Dr. Lloyd Steffen

Lloyd Steffen
Professor of Religion Studies
University Chaplain
Director of the Center for Dialogue Ethics and Spirituality
Director of the Lehigh Prison Project
Professor of Religion Studies
Brown University, Ph.D.
(610)758-3877
The Dialogue Center, 661 Taylor Street, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA 18015 Room 202 661 Taylor Street

Recent Lectures (2018-19)

2018-21:  Fulbright Specialst Award, U.S. Department of State.  Assignment, Brazil:  Seminar:  “Moral Obligation and Punishment”  

          UNISINOS in Sao Leopoldo, 18 students (10-8-2018 to 10-12-2018)

          Universitad Federale Pelotas, 22 students (10/15 to 10/19, 2018)

Paper, “Religion, Sectarianism, Fanaticism and the Moral Point of View:  Two Buddhist Views on the Withdrawal of Care,” International Academy of Law and Public Health, University of International Studies of Rome, Rome, Italy, July 21-27, 2019.   

Invited speaker: “Physician Assistance in Dying:  An Option for Christians?” for Conference, Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia:  Theological and Ethical Responses, Pellegrino Center for Clinical Bioethics and the McDonald Agape Foundation, Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown University, November 9, 2018.

Panelist and Presenter, “Peace, Pluralism, Religion and Secularism,” The Parliament of Religions, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, November 6, 2018.

Books

The Ethics of Death:  Religious and Philosophical Perspectives in Dialogueco-author Dennis Cooley, Minneapolis:  Fortress Press, 2014.     

Ethics and Experience:  From Just War to Abortion, Lanham,MD:  Rowman and Littlefield, 2012.
 
Holy War, Just War:  Exploring the Moral Meaning of Religious Violence  (Lanham, MD:  Rowman and Littlefield, 2007).
 
New Perspectives on the End of Life:  Essays on Care and the Intimacy of Dying, eds. Lloyd Steffen and Nate Hinerman, Oxford:  Inter-Discipinary Press, 2012).
 
Death, Dying, Culture:  An Interdisciplinary Interrogation.  Edited and introduction by Lloyd Steffen and Nate Hinerman.  Oxford: Interdisciplinary Press, 2013. Republished, Leiden, Boston:  Brill, 2019.  DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9781848881730
 
Re-Imaging Death and Dying:  Global Interdisciplinary Perspectives.  Edited and introduction by Dennis R. Cooley and Lloyd Steffen.  Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2009.
 
In Good Conscience:  Guidelines for the Ethical Provision of Health Care in a  Pluralistic Society (a co-author; information and text of document available at www.rcrc.org.)
 
The Demonic Turn: The Power of Religion to Inspire or Restrain Violence.  Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 2003.
 
Executing Justice:  The Moral Meaning of the Death Penalty.  Cleveland:  Pilgrim Press, 1998. Actual publication March, 1999 
            --Reprint Edition:  (Eugene, OR:  Wipf & Stock, 2006)
 
Abortion: A  Reader.  Pilgrim Library of Ethics, Vol. 1.  Cleveland:  Pilgrim Press, 1996. Reprint Edition:  (Eugene, OR:  Wipf & Stock, 2010). 
 
Life/Choice:  The Theory of Just Abortion.  Cleveland:  Pilgrim Press, 1994.  Reprint edition:  Eugene, OR:  Wipf & Stock, Publishers, 1999.
 
Self‑Deception and the Common Life.  American University Studies Series.  Series 7 (Theology and Religion), Vol. 11.   New York, Berne, Frankfurt/M.: Peter Lang Publishing, 1986.
 
Articles (select, recent)

“Questioning POLST: Practical and Religious Issues,” Dalhousie Law Journal, Vol. 41, number 1 (Spring 2018): 173-195. (Published 2019)

“Preliminary Material,”  Lloyd Steffen & Nate Hinerman, eds Death, Dying, Culture: An Interdisciplinary Interrogation, Leiden, Boston:  Brill, 2019: i-xii. DOI: ttps://doi.org/10.1163/9781848881730.

“On Kevorkian, Vivisection and Beneficent Execution”, in eds. Lloyd Steffen and Nate Hinerman, Death, Dying, Culture: An Interdisciplinary Interrogation, Amsterdam: Brill, 2019: 107-15.  DOI: ttps://doi.org/10.1163/9781848881730.

“The War on Drugs as Harm to Persons:  Cultural Violence as Symbol and Justification,” ed. Fuat Gursozlu, Peace, Culture and Violence, Value Inquiry Book Series, Volume 316, Philosophy of Peace (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2018):  126-51.       

“The Death Penalty and Nonviolence:  Justice beyond Empathy,” The Routledge Handbook of Pacifism and Nonviolence, ed. Andrew Fiala (New York:  Routledge, 2018): 318-330.

“A Theory of Just Execution,” in Barbara MacKinnon and Andrew Fiala, eds., Ethics: Theory and Contemporary Issues, 9th edition, (Boston:  Cengage Learning, 2018):  406-414.

“Overvaluation:  An Obstacle to Dialogue,” Dialogue and Universalism (Values and Ideals, Theory and Praxis), Vol. 27, no. 1 (2017):  7-22.

