2010 Baylor Symposium on Faith and Culture
Thursday, October 28-Saturday, October 30, 2010
Baylor University, Waco, Texas

Program Description

In the practice of health care a complicated array of issues converges: public policy and economic considerations impinge on a myriad of social and moral demands related to medical research and the distribution and delivery of medical care. As the recent debate concerning health care reform in the United States illustrates, not only have these issues largely been argued about in isolation from one another, they too often have been removed from an account of what it means to be human—a person endowed with dignity and therefore deserving of care—and the role of doctors, nurses, and other medical practitioners in offering that care.

Inspired by the conviction that a Christian understanding of the dignity of the human person should inform these fundamental questions, the 2010 Baylor Symposium on Faith and Culture seeks to explore the future of health care, not only in the United States but around the world. In an often compartmentalized debate, how might an acknowledgment of human dignity shape our understanding of the moral, political, and economic dimensions of one of the most pressing concerns of our time?

Featured speakers:

• Elias Bongmba, Rice University
  Harry and Hazel Chavanne Chair in Christian theology
• Toyin Falola, University of Texas
  Distinguished Teaching Professor and fellow of the Historical Society of Nigeria
• Paul Griffiths, Duke Divinity School
  Distinguished professor of Catholic theology
• Jeff Levin, Baylor University
  Pioneering biomedical scientist and religious scholar
• Gilbert Meilaender, Valparaiso University
  Theologian and member of the President's Council on Bioethics (2002-09)
• Stephen Post, Stony Brook University
  Bioethicist and director of the Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care, and Bioethics
• Margaret Somerville, McGill University
  Legal scholar, ethicist, and founding director of the McGill Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law
• Daniel Sulmasy, University of Chicago
  Franciscan friar, physician, and ethicist
• John Swinton, University of Aberdeen
  Founding director of the Centre for Spirituality, Health and Disability
• S. Kay Toombs, Baylor University
  Medical ethicist and associate professor emeritus of philosophy