Introduction to the Summer 2026 Issue

Abstract

This summer issue of Verba Vitae takes up the theme “Christian Medical Ethics in a Secular Medical Environment.” The essays and reviews gathered here neither retreat from the complexities of contemporary medicine nor substitute slogans for careful judgment. Instead, they invite readers to consider the goods medicine properly serves, the limits it must acknowledge, the suffering it can alleviate, and the persons entrusted to its care. Throughout the issue, particular attention is given to Lutheran resources for such reflection: vocation, the distinction between the Two Kingdoms, the theology of the cross, natural law, and the abiding confession that every human life is received from God and lived coram Deo.