In light of globalization, ongoing issues of race, gender, and class, and the rapidly changing roles of institutions, this volume asserts that Christian social ethics must be reframed completely. Three questions are at the heart of this vital inquiry: How can moral community flourish in a global context? What kinds of leadership do we need to nurture global moral community? How shall we construe social institutions and social movements for change in the twentyfirst century? The illustrious contributors include: Anthony B. Pinn, Katie G. Cannon, Noel Erksine, Jacob Olupona, Riggins R. Earl Jr., James H. Cone, Dwight N. Hopkins, Lewis V. Baldwin, Jonathan L. Walton, Rosetta E. Ross, Traci C. West, Melanie L. Harris, Victor Anderson, Emilie M. Townes, and Barbara A. Holmes.

This volume is a reprint of the most through treatise on pacifism and the separation of church and state from the early era of the Stone-Campbell movement. Drawing on the Old and New Testaments as well as the witness of the early church, Lipscom ( makes a strong case for the church's non-involvement in civil government (in contrast with the divine government, which is being demonstrated through the church community).

Bitterness often grows out of a small offense perhaps a passing word, an accidental shove, or a pair of dirty socks left in the middle of the living room floor. Yet when bitterness takes root in our hearts, its effects are anything but small. In this collection of short articles, Jim Wilson and others discuss what it means to live as imitators of God. As the Apostle Paul says in Ephesians, we have been called to leave the bitterness and anger of the world and instead embrace the love and compassion of our God. The authors remind us that we are to forgive others just as we have been forgiven, pointing to Scriptural admonitions and examples as they offer sound teaching on the trials and temptations of everyday life.

Bioethical issues are rarely out of view in Western societies. New developments in areas such as human embryology continually raise new ethical questions, while more familiar issues frequently reappear in public debate. These are issues of central concern for Christians and for a wider public, because they raise questions about the value of life, the meaning of suffering and death and humanity's place in the natural world. Neil Messer is Reader in Theology and Head of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Winchester. He has a research background in molecular biology, and is a minister of the United Reformed Church.

What are the links between people's beliefs and the foods they choose to eat? In the modern Western world, dietary choices are a topic of ethical and political debate, but how can centuries of Christian thought and practice also inform them? And how do reasons for abstaining from particular foods in the modern world compare with earlier ones? This book will shed new light on modern vegetarianism and related forms of dietary choice by situating them in the context of historic Christian practice. It will show how the theological significance of embodied practice may be retrieved and reconceived in the present day. Food and diet is a neglected area of Christian theology, and Christianity is conspicuous among the modern world's religions in having few dietary rules or customs. Yet historically, food and the practices surrounding it have significantly shaped Christian lives and identities. This collection, prepared collaboratively, includes contributions on the relationship between Christian beliefs and food practices in specific historical contexts. It considers the relationship between eating and believing from non-Christian perspectives that have in turn shaped Christian attitudes and practices. It also examines ethical arguments about vegetarianism and their significance for emerging Christian theologies of food.

Dale Patrick examines the first five books of the Bible--the Pentateuch--the Law.He provides an effective method for studying and understanding this vital part of the canon. His introduction concentrates on the exposition of the major thrust of Old Testament Law: the Ten Commandments, the Book of the Covenant, the Deuteronomic Law, the Holiness Code, and the Priestly Law.Law--rules and regulations, concepts and principles, legal codes--written and unwritten. Patrick tackles important questions surrounding the formation of the Law. What is the Law? How was it formulated? What implications does the Law of the Israelites have for Christians today? Patrick's deft handling and answering of these questions results in a book that provides a means to understand the specific rules governing the concepts and principles of the written law so that we may grasp the unwritten law; i.e., the justice, righteousness, and holiness required by God.Patrick offers critical exposition in a format that makes a seemingly difficult and esoteric part of the Bible accessible to the reader. This introductory text serves as a springboard to further study.

