Studies in Christian Ethics recent issues

Eschatology and Statecraft in Paul Ramsey

Casey, S. A. — 2008-08-08

This essay traces the historical development of the relationship between eschatology and statecraft in the thought of Paul Ramsey. At the outset of his career, as exemplified in Basic Christian Ethics, Ramsey outlined a position in which the Christian doctrine of eschatology could be construed as a source of positive theological warrants for engagement in politics. By the end of his career Ramsey's political realism had trumped this earlier theological position on eschatology such that eschatology was seen as a permanent limiting factor that restrained what he saw as Enlightenment stained utopian Christian political schemes.

John Paul II's Call for a Renewed Theology of Being: Just What Did He Mean, and How Can We Respond?

Hemming, L. P. — 2008-08-08

In this article I explore the contemporary relationship of theology to philosophy through the call for a `renewed philosophy of being' by Pope John Paul II. I argue that in fact three understandings of being appear in this call: the first, phenomenological, appears as the bringing to description of the situation of contemporary nihilism, exemplified by Nietzsche both in his published works and his Nachlaß; the second, metaphysical, can be understood as the moralistic voice taken up by contemporary theologians in addressing philosophy. This voice, I argue, is the voicing of the subjectivity of the (Cartesian) subject, and can be understood as the unfolding of the being-historical of the subject, explained in Martin Heidegger's use of the term `history of being' or Seinsgeschichte . This voice arises out of the `modernity' of the eighteenth century up to the present: it is a voice of extreme nihilism, but expressing itself as an imperative — not what `is', but what `should be'. This voice is also to be found in John Paul II. The third understanding is a possibility only arising out of the extreme nihilism encountered in the first two understandings of being. This understanding makes possible the genuine asking of the `question of being', the Seinsfrage, also laid out by Heidegger. As such, the question of being, when genuinely asked, alters the human comportment to God. Inasmuch as being presses in on man through a lack, an emptiness, that reasserts the fundamental orientation toward the future that unfolds from out of the being of beings, so the region of concealment and the withdrawal of the nihilating of the nothing, which is the region proper to divinity, can be understood and seen all over again.

Appeals to the Bible in Ecotheology and Environmental Ethics: a Typology of Hermeneutical Stances

Horrell, D. G., Hunt, C., Southgate, C. — 2008-08-08

This article surveys and classifies the kinds of appeal to the Bible made in recent theological discussions of ecology and environmental ethics. These are, first, readings of `recovery', followed by two types of readings of `resistance'. The first of these modes of resistance entails the exercise of suspicion against the text, a willingness to resist it given a commitment to a particular (ethical) reading perspective. The second, by contrast, entails a resistance to the contemporary ethical agenda, given a perceived commitment to the Bible. This initial typology and the various reading strategies surveyed are then subjected to criticism, as part of an attempt to begin to develop an ecological hermeneutic, a hermeneutic which operates between recovery and resistance with an approach that may be labelled `revision', `reformation' or `reconfiguration'.

Miracles and Moral Culpability: How To Murder Your Parishioners and Get Away With It

Luck, M. — 2008-08-08

I argue that there exists a proportional relationship between degrees of moral culpability and degrees of probability, where the more an agent believes her actions will result in certain consequences, the more morally culpable she is for these consequences. I assert that this degree of probability is necessarily diminished by the existence of active supernatural powers. Consequently, agents who believe in such powers are less morally culpable than agents who do not.

Persons in Community in the Theology of Rowan Williams: Issues Arising With the Use of Sociology in Christian Moral Reasoning

Moseley, C. — 2008-08-08

Rowan Williams's theological-moral reasoning regarding the formation of personal identities in relation to gender, familial and communal ties is analysed in an article review of his book Lost Icons. This is his most sustained essay in theological social criticism, and was intended for the general public beyond academic theology. Williams exposes Christian moral reasoning on these issues to forms of secular critique whilst simultaneously using theological and historical strategies from liberal Anglo-Catholicism. His argumentation is subjected to theological and social-scientific scrutiny. The article calls for closer attention to debates within secular feminism and social research concerning the formation of adult men and women in relation to the wider post-Christian society. Links are made from Williams's thought in Lost Icons to underlying patterns in his academic theological output.

