Why do things get worse so fast once a culture approves of killing? J. Budziszewski answers that conscience is suppressed, not eroded, and that its denied needs for confession, atonement, reconciliation and justification push people into further wrong.
Why do arguments about physician-assisted suicide go nowhere? Nigel Cameron says the real disagreement lies underneath, in what it means to be human, how we should die, what a physician is for and what bioethics has become.
Is there a difference between pain and suffering, and does the gospel say anything to it? C. Ben Mitchell classifies the kinds of suffering, grounds a theology of suffering in the fall and in the hope of the world to come, and asks what the church must do for the dying.
When does a human being begin to be a person? Thomas Torrance looks to the Virgin Birth, to what science knows of the womb and to the tears of Jesus over Jerusalem to argue that the unborn child is an embodied soul from conception.
Why does the good news sound so small to people who think the bad news is not that bad? Theresa Ip Froehlich draws on the Reformed confessions to show how serious the Fall was and why only deliverance by Christ answers it.
What happens when a church follows every urgent voice off the road? Theresa Ip Froehlich uses a desert-caravan image to show how religious humanism puts the self where God belongs, and how the confessions keep the doctrine of man on the beaten path.
What becomes of the holiness of God in a culture that has traded virtue for therapy? David Wells argues that churches now prize wholeness over holiness, and that grace and the Cross lose their meaning once the Holy One drops out of sight.
What does it mean that humanity is made in the image of God? Scott Morschauser reads Genesis 1 against its ancient Near Eastern background and argues that the image is an office of covenant servanthood under God, fulfilled in the obedient Son.
What makes a human being human in an age of cloning and Mars rovers? James Edwards turns to Genesis 2:7 and argues that the image of God is the very breath of God in us, and that Jesus Christ alone bears it unbroken.
When does a person die, and who decides who counts as a person? B. Holly Vautier traces whole-brain and higher-brain definitions of death to rival views of personhood, and warns that treating some humans as non-persons opens the door to euthanasia.
Is my life mine to end? Gilbert Meilaender argues that suicide denies our nature as creatures, and that euthanasia, whether defended by autonomy or by compassion, abandons the sufferer when the Christian task is to maximize care.
Why do Frankenstein and Dracula keep coming back to the screen? Paul Leggett argues that the Gothic horror classics return at moments of cultural crisis to warn against Enlightenment confidence in human goodness, and that evangelicals should take them seriously.