Studies in Christian Ethics recent issues

Becoming Responsible in Christian Ethics

Lovin, R. W. — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 07:58:08 PDT

The works of H. Richard and Reinhold Niebuhr provide an appropriate starting point for renewed attention to the idea of responsibility in Christian ethics. While responsible choice and ‘the responsible society’ were important themes in ecumenical Protestant ethics in Britain and the US from the 1930s to the late 1950s, the idea has been neglected in recent decades. German theology, however, has considered Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s wartime writings on the ‘venture of responsibility’ and a biblical theology of judgment and responsibility in light of a growing literature in philosophy and social thought that structures the moral life around a technological society’s responsibility for the human future. These different ways of thinking about responsibility invite further theological and ethical reflection on their history, their disagreements, and their possibilities for the future.

The Niebuhrian Legacy and the Idea of Responsibility

Ottati, D. F. — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 07:58:08 PDT

Reinhold and H. Richard Niebuhr developed different stances in theological ethics as well as contrasting interpretations of important circumstances and events. Despite their differences, however, when it came to the idea of responsibility, they shared a fundamental insight about the situated character of human agency. Their insight points to a substantial if also flexible Niebuhrian legacy in theological ethics, and promising and problematic features of this legacy have continued to engage the critical and constructive energies of diverse thinkers, including James M. Gustafson, Gordon D. Kaufman, Robin W. Lovin, and William Schweiker.

The Concept of Responsibility: Dilemma and Necessity

Schoberth, W. — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 07:58:08 PDT

Beginning with a critique of Max Weber’s famous, but misleading distinction between an ‘ethics of intention’ and an ‘ethics of responsibility’, the article brings attention to the elucidating analysis of the concept of responsibility by the German philosopher Georg Picht. Originally a juristic term, responsibility was applied to eschatology and so became a fundamental ethical concept. By separating the concept from its theological background it remains a necessary idea for modern societies but increasingly loses its definition. The concept suffers from overemphasising the autonomous subject, which is overburdened by the universality of responsibility. Therefore a ‘polis ethic’ is needed: not the isolated subject, but subjects in community are its authors. For Christians all human responsibility is preceded by God’s actions and held by God’s grace.

The Drama of Social Sin and the (Im)Possibility of Solidarity: Reinhold Niebuhr and Modern Catholic Social Teaching

Firer Hinze, C. — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 07:58:08 PDT

Recent Catholic social teaching’s treatments of social sin and its proposed remedy, neighbor-love conceived as solidarity, represent genuine advances in this modern Christian tradition. This essay asks what Niebuhr’s ethical analysis might add to, or question about, these Catholic interpretations. After briefly describing how these themes are enunciated in post-Vatican II documents, and Niebuhr’s approach to like issues, I identify several challenges, cautions and additions that Niebuhr might offer to Catholic leaders seeking to understand social sin and to promote solidary action. Suggesting the merits of a more ‘Niebuhrian’ Catholic social ethic, and a more ‘Catholic’ Niebuhrian realism, I argue that articulating a Catholic social agenda with a Niebuhrian perspective can address weaknesses that undercut each tradition’s ability to motivate and sustain effective work for justice. Both traditions also need to better connect social ethics and spirituality, and more systematically account for the social-theoretical assumptions their moral discourse depends upon or implies.

Responsibility as Response: Biblical-Theological Remarks on the Concept of Responsibility

von Lupke, J. — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 07:58:08 PDT

The term of responsibility is ambiguous. In a general sense it means nothing more than answering questions about human behaviour (in Greek: logon didonai; in Latin: rationem reddere). In order to get a more precise sense of responsibility this article discusses concepts of responsibility, worked out by Albert Schweitzer, Hans Jonas, Richard Niebuhr and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The discussion is concentrated on two problems: (1) extensification of responsibility in accordance with the expansion of technological power; (2) limitation and intensification of responsibility in accordance with human capability and readiness. The central question is that of the subject of responsibility: How becomes man, who abdicates responsibility, ‘the responsible self’ (Niebuhr)? Referring to this question the biblical language is of great importance as the word, which re-establishes communication between God and man. Responsibility in the biblical sense means the response to this word of God. Therein lies not only a radicalising and intensifying of responsibility, but also its enabling and limiting.

Responsibility and Moral Realities

Schweiker, W. — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 07:58:08 PDT

This essay explores ‘responsibility’ within moral theory and around the question of God’s relation to the world and to acting and suffering human beings. Advancing reflection beyond the outlooks of twentieth-century theologians, the inquiry outlines a multidimensional position that interweaves different rationalities crucial to orienting responsible life. Actions and relations are responsible which respect and enhance the integrity of life. Responsibility is thereby not in itself the object or norm of the ethics but the form of moral existence. This account enables current thought to weave together previous arguments in Christian ethics in a way productive for our global times.