Forgetting the Land

Rodwell, J. S. — 2008-08-08

A three-year project funded by the M. B. Reckitt Trust is aiming to provide a theological critique of the sustainability process. This paper, based on the Reckitt Lecture given at the close of the first year of the work, outlines findings from a case study in the post-industrial landscape of South Yorkshire. Working with statutory and voluntary social, economic and environmental agencies and the Christian faith communities there, it explores how `sustainability' is interpreted, whether a spiritual perspective is represented in the sustainability process and whether notions of `belonging' and `place' figure in the quest to secure the future of the area. The wider significance of the findings is discussed.

Book Review: Don S. Browning, Equality and the Family: A Fundamental, Practical Theology of Children, Mothers, and Fathers in Modern Societies (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007). xi + 416 pp. {pound}18.99/US$34 (pb), ISBN 978--0--9028--0756--4. Adrian Thatcher, Theology and Families (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007). x + 278 pp. US$84.95/{pound}55/AUS$181.50 (hb), ISBN 978--1--4051--5274--7; US$34.95/ {pound}29.99/AUS$75.95 (pb), ISBN 978-1-4051-5275-4

Waters, B. — 2008-08-08

Book Review: Don S. Browning, Christian Ethics and the Moral Psychologies (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006). ix + 244 pp. {pound}17.99/US$30 (pb), ISBN 0--8028--3171--0

Remele, K. — 2008-08-08

Book Review: Craig A. Carter, Rethinking Christ and Culture: A Post-Christendom Perspective (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2006). 220 pp. {pound}12.99 (pb), ISBN 978--1--58743--159--3

Taylor, R. S. — 2008-08-08

Book Review: Neil M. Gorsuch, The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006). xi + 311 pp. {pound}18.95 (hbk), ISBN 978--0691--12458--2

Hiscox, W. E. — 2008-08-08

Book Review: John Hart, Sacramental Commons: Christian Ecological Ethics (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006). xxv + 248 pp. {pound}17.99 (pb), ISBN 978--0--7425--4605--9

Northcott, M. — 2008-08-08

Book Review: Alasdair MacIntyre, Ethics and Politics: Selected Essays, Volume 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). xii + 239 pp. {pound}40/ US$70 (hb), ISBN 978--0--521--85438--2; {pound}14.99/US$24.99 (pb), ISBN 978--0--521--67062--3

O'Donovan, O. — 2008-08-08

Book Review: Brent Waters, The Family in Christian Social and Political Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). xvi + 313 pp. {pound}55 (hb), ISBN 978--0--19--927196--2

Browning, D. — 2008-08-08

Books Received

2008-08-08

Editorial

Parsons, S. F. — 2008-04-02

Manager and Therapist as Tragic Heroes: Some Observations of a Theologian At a Psychiatric Hospital

Verhey, A. — 2008-04-02

The paper examines the roles of manager and therapist as formed by an emotivist culture, by a recognition of tragedy, and by a Christian narrative. The Christian story provides resources to resist an emotivist culture, to cope with tragedy, and to reform the roles of manager and therapist. The context for the examination is provided by reflection about the development of a mission statement for Pine Rest Christian Hospital.

Inwardness and Commodification: How Romanticist Hermeneutics Prepared the Way for the Culture of Managerialism -- a Theological Analysis

Wannenwetsch, B. — 2008-04-02

The essay undertakes a theological genealogy of the spirit of managerialism as it affects churches today by tracing it back to hermeneutical shifts in the history of (Protestant) theology: the loss of the externality of the word as a result of Schleiermacherian hermeneutics as it moved the centre of attention from a doctrine of the word to a doctrine of faith. The author demonstrates how the shift to inwardness created the conditions in which the market of 'spiritual needs' could emerge that today's church managers capitalize on. Theological analysis is embedded in a narrative account of an instructive controversy in the German Protestant churches in the 1990s when a group of theologians produced a manifesto 'Against the Economisation of the Church'.

