VERHEY, Allen D. 1945-

PERSONAL:

Born May 14, 1945, in Grand Rapids, MI; son of Richard (a produce wholesaler) and Catherine (Kass) Verhey; married Phyllis DeKruyter (a registered nurse), September 2, 1965; children: Timothy, Elisabeth, Kathryn. Education: Calvin College, B.A. (English, Greek), 1966; Calvin Theological Seminary, B.D., 1969; Yale University, Ph.D. (religious studies), 1975. Religion: Reformed Church of America.

ADDRESSES:

Home—2064 Breeze Dr., Holland, MI 49424. Office—Hope College, Holland, MI 49423. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Theologian, author. Calvin Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, MI, lecturer in Christian ethics, 1972-75; Hope College, Holland, MI, professor of religion, 1975-92; Institute of Religion, Houston, TX, director, 1992-94; Hope College, Blekkink Professor of Religion, 1994—.

MEMBER:

Society of Christian Ethics (board of directors, 1996-2000).

AWARDS, HONORS:

Outstanding Academic Book, Choice, for On Moral Medicine: Theological Perspectives in Medical Ethics.

WRITINGS:

The Great Reversal: Ethics and the New Testament, W. B. Eerdmans (Grand Rapids, MI), 1984.

Living the Heidelberg: The Heidelberg Catechism and the Moral Life, CRC Publications (Grand Rapids, MI), 1986.

(Editor, with Stephen E. Lammers) On Moral Medicine: Theological Perspectives in Medical Ethics, W. B. Eerdmans (Grand Rapids, MI), 1987, 1998.

(Editor, with others) Christian Faith, Health, and Medical Practice, W. B. Eerdmans (Grand Rapids, MI), 1989.

(Editor, with Stephen E. Lammers) Theological Voices in Medical Ethics, W. B. Eerdmans (Grand Rapids, MI), 1993.

(Editor, with Wayne G. Boulton and Thomas D. Kennedy) From Christ to the World: Introductory Readings in Christian Ethics, W. B. Eerdmans (Grand Rapids, MI), 1994.

(Editor) Religion and Medical Ethics: Looking Back, Looking Forward ("Institute of Religion, Religion and Health Care" series, Volume 1), W. B. Eerdmans (Grand Rapids, MI), 1996.

Remembering Jesus: Christian Community, Scripture, and the Moral Life, W. B. Eerdmans (Grand Rapids, MI), 2002.

Reading the Bible in the Strange World of Medicine, W. B. Eerdmans (Grand Rapids, MI), 2003.

Editor for Christian Scholars Review and the Journal of Religious Ethics; contributor of articles, encyclopedia entries, and essays; work represented in books, including Bioethics and the Future of Medicine: A Christian Appraisal, edited by John S. Kilner and others, W. B. Eerdmans, 1995, and Genetic Ethics: Do the Ends Justify the Genes, edited by John F. Kilner and others, W. B. Eerdmans, 1998.

SIDELIGHTS:

Professor of religion Allen D. Verhey is the author and editor of a number of volumes, including On Moral Medicine: Theological Perspectives in Medical Ethics, named by Choice as an Outstanding Academic Book in its first edition. Kenneth L. Vaux, reviewing the work in JAMA: Journal of the American Medical Association, wrote that "this volume does indeed acknowledge the fecundity of theological ethics within that seedbed of value that nurtures the medical ethos.…The lasting significance of this symposium is to show that medicine is fundamentally a theological enterprise. Medicine always expresses basic beliefs and values, both ultimate and penultimate."

JAMA: Journal of the American Medical Association reviewer Theodore E. Fleischer reviewed the second edition some ten years later and said that it "will continue to serve as a teaching tool to help initiate students into this growing body of literature. Notably, it could also become an important resource for clinicians and others who have no expertise in theology or who may not share the editors' faith commitment, yet are curious about the relevance of religion—particularly Christian tradition—to the issues of medical ethics. What sets this volume apart from many other collections of articles on bioethics is its assumption that theological reflection is important not only to communities of faith but also to a genuinely pluralistic society."

In reviewing the second edition, a reviewer for Issues in Law & Medicine found that it "remains the most comprehensive anthology of medical ethics written from a theological point of view." The contributors are leaders in the fields of medicine, ethics, and theology, and the sixty-seven new articles bring the volume upto-date as regards new ethical debates, new developments in health care, AIDS, and the increasingly important role of nurses. The volume addresses such topics as genetic control, contraception, abortion, and end-of-life issues.

Verhey and Stephen E. Lammers are the editors of Theological Voices in Medical Ethics, and the voices discussed belong to theological thinkers who helped shape the discourse on bioethics. They include Paul Ramsey, James M. Gustafson, Stanley Hauerwas, Richard McCormick, William F. May, James F. Childress, Germain Grisez, Immanuel Jakobovits, and Bernard Haring. Each receives a chapter, written by scholars who know them well.

Mark J. Hanson reviewed the volume in the Hastings Center Report. He noted that the Roman Catholic thinkers, including McCormick, Grisez, and Haring, "work from a natural law tradition that is, from its fundamental premises, more rationally accessible to all rational agents, although differences among these three as to how natural law is related to a tradition of faith are clear as well. The lone Jewish theologian, Immanuel Jakobovits, represents a tradition of Judaism that draws a rather tight and direct line between the authority of authorized, Orthodox interpretation of Jewish law and new laws and justifications for ethical positions." Hanson noted that the essays of the Protestant thinkers, including Ramsey, Gustafson, Hauerwas, May, and Childress, "exhibit a wide variety of positions on the nature of ethical justification in relation to distinctive theological premises." Hanson wrote that "on the whole, this group of thinkers illustrates the richness in possibilities that the theological world can offer those who reflect not just about bioethics but about the moral life generally. Yet, reading the book straight through, I was also impressed by the degree of thematic overlap among the theologians."

Religion and Medical Ethics: Looking Back, Looking Forward collects six addresses from a 1993 conference sponsored by the Institute of Religion, itself a twenty-fifth anniversary celebration of one of the first major conferences on medical ethics, held in 1968. The volume also contains reports from working groups on issues, such as abortion, assisted suicide, genetics, and access to care. Christian Century's Arthur W. Frank reviewed both Religion and Medical Ethics and Bioethics and the Future of Medicine: A Christian Appraisal, to which Verhey is a contributor. Frank wrote that "Sociologists talk about the 'medicalization' of society, meaning that decisions once made on moral, theological, legal, and political grounds are now made on medical grounds.… 'Health' is our common standard of rational individual behavior and of beneficial public policy. Even if health does not always trump other interests (cigarettes do remain legal), any public debate that can be framed in medical terms will be. Whether medical practice is idealized or demonized, biomedicine holds center stage. In medicalized society, bioethics becomes the paradigm of moral reflection." From Bioethics and the Future of Medicine, Frank singled out Verhey's paper on technology, choice, and freedom, noting that he suspects "Verhey's article will be frequently cited in future debates about innovative technologies."

With Remembering Jesus: Christian Community, Scripture, and the Moral Life, Verhey recalls how the early churches remembered Jesus and how remembering Christ and his teachings can provide the moral framework in considering medicine, sexual issues, economic justice, and political policy. Library Journal's Graham Christian called Verhey's work "an astonishing thing: truly new theology."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

America, March 11, 2002, Daniel J. Harrington, review of Remembering Jesus: Christian Community, Scripture, and the Moral Life, p. 26.

Christian Century, May 29, 1985, James H. Burtness, review of The Great Reversal: Ethics and the New Testament, p. 562; November 20, 1996, Arthur W. Frank, review of Religion and Medical Ethics: Looking Back, Looking Forward, p. 1157; December 4, 2002, review of Remembering Jesus, p. 28.

First Things, December, 1996, Gilbert Meilaender, review of Religion and Medical Ethics, p. 36.

Hastings Center Report, May-June, 1994, Mark J. Hanson, review of Theological Voices in Medical Ethics, p. 46.

Interpretation, October, 2003, Michael J. Gorman, review of Remembering Jesus, p. 434.

Issues in Law & Medicine, fall, 1998, review of On Moral Medicine: Theological Perspectives in Medical Ethics, p. 236.

JAMA: Journal of the American Medical Association, April 8, 1988, Kenneth L. Vaux, review of On Moral Medicine, p. 2164; July 21, 1999, Theodore E. Fleischer, review of On Moral Medicine, p. 284.

Library Journal, March 1, 2002, Graham Christian, review of Remembering Jesus, p. 110.

National Review, May 13, 1988, Carl R. Schmahl, review of On Moral Medicine, p. 63.

New England Journal of Medicine, June 1, 1995, Alan B. Astrow, review of Theological Voices in Medical Ethics, p. 1523.*