Obituary: Richard John Neuhaus (1936--2009)

Meilaender, G. — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 07:58:08 PDT

Book Review: David F. Ford, Christian Wisdom: Desiring God and Learning in Love, Cambridge Studies in Christian Doctrine, 16 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). xiv + 412 pp. {pound}45/US$85 (hb), ISBN 978-0-521-87545-5; {pound}15.99/ US$29.99 (pb), ISBN 978-0-521-69838-2

Moberly, W. — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 07:58:08 PDT

Book Review: Stephen J. Pope, Human Evolution and Christian Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). xiii + 359 pp. {pound}50/US$95 (hb), ISBN 978-0-521-86340-7

Clark, S. R. L. — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 07:58:08 PDT

Books Received

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 07:58:08 PDT

The `Poor in Spirit' and Our Life in Christ: An Eastern Orthodox Perspective on Christian Discipleship

Barbu, L. — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 05:55:29 PDT

In his study on the Sermon on the Mount, Hans Dieter Betz remarks that the expression `the poor in spirit' (oi oi µ) (Mt. 5:3) is unique in the entire New Testament and does not appear at all in the early Christian literature or elsewhere in the Greek language. Considering the profound and veiled meaning of the first Matthean beatitude in the Sermon on the Mount, this article asks whether a patient analysis of the Christian virtue of humility may reveal a way of life worthy of the blessings enjoyed by the `poor in spirit' in the Kingdom of Heaven. As such, it is argued throughout that the virtue of humility is the foundation of Christian discipleship, adducing arguments from the patristic exegesis of the first beatitude, the humility of the incarnate Son, and the Eastern Orthodox practice of spiritual direction.

`Not to Abolish, But to Fulfil': The Person of the Preacher and the Claim of the Sermon On the Mount

Ziegler, P. G. — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 05:55:29 PDT

The claims of Mt. 5:17—20 are often taken to provide the interpretive key to the ethical claims of the Sermon on the Mount as a whole. The theological issue at stake here is the determinative relation between Christ's person and work and his teaching. This article explores the vital role played by the identity of Christ as the `fulfiller of the law' and `bringer of the Kingdom' in the exegesis of the Sermon offered by Eduard Thurneysen and Dietrich Bonhoeffer in their respective works Die Bergpredigt (1936) and Nachfolge (1937). Both readings assert that the force and nature of the claims of the Sermon cannot be understood aright apart from constant attention to the difference made by the fact that Christ is the preacher. Out of this shared conviction, both theologians advance a reading of the Sermon as `the gospel itself' in the light of the eschatological identity of Jesus. Such readings of the Sermon, arising amidst the German Kirchenkampf of the 1930s, represent substantial contributions to the `responsible interpretation' of the Barmen Declaration (1934) whose second article states that, `As Jesus Christ is God's assurance of the forgiveness of all our sins, so in the same way and with the same seriousness is he also God's mighty claim upon our whole life.'

Decolonization of the Lifeworld by Reconstructing the System: a Critical Dialogue Between Jurgen Habermas and Reinhold Niebuhr

Ahn, I. — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 05:55:29 PDT

For all Habermas's remarkable contribution to moral theory, his discourse ethics has left behind some debatable points. In particular, `delinguistified media' such as money and power have been excluded from the domain of moral discourse. The exclusion of money and power from the domain of moral discourse has also motivated Habermas to develop an idea of `colonization of lifeworld by system' by giving us the impression that the delinguistified media are the main culprit of colonizing the lifeworld. In this article, by drawing on Reinhold Niebuhr's theological ethics, I argue that the lifeworld is colonized not by the delinguistified media as such, but, rather, by the people who mismanage money and power. I also develop the argument that in order to `decolonize' the colonized lifeworld, we need the substantive ethical ideals as well as the communicatively established law to guide the moral conduct of these system managers.

Dancing with Macromolecules: Ethical Tasks at the Dawn of Molecular Medicine

Heuser, S. — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 05:55:29 PDT

Rival paradigms of genetics suggest different perceptions of human life and, correspondingly, of the task of medicine. In dialogue with two paradigmatic heuristics of genetics, I will show that bioethics needs to articulate a narrative that encourages a renewed understanding of the complexity of the phenomena of human life to which molecular medicine must be open. These considerations will be put to the test by discussing the ethical implications of the recent developments in stem cell research and in personal genetics.

