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Jeffrey P. Bishop, M.D., Ph.D.

Tenet Endowed Chair in Bioethics; professor of philosophy, professor of health care ethics; professor of theology
Department of Health Care Ethics

Education

  • Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Dallas
  • M.A. in philosophy from the University of Dallas
  • Internal Medicine Residency Training from the UT Southwestern Medical School
  • M.D. from the University of Texas Medical School
  • B.S. in theology from the Austin Graduate School of Theology (formerly the Institute for Christian Studies)
  • B.A. in zoology from the University of Texas

Research Interests

Bioethics, philosophy of medicine; history of philosophy; medicine and spirituality.

Publications and Media Placements

Books

  • Bishop, J. P., Lysaught, M.T., Michel, A.A. (2022). Biopolitics After Neuroscience: Morality and the Economy of Virtue. Bloomsbury Academic.
  • Bishop, J. P. (2011). The Anticipatory Corpse: Medicine, Power, and the Care of the Dying. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.

Journal Articles

  • Bishop, J.P. (2021, in preparation) “Cutting the Dynamic Heart: Chaplaincy and the Static Religion of Medicine” Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics
  • Bishop, J.P. (2021, in preparation) “Transhumanist Religion and the Cult of the Technological Imperative.” European Journal of Philosophy of Religion
  • Bishop, J.P. and Goss, BW (2021, in press) “Secular Dreams and Myths of Irreligion” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy.
  • Bishop, J.P. (2020) “Building Moral Brains: Moral Bioenhancement and the Being of Technology” Maynooth Philosophical Papers. DOI:
  • Bishop, J.P. and Fitzgerald, M. (2020) “Norming COVID-19: The Urgency of a Nonhumanist Holism,” Heytrhop Journal. doi:
  • Bishop, J.P. (2020) “At the Edge of Everydayness” Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics 10(1): 43-48. Doi: .
  • Bishop, J.P. (2020) “Technics and Liturgics.” Christian Bioethics 26(1): 12-30. doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/cb/cbz016
  • Bishop, J.P. (2019) “When Is Somebody Just Some Body? Ethics as First-Philosophy and the Brain Death Debate” Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 40(5): 419-436. DOI:
  • Bishop, J. P. (2018) “Of Minds and Brains and Cocreation: Psychopharmaceuticals and Modern Technological Imaginaries.” Christian Bioethics 24(3): 224-245. .
  • Bishop, J.P. (2018) “Ageing and the Technological Imaginary: Living and Dying in the Age of Perpetual Innovation,” Studies in Christian Ethics DOI: .
  • Goss, B.W., and Bishop, J.P. (2018) “Judging Religion: Power, Pluralism, and the Political Control of Medicine.” Journal of Ethics, Medicine, and Public Health 5: 26-34. DOI: .
  • Bishop, J.P. (2017) “Principles, rules, and the deflation of the good in bioethics.” Journal of Ethics, Medicine, and Public Health DOI: .
  • Bishop, J.P. (2017) “Beginning at the End: Liturgy and the Care of the Dying.” Christian Bioethics 23(1): 77-83. DOI:
  • Bishop, J.P. (2016) “From Anticipatory Corpse to Posthuman God.” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 41(6): 679-695.
  • Bishop, J.P. (2016) “Arts of dying and the Statecraft for Killing,” Studies in Christian Ethics. 29(3): 261-268. DOI: 10.1177/0953946816642969
  • Bishop, J.P. (2015) “From Biomedicine to Biopsychosociospiritual Medicine: A Lesson in the History of Medicine in the West.” The International Journal of Chinese and Comparative Philosophy of Medicine and Philosophy (Chinese, Mandarin Language) 13(2):89-118.
  • Bishop, J.P. (2014) “Christian Morality in a Post-Christian Medical System,” Christian Bioethics 20(3): 319-329. doi: 10.1093/cb/cbu024.
  • Bishop, J.P. (2014) “False Gods and Facades of the Same: On the Distinctiveness of a Christian Bioethics." Christian Bioethics. 20 (2): 301-317 doi:10.1093/cb/cbu023.
  • Bishop, J.P., Perry, J.E., A1:AM10 Medical Humanities. 29(1), 15-25.
  • Gagen, W. J., Bishop, J. P. (2007). “Ethics, Justification and the Prevention of Spinda Bifida.” Journal of Medical Ethics. 33(9), 501-507.
  • Bishop, J. P., Rees, C. (2007). “Hero or has been: What is the future of altruism in medical education.” Applied Health Sciences Education Research. 12(3), 391-399.
  • Bishop, J. P. (2006). “Euthanasia, efficiency, and the historical distinction between killing a patient and allowing a patient to die.” Journal of Medical Ethics. 32(4), 220-224.
  • Bishop, J. P. (2006). “Framing Euthanasia.” Journal of Medican Ethics. 32(4), 225-228.
  • Bishop, J. P. (2004). “Beyond Health Care Accountability: The Gift of Medicine.” The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy. 29(1), 119-133. Bishop CV 4 08/20/14
  • Bishop, J. P. (2004). “Modern Liberalism, Female Circumcision and the Rationality of Traditions.” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy. 29(4), 473-497.
  • Bishop, J. P., Stenger, V. (2004). “Retroactive prayer: Lots of History, Not much mystery and No Science.” British Medical Journal. 329, 1444-1446.
  • Bishop, J. P. (2003). “Prayer, Science and the Moral Life of Medicine." Archives of Internal Medicine. 163, 1405-1408.
  • Grinnell, F., Bishop, J. P., McCullough, L. B. (2002). “Bioethical Pluralism and Complementarity.” Perspectives in Biology and Medicine. 45(3), 338-349.
  • Bishop, J. P. (2000). “Creating Narratives in the Clinical Encounter.” Medical Humanities Review. 14(1), 10-23.
  • Bishop, J. P. (2000). “Mind-Body Unity: Gregory of Nyssa and a Surprising Fourth Century C.E. Perspective.” Perspectives in Biology and Medicine. 43(4), 519-529.

