Overview

The quest to live much longer has moved from legend to the laboratory. Recent breakthroughs in genetics and pharmacology have put humanity on the precipice of slowing down human aging to extend the healthy life span. The promise of longer, healthier life is enormously attractive, and poses several challenging questions for Christians. Who wouldn't want to live 120 years or more before dying quickly? How do we make sense of human aging in light of Jesus' invitation to daily take up our crosses with the promise of the resurrection to come? Is there anything wrong with manipulating our bodies technologically to live longer? If so, how long is too long? Should aging itself be treated as a disease? In Chasing Methuselah, Todd Daly examines the modern biomedical anti-aging project from a Christian perspective, drawing on the ancient wisdom of the Desert Fathers, who believed that the incarnation opened a way for human life to regain the longevity of Adam and the biblical patriarchs through prayer and fasting. Daly balances these insights with the christological anthropology of Karl Barth, discussing the implications for human finitude, fear of death, and the use of anti-aging technology, weaving a path between outright condemnation and uncritical enthusiasm.

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9781532698019

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Reviews

Can science extend the human lifespan? Can we unlock the secrets of the aging process and learn to slow it down? Yes, or so it seems based on today's technical advances. In this groundbreaking study, Todd Daly offers a first-rate summary of the science of aging. He interrogates Christian attitudes toward aging across the centuries, asking how Christians today should respond to the idea that technology can delay aging. Chasing Methuselah is by far the best theological treatment of a topic sure to command our attention in the future. --Ron Cole-Turner, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary Daly has written an engaging book. He draws upon the Christian theological tradition and a number of contemporary theologians to trace the lineage of our current circumstances. . . . The combination of theology and ethics gently pushes the reader to consider who they are as embodied and thereby finite creatures who grow old over time. And that is no reason to despair, for that is what creatures are intended to do by their Creator. --Brent Waters, from the Foreword

Can science extend the human lifespan? Can we unlock the secrets of the aging process and learn to slow it down? Yes, or so it seems based on today's technical advances. In this groundbreaking study, Todd Daly offers a first-rate summary of the science of aging. He interrogates Christian attitudes toward aging across the centuries, asking how Christians today should respond to the idea that technology can delay aging. Chasing Methuselah is by far the best theological treatment of a topic sure to command our attention in the future. --Ron Cole-Turner, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary Daly has written an engaging book. He draws upon the Christian theological tradition and a number of contemporary theologians to trace the lineage of our current circumstances. . . . The combination of theology and ethics gently pushes the reader to consider who they are as embodied and thereby finite creatures who grow old over time. And that is no reason to despair, for that is what creatures are intended to do by their Creator. --Brent Waters, from the Foreword

Author Information

Todd Daly is Associate Professor of Theology and Ethics at Urbana Theological Seminary and writes in the areas of medicine and human enhancement. He was an inaugural Paul Ramsey Fellow at the Center for Bioethics and Culture and currently serves as a fellow at the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity.

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