“Christian Perspectives on Assisted Dying:  An Issue for Religious Ethics,” chapter 6 in Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide:  Global Views on Choosing to End Life, editor Michael Cholbi (Santa Barbara, CA:  Praeger, 2017): 121-44. 

“Religion and Violence in Christianity,” Chapter 5, Oxford Handbook on Religion and Violence, ed. Mark Juergensmeyer, Michael Jerryson, and Margo Kitts. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013:  169-206. 
 
“Moral Death,” in New Perspectives on the End of Life: Essays on Care and the Intimacy of Dying, Lloyd Steffen and Nate  Hinerman, eds. (Oxford: InterDisciplinary Press, 2013), 131-143.
 
“On Kevorkian, Vivisection and Beneficent Execution,” in Death, Dying, Culture:  An Interdisciplinary Interrogation.  Edited and introduction by Lloyd Steffen and Nate Hinerman.  Oxford: Interdisciplinary Press, 2012: 107-16.
 
“Stop the Killing: The Protections of ‘Just War’ on Non-Combatants,” in Unequal before Death, ed. Christina Staudt and Marcelline Block (Newcastle upon Tyne:  Cambridge Scholars Press, 2012):  204-12.
 
"The Divine Foetus:  Abortion and Absolute Innocence," in Pondering Death:  Interdisciplinary Reflections and Perspectives, ed.Asa Kasher (Amsterdam: Rodopi Press, 2012):  in press.
 
"The Ethics of Physician Assisted Suicide," in Pondering Death:  Interdisciplinary Reflections and Perspectives, ed.Asa Kasher (Amsterdam: Rodopi Press, 2012):  in press.
 
“The Ethical Complexity of Abraham Lincoln:  Is There Something for Religious Ethicists to Learn?”, Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 31.2: 74-99.
 
“Human Rights:  Virtue’s Last Resort?”, Global Virtue Ethics Review,  Volume 6, no. 3. 
 
“Commentary” for Wiley-Blackwell Exchange on-line Conference, ‘The Changing Face of War,’ 14‐20 November  2011,  <http://wileyblackwellexchanges.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/fiala_comment...
 
“Moral Death:  Preliminary Considerations,” in Exploring Issues of Care, Dying and the End of Life, eds. Sue Steele & Glenys Caswell, Probing the Boundaries Series, Vol. 152  (Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2011: 3-10.  (Proceedings from 7th Global Death and Dying Conference, Prague: November 2010.)
 
“Warfare Deaths:  Ethical and Religious Understanding in the American Context,” Religion, Death and Dying [Three Volumes], Volume 2:  Special Issues, ed. Lucy Bregman, (Santa Barbara, CA, Oxford, UK: Praeger, 2009): 183-208.
 
“The Ethics of Patient Non-Treatment,” Re-Imaging Death and Dying: Global Interdisciplinary Perspectives, eds., Dennis R. Cooley and Lloyd Steffen (Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2009): 211-224.
 
 “Nonviolence as Ethical Spirituality:  The Case of the Dalai Lama,” Prajñā Vihāra:  Journal of Philosophy and  Religion, Vol. 10, no. 1 & 2 (January-December, 2009):  112-135. 
 
"Casting the First Stone:  Capital Punishment is Still a Moral Problem,"Viewpoints:  Readings Worth Thinking and Writing About, 7th edition, ed. W. Royce Adams, (Belmont, CA:  Wadsworth, 2009):  436-441.
 
Gandhi's Nonviolent Resistance:  A Justified Use of Force?", Journal of Philosophy and the Contemporary World 15: 1 (June 2008):  68-80.
 
"Physician Assisted Suicide:  A New Approach,” Mortality, Dying and Death, T. Chandler Haliburton and Caroline Edwards, eds., (Oxford:  Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2008):  183-205.
 
"Demonic Religion and Violence," in Arvind Sharma, ed., The World's Religions after September 11, Vol. I:  Religion, War and Peace [Four Volumes], New York:  Praeger, 2008:  19-29.
 
"The Presumption of Peace:  Where Just War and Non-Violent Resistance Meet (and Diverge), Jason Daverth, ed., Conflict and Conciliation:  Faith and Politics in an Age of Global Dissonance (Dublin, Ireland:  Columba Press, 2007):  20-38.
 
"What Religion Contributes to an Environmental Ethic,"  Environmental Ethics, Vol. 29 (Summer 2007):  193-208.
 
"The Death of Innocents:  Noncombatant Immunity v. the Divine Fetus," in Layers of Death and Dying, ed. Kate Woodthorpe (Oxford: The Inter- Disciplinary Press, 2007):  97-106.
 

Reviews

(over 70 reviews published in such journals as Ethics, Political Theology: An International Journal; Journal of the American Academy of Religion, The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, The Christian Century, Religious Studies Review, Cross Currents: Religion and Intellectual Life, Theology Today, Critical Review of Books in Religion, Choice, Environmental Ethics, others)

Public Writings

(over 150 writings directed to broader audience)
 
 
For information about activities of the Chaplain's Office and Steffen's role as University Chaplain or Director of the Lehigh University Center for Dialogue, Ethics and Spirituality, go to  Chaplain's Office or to The Center for Dialogue, Ethics and Spirituality.