In this book Australian biblical scholars engage with texts from Genesis to Revelation. With experience in the Earth Bible Project and the Ecological Hermeneutics section of the Society of Biblical Literature, contributors address impacts of war in more-than-human contexts and habitats, in conversation with selected biblical texts. Aspects of contemporary conflicts and the questions they pose for biblical studies are explored through cultural motifs such as the Rainbow Serpent of Australian Indigenous spiritualities, security and technological control, the loss of home, and ongoing colonial violence toward Indigenous people. Alongside these approaches, contributors ask: how do trees participate in war? Wow do we deal with the enemy? What after-texts of the biblical text speak into and from our contemporary world? David Horrell, University of Exeter, UK, responds to the collection, addressing the concept of herem in the Hebrew Bible, and drawing attention to the Pauline corpus. The volume asks: can creative readings of biblical texts contribute to the critical task of living together peaceably and sustainably?

Religion and Ethics Today: God's World and Human Responsibilities, Volume 2 examines the major systems of ethics and principles of normative moral judgement in Western ethics, including religious, environmental, biomedical, and cultural moral values, from an evolutionist approach. The book is organized into four parts: the problems of evil and yet, the affirmation of the reality of existence of a loving, powerful God; the ethics of Jesus and God's incarnation of love; the evolutionary moral agents of God's kingdom; and critical moral and ethical theories, which evaluates virtue ethics, biomedical ethics, and environmental and applied utilitarian ethics. Specific topics explored throughout the text include the concept of evil as it relates to both Christianity and Judaism, Karl Marx's theory of inequality, Dr. Martin Luther King's dream of a beloved community, Buddha and the law of karma, and more. Written for intellectually inquiring students and educators, and designed to be used with the first volume of the same name, Religion and Ethics Today is well-suited for introductory religious survey courses, classes on comparative religion, and any course that addresses theology, ethics, or the philosophy of religion.

All Christians read the Bible differently, pray differently, value their traditions differently, and give different weight to individual and corporate judgment. These differences are the basis of conflict. The question Christian ethics must answer, then, is, "What does the good life look like in the context of conflict?" In this new introductory text, Ellen Ott Marshall uses the inevitable reality of difference to center and organize her exploration of the system of Christian morality. What can we learn from Jesus' creative use of conflict in situations that were especially attuned to questions of power? What does the image of God look like when we are trying to recognize the divine image within those with whom we are in conflict? How can we better explore and understand the complicated work of reconciliation and justice? This innovative approach to Christian ethics will benefit a new generation of students who wish to engage the perennial questions of what constitutes a faithful Christian life and a just society.

In his latest work, E. Bernard Jordan builds on his bestseller "The Laws of Thinking" to unveil more of the spiritual truths that dictate success and prosperity.

Each of his twenty laws--from the law of employment to the law of values--is broken down into simple explanations and exercises to help the reader better understand their divine purpose.

In this provocative book, Jordan demonstrates that when living in sync with God's universal laws, economic hardship will disappear--you need only have faith, focus, and fundamental knowledge to succeed.

Islamic Ethics and the Genome Question is one of the very first academic works, which examine the field of genomics from an Islamic perspective. This twelve-chapter volume presents the results from a pioneering seminar held in 2017 at the Research Center for Islamic Legislation & Ethics, College of Islamic Studies, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, in Qatar. The contributors to this volume, coming from different disciplines and specializations, approached the key ethical questions raised by the emerging field of genomics, viz. the Genome Question (GQ), from various angles and perspectives. Their shared thesis is that the breadth and depth of both the GQ and the Islamic tradition necessitate going beyond just producing quick answers in response to immediate questions. In order to accommodate the complexity and wide scope of the GQ, the volume included critical analyses of the ethical discourse on genomics, from outside the Islamic tradition. Within the Islamic tradition, the contributing authors explored how the QG can be better explored by involving insights from various disciplines including Quran exegesis, Islamic jurisprudence, philosophy and theology. Besides its interest for researchers and students specialized in ethics, bioethics and Islamic studies, this volume will be a source of important information for geneticists, genomicists and social scientists who are interested in the ethical discourse about genomics in the Muslim world. Contributors include Arzoo Ahmed, Abbas Amir, Saadia Bendenia, Mohammed Ghaly, Mutaz al-Khatib, Amara Naceur, Aasim I. Padela, Ayman Shabana, Trevor Stammers, Mehrunisha Suleman and Hub Zwart.