Law Review

  • Perry, J. E., Bishop, J. P. (2010). “Life, Death (Panels), and the Body Politic” Syracuse Law Review 60: 999-1021.

Refereed Book Chapters

  • Eberl, J.T. and Bishop, Jeffrey P., (2020) “Battlestar Galactica as Philosophy: Breaking the Biopolitical Cycle” The Palgrave Handbook of Popular Culture as Philosophy, ed. David Kyle Johnson (Palgrave).
  • Bishop, J.P. (2018) “Transhumanism and Nietzsche’s Power Ontology: Or Why Christians Cannot be Transhumanists.” Edited by Ron Cole Turner and Steven Donaldson. In Transhumanism and the Church. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave MacMillan.
  • Bishop, J.P. (2018) “Icons of the Body, Darker Gifts of the Flesh.” Imaging and Interpreting Illness: Becoming a Broken Body. Edited by Devan Stahl. Portland, OR: Cascade Press.
  • Bishop, J.P. (2018) “Doing Well or Doing Good in Ethics Consultation.” In Peer Review, Peer Education, and Modeling in Clinical Ethics Consultation: The Zadeh Project. Edited by Stuart Finder and Mark Bliton. London: Springer.
  • Bishop, J.P. (2016). “The Dominion of Medicine: Bioethics, the Human Sciences, and the Humanities.” In To Fix or To Heal. New York University Press. Edited by Joseph E. Davis and Maria Gonzales
  • Bishop, J.P. (2015) “Dependency, Decisions, and a Family of Care.” Family Oriented Informed Consent: East Asian and American Perspectives. Edited by Ruiping Fan. Springer.
  • Bishop, J.P. (2015). “On Medical Corpses and Resurrected Bodies.” The Role of Death in Life, Edited by John Behr and Connor Cunningham. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans Press.
  • Bishop, JP. (2015). “Finitude.” Dying in the 21st Century: Toward a New Ethical Framework for the Art of Dying. Edited by Lydia Dugdale. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  • Bishop, J.P. (2014). “Scientia Mortis and the Ars Moriendi.” In (Ed.) Health and Humanities Reader Edited by Jones, T., Wear, D., Friedman, L. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
  • Bishop, J. P. (2014). “On Medical Corpses and Resurrected Bodies.” In Behr, John. The Role of Death in Life. Eerdmans Press.
  • Bishop, J. P. (2014). “Finitude.” In Dugdale, Lydia. The New Ars Moriendi. Oxford University Press.
  • Bishop, J. P. (2013). “Scientia Mortis and the Ars Moriendi.” In Jones, T., Wear, D., Friedman, L. (Ed.) Health and Humanities Reader. Rutgers University Press.
  • Bishop, J. P. (2013). “Science, Virtue, and the Birth of Modernity, or On the TechnoTheo-Logic of Modern Neuroscience.” In Guerra, M., Lawler, P. (Ed.), The Science of Modern Virtue. Northern Illinois State University Press.
  • Bishop, J. P. (2011). “On the Social Construction of Clinical Ethics Consultation.” In Engelhardt, H. T. (Ed.), Bioethics Critically Reconsidered: Having Second Thoughts. London: Springer, pp. 177- 189.
  • Bishop, J. P. (2007). “The broken body and the disabled body: Reflections on disability and the objects of medicine.” In Swinton, J., Brock, B. (Ed.), Theology, Disability and the New Genetics: Why Science Needs the Church. London: T&T Clark.
  • Bishop, J. P. (2002). “Men in Modernity: Aristotle, the Genome and the meaning of Life.” In Munhall, P., Madden, E., Fitzsimons, V. (Ed.), The Emergence of Man in the 21st Century. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett.

