaches to bioethics over the past 20 years have tried to remedy this problem by prescribing certain standards for treatment and how each of these ultimately has fallen short due to the lack of concern for what the body is actually for in a larger context. From this point, Shuman moves to a discussion of the centrality of the body in Christianity, focusing on how baptism, participation in the liturgy and the partaking of the Eucharist all serve to unite Christians as one in the body of Christ. For Christians, he argues, the body does not just belong to the individual but rather is one with the community of the Church. With this in mind, Shuman proposes a new kind of bioethics, where care for the body of Christ becomes the model of how we should care for and receive care of one another.