`Felicity to the Original Text'? The Translation of Bonhoeffer's Ethics

Moberly, J. — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 05:55:29 PDT

In this article Moberly considers in detail the question of how well the translation of Bonhoeffer's Ethics for the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works series represents his thought. While recognizing the difficulties the translators faced, and some successes achieved, Moberly highlights a number of ways in which the translation is flawed through linguistic weaknesses, questionable editorial decisions, and through translations which obscure or distort Bonhoeffer's thought theologically or philosophically. These issues render the translation unreliable for scholarly work, leading the author to question whether for a critical edition there is sufficient warrant to retranslate Bonhoeffer's Ethics.

The Morality of Cluster Bombing

Winright, T. — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 05:55:29 PDT

Consensus among human rights groups and churches in recent years about cluster bombs has culminated in the Convention on Cluster Munitions. While there is apparent agreement that cluster bombs ought to be illegal, no substantive ethical treatment of this issue exists. In statements, references are typically made to the danger cluster munitions pose to civilians; it is alleged that these weapons are inherently immoral, and appeal is given only implicitly or in a cursory fashion to traditional just war reasoning. Taking its cue from Jesuit moral theologian John C. Ford's influential article appearing in 1944 on `The Morality of Obliteration Bombing', and drawing on the more recent work of Oliver O'Donovan on `immoral weapons', this essay offers a critical moral assessment of cluster bombs and their use through attention to the principles of discrimination, proportionality, and the framework of double effect reasoning.

Book Review: Richard A. Burridge, Imitating Jesus: An Inclusive Approach to New Testament Ethics (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007). xxi + 490 pp. US$35.00/{pound}19.99 (hb), ISBN 978-0--8028--4458--3

Paddison, A. — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 05:55:29 PDT

Editorial

Parsons, S. F. — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:17:28 PDT

Preaching the Beatitudes in the Late Middle Ages: Some Mendicant Examples

Muessig, C. — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:17:28 PDT

This article assesses the use of the Sermon on the Mount, especially the beatitudes, by mendicant preachers in the later Middle Ages. Focusing on Francis of Assisi, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas and Bernardino of Siena it examines how the beatitudes were employed by preachers in their sermons and teachings. Through an analysis of mendicant usage of the beatitudes, aspects of the practical and moral applications of the Sermon on Mount in the Middle Ages are examined and put into historical and theological context.

Temple Themes and Ethical Formation in the Sermon On the Mount

Welch, J. W. — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:17:28 PDT

The Sermon on the Mount is a coherent text, consistently drawing on words, expressions, and sacred values that were principally at home in the Old Testament Psalms and in the spiritual functions of the Temple of Jerusalem. Noticing these powerful allusions and understanding the moral authority that they would have conveyed to the ears of its earliest listeners opens insights into the ability of the Sermon on the Mount to communicate an authoritative moral vision, to engender a shared community ethic, and to instill a firm commitment to its ethical imperatives. No text is more important or has had more influence on the history and character of Christianity than the Sermon on the Mount. The mystery of the Temple offers important keys for hearing the rhetorical voice of the Sermon and unlocking its enduring and everlasting potency in ethical formation.

Specifyand Distinguish! Interpreting the New Testament on `Non-Violence'

Biggar, N. — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:17:28 PDT

Widely showered with superlatives when it was first published in 1996, and now commonly regarded as a masterpiece, Richard Hays's The Moral Vision of the New Testament (1996) constructs a pacifist reading of the New Testament. To date, Hays's reading has provoked no systematic refutation from proponents of the doctrine of just war. This essay hopes to offer such a refutation. Its argument has three main planks. First, that Hays's reading of the New Testament stories about god-fearing soldiers, who persist in their profession, is not compelling; second, that he fails to specify sufficiently the meaning of Jesus' teaching and conduct in terms of Jesus' own context (particularly the option of armed violence in the service of religiously inspired nationalism); and third, that Hays's normative moral concepts are often too crude, suffering from a failure to employ valid moral distinctions. The essay concludes by arguing that the doctrine of just war is better able than pacifism to make adequate sense of all the relevant New Testament data.

Narrate and Embody: A Response To Nigel Biggar, `Specify and Distinguish'

Hays, R. B. — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:17:28 PDT

This response has two parts: a reply to Nigel Biggar's specific criticisms of my exegesis and an appeal for attention to more fundamental theological issues. Biggar generally disregards the narrative and epistolary contexts of the verses he cites and introduces anachronistic conceptual distinctions. Beyond specific exegetical disagreements, his argument fails to address the broader christological, ecclesiological, and eschatological warrants for Christians to embody Jesus' way of peace. The moral vocation of the people of God is grounded in the story of Jesus Christ. It is this story that makes just war theologically problematical.

