Seminary: Meadville Lombard Theological School
Location: 610 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL, 60605
Course number: MLTS E455
Instructor: Dr. Michael Hogue
Website: https://www.meadville.edu/
Course Description
For various reasons, this time in the history of life is one of unparalleled promise and peril. Our increasing human capacity to intervene within and to alter the larger world of life presents us with grave practical challenges. Where in previous historical times the natural world was interpreted as a relatively stable backdrop to human behavior, contemporary human efficacy is now capable not only of radically altering but of possibly destroying the conditions necessary to sustain life.
Further, new possibilities in genetic science and technology mean that human life has crossed a moral threshold from being not only an agent but also an object of technological change. Life, human and other-than-human, is more vulnerable than ever before. A multitude of theological and ethical implications attend these radical shifts in the scope and power of human action. The primary aim of this course is to bring the gravity of these implications to visibility in order better to respond to them.