Managerialism and Charisma in Catholic and Pentecostal Churches in the Americas

Gudorf, C. — 2008-04-02

Managerialism impacted North American churches long before South and Central American churches, due to both the greater affinity for managerialism in Protestant ecclesial structures, and to the earlier development of advanced capitalism in North America. The most recent managerialist developments in Catholic churches of both continents have manifested themselves in the curial and Episcopal treatment of the clerical pedophilia scandals, while the developments in Pentecostal churches, especially in Latin America, have emanated from lower structural levels. Most of these emanate from pastors in churches on a growth trajectory that utilizes mass media, especially televised services and sermons.

Personhood and Performance: Managerialism, Post-Democracy and the Ethics of 'Enrichment'

Roberts, R. H. — 2008-04-02

Managerialism is not mere ideology, a concatenation of ideas subsisting in an epiphenomenal superstructure (Überbau) that mirrors economic relations (Base) and masks interests, but a set of practices that, as an extreme manifestation of human resources management (HRM), seeks to constitute the life-world (Lebenswelt) of participants in many sectors of society. Increasingly, it is those at the extremes of elite wealth and marginal poverty who may fall outside its remit and become free to think beyond its parameters. As inheritor of personnel management, HRM as practice and ideology fills a societal vacuum and comes to exercise the power of totalizing social construction. In an integral performance culture the Performative Absolute emerges in the imaginary; it is an immanent sublime that instantiates and regulates the social being of the individual. This apotheosis of the 'manager's right to manage' overrides boundaries between public and private spheres and dissolves the separation of powers. As 'human resource', the employee is subject to living sacrifice; this is an oblation that demands ethical and theological critique.

Baptizing Management

Poole, E. — 2008-04-02

This paper argues that management practices are more readily portable across the sectors than has often been supposed, while indicating where particular care will be needed in translation. The paper suggests, however, that political pressure for control and an epistemological bias may prove to be management's Achilles heel. Further, it examines some dilemmas in the relationship between the manager and the managed, and queries the professions' outrage at being subject to increasingly overt management.

The Rational Shepherd: Corporate Practices and the Church

Budde, M. L. — 2008-04-02

Crises and shortcomings of various sorts have prompted calls, especially from powerful corporate elites and organizations, for greater managerial expertise and training within the churches. This article examines a few select examples of growing reliance upon managerial techniques in church life and practice in recent years as a prelude to considering whether more areas of pastoral organization should be transformed by ideologies and techniques derived from for-profit corporations. Using examples drawn primarily from contemporary Catholicism in the United States, this article aims to contribute to ecumenical discussions in ecclesiology, ethics and economics.

Stale Expressions: the Management-Shaped Church

Milbank, J. — 2008-04-02

Managerialism in the Church is rooted in the very character of Reformation theology. The letter's understanding of salvation as imputation and its reduction of the importance for salvation of belonging to the Church encourages the idea that there is a religious 'product' which can be managed and marketed. Modern evangelicalism consummates this tendency and uniquely allows a combining of the capitalist product with the capitalist actor. 'Fresh Expressions' in the Church of England fuses this trend with a liberal ideology of choice and the assumption that parish life must inevitably decline. The new modes of Church which it sponsors deny the very idea of the need to encounter different others in a specific locality which is crucial to the Pauline notion of the Body of Christ. It is hence a misconstrual of Christianity as such.

Book Review: Christopher C. H. Cook, Alcohol, Addiction and Christian Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). xiv + 221 pp. {pound}45/US$80 (hb), ISBN 978--0--521--85182--4

Topping, R. — 2008-04-02

Book Review: Stephen J. Grabill, Rediscovering the Natural Law in Reformed Theological Ethics (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006). x + 310 pp. {pound}21.99/US$38 (pb), ISBN 978--0--8028--6313--3

Haas, G. — 2008-04-02

Book Review: L. Gregory Jones, Reinhard Hutter and C. Rosalee Velloso Ewell (eds.), God, Truth, and Witness: Engaging Stanley Hauerwas (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2005). 336 pp. US$39.99 (hb), ISBN 1--58743--151--3

Pecknold, C.C., Lloyd, S. J. — 2008-04-02

Book Review: Neil Messer, Selfish Genes and Christian Ethics: Theological and Ethical Reflections on Evolutionary Biology (London: SCM Press, 2007). viii + 280 pp. {pound}19.99 (pb), ISBN 978--0--334--02996--0