On the Relevance of Jesus Christ for Christian Judgements About the Legitimacy of Violence: A Modest Proposal

Clough, D. — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:17:28 PDT

This article surveys traditional and modern interpretations of Jesus' teaching on violence in the Sermon on the Mount, showing that from Augustine onwards and for a wide variety of reasons Christians have taken the view that the teaching and example of Christ about violence cannot be squared with the necessity of being violent in the context in which they find themselves. Against this position, the article makes the modest proposal that the Church will decide best about the ethics of violence when it recognizes that the teaching and example of Jesus Christ are relevant to the question.

Moral Law, Privative Evil and Christian Realism: Reconsidering Milbank`s `The Poverty of Niebuhrianism'

Burk, J. K. — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:17:28 PDT

This paper responds to John Milbank's essay, `The Poverty of Niebuhrianism' in The Word Made Strange, in which Milbank critiques Reinhold Niebuhr's Christian realism for reliance on Stoic natural law thinking and its deficiency in regard to original sin. While Milbank rightly detects naturalism in Christian realism, this naturalism is inaccurately identified as Stoic in conception. Additionally, more detailed analysis of Niebuhr's thought reveals similarities between Niebuhr and Milbank on original sin, as this article seeks to demonstrate.

Book Review: David L. Clough and Brian Stiltner, Faith and Force: A Christian Debate about War (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2007). 304 pp. US$26.95/{pound}15.95 (pb), ISBN 978--1--58901--165--6

Haddorff, D. — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:17:28 PDT

Book Review: Kevin Twain Lowery, Salvaging Wesley's Agenda: A New Paradigm for Wesleyan Virtue Ethics (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2008). xx + 328 pp. US$38.00 (pb), ISBN 978--1--55635--377--8

Long, D. S. — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:17:28 PDT

Book Review: Charles Mathewes, A Theology of Public Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). xiv + 366 pp. {pound}55.00/US$99.00 (hb), ISBN 978--0-- 521--83226--7

Bailey, J. W. — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:17:28 PDT

Book Review: C. Ben Mitchell, Edmund D. Pellegrino, Jean Bethke Elshtain, John F. Kilner and Scott B. Rae, Biotechnology and the Human Good (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2007). xiv + 210 pp. US$24.95/{pound}14.75 (pb), ISBN 978--1--58901--138--0

Caspary, A. — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:17:28 PDT

Book Review: Michael L. Morgan, Discovering Levinas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). xxi + 504 pp. {pound}58.00/US$95.00 (hb), ISBN 978--0--521--87259--1; {pound}18.99/US$34.99 (pb), ISBN 978--0--521--75968--7

Zimmermann, N. — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:17:28 PDT

Book Review: Catherine Osborne, Dumb Beasts and Dead Philosophers: Humanity and the Humane in Ancient Philosophy and Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). xiii + 262 pp. {pound}42.00 (hb), ISBN 978--0--19--928206--7

Clough, D. — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:17:28 PDT

Book Review: Ted A. Smith, The New Measures: A Theological History of Democratic Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). xiii + 340 pp. {pound}45.00/ US$85.00 (hb), ISBN 978--0--521--87131--0

Hovey, C. — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:17:28 PDT

Books Received

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:17:28 PDT

Editorial

F. Parsons, D. S. — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 03:58:28 PST

Usus Gratiae: How Am I to Hear the Sermon on the Mount?

Parsons, S. F. — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 03:58:28 PST

What the moral theologian has to teach concerning the Sermon on the Mount depends fundamentally on how these words of the Lord are heard. With hearing comes understanding, and because this Sermon is considered in the tradition to be a kind of interpretative key to any understanding of the Christian life as such, the way one hears what is being said is critical to the formation and practices of faith in the believer. In an age determined by nihilism, this hearing has been overtaken by the need to reassert the moral god, in consequence of which faith is reduced to its service in propping up an otherwise endangered morality, however variously that may be described. This is illustrated with reference to John Paul II's encyclical letter, Veritatis Splendor. What is lost through such an account is the hearing of this Sermon as a word of grace, from out of whose movement the hearer is prepared for the reception of faith and is turned out toward the future with God. St Thomas Aquinas's teaching shows how each use of grace is an event of appropriation wherein the believer is conformed to Christ, so that in one's understanding and making one's own of what is being heard, God is claiming His own.

