Printed from: https://archive.cmf.org.uk/resources/publications/content/?context=issue&id=6062
Philippa Taylor on the ethical and spiritual questions raised by drugs that increase mental capacity. Consider this scenario. A memoryboosting drug is available off the internet which could significantly increase your daughter's chance of getting into Oxford University. Her grades are borderline. She tells you that many of her classmates...
Sam Leinster on how Jesus turns prevailing attitudes on their heads. In the TV sitcom The Good Life (shot between 1975 and 1978), Tom Good (played by the actor Richard Briers who died recently) has a midlife crisis and turns his back on the rat race. With his wife Barbara,...
David Cranston on the conflicting demands of home, work and patient care. We are all asked as children what we want to do when we grow up. At job interviews we may well have given the standard answer – that we wanted to care for people. And yet it is...
Paul Robertson recalls a London curate's pioneering work. The boy's diarrhoea had started. So far it was infrequent, but his parents didn't expect him to survive. His baby sister hadn't. The family had been praying, the local curate had visited, but Broad Street was gripped by cholera and everyone...
keypoints Caring for the sick has always been a hallmark of the Christian Church. Priorities have moved from service provision to teaching and training. Both faith-based organisations and the local church have important roles in health and healthcare. We have come a long way in the past 175 years....
David Chaput de Saintonge on maintaining empathy. Failure of compassionate behaviour in healthcare workers is an active public concern in the UK and a topic of research. The professionals who people look to for sensitive personal care are failing to provide it. Worse than that, patients are being actively...
At various times in the year, the first week of January,or as Lent and Easter approaches, I find myself discussing whether making resolutions is biblical. On the one hand 'it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift...
Meditations on the Silent Grief of Miscarriage Shawn T Collins Quill House Press, 2012 $11.00 (no UK price given) Pb 100pp ISBN 978-1-933794-58-7 Miscarriage is unexpected before it happens, frequently unexplainable when it occurs and rarely discussed afterwards. Yet there can be little worse than losing...
The added value of chaplaincy in general practice Ross Bryson Whole Person Health Trust, 2012 £7.00 Pb 72 pp ISBN 978-0-9544644-6-2 Enter here and enjoy a book that provides a unique insight into practical whole person care with an emphasis on patients' spiritual needs. The contributors offer...
How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor… and Yourself Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert Moody, 2012 £10.00 Pb 274pp ISBN 9780802457066 Who thinks Christians should help the poor? Most of us. Who has given much thought to how we should do that? Not many of us. When Helping Hurts explores...
A Comprehensive Christian Appraisal Stanton L Jones and Richard E Butman IVP, 2011 $32 (no UK price given) Pb 496pp ISBN: 978-0-8308-1775-7 Have you ever wanted to read a Christian critique of all the major forms of psychotherapy – psychoanalysis, cognitive behavioural, person-centred, experiential, family therapy? This is the definitive...
Resources for Church Leaders Andrew Goddard and Don Horrocks (eds) Evangelical Alliance, 2012 £7.00 Pb 144pp ISBN 9780957244801 This very useful resource is an update of the EA's 1998 report Faith Hope and Homosexuality (FHH). It will be of value to CMF members as well as the target audience...
Homosexuality and the Word of God David W Torrance and Jock Stein (eds) Handsell Press, 2012 £6.95 Pb 256pp ISBN 978-1-871828-74-0 This is an interdisciplinary collection of essays with a Scottish flavour which grapples boldly with arguably the most contentious social and theological issue of our day. For many the subject...
The life and legacy of 'the Doctor' Andrew Atherstone and David Ceri Jones Apollos, 2012 £16.99 Pb 376pp ISBN 978 1 84474 553 1 This is not a biography. Eleven academic historians and theologians have meticulously researched and copiously annotated this well written work. It concentrates on 'several areas of...
Living life in colour Graham Beynon Hart Publishing, 2011 £ 8.99 Pb 176 pp ISBN 978-1-84474-589-0 'Emotions are unimportant', or so I once famously remarked as a somewhat naive medical student, probably in reaction to what I perceived as excesses in the opposite direction. God soon disabused me of this...
The conclusions of the Francis Inquiry (1) into abuses at Stafford Hospital have shocked the nation. With the growing concern that these failures are more widely spread and the inevitable calls for heads to roll (2) it is clear that we have not heard the last of this issue. Much...
Pharmacists' right to say no University of Hertfordshire academics want removal of the right of pharmacists to refuse to distribute the morning-after pill. They argue it is 'the power of veto over the liberty of others, and over the implementation of public policy'. Pharmacists can refuse to sell the pill but...
Foodbanks and poverty As usual your articles (Triple Helix, Winter 2013) are stimulating and helpful, but I was disturbed by the article on Feeding the Poor as it raises many issues, which have continued to exercise me greatly over the past decades. 'The poor' and its definition. We read 'Today,...
When altruism is wrongly used as a shield Review by Steve Fouch - CMF Head of Allied Professions Ministries Katherine Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty (1) is riding high in the aftermath of its Oscar nomination, it is interesting to reflect that the film got at least one thing wrong in its telling...
Giving more than money Review by Philippa Taylor - CMF Head of Public Policy. 'What if the Church saw organ donation as part of its giving?' reads the strapline to a new campaign which wants to mobilise UK churches to promote blood and organ donation. The aim of FleshandBlood is to...
Is this the 'Way to Go'? Review by Andrew Fergusson - Chair, Advisory Group, Care Not Killing Alliance When the BBC announced (1) it was to air a six-episode 'black comedy' about assisted suicide on BBC3, its channel orientated towards young people, there was outcry, Conservative MP Mark Pritchard slamming it...
Failure of care shakes belief in the health service Review by Steve Fouch - CMF Head of Allied Professions Ministries The horror stories that emerged from the five enquiries into the failure of care at Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust have shaken the national belief in our health service. Patients left in...