Southgate, C. — 2008-04-02

Book Review: Nick Spencer, Doing God: A Future for Faith in the Public Square (London: Theos, 2006). 74 pp. {pound}10 (pb), ISBN 0--9554453--0--2. Faith and Nation: Report of a Commission of Inquiry to the UK Evangelical Alliance (London: Evangelical Alliance, 2006). 170 pp. {pound}10 (pb), no ISBN. Jonathan Bartley, Faith and Politics after Christendom: The Church as a Movement for Anarchy (Milton Keynes: Authentic Media/Paternoster Press, 2006). xxi + 233 pp. {pound}9.99 (pb), ISBN 978--1--84227--348--7. Stuart Murray, Post-Christendom: Church and Mission in a Strange New World (Milton Keynes: Authentic Media/Paternoster, 2004). xvi + 343 pp. n.p. (pb), ISBN 978--1--84227--261--9

Chaplin, J. — 2008-04-02

Book Review: Willard M. Swartley, Covenant of Peace: The Missing Peace in New Testament Theology and Ethics (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006). xviii + 542 pp. {pound}19.99/US$34 (pb), ISBN 0--8028--2937--6

Williams, S. N. — 2008-04-02

Book Review: John Witte, Jr., God's Joust, God's Justice: Law and Religion in the Western Tradition (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006). xiv + 498 pp. {pound}17.99/US$30 (pb), ISBN 978--0--8028--4421--7

O'Donovan, J. L. — 2008-04-02

Book Review: Jeremy Young, The Violence of God and the War on Terror (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2007). xi + 217 pp. {pound}12.95 (pb), ISBN 978--0--232--52666--0

Winright, T. — 2008-04-02

Books Received

2008-04-02

Forgiveness and the End of Economy

Bell, D. M. — 2007-10-09

This paper considers the economic effect of the Christian practice of forgiveness. In particular, the argument is that the gift of divine forgiveness in Christ, as articulated by Anselm, interrupts `economy' (with its logic of scarcity, debt, and finally death) and puts in place an aneconomic order (with its theo-logic of abundance, ceaseless generosity, and resurrection) that is full of the promise of deliverance from the affliction of capitalism. Also addressed here is the way that the human reception of divine forgiveness takes shape in the Works of Mercy, how these works are not rightly understood as `mere charity' at home within `economy' but in fact constitute the appearance of an order that heralds the end of economy, and, finally, how this practice of forgiveness redeems/ reconfigures what is commonly called `economic justice'.

Being-in-Love: an Enquiry Into the Ontological Foundation of Ethics

Broadbent, H. St. J. — 2007-10-09

This paper takes issue with those commentators of Heidegger's philosophy whose point of entry into his thinking is the inherited prejudices of others. It demonstrates that if prior judgments are suspended, so that Heidegger's texts are permitted to speak for themselves, the truth of his `position', more a wege than a static motionless point, gradually and inexorably begins to emerge. I take Pope Benedict's first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, to draw the theological contours of a truly post-modern ethic. I then hold up Heidegger's philosophy, as this is characterized principally though not exclusively in his lecture Der Satz Der Identität, to consider possible symmetries. Finally I offer an answer to the question: does Heidegger's thought have ethical consequences?

The Truth Behind Practices: Wittgenstein, Robinson Crusoe and Ecclesiology

Insole, C. J. — 2007-10-09

The Wittgensteinian claim that meaning is immanent to 'practices', influential in contemporary theology, is capable of two readings: the first takes `practice' to refer to the social activities of actual communities; the second implies no more than a way of going on that is in principle communicable. The first reading is palpably unattractive, both philosophically and exegetically; the second reading is much less ambitious, providing a plausible critique of empiricist theories of meaning. I suggest that it is the first implausible reading that is often at work in theological appropriations of Wittgenstein, such as we find in Stanley Hauerwas. I fill-out this claim by exploring — with an ear to Scripture — the implications for ecclesiology of adopting either of the two readings. I conclude by raising the alarm about two dangers: of being too Wittgensteinian in some respects, and not Wittgensteinian enough in others.

When Is Torture Right?

