Preserving the Penultimate: The Impact of Bonhoeffer and Schweitzer on Healthcare

''Robert Jaggs-Fowler draws on the work of two Lutheran theologians, Albert Schweitzer and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, to argue - perhaps provocatively but also persuasively - that Christians need to be strenuously involved in the promotion and delivery of healthcare. From Bonhoeffer, Jaggs-Fowler takes the distinction between the ultimate and the penultimate, between heaven and the world, to argue that it is the ultimate that requires Christians to be concerned with the penultimate, with life here and now. It is in the world that the Church encounters Christ through being Christ for others. Caring for the health of the neighbour is a spiritual undertaking, and one the Church needs to pursue with vigour and courage. This is a finely written, enlightening and challenging book.'' (Gerard Loughlin, Professor of Christian Theology at Durham University) Preserving the Penultimate brings two of the 20th century's most renowned Christian thinkers, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Albert Schweitzer, into conversation around the emerging possibilities of healthcare and examining the Church's relationship to healthcare, with reference to the NHS.

• | Author: Robert M. Jaggs-Fowler
• | Publisher: James Clarke & Co Ltd
• | Publication Date: Nov 27, 2025
• | Number of Pages:
• | Language:
• | Binding: Hardback
• | ISBN-13: 9780227180952
• | ISBN-10: 022718095X