Sandage and Brown propose a relational model for the integration of the fields of psychology and theology. This model highlights the fact that discussions between people from different traditions and world views bring their embodied humanity to any engagement. Their model can also provide a method for engagement across traditions and faiths. As they observe, relational approaches to collaboration have been sparsely represented (p. 41), yet present an opportunity for respectful and reciprocal influence, while acknowledging the challenges and tensions inherent in situations where people are involved in integrative endeavours. This paper will suggest how this model could be used in inter-theological dialogue.

Discussions around Physician Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia (PAS&E) often have a polarising effect, and instead of generating meaningful dialogue, foment arguments, entrenched through emotional involvement. Thus, successfully exploring nuances surrounding PAS&E and promoting theological perspectives, first requires establishing a neutral common space. As compassion is used by both proponents and opponents of PAS&E to justify their stance, it offers a neutral starting point and opens a common space for dialogue. Because compassion is central to Christian as well as other approaches to ethics, when dialogue regarding PAS&E is grounded in a shared framework of compassion, it allows theology to intervene constructively in debates and discussions beyond the Christian sphere. Framed thus, we can move the central question from “is PAS&E ethical?” to “when is PAS&E compassionate?” To answer this question, theological approaches include hermeneutics, or engagement with the theological history of compassion as a virtue or emotion. Here I will combine these to consider how John Chrysostom, through his analysis of the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus construes compassion as an emotional attitude to others. Chrysostom argues that compassion comes about by seeing and pitying the other, identifying their need and finally meeting their need as community. This understanding of compassion promotes a space where theological dialogue can interact with PAS&E laws thus promoting deeper engagement with the concept of compassion in PAS&E.