Lead the Life to Which God Has Called You: On the Vocations of Christian Bioethicists and Healthcare Professionals

The Society for Christian Bioethicists will host its next conference on March 5-7, 2027, fully online via Zoom. The Society has recently written and ratified a Constitution and elected its first members of the executive committee. As a Society, we are looking to the future and thinking about direction, purpose, goals, and callings. The theme of the 2027 conference of the Society for Christian Bioethicists is “Lead the Life to which God has Called You: on the vocations of Christian bioethicists and healthcare professionals.” This theme is inspired by 1 Corinthians 7:17, which says “Let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him” (ESV). The conference will feature a keynote address from Dr. Gilbert Meilaender (Valparaiso University) and a plenary address from Dr. Kimbell Kornu (Belmont University), with more speakers to be announced soon. The conference will also feature parallel paper presentations. We invite submissions of abstracts for presentations on the conference theme. We are also pleased to announce that this year’s conference will include a student essay competition , the details of which are below. Abstracts and essay competition submissions may engage, among other possibilities, the following questions:

• What is the vocation of the Christian in healthcare?
• Why do Christian bioethicists and healthcare professionals do the work that we do?
• What is the aim of the work of Christians in healthcare, and what limits are imposed upon what we may do or what we may aim to accomplish?
• Given that callings are received from others who express their needs, needs that can be fulfilled with works of Christian love, what are the present needs of our neighbors to which Christian bioethicists and healthcare professionals must respond? How can we respond uniquely as Christians?
• Why do Christians need bioethicists? Why does bioethics need Christians? – How does the work of Christian bioethicists participate in the church’s ministry of the gospel of Jesus? How can bioethicists serve the church or support its witness?
• How do Christians in healthcare incorporate faith into their thinking about their work?
• How does one experience or discern a call to a healthcare profession?
• Other related topics might include: conscientious objection, the purpose of medicine, “the good”, virtue, best practices for Christians in healthcare, secular/Christian or interreligious engagement, and more.

Each presenter will be given 30 minutes (20-minutes to deliver remarks and 10 minutes for Q&A with the audience, generally). Anyone at any stage of their career may submit an abstract of ~250 words. We also welcome submissions related to any other topic that is of interest to Christian bioethicists, even if not related to the conference theme. Anyone from anywhere in the world may submit an abstract in English for a presentation that can be delivered in English.

This conference provides a unique interdisciplinary platform for scholars and practitioners to share their research and engage in thoughtful dialogue with Christian bioethicists from a range of perspectives. We welcome submissions from a wide range of academic and professional fields, including but not limited to bioethics, clinical ethics, medicine, theology, philosophy, law, and the social sciences.

Accepted papers need not make explicitly Christian arguments. While the Society is committed to the Christian faith and religion in its constitution, anyone of any faith (or none) is welcome to submit. Submissions expressing any viewpoint will be fairly considered. We believe that informed and respectful disagreement can be a benefit to all.

This year, the conference will also include a student essay competition. Any student pursuing an undergraduate or graduate degree and who does not already possess a doctoral level degree (PhD, MD, JD, etc.) may submit a completed, original, and unpublished essay of 4,000-6,000 words (not including footnotes or citations) on a topic related to the conference theme for consideration. Coauthored papers may be considered as long as all authors are eligible students. Winning papers will be recognized during the conference. All student essay competition submissions will also be considered as regular submissions and may be invited to be presented during the conference, even if not recognized with an award. In other words, students who submit to the essay competition do not also need to submit the same project as an abstract.

To submit an abstract or a student essay , visit christianbioethicists.com. Submissions will open on November 15, 2026. The deadline for submissions is January 1, 2027.

This conference is co-sponsored by the following partners, to whom we express our gratitude: the Ostapenko Center for Ethics in Medicine and Healthcare at Niagara University; The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity at LeTourneau University; the Theology, Medicine, and Culture Initiative at Duke Divinity School; and the Plunkett Centre for Ethics at the Australian Catholic University.