This work focuses on divine command, and in particular the theory that what makes something obligatory is that God commands it, and what makes something wrong is that God commands us not to do it. Focusing on the Abrahamic faiths, eminent scholar John E. Hare explains that two experiences have had to be integrated. The first is that God tells us to do something, or not to do something. The second is that we have to work out ourselves what to do and what not to do. The difficulty has come in establishing the proper relation between them. In Christian reflection on this, two main traditions have emerged, divine command theory and natural law theory. Hare successfully defends a version of divine command theory, but also shows that there is considerable overlap with some versions of natural law theory. He engages with a number of Christian theologians, particularly Karl Barth, and extends into a discussion of divine command within Judaism and Islam. The work concludes by examining recent work in evolutionary psychology, and argues that thinking of our moral obligations as produced by divine command offers us some help in seeing how a moral conscience could develop in a way that is evolutionarily stable.

In a society that is increasingly marked by apathy, division, and moral incompetence, how might Christians set about working with others in such a way as to begin to address those challenges that seem to overwhelm our capacity to respond? In Radical Friendship, Ryan Newson argues that the often-neglected practice of communal discernment provides a path to faithful political engagement that is worthy of reconsideration, especially given its ability to create authentic friendships both within and beyond the church. Such friendships, Newson maintains, are capable of fostering a type of competence in people who engage the practice that can counteract those social, political forces that are antithetical to competence's formation.Uniquely, Newson explores the contours of communal discernment as a practice that is especially relevant to Christians seeking radical democratic alternatives to political liberalism. Communal discernment is shown to be capable of generating conscientious participation in grassroots politics; additionally, this practice enables Christians to enjoy reciprocal, discerning relationships with people of differing convictional communities. Indeed, communal discernment turns out to be capable of preparing Christians to recognize and celebrate analogues to the practice in the world at large.

Augustine's dominant image for the human life is peregrinatio, which signifies at once a journey to the homeland (a pilgrimage) and the condition of exile from the homeland. For Augustine, all human beings are, in the earthly life, exiles from their true homeland: heaven. Some, but not all, become pilgrims seeking a way back to the heavenly homeland, a return mediated by the incarnate Christ. Becoming a pilgrim begins with attraction to beauty. The return journey therefore involves formation, both moral and aesthetic, in loving rightly. This image has occasioned a lot of angst in ethical thought in the last century. Augustine's vision of Christian life as a pilgrimage, his critics allege, casts a pall of groaning and longing over this life in favor of happiness in the next. Augustine's eschatological orientation robs the world of beauty and ethics of urgency. In Pilgrimage as Moral and Aesthetic Formation in Augustine's Thought, Sarah Stewart-Kroeker responds to Augustine's critics by elaborating the Christological continuity between the earthly journey and the eschatological home. Through this cohesive account of pilgrimage as a journey toward the right ordering of the desire for beauty and love for God and neighbour, Stewart-Kroeker reveals the integrity of Augustine's vision of moral and aesthetic vision. From the human desire for beauty to the embodied practice of Christian sacraments, Stewart-Kroeker develops an account of the relationship between beauty and morality as the linchpin of an Augustinian moral theology.

Disagreement is inevitable, particularly in our current context, marked by the close coexistence of conflicting values and perspectives in politics, religion, and ethics. How can we deal with disagreement ethically and constructively in our pluralistic world? In Disagreeing Virtuously Olli-Pekka Vainio presents a valuable interdisciplinary approach to that question, drawing on insights from intellectual history, the cognitive sciences, philosophy of religion, and virtue theory. After mapping the current discussion on disagreement among various disciplines, Vainio offers fresh ways to understand the complicated nature of human disagreement and recommends ways to manage our interpersonal and intercommunal conflicts in ethically sustainable ways.

In Juridification of Religion? Helge Arsheim and Pamela Slotte explore the extent to which developments currently taking place at the interface between law and religion in domestic, regional and international law can be conceptualized as instances of larger, multidimensional processes of juridification. The book relies on an expansive notion of juridification, departing from the narrower sense of juridification as the gradually increasing "colonization of the lifeworld" proposed by Jurgen Habermas in his Theory of Communicative Action (1987). More specifically, the book adapts the multidimensional notion of juridification outlined by Anders Molander and Lars Christian Blichner (2008), developing it into a more context-specific notion of juridification that is attendant to the specific nature of religion as a subject matter for law.

Why are human embryos so important to many Christians? What does theology say concerning the moral status of these embryos? Answers to these questions can only be obtained by considering the manner in which Christian theology understands the great theme of the image of God. This book examines the most important aspects in which this image, and the related Christian notion of personhood, can be used in the context of theological arguments relating to the moral status of the human embryo. Thoughtful in approach and ecumenical in perspective, the author combines a thorough knowledge of the science of embryology with a broad knowledge of the theological implications.

What responsibilities do citizens have to migrants and potential migrants? What responsibilities do migrants themselves have? What is the basis of those responsibilities? In this book Tisha Rajendra reframes the confused and often heated debate surrounding immigration and develops a Christian ethic that can address these neglected questions. Rajendra begins by illuminating the flawed narratives about migrants that are often used in political debates on the subject. She goes on to propose a new definition of justice that is based on responsibility to relationships, drawing on the concrete experience of migrants, ethical theory, migration theory, and the relational ethics of the Bible. Professors, students, and others committed to formulating a solid ethical approach to questions surrounding immigration will benefit greatly from Rajendra's timely presentation of a constructive way forward.

What is the role of religion, especially Christianity, in morality, pro-social behavior and altruism? Are there innate human moral capacities in the human mind? When and how did they appear in the history of evolution? What is the real significance of Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the Mount - does it set up unique moral standards or only crystallize humans' innate moral intuitions? What is the role of religious teachings and religious communities in pro-social behavior? Christianity and the Roots of Morality: Philosophical, Early Christian, and Empirical Perspectives casts light on these questions through interdisciplinary articles by scholars from social sciences, cognitive science, social psychology, sociology of religion, philosophy, systematic theology, comparative religion and biblical studies. Contributors include: Nancy T. Ammerman, Istvan Czachesz, Grace Davie, Jutta Jokiranta, Simo Knuuttila, Kristen Monroe, Mika Ojakangas, Sami Pihlstroem, Antti Raunio, Heikki Raisanen ( ), Risto Saarinen, Kari Syreeni, Lauri Thuren, Petri Ylikoski.

As profound as Martin Luther's ideas are, this giant of church history was concerned above all with practical instruction for daily Christian living. Harvesting Martin Luther's Reflections highlights this concern of Luther, mining his thought in key areas of doctrine, ethics, and church practice. Gathering noteworthy contributions by well-known Luther scholars from Europe and the Americas, this book ranges broadly over theological questions about baptism and righteousness, ethical issues like poverty and greed, and pastoral concerns like worship and spirituality. There are even rare discussions of Luther's perspective on marriage and on Islam. As a result, Harvesting Martin Luther's Reflections is both a state-of-the-art discussion of Lutheran themes and an excellent introduction for newcomers to Luther's work.

Recognizing the essential heteronomy of postmodern philosophy of religion, Merold Westphal argues against the assumption that human reason is universal, neutral, and devoid of presupposition. Instead, Westphal contends that any philosophy is a matter of faith and the philosophical encounter with theology arises from the very act of thinking. Relying on the work of Spinoza, Kant, and Hegel, Westphal discovers that their theologies render them mutually incompatible and their claims to be the voice of autonomous and universal reason look dubious. Westphal grapples with this plural nature of human thought in the philosophy of religion and he forwards the idea that any appeal to the divine must rest on a historical and phenomenological analysis.

The abortion debate in the United States is confused. Ratings-driven media coverage highlights extreme views and creates the illusion that we are stuck in a hopeless stalemate. In this book, now in paperback (published in hardcover in March 2015) Charles Camosy argues that our polarised public discourse hides the fact that most Americans actually agree on the major issues at stake in abortion morality and law. Unpacking the complexity of the abortion issue, Camosy shows that placing oneself on either side of the typical polarisations - pro-life vs. pro-choice, liberal vs. conservative, Democrat vs. Republican - only serves to further confuse the debate and limits our ability to have fruitful dialogue. Camosy then proposes a new public policy that he believes is consistent with the beliefs of the broad majority of Americans and supported by the best ideas and arguments about abortion from both secular and religious sources.

This enlightening book steers readers through the challenges and moral issues, providing a clear and decisive history of the main figures and texts in Christian ethics.
A short and lively history of Christian ethics, exploring how Christianity has always had to grapple with complex moral problems - from questions about the status of early Christians who renounced their religion under Roman torture, through to current debates about euthanasia
Engages with the main texts and figures in Christian ethics, including Augustine, Benedict, Aquinas, Luther and Barth
Considers questions such as human will, the proper form of Christian life, natural law, and whether human nature is at odds with Christian ethics
Concludes with a thought-provoking chapter considering the role that Christian ethics can play in contemporary moral debates and ethical dilemmas