This volume is interested in what the Old Testament and beyond (Dead Sea Scrolls and Targum) has to say about ethical behaviour through its characters, through its varying portrayals of God and humanity in mutual dialogue and through its authors. It covers a wide range of genres of Old Testament material such as law, prophecy and wisdom. It takes key themes such as friendship and the holy war tradition and it considers key texts. It considers authorial intention in the portrayal of ethical stances. It also links up with wider ethical issues such as the environment and human engagement with the 'dark side' of God. It is a multi-authored volume, but the unifying theme was made clear at the start and contributors have worked to that remit. This has resulted in a wide-ranging and fascinating insight into a neglected area, but one that is starting to receive increased attention in the biblical area.

Devoted to Nature explores the religious underpinnings of American environmentalism, tracing the theological character of American environmental thought from its Romantic foundations to contemporary nature spirituality. During the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era, religious sources were central to the formation of the American environmental imagination, shaping ideas about the natural world, establishing practices of engagement with environments and landscapes, and generating new modes of social and political interaction. Building on the work of seminal environmental historians who acknowledge the environmental movement's religious roots, Evan Berry offers a potent theoretical corrective to the narrative that explained the presence of religious elements in the movement well into the twentieth century. In particular, Berry argues that an explicitly Christian understanding of salvation underlies the movement's orientation toward the natural world. Theologically derived concepts of salvation, redemption, and spiritual progress have not only provided the basic context for Americans passion for nature but have also established the horizons of possibility within the national environmental imagination.

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.

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.

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.

At present, human beings worldwide are using an estimated 115.3 million animals in experiments-a normalization of the unthinkable on an immense scale. In terms of harm, pain, suffering, and death, animal experiments constitute one of the major moral issues of our time. Given today's deeper understanding of animal sentience, the contributors to this volume argue that we must afford animals a special moral consideration that precludes their use in experiments. The Ethical Case against Animal Experiments begins with the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics's groundbreaking and comprehensive ethical critique of the practice of animal experiments. A second section offers original writings that engage with, and elaborate on, aspects of the Oxford Centre report. The essayists explore historical, philosophical, and personal perspectives that range from animal experiments in classical times to the place of necessity in animal research to one researcher's painful journey from researcher to opponent. A devastating look at a contemporary moral crisis, The Ethical Case against Animal Experiments melds logic and compassion to mount a powerful challenge to human cruelty.

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.

Sluimerende rassisme het na 1994 se reenboogdroom met 'n knal oopgebars. Die rassisme-sweer is besig om dit wat mooi en uniek van Suid-Afrikaners is, te besmet. In hierdie boek word voorraad opgeneem van die situasie deur na bekendes en minder bekendes se stories en ervarings te luister, dit saam te vat en aan die hand daarvan voorstelle te maak, sodat ons mekaar se andersheid kan vier.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.