"Co-published simultaneously as Journal of religion, disability & health, volume 8, numbers 3/4 2004."

Includes bibliographical references and index.

A doctor's debt to Stanley Hauerwas / David L. Coulter -- Hauerwas on disability / John Swinton -- Timeful friends: living with the handicapped / Stanley Hauerwas -- Response: the need of strangers / Jean Vanier -- Response: making yourself useful / Michael B�erub�e -- Community and diversity: the tyranny of normality / Stanley Hauerwas -- Response: whose table for "the retarded"? / John O'Brien -- The church and the mentally handicapped: a continuing challenge to the imagination / Stanley Hauerwas -- Response: the limits of our practices / Jeff McNair -- The gesture of a truthful story / Stanley Hauerwas -- Response: on discovering saints and making a difference / Aileen Barclay -- Suffering the retarded: should we prevent retardation? / Stanley Hauerwas -- Response: thoughts on suffering: a parent's view / Hazel Morgan --

Must a patient be a person to be a patient? or, my uncle Charlie is not much of a person but he is still my uncle Charlie / Stanley Hauerwas -- Response: the ground and grammar of personhood / Ray Anderson -- The retarded and the criteria for the human / Stanley Hauerwas -- Suffering, medical ethics and the retarded child / Stanley Hauerwas -- A response: retarded children or retarded ethics? / Christopher Newell -- Having and learning to care for retarded children / Stanley Hauerwas -- The retarded, society, and the family: the dilemma of care / Stanley Hauerwas -- Response: on the significance of caring / Linda L. Treloar -- Reflection on dependency: a response to responses to my essays on disability / Stanley Hauerwas.