Our Bodies Are Selves

Philip Hefner is Professor of Systematic Theology Emeritus, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. He was Editor of Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science, 1988-2007. His Technology and Human Becoming (2003) is in widespread use as a college text. Ann Milliken Pederson is Professor of Religion at Augustana College, Sioux Falls, SD. She is the author of The Geography of God's Incarnation (2013). Susan Barreto is a journalist, whose work appears on the website of the Lutheran Alliance for Faith, Science and Technology (www.luthscitech.org) and The Lutheran magazine. She is also editor of InvestHedge, a monthly magazine that covers the hedge fund industry.

• AcknowledgmentsAbbreviations1 A New Paradigm: Body-Self - Philip Hefner and Ann Milliken Pederson 2 Getting Around: Disability and Life in the Spirit - Philip Hefner 3 Personal Narrative: Living in the Middle Years - Ann Milliken Pederson 4 In the Early Years: Tiny Promises - Susan Barreto 5 Discovering Our Culture's Script: A Manifesto about Our Cultural Views of Bodyselves - Ann Milliken Pederson 6 Where Medicine and Christianity Collide - Ann Milliken Pederson 7 A Scientific Take on Our Bodyselves: What Science Tells Us about Our Bodies and Ourselves - Philip Hefner 8 The Human Journey - Philip Hefner 9 Nature, Mystery, and God - Philip Hefner 10 Luther on the Body: Incarnation, Sacrament, Technoself, and Faith - Ann Milliken Pederson 11 The Body of Christ - Ann Milliken Pederson AfterwordSuggestions for Further ReadingBibliography

In one way or another, most of us work to figure out life. Meaning is complex and often elusive. We are especially challenged when facing the uncertainties of personal illness and decline. This text helps to show us the way. A new paradigm, 'bodyself', forcefully challenges the old mind-body dualism of the venerable Descartes and some now antiquated views of medical practice. Hefner, Baretto, and Pederson's perspective is compelling, with a reasoned approach that draws the reader in.