McCready, D. — 2007-10-09

Despite nearly universal condemnation, torture remains a tool for interrogation, intimidation, and punishing. Even many who abhor torture are willing to consider its use in extraordinary situations. Both the deontological absolute prohibition of torture and the consequentialist justification of torture are inadequate ethics to address the issue. Dershowitz, Walzer, and Elshtain, among others, have attempted to redress the problem with more finely-tuned approaches, of which Elshtain's rejection of justification in favor of grace and forgiveness appears the most promising. Confronting the practice of torture is also difficult because there is no generally accepted definition of what constitutes torture. Not all coercion is torture, and some coercion is both legal and moral. Torture, in any case, remains a wrongful act.

Genetic Manipulation and the Body of Christ

Song, R. — 2007-10-09

Efforts to distinguish therapeutic from non-therapeutic genetic interventions in the human body have floundered on the assumption that the body should be understood as a psycho-physical corpus. This article argues by contrast that the body of Christ, that is the church, should be seen as the hermeneutical key to interpreting the body, and therefore that features of the corporate life of the church can provide criteria for distinguishing acceptable from unacceptable forms of genetic intervention. Formation of the bodies of Christians in the church is contrasted with the formation of the body by the reflexive project of modern self-identity.

Book Review: Luke Bretherton, Hospitality as Holiness: Christian Witness amid Moral Diversity (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006). x + 215 pp. {pound}47.50 (hb), ISBN 0 7546 5372 2

Pohl, C. D. — 2007-10-09

Book Review: Joy Ann McDougall, Pilgrimage of Love: Moltmann on the Trinity and Christian Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). xiv + 207 pp. {pound}32.99 (hb), ISBN 0-19-517705-3

Nausner, B. — 2007-10-09

Book Review: Gilbert Meilaender and William Werpehowski (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Theological Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). ix + 546 pp. {pound}75 (hb), ISBN 0 19 936211 X

O'Donovan, O. — 2007-10-09

Book Review: Helen Oppenheimer, What a Piece of Work: On Being Human (Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2006). 139 pp. $8.95/US$17.90 (pb), ISBN 978 1 845400 63 7

Loades, A. — 2007-10-09

Book Review: George Pattison, Thinking about God in an Age of Technology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). 278 pp. {pound}50 (hb), ISBN 0 19 927977 2

Kroeker, T. — 2007-10-09

Book Review: Robert Spaemann, Persons: The Difference Between `Someone' and `Something', trans. Oliver O'Donovan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). vii + 255 pp. {pound}45 (hb), ISBN 978 0 19 928181 7

MacIntyre, A. — 2007-10-09

Book Review: Samuel Wells, God's Companions: Reimagining Christian Ethics (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006). viii + 232 pp. {pound}55/US$86.95 (hb), ISBN 1 4051 2013 4; {pound}19.99/$36.95 (pb), ISBN 1 4051 2014 2

Oppenheimer, H. — 2007-10-09

Book Review: Brian Wicker and Hugh Beach (eds.), Britain's Bomb: What Next? (London: SCM Press, 2006). xii + 212 pp. {pound}12.99 (pb), ISBN 978 0 334 04096 5

Stiltner, B. — 2007-10-09

Book Review: Donna Yarri, The Ethics of Animal Experimentation: A Critical Analysis and Constructive Christian Proposal (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). xii + 220 pp. n.p. (hb), ISBN 0 19 518179 4

Clough, D. — 2007-10-09

Short Review: Charles E. Curran, Loyal Dissent: Memoir of a Catholic Theologian (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2006). xiii + 297 pp. US$26.95 (pb), ISBN 978 1 58901 087 1

O'Dowd, M. — 2007-10-09

Books Received

2007-10-09

Editorial

Parsons, S. F. — 2007-08-09

Scripture On the Moral Life of Creatures: In Conversation With Hans G. Ulrich

Bockmuehl, M. — 2007-08-09

Hans G. Ulrich's book, Wie Geschöpfe leben, engages eclectically but vigorously with moral and theological aspects of the Bible's teaching on ethics. This article employs three questions as an entrée to understanding his encounter with Scripture: it asks about his implicit biblical canon, his approach and presuppositions in hermeneutics, and finally about his major critical conversation partners. Supplementing Ulrich's strong sense of the Bible's importance for theological ethics, a strongly Lutheran reading of notions like `law' and `commandment' here goes hand in hand with a concentration on Matthew, Romans and the Psalms; this in turn is matched by a characteristically unstated (but implicitly Protestant) Rule of Faith. There is a broad engagement with contemporary philosophers and theologians, but little attention is paid either to patristic and medieval voices or for that matter to biblical scholars, even those who have in recent years attempted to recover the connection between Scripture and Theology.