Seeking the Truth about Money In the wake of the global financial crisis, are there any financial principles we can rely on? Amidst ongoing economic instability and uncertainty, can we find any solid truth about money? Are you interested in what God has to say about money? Do you seek better financial health? Or do you have enough money but feel poor in spirit? Whatever your need, God wants to help you in both the spiritual and the financial dimensions of your life. In this book, discover why those two dimensions sometimes compete and conflict and how they can better connect. Many Christians today deal with money on the basis of partial truths, relying on a handful of favourite Bible verses or a few palatable principles. As a result, they follow an incomplete, imbalanced, distorted version of God's truth about money. To address this problem, Seeking the Truth about Money provides a comprehensive, well-rounded, and well-grounded biblical view on how we can integrate wise inner attitudes towards money with practical activities such as acquiring, giving, saving, investing, and spending money. This book challenges the reader to develop a carefully balanced approach to the various facets of handling money. Seeking the Truth about Money refers to almost one thousand verses from the Bible. It also relates stories from the lives of the author, her family and friends, and dozens of well-known Christians. It includes nuggets of practical financial wisdom gleaned from lawyers, accountants, and investment advisors, which can enrich your future discussions with your own financial advisors. Above all, this book will encourage you to more highly prioritize and value the development of rich and meaningful relationships with God and others. About the Author: Karen Henein practiced as a lawyer for twenty years. She is the author of Counsel of the Most High and Bent Out of Shape. Married to a medical doctor and the mother of two adult children, she lives in Canada. She is presently writing, speaking, and serving various Christian organizations.

Nothing confuses Christian ethics quite like the Old Testament. Some faithful readers struggle through its pages and conclude that they must obey its moral laws but may disregard its ceremonial and civil laws. Others abandon its teaching altogether in favor of a strictly New Testament ethic. Neither option, argues Chris Wright, gives the Old Testament its due. In this innovative approach to Old Testament ethics--fully revised, updated and expanded since its first appearance in 1983 as Living as the People of God (An Eye for an Eye in North America) and including material from Walking in the Ways of the Lord--Wright examines a theological, social and economic framework for Old Testament ethics. Then he explores a variety of themes in relation to contemporary issues: economics, the land and the poor; politics and a world of nations; law and justice; society and culture; and the way of the individual. This fresh, illuminating study provides a clear basis for a biblical ethic that is faithful to the God of both Testaments.

The theme of this volume is the question of value-perception. It is discussed from different philosophical, psychiatric, theological, and anthropological perspectives. The thesis that unites all the papers is the recognition that we live in a relational, dynamic world, in which we primarily perceive, and that to dissolve values from facts is fundamentally misleading, both in theory as in life. The contributions are the outcome of an energetic conference in 2016 where the problems at stake were rigorously discussed. The results are presented here, and they have an explicit order and are strictly related. It opens with basic questions and observations, then critical opinions and objections come into play, after which the outline of a larger theory of value perception is presented, and at the end some concrete examples from material practices are drawn.

Ethics is a core subject of any theological syllabus. Anyone studying theology, whether for ministry or in a university context, has to take a course in ethics, exploring the issues, concepts and approaches of moral decision making and appropriate living. The SCM Core Text Theological Ethics is intended for those studying Christian ethics at upper undergraduate level. The book offers a discussion of Christian moral thought in a variety of key areas. Many discussions of ethics start by considering particular issues. By contrast, this book gives a presentation of the patterns and traditions of thought that lie behind some of these discussions, in the hope that this will enable particular issues to be fully understood. The book begins by asking 'What is Theological Ethics?' and proceeds to introducing different approaches to Ethics, Ethics in the Catholic and Protestant traditions and subjects such as Sin, Grace and Free Will (Augustine), Natural Law and the Human Good (Thomas Aquinas), Virtue, Conscience and Love.

2010 Reprint of 1918 Edition. The Social Gospel movement was a Protestant Christian intellectual movement that was most prominent in the late 19th century and early 20th century. The movement applied Christian ethics to social problems, especially social justice, inequality, liquor, crime, racial tensions, slums, bad hygiene, child labor, weak labor unions, poor schools, and the danger of war. Theologically, the Social Gospel leaders were overwhelmingly post-millennialist in the sense that they believed the Second Coming could not happen until humankind had rid itself of social evils by human effort. Social Gospel leaders were predominantly associated with the Progressive Movement and most were theologically liberal, although they were typically more conservative when it came to their views on social issues. Walter Rauschenbusch was one of the leaders of this important Christian movement.

Peter Manley Scott offers a theological and ethical reading of our present situation. Due to the vigour of its re-engineering of the world by its technologies, western society has entered into a postnatural condition in which standard divisions between the natural and the artificial are no longer convincing. This postnatural development is liberating - both theologically and politically. Scott develops an 'anthropology' that does not repeat Christianity's history of anthropocentrism but instead criticises it by exploring the mutual entanglement of animals, humans and other creatures. Deeply disrespectful of traditional centres of power, his ethical critiques of 'pioneering' technologies expose their anti-social and anti-ecological tendencies and identify possible paths of oppositional political action. This is ethical theology at its best: deeply informed by theological tradition, immersed in contemporary political-technological problematics in radically oppositional ways, and yet fiercely hopeful of a good outcome for animals-human and non-human-and other life in history. Dr Peter Manley Scott is Senior Lecturer in Christian Social Thought and Director of the Lincoln Theological Institute at the University of Manchester, UK.

