Guest Editor Introduction to Special Issue “(Ir)Religion in Clinical Ethics Consultation Methodology and Competencies”

Abstract

The push by some bioethicists to excise religion from the clinical ethics consultative process has received institutional support from the American Society for Bioethics and the Humanities (ASBH). Their certification program, Healthcare Ethics Consultant-Certified (HEC-C), is intended to identify and assess “a national standard for the professional practice of clinical healthcare ethics consulting” devoid of religious content. As Christian ethicists who wish to preserve the morally evaluative nature of healthcare ethics, we must pause and theologically reflect on the meaning of such a program. The five articles in this issue offer rich theological responses to the religion-free standardized methodology endorsed by the ASBH and reified in the HEC-C certification program. They offer a depth of theological reflection we see previously lacking in the literature, attending to the real possibilities of a “terraformed bioethics” effecting metaphysical harm, severing of clinical ethics from its sources, eliminating possibilities for conversion, and confusing the meaning of moral expertise.