Studies in Christian Ethics current issue

'In Spirit and in Truth': Can Charles Taylor Help the Woman At the Well Find Her Authentic Self?

Jensen, M. P. — 2008-09-09

This article evaluates the usefulness of `authenticity' for a theological analysis of selfhood. In his Ethics of Authenticity, Charles Taylor makes a case for the retrieval of authenticity which seems to invite a theological account of the self, one he stops short of offering. Taylor's argument is expounded, and a preliminary critique is offered. The theological possibility invited by Taylor is then examined by means of a reading of John 4:1—34. With John we conclude that while authenticity may begin and frame such a discussion, knowledge of the truth of the self is given by divine revelation.

'We've Read the End of the Book': An Engagement with Contemporary Christian Zionism Through the Eschatology of John Howard Yoder

Phillips, E. — 2008-09-09

American Christian Zionism has recently become the subject of much publishing and discussion, most of which focuses on the idea that millenarian convictions are motivating Christian Zionists to attempt to hasten the apocalypse. This approach is neither entirely fair nor particularly beneficial for the purposes of challenging this influential movement, as it trades more in the easy dismissal of caricatures than in substantive theological engagement. This essay explores a narrow facet of such engagement through dialogue between the eschatologies of John Howard Yoder and contemporary American Christian Zionism. An exposition of the connections between the cross, ecclesiology, social action, and apocalyptic in Yoder's eschatology will bring into relief particularly problematic aspects of traditional dispensationalist Christology and ecclesiology which leave continuing legacies in the system of convictions which sustains contemporary Christian Zionist activism.

Who Watches the Watchers? Towards an Ethic of Surveillance in a Digital Age

Stoddart, E. — 2008-09-09

The essay considers contemporary surveillance strategies from a Christian ethical perspective. It discusses first surveillance as a form of speech in the light of biblical themes of truthfulness, then draws on principles of subsidiarity and solidarity. Surveillance is dignified as human work whilst its dehumanizing outcomes are challenged. It is concluded that surveillance must contribute to human dignity and that accountability for data must follow a revised model of subsidiarity, appropriate to network rather than linear socio-political relationships. Mutual responsibility for one another's data-image is derived from solidarity which, further, offers a response to the angst of a culture of suspicion.

From Eschatology to Anthropology: The Development of Pannenberg's Thought Over Christian Ethics

Kam Ming Wong, — 2008-09-09

The anthropological turn, which Pannenberg decisively and successfully executed in the early 1980s, has provided his latest ethical argumentation with an extra dimension and increased depth. Pannenberg now believes that ethics has its foundations in anthropology rather than directly in dogmatics. The ethical as a common concern of all humankind must not be isolated and made independent of metaphysics and religion. For only then can the claim of universal validity for ethics be sustained, which in turn Pannenberg sees as the condition of its binding nature for Christians. Our awareness of moral obligations would become vague when it cannot be clarified in terms of any universally valid norms. Our final verdict on Pannenberg's new approach, however, must await greater clarity on whether his universal moral claim can withstand the potent challenge arising in today's increasingly pluralistic world; otherwise, his latest methodology would only bring him from the historicist fringe to the anthropologist margin.

On the Christological Transfiguration of Culture: Toward a Mendicant Ethic

Woodard-Lehman, D. A. — 2008-09-09

Read in isolation, H. Richard Niebuhr's Christ and Culture is seen to render a settled verdict against the sectarian anticultural type and in favour of the transformative type. But this ignores the interrelated dialectics of movement and institution, withdrawal and identification, accommodation and transformation characteristic of his critical project. It further occludes Niebuhr's variegated treatment and deployment of `the monastic' within his larger corpus, and especially in the lesser-known texts such as The Church Against the World. This essay reconsiders Christ and Culture within this broader critical and textual context. It revisits the question posed in `Back to Benedict?': `It is worthwhile raising the question, therefore, whether Protestantism can and ought to continue to reject the monastic ideal out of hand'. It retrieves the full valence of hermetic, cenobitic, and mendicant forms of asceticism conflated by Niebuhr's equivocal designation of `monasticism'. In so doing, it argues for a mendicant cultural ethic which can account for the full dialectical range of Niebuhr's sectarian and transformative types within the sectarian type itself.

Book Review: John Atherton and Hannah Skinner (eds.), Through the Eye of a Needle: Theological Conversations over Political Economy (Peterborough: Epworth, 2007). xiv + 274 pp. {pound}19.99 (pb), ISBN 978--0--7162--0626--2

Forrester, D. B. — 2008-09-09

Book Review: Joel Backstrom, The Fear of Openness: An Essay on Friendship and the Roots of Morality (Abo: Abo Akademi University Press, 2007). iv + 524 pp. 33 (pb), ISBN 978--951--765--364--0

de Graaff, G. — 2008-09-09

Book Review: Philip Booth (ed.), Catholic Social Teaching and the Market Economy (London: Institute for Economic Affairs, 2007). 286 pp. {pound}15 (pb), ISBN 978--0--255-- 36581--9

Palaver, W. — 2008-09-09

Book Review: Brian Brock, Singing the Ethos of God: On the Place of Christian Ethics in Scripture (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007). xxi + 386 pp. $18.99/US$34 (pb), ISBN 978--0--8028--0379--5

Byassee, J. — 2008-09-09

Book Review: T. A. Cavanaugh, Double-Effect Reasoning: Doing Good and Avoiding Evil (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006). xxiv + 220 pp. {pound}45 (hb), ISBN 978--0--19-- 927219--8

Sulmasy, D. P. — 2008-09-09

Book Review: Celia Deane-Drummond and Peter Manley Scott (eds.), Future Perfect? God, Medicine and Human Identity (London: T&T Clark International, 2006). xii + 219 pp. {pound}65 (hb), ISBN 978--0--567--03079--2

Peat, M. — 2008-09-09

Book Review: Michael Northcott, A Moral Climate: The Ethics of Global Warming (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2007). xv + 336 pp. {pound}12.95 (pb), ISBN 978--0--232-- 52668--4

Oakley, N. W. — 2008-09-09

Book Review: Hideo Ohki, et al., A Theology of Japan: Origin and Task in the Age of Globalization, `A Theology of Japan' Monograph Series vol. 1 (Saitama: Seigakuin University Press, 2005). 121 pp. {yen}1200 (pb), ISBN 978--4--915832-- 59--8. Atsyoshi Fujiwara (ed.), Church and State in Japan since World War II, `A Theology of Japan' Monograph Series vol. 2 (Saitama: Seigakuin University Press, 2006). 163 pp. {yen}2500 (pb), ISBN 978--4--915832--65--9

Suggate, A. M. — 2008-09-09

Books Received

2008-09-09