ABSTRACT
The role of theology in bioethics is to clarify for the religious community itself what the shape of its life should be in the relevant areas. Religious groups indubitably have been active in pressing their bioethical concerns in the public arena in the United States. Even within the community, however, theology will yield fewer specific norms than it will more fundamental affirmations of the values and commitments that should undergird the identity and challenge the decision-making of religious persons. Bioethical discussions in situations of common practical interest; a dilemma about the nature of a practical moral obligation gives a common starting-point. As James Gustafson has indicated, theology rarely yields precise and concrete directives for bioethical decisionmaking, or commends insights and actions inaccessible to nonreligious persons. But theology does have a critical function in "public" discourse, if the edge of religious commitment can be sharpened so as to cut through cultural assumptions.
