Gilbert Meilaender

Gilbert Meilaender is Senior Research Professor at Valparaiso University. He taught at the University of Virginia (1975-78), at Oberlin College (1978-96), and at Valparaiso University (1996-2014), where he held the Duesenberg Chair in Christian Ethics. He holds the M.Div. (1972) from Concordia Seminary (St. Louis) and the Ph.D. (1976) from Princeton University.

He has served on the Board of Directors of the Society of Christian Ethics, as an Associate Editor of Religious Studies Review, as a Consultant Editor of Studies in Christian Ethics, and as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Religious Ethics. In addition, his work in the area of bioethics is well known. He is a Fellow of the Hastings Center and was a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics from 2002 to 2009.

Click here to see a list of books by Gilbert Meilaender

Links to posts and programs featuring Gilbert Meilaender:

  • Thinking Christianly about the body — Theologian and ethicist Gilbert Meilaender discusses some of the themes he explores in two of his books: Body, Soul and Bioethics; and Bioethics: A Primer for Christians. (19 minutes)
  • The Sixth Commandment and the obligation to protect public health — Ethicist Gilbert Meilaender explains why our experience with COVID-19 has made it difficult for many — citizens and officials — to honor a proper obligation to protect public health. (17 minutes)
  • The logic of “making” babies — Gilbert Meilaender on the temptation to instrumentalize our bodies
  • The Christian Mind of C. S. Lewis — Interviews about Lewis with Clyde Kilby, Michael Aeschliman, James Como, Bruce L. Edwards, Thomas Howard, and Gilbert Meilaender. Plus a reading by Alan Jacobs. (73 minutes)
  • Patients needing patience — Gilbert Meilaender on the quest for greater longevity
  • Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 98 — FEATURED GUESTS: Stanley Hauerwas, Clarke Forsythe, Gilbert Meilaender, Jeanne Murray Walker, Roger Lundin, and David Bentley Hart
  • Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 85 — FEATURED GUESTS: C. John Sommerville, Catherine Albanese, Christopher Shannon, Michael G. Lawler, Gilbert Meilaender, and Matthew Dickerson
  • Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 137 — FEATURED GUESTS: Gilbert Meilaender, James L. Nolan, Joel Salatin, Michael Di Fuccia, Robin Leaver, and Michael Marissen
  • Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 118 — FEATURED GUESTS: Gilbert Meilaender, Ron Highfield, Mark Mitchell, Daniel M. Bell, Jr., Helen Rhee, and Peter Brown
  • Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 100 — FEATURED GUESTS: Jennifer Burns, Christian Smith, Dallas Willard, Peter Kreeft, P. D. James, James Davison Hunter, Paul McHugh, Ted Prescott, Ed Knippers, Martha Bayles, Dominic Aquila, Gilbert Meilaender, Neil Postman, and Alan Jacobs
  • Imagining our selves in the image of our devices — What are we? What makes a human intelligent? What is consciousness, knowledge, learning? Ellen Ullman ponders.
  • Gilbert Meilaender: “The First of Institutions” — Gilbert Meilaender argues that notions of sexual fulfillment that ground themselves in self-expression and emotional satisfaction, or in the mutual exchange of love cannot adequately account for the historical, spiritual, communal, and bodily dimensions of sexual union. (40 minutes)
  • Gilbert Meilaender: “Mortality: The Measure of Our Days” — Ethicist Gilbert Meilaender considers the different ways in which we can think about our death, particularly from the paradoxical “simultaneities” of our finite nature and our transcendent desires. (51 minutes)
  • A Gilbert Meilaender retrospective — Excerpts from several interviews with Gilbert Meilaender are included here, including a feature from 1994 in which Meilaender comments on the popular slogan about practicing “random acts of kindness.” (17 minutes)
  • “Broken Bodies Redeemed” — Today’s Feature presents a reading of a 2007 article by Gilbert Meilaender that explores the significance for bioethics of the mystery of human being as body and soul. (39 minutes)