Health and Medicine in Lutheran Tradition: Being Well [signed]

It is now widely recognized throughout the medical and allied professions that wholistic health care is an idea whose time has come, an idea that must be implemented through every means possible. One of the means is to draw on the major religious bodies with a view to "assembling, assessing, and applying the wisdom of the faith traditions . . . to issues of health care faced by individuals, families, and society." That quotation is from the agenda of Project Ten, an international program of the Lutheran General Medical Center in Park Ridge, Illinois. The books resulting from Project Ten show how the beliefs and practices of the various faith traditions shape and are shaped by encounters with issues in health and medicine. Martin E. Marty's book on the Lutheran tradition - the first in the series and the first on its subject in the over 450 years of Lutheran history - is a fascinating blend of history, theology, medical lore, and pastoral wisdom. From a definitely Lutheran perspective, but open to the insights of other faiths, Dr. Marty discusses such issues as illness and madness, suffering, caring, healing, sexuality, life-passages, and the meaning of dying. The result is a book that is of interest not only to Lutherans and not only to health care professionals; it will appeal as well to concerned lay people and to teachers and pastors. Martin E. Marty is Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor at The University of Chicago and co-editor of the series Health/Medicine and the Faith Traditions.