Allen Verhey (1994), “Luther's 'Freedom of the Christian' and Patient Autonomy”

As we prepare for our 30th annual conference – The Christian Stake in Bioethics Revisited, June 22-24, available in person and online – this podcast episode features another of the plenary addresses from the very first conference, The Christian Stake in Bioethics, in 1994. Our speaker in this episode is the late Dr. Allen Verhey, and in this address, he takes a careful look at the concept of autonomy and compares it to Martin Luther’s Freedom of the Christian. Dr. Allen Verhey was published widely and was the author, editor, or co-editor of 12 books. He is perhaps best known for Reading the Bible in the Strange World of Medicine, and his final book was The Christian Art of Dying. Dr. Verhey died at age 68 in February 2014, after a long struggle with Amyloidosis.