Events

Charmaine Royal is associate professor of African & African American Studies, Biology, and Community & Family Medicine at Duke University. She is also core faculty in the Duke Initiative for Science and Society, faculty affiliate in the Duke Global Health Institute, and senior fellow in the Kenan Institute for Ethics. Full bio.

Ekklesia Contemporary Ballet will perform at the Duke Divinity School chapel service in Goodson Chapel, followed by a lunchtime conversation on the intersection between dance and theology. The event is sponsored by the Theology, Medicine, and Culture Initiative; Duke Initiative for Theology and the Arts; and the Center for Reconciliation. Ekklesia Contemporary Ballet exists to “love all and serve all” as the church embodied through the visible form of dance. Ekklesia holds a diverse compilation of repertory that spans a…

James P. Lefler is Assistant Consulting Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University School of Medicine.

Patrick T. Smith is Associate Research Professor of Theological Ethics and Bioethics at Duke Divinity School and Senior Fellow of the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University. Full bio.

The annual Conference on Medicine and Religion, held in Durham, North Carolina this year, will explore chronic pain and faithful responses to it. Pain haunts human experience and frequently leads people to seek help from medical practitioners. As many as one in four American adults suffers chronic pain. On one hand, relieving pain seems the most obvious of responsibilities for clinicians. As the saying goes, “To cure sometimes, to relieve often, to comfort always.” On the other hand, pain often…