Prayer and Morality in the Sermon on the Mount

O'Donovan, O. — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 03:58:28 PST

The Lord's Prayer is at the centre of the Sermon on the Mount in a section on restraint in religious performance. The flanking sections treat of the opposition of lower and higher law, and of simplicity of agency, themes reflected in the central section in the opposition of public and secret. The Lord's Prayer inducts the worshipper into the elementary relations of the universe: the Father, the source of intelligible governance of the universe; the community of human beings created to live and act within the world; the temptation which is the final test of the enterprise of human living.

Rain on the Just and the Unjust: the Challenge of Indiscriminate Divine Love

Herdt, J. A. — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 03:58:28 PST

Hearers of the Sermon on the Mount are called to become children of their heavenly father by loving as God loves. Surprisingly, though, God's love is depicted here as impersonal and indiscriminate, as similar to or even simply as a force of nature, even if a life-giving force: God `makes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust' (Matthew 5:45). Anders Nygren used this verse as core support for his dubious characterization of agape as `indifferent to value'. How should we hear it today?

The Sermon on the Mount and Political Ethics

Battle, J. — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 03:58:28 PST

The Sermon on the Mount is not abstract idealism. It connects to our political contest not least because it insists on the big questions of purpose and ends and how society should be ordered. Rooted in the Old Testament focus on the fair distribution of wealth (ensuring the poor get priority) — cf. Proverbs 2, 8, 9, 14, 15, 29 — the Sermon is a programme for social citizenship and local community development.

The Sermon on the Mount as Realistic Disclosure of Solid Ground

Stassen, G. H. — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 03:58:28 PST

In our Age of Interaction, we need a historically based method for validating our ethics as standing on solid ground. Applying such a method to historical test times such as the Third Reich, the US Civil Rights Movement, and others, indicates that an ethic of incarnational discipleship, trinitarianly interpreted, passes the test. But this requires an interpretation of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount that corrects idealist interpretations, and points instead to realistic practices of deliverance. A new paradigm for interpreting the Sermon on the Mount is demonstrated, with fourteen grace-based transforming initiatives of realistic deliverance from vicious cycles. A hermeneutic of analogical imagination is advocated for relating Jesus' practices in his context to effective practices of deliverance in our historical context. This points to realistic practices of just peacemaking that are effective in preventing wars and creating conditions that lead toward peace — and therefore are realistic for social ethics.

Reading the Sermon on the Mount in an Age of Ecological Catastrophe

Bauckham, R. — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 03:58:28 PST

This article offers a reading of Matthew 6:25—34 in its first-century context and a reflection on how it can address our contemporary context of ecological catastrophe. Jesus takes the birds and the wild flowers as examples of God's generous provision for all his creatures. His hearers or readers can learn to trust God for basic needs, but only by seeing the world as God's creation and themselves as fellow-creatures with non-human creatures in the community of creation. For readers today this should free them from modern Western society's addiction to excess and enable them to live within created limits.

Review Article: A Closer walk on the Wild Side: Some Comments on Charles Taylor's A Secular Age: Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007). x + 874 pp. US$39.95 (hb), ISBN 978--0--674--02676--6

Milbank, J. — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 03:58:28 PST

Book Review: Joseph Pilsner, The Specification of Human Actions in St Thomas Aquinas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). 246 pp. {pound}55.00 (hb), ISBN 978--0-- 19--928605--8

Shaw, J. — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 03:58:28 PST

Book Review: Christopher Chenault Roberts, Creation and Covenant: The Significance of Sexual Difference in the Moral Theology of Marriage (New York: T&T Clark International, 2007). xiii + 266 pp. {pound}65.00 (hb), ISBN 978--0--567--02655--2

Thiessen Nation, M. — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 03:58:28 PST

Book Review: Jason Byassee, Praise Seeking Understanding: Reading the Psalms with Augustine (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007). xiv + 290 pp. US$32.0 (pb), ISBN 978--0-8028--4012--7

Brock, B. — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 03:58:28 PST

Book Review: David Albert Jones, Approaching the End: A Theological Exploration of Death and Dying (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). ix + 242 pp. {pound}55.00 (hb), ISBN 978--0--19--928715--4

Louth, A. — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 03:58:28 PST

Book Review: John Swinton and Brian Brock (eds), Theology, Disability and the New Genetics: Why Science Needs the Church (London: Continuum/T&T Clark, 2007). x + 251 pp. {pound}19.99 (pb), ISBN 978--0--567--04558--4

Yong, A. — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 03:58:28 PST

Book Review: John Kelsay, Arguing the Just War in Islam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007). 253 pp. {pound}16.95/US$24.95 (hb), ISBN 978--0--674-- 02639--1

Biggar, N. — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 03:58:28 PST

Books Received

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 03:58:28 PST