What is the nature of addiction? Neither of the two dominant models (disease or choice) adequately accounts for the experience of those who are addicted or of those who are seeking to help them. In this interdisciplinary work, Kent Dunnington brings the neglected resources of philosophical and theological analysis to bear on the problem of addiction. Drawing on the insights of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, he formulates an alternative to the usual reductionistic models. Going further, Dunnington maintains that addiction is not just a problem facing individuals. Its pervasiveness sheds prophetic light on our cultural moment. Moving beyond issues of individual treatment, this groundbreaking study also outlines significant implications for ministry within the local church context.

2011 Reprint of 1949 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Also known as "The Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals." This is Kant's first contribution to moral philosophy. It argues for an a priori basis for morality. Where the "Critique of Pure Reason" laid out Kant's metaphysical and epistemological ideas, this relatively short, primarily meta-ethical, work was intended to outline and define the concepts and arguments shaping his future work, "The Metaphysics of Morals." The treatise is broken into a preface, followed by three sections. Kant's argument works from common reason up to the supreme unconditional law, in order to identify its existence. He then works backwards from there to prove the relevance and weight of the moral law. The third and final section of the book is famously obscure, and it is partly because of this that Kant later, in 1788, decided to publish the Critique of Practical Reason.

Transforming Exclusion is concerned with the interface between the study of religion & theology and issues surrounding exclusion. Religious beliefs can be important in shaping attitudes that can lead to the exploitation or marginalization of both humans and non-humans. At the same time, religious beliefs and practices have much to offer in transforming the world, creating a more equitable place for all who occupy it. At other times, the voices of members of religious communities are suppressed and marginalized by other more dominant religious or secular individuals or communities. This book addresses all of these aspects of social exclusion and aims to demonstrate that the study of theology and religion, in addressing religious communities and society more widely, have important contributions to make in creating a more just world. The issue of exclusion is engaged with from a range of different perspectives by scholars involved in fieldwork with religious communities, systematic, contextual and practical theologians, and practitioners involved in the preparation of individuals and groups for a range of ministries and professions.

Little known historical background and compelling humor combine to make this an unusual look at the role the Ten Commandments should play in the life of today's Christian. Reflection questions make it perfect for study groups and classes.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King, Jr. are here reassessed for a new context and a new generation. Both combined activism, ministry, and theology. Both took on public roles in opposition to prevailing powers of their time. Both professed a kind of Christian realism and ended as martyrs to their respective causes. Here many of the leaders in Christian social thought revisit the insights, causes, and strategies that Bonhoeffer and King employed for a new generation and its concerns: race, reconciliation, nonviolence, political violence, Christian theological identity, and ministry.

"Sometimes the storm rises and the winds blow, hurricanes and earthquakes come to shake the very foundations which we stand, but certainly we must remain confident in our walk of faith."

In this world of dangers, seen and unseen, there is a need and demand for virtue in the lives of women everywhere. In the innovative guide "Keys to Becoming a Virtuous Woman," Dr. Latrina W. Jenkins gives you strategies and concepts on how to become a woman of high moral fortitude.

By focusing on the spiritual concept of virtue, Jenkins delivers a powerful case for finding and achieving virtuousness in our society today. She explores seven keys to obtaining moral integrity that each woman should strive to incorporate into their lives. These include being holy, trustworthy, strong, and secure.

Don't let the dictates of society steer you from your course. With God's help, you can find virtue in every aspect of your life!

Concisely critiquing the internal contradictions and practical limitations of the social contract theory espoused by John Locke and John Rawls, Timothy Beach-Verhey presents a covenantal theory for political life based on H. Richard Niebuhr's theology of radical monotheism. Beach-Verhey challenges sectarian interpretations of Niebuhr's theology and cogently demonstrates that a properly understood, theocentric, covenantal social theory can unite a diverse people in a shared polity. In so doing, he shows how such an understanding of both liberal democratic practices and Christian norms can provoke both the moral vision and the virtues that are required for robust, open, and engaged public life. Robust Liