Human Bodies in Pain as Spiritual Battlefields: Christian Illness, Medicine, and Healing in Early Modern and Contemporary Thought

“… and ecumenically broad theological tools and language to think faithfully, witness powerfully, and act prophetically in response to such challenges. ”

Team Members/Contributors

Ekaterina Lomperis University of Chicago Contact Me

About this dissertation fellowship

My dissertation is located at the intersection of the fields of the history of Christian thought, medicine and religion, and constructive theology. It explores and constructively engages little-studied spiritual teachings on medicine and healing, produced during the Protestant and Catholic Reformations in sixteenth-century Europe. I closely read sermons, lectures, treatises, and letters addressing medicine, particularly focusing on those by Martin Luther, Andreas Carlstadt, John Calvin and Teresa of Avila. I argue that, across the theological spectrum, these leading sixteenth-century reformers linked medicine to soteriology, and their polemics about physical healing must be understood as pedagogical extensions of their arguments about spiritual salvation. In the field of the history of Christian thought, my thesis reframes an ongoing debate about perspectives on suffering in early modernity, by bringing into conversation traditionally neglected ideas about medicine and healing in the Reformation. It challenges claims that in early Reformed Protestantism, bodily pain was theologically removed from soteriological concerns. In the field of medicine and religion, my project deepens historical introspection by highlighting the relevance of often overlooked Reformation voices for discussions of health care allocation and ethics. In the field of constructive theology, my project fills a lacuna in contemporary theological reflections on medicine and health care, grounded in a thorough historical interrogation of the Christian tradition, particularly in the Reformation era. By presenting health care and medicine as matters of spiritual importance, in historical and ecumenical alignment with the teachings of Protestant and Catholic reform movements, I propose a conceptual theological and discursive framework for the church confronting the current problem of unjust allocation of healthcare resources, domestically and globally.