Non-refereed Journal Articles

  • Bishop, J. P. (2014) "Renewing Christian Bioethics." Christian Bioethics. 20 (2): 141- 145 doi:10.1093/cb/cbu012.
  • Bishop, J. P. and Trancik, E. (2013) “Assessing the Spirit.” Christian Bioethics. 19 (3): 247- 250 doi:10.1093/cb/cbt026
  • Bishop, J. P. and Sunderland, N. (2013) “What is it Like to Live with the Label of Disability? Personal Narrative as a Resource for Responsive and Informed Practice in Biomedicine and Bioethics.” Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics. 3(3): 183-186.
  • Bishop, J. P., Bedford, E. L. (2011). “Medically Assisted Nutrition and Hydration: The Vegetative State and Beyond.” Christian Bioethics. 17(2), 97-104.
  • Bishop, J. P. (2011). “Waiting for St. Benedict Among the Ruins: MacIntyre and Medical Practices.” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy. 36(2), 107-113.
  • Bishop, J. P. (2009). “Revisiting Foucault.” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy. 34(4), 323-327.
  • Bishop, J. P., Jotterand, F. (2006). “Bioethics as biopolitics.” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy. 31(3), 205-212.
  • Bishop, J. P. (2000). “A Challenging Dialogue: A Response to Arthur Frank.” Medical Humanities Review. 14(2), 20-25.

Media Contributions

  • Jeffrey P. Bishop Church Life Journal 8 May 2020
  • Jeffrey P. Bishop ABC Religion and Ethics 6 December 2019
  • Jeffrey P. Bishop Church Life Journal 6 December 2019
  • . Jeffrey P. Bishop Church Life Journal 16 March 2018
  • Enchanting Medicine: Science, Religion and the Care of the Patient. Jeffrey Bishop, ABC Religion and Ethics 30 November 2017.
  • Charlie Gard and the Finitude of Medicine. Jeffrey Bishop, ABC Religion and Ethics 26 July 2017.
  • Charlie Gard and the Goods of Medicine. Jeffrey Bishop, ABC Religion and Ethics17 July 2017.
  • Reflections after Ferguson: Surveillance and the Black Body. Jeffrey Bishop, ABC RELIGION AND ETHICS 2 December 2014.
  • Hard Work of Dying: Refusing the false logic of Physician-Assisted Death. Jeffrey Bishop, ABC Religion and Ethics 15 July 2014.
  • The massacre of the Holy Innocents: Who is responsible? Jeffrey Bishop, ABC Religion and Ethics 28 Dec. 2012
  • Power over life and death: The amorality of modern medicine. Jeffrey Bishop, ABC Religion and Ethics 27 Nov. 2012
  • The phenomenon of life. Jeffrey Bishop, ABC Religion and Ethics 28 Sept. 2012
  • Medicine and power: The biopsychosocial mastery of the body. Jeffrey Bishop, ABC Religion and Ethics 21 March 2012
  • The end of life and the amorality of medicine. Jeffrey Bishop, ABC Religion and Ethics 24 May 2012
  • HS decision shows science, politics joined at the hip. Jeffrey P. Bishop and Mark Cherry Washington Examiner 29 Dec. 2011
  • Searching for ourselves in this colony of corpses. Jeffrey Bishop, ABC Religion and Ethics 7 Nov. 2011
  • . Jeffrey P. Bishop St. Louis Post Dispatch 27 Sept. 2011
  • The cultured body and the cult of medicine. Jeffrey Bishop, ABC Religion and Ethics 23 Aug. 2011
  • . Jeffrey P. Bishop St. Louis Post Dispatch 14 June 2011

Professional Organizations and Associations

  • (UK) Association of Medical Humanities (Governing Council Member) 2006
  • American Society for Bioethics and Humanities
  • American Philosophical Association
  • American Academy of Religion
  • Society for Christian Philosophers
  • Society for Christian Ethics