Why the Estates? Hans Ulrich's Recovery of an Unpopular Notion

Brock, B. — 2007-08-09

This paper outlines Hans Ulrich's reworking of the Lutheran doctrine of the estates. He conceives the estates as descriptions of the new patterns of social life that God has promised to found and secure. This emphasis on the divine activity of generating social order is an expression of Ulrich's agreement with common and familiar criticisms of the doctrine, and why he nevertheless believes it indispensable for an evangelical ethic. A construal of the traditional doctrine of the estates that is unique even in his native Lutheran context, it aims not at conservatism, but at a more thoroughly theological and therefore critical relationship to social order than rival theories much more inclined to revisionist rhetorical stances. In a contemporary context in which moral certainties and categories can be disputed at the most fundamental levels, Ulrich's theology seeks a form of theological reasoning that genuinely seeks the illumination of Christian beliefs about reality by taking other moral languages seriously.

The Object of Theological Ethics

O'Donovan, O. — 2007-08-09

The object of Theological Ethics as presented by Hans Ulrich is immediately the content of the experience of God; reflectively it is God himself turned towards us; doubly reflected on, it is the inversion of our understanding of the good or conversion. The concept of an object may be traced to the discussion of the sciences from Schleiermacher to Barth. Three questions are put to it: (i) Does it assimilate the study too much to descriptive reason, as opposed to practical reason? (ii) Does it narrow the study's range of interests so as to exclude the created world? (iii) Does it result in an idealised `creaturely man', wholly determined by his end and dissociated from the empirical man who may confront us as a neighbour?

Challenging Capitalism as Religion: Hans G. Ulrich's Theological and Ethical Reflections On the Economy

Palaver, W. — 2007-08-09

The following article starts by summarising how much modern capitalism is characterised by its religious structure. The world of branding — consumer goods becoming religiously attractive — and religious metaphors that have become necessary to describe contemporary neoliberalism are key examples. A second step consists in describing four typical aspects of religious capitalism in the following of Walter Benjamin's fragment `Capitalism as Religion' from 1921. Against this background I thirdly summarise Hans G. Ulrich's theological ethics concerning the economy. At the centre of Ulrich's ethics we find his emphasis on God's economy that relieves us from all our worries enabling us thereby to become cooperators of God acting and working in an ethical way. A final step discusses Ulrich's rejection of an ethics of striving for God as the summum bonum by showing that desire or will do not necessarily contradict with the priority of God's grace.

In Conversation With Hans Ulrich's Wie Geschopfe Leben

Reinders, H. S. — 2007-08-09

This paper presents Hans Ulrich's account of Christian ethics as an ethics of `vocation'. It is interested in how Ulrich's account of vocational ethics is developed as a critique of professional ethics. Professional ethics is seen as reflecting the structures of ethical deliberation of the social order that produces it, thereby failing to move beyond the realm of `works'. In contrast, the distinguishing characteristic of Ulrich's vocational ethics is shown to be that it is a response to the Word `from outside'. Consequently, a Christian account of professional ethics needs to show how it can retain a `theological difference' that enables it to respond to the Word that `breaks in' to start something new. The paper discusses the transformation of professionalism in a neo-liberal service economy in order to find out how this `breaking in' actually proceeds. Its test case is providing services to people with intellectual disabilities.

`Ruled By the Spirit': Hans Ulrich's Understanding of Political Existence

Wannenwetsch, B. — 2007-08-09

This essay introduces the political thought of Hans G. Ulrich as it is presented in his seminal work Wie Geschöpfe leben. What sets Ulrich's thought apart from most other authors in the field is that his interest is not in an account of community or citizenship, but in the status politicus — the political form of existence that is bestowed on human beings as God's creatures who are called to be `ruled by the spirit' instead of succumbing to any form of rule by which human beings exert dominion over human beings. Drawing from Biblical sources and a fresh reading of Luther's doctrine of the two regimes in the spirit of the Confessing Church, Ulrich arrives at a highly emancipative account of political existence that does not derive its rationale from the necessity for co-existence or common action, but from the liberation from `ungodly ties' that prevent people from free discourse and cooperation.

Wie Geschopfe Leben: Some Dogmatic Reflections

Webster, J. — 2007-08-09

Hans Ulrich's Wie Geschöpfe leben is examined from the perspective of Christian dogmatics, in order to make explicit the conception of the Christian gospel upon which the book is based. Wie Geschöpfe leben focuses upon the economy of God's works in relation to creatures, laying particular emphasis upon the realisation of God's acts in time. Ulrich resists `static' or `general' anthropology, which he overcomes by attending to creaturely becoming, hearing and learning as aspects of the new creation which determines human being. Accordingly, the concern of theological ethics is exploration of human history with God. Ulrich's work offers a corrective to excessive claims about the significance of moral ontology in theological ethics. Dogmatic reflection upon the book's achievement might consider a number of topics: (1) the need for closer description of the identity of the triune God, both in se and pro nobis , since Trinitarian teaching plays little discernible role in the proposal; (2) the significance for Christian ethics of the relation of the work of Christ to his person, as conceptualised in incarnational teaching; (3) the relationship between original creation and new creation; (4) the absence of any extended discussion of soteriology.

Book Review: Nicholas Adams, Habermas and Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). ix + 267 pp. {pound}45/US$75 (hb), ISBN 0 521 86266 3; {pound}17.99/US$29.99 (pb), ISBN 0 521 68114 6

Muers, R. — 2007-08-09

Book Review: Lisa Sowle Cahill, Theological Bioethics: Participation, Justice and Change (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2005). x + 310 pp. US$26.95 (pb), ISBN 1 58901 075 2

Lysaught, M. T. — 2007-08-09

Book Review: David Clough, Ethics in Crisis: Interpreting Barth's Ethics (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005). 164 pp. {pound}42.50 (hb), ISBN 0 7546 3630 5

Banner, M. — 2007-08-09

Book Review: Robin Gill, Healthcare and Christian Ethics, New Studies in Christian Ethics, 26 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). xiii + 229 pp. {pound}45/ US$75 (hb), ISBN 0 521 85723 6

Jones, D. A. — 2007-08-09

Book Review: Paul D. Murray, Reason, Truth and Theology in Pragmatist Perspective (Leuven: Peeters, 2004). xiv + 280 pp. US$39 (pb), ISBN 90 429 1452 1

Mannion, G. — 2007-08-09

Book Review: Mark Thiessen Nation, John Howard Yoder: Mennonite Patience, Evangelical Witness, Catholic Convictions (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006). xxiii + 211 pp. {pound}11.99/US$20 (pb), ISBN 0 8028 3940 1

Winright, T. — 2007-08-09

Book Review: William Schweiker (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Religious Ethics (Malden, MA, and Oxford: Blackwell, 2005). xx + 613 pp. {pound}85 (hb), ISBN 0 631 21634 0

Wells, S. — 2007-08-09

Book Review: Vladimir Solovyov, The Justification of the Good: An Essay on Moral Philosophy [1897], ed. Boris Jakim, trans. Nathalie A. Duddington [1918] (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005). lxix + 410 pp. {pound}24.99 (pb), ISBN 0 8028 2863 9

Louth, A. — 2007-08-09

Short Review: Andreas Csepregi, Two Ways to Freedom: Christianity and Democracy in the Thought of Istvan Bibo and Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Budapest: Acta Theologica Lutherana Budapestinensia Il., 2003), 255 pp. ISBN 963 210 760 8

Oakley, N. W. — 2007-08-09

Short Review: Heather Widdows, The Moral Vision of Iris Murdoch (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005). vii + 182 pp. {pound}45 (hb), ISBN 0 7546 3625 9

Spencer, J. — 2007-08-09

Books Received

2007-08-09