The Future of Health: Faith, Ethics, and our MedTech World

The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity has long worked to address the intersection of medicine, science, and technology from a Judeo-Christian, Hippocratic point of view. An important aspect of that work is speaking to current and coming trends and trajectories in these fields while also holding forth our core commitments regarding human life, human dignity, and human flourishing.

Given the increasingly rapid pace of technological change in our world today, particularly with the rise of various artificial intelligence systems, the time is right to examine such developments while we also reground ourselves in important convictions.

To that end, our 31st conference, The Future of Health: Faith, Ethics, and our MedTech World, will host the following plenary addresses:

• "The Will to Live and the Life of God" - Matthew Lee Anderson, DPhil
• "Defining Humanity Down: The Irony of Generative AI and Human Anthropology in Christian Bioethics" - Jason Thacker, PhD (cand.)
• "AI and Medicine: Living in the New Atlantis" - Kristin Collier, MD
• "The Way of Medicine for Christians" - Farr Curlin, MD
• "In What Ways Can Technology Be an Idol?" - Anna Vollema, MA & Mihretu Guta, PhD
• "Reframing & Sending" - Michael Sleasman, PhD

In addition, Keith Plummer, PhD, will open the conference on Thursday, June 27, delivering the second annual Virtue Ethics Lecture, titled "Discipled by Our Devices: Spiritual Formation in Our Technological Age."
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Workshops and paper sessions will explore additional issues from among the wide spectrum of traditional and emerging bioethical topics.

The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity’s annual conference is the leading venue for Christian bioethical engagement, providing opportunities for equipping and education, professional development, and academic engagement, as well as networking for professionals, researchers, policymakers, educators, and students across a variety of disciplines and professional contexts.

This conference will be available in person, online, or on demand. There is no wrong way to attend!

Speakers

Matthew Lee Anderson, DPhil

Matthew Lee Anderson is an Assistant Professor of Ethics and Theology in Baylor University’s Honors College and the Associate Director of Baylor in Washington. He is an Associate Fellow at the McDonald Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Life at Oxford University, where he completed a DPhil in Christian Ethics. He is the founder of Mere Orthodoxy and the author, most recently, of Called into Questions: Cultivating the Love of Learning within the Life of Faith.

Kristin M. Collier, MD, FACP

Dr. Collier is a graduate of the University of Michigan Medical School and she completed her internal medicine residency and chief medical resident year at the University of Michigan Health System. Her special clinical interests include preventative medicine, primary care, depression and heart disease. She enjoys cooking, sports and spending time with her husband and sons.

Farr Curlin, MD

Farr Curlin, MD, is Josiah Trent Professor of Medical Humanities in the Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities, & History of Medicine and Co-Director of the Theology, Medicine and Culture Initiative (TMC) at Duke University. Dr. Curlin has worked to bring attention to the intersection of medicine, ethics, and theology. In 2012 he helped to found both the University of Chicago’s Program on Medicine and Religion and the annual Conference on Medicine and Religion. Since 2015, through Duke Divinity School’s TMC Initiative, he and colleagues have brought graduate theological training to those with vocations to health care. Starting in 2023, Dr. Curlin also is working with colleagues across North America to develop the Hippocratic Society, an association of students and practitioners dedicated to forming clinicians in the practice and pursuit of good medicine. He is co-author, with Chris Tollefsen, of The Way of Medicine: Ethics and the Healing Profession (Notre Dame University Press, 2021), as well as more than 150 articles and book chapters addressing the moral and spiritual dimensions of medical practice.

Mihretu P. Guta, PhD

Mihretu P. Guta completed his PhD at Durham University in the UK and spent a year at Durham University as a postdoctoral research fellow within the Durham Emergence Project. Currently, Guta teaches philosophy at Azusa Pacific University, Biola University, and Addis Ababa University. His publications include: Selfhood, Autism, and Thought Insertion edited with Sophie Gibb; E. J. Lowe’s Metaphysics and Philosophical Theology, a Special Issue edited with Eric LaRock; Consciousness and the Ontology of Properties; and Taking Persons Seriously: Where Philosophy and Bioethics Intersect edited with Scott Rae. Currently, Guta is working on a book manuscript entitled: The Metaphysics of Substance and Personhood: A Non-Theory-Laden Approach and another co-written book entitled: Bracketed Issue: A Case for Metaphysical Foundation for Bio-Ethics.

Keith Plummer, PhD

Dr. Keith Plummer has been a faculty member at Cairn University since 2010. He previously served as an associate pastor at Our Saviour Evangelical Free Church in Wheeling, IL for 18 years where his primary responsibilities were adult education and pastoral counseling. He has contributed to two books—Before You Lose Your Faith: Deconstructing Doubt in the Church and The Digital Public Square: Christian Ethics in a Technological Society and is an inaugural fellow of the Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics. He and his wife Ingrid have two children.

Michael J. Sleasman, PhD

Michael J. Sleasman, PhD, is Associate Professor of Bioethics and the Director of Bioethics Degree Programs for Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He previously served for 12 years as the the Managing Director and Research Scholar for The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity (CBHD), and has served as an affiliate professor, adjunct instructor, and online course tutor at the college and graduate level in the areas of philosophy, theology, ethics, and cultural engagement. He is a co-editor of Everyday Theology: How to Read Cultural Texts and Interpret Trends, and has published a number of essays, book chapters, articles, and book reviews in the areas of theology, bioethics, and technology. Michael is the editor for Ethics & Medicine: An International Journal of Bioethics published by the Bioethics Department of Trinity Graduate School. He and his wife Cindy reside in the northern suburbs of Chicago with their three children.

Jason Thacker, PhD (Cand.)

Jason Thacker serves as an assistant professor of philosophy and ethics at Boyce College in Louisville, KY. He also is a research fellow in Christian ethics and director of the research institute at The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. He is the author of several books including Following Jesus in the Digital Age and The Age of AI: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity. He also serves as the editor of The Digital Public Square: Christian Ethics in a Technological Society and co-editor of the Essentials in Christian Ethics series with B&H Academic.

Anna Vollema, PhD (Cand.)

Anna Vollema works at the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity where she serves as the Research Scholar. She holds a double MA in Old and New Testament from Talbot School of Theology in southern California. Anna continues her education at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, seeking to better her knowledge of the character of God through obtaining a PhD in Old Testament. She previously taught Elementary Greek for the school, and the excellence of her students only deepened the desire to continue teaching. Anna began a partnership with the Center as the 2021-2023 Robert D. Orr Fellow. Also holding a degree in Psychology, research in the area of Bioethics offers her the chance to further explore the nature of human flourishing, asking complex questions regarding not only what humankind is capable of, but also what we should pursue in light of the nature of God and that of his creation. Her family is spread out across the United States, including several churches, whose people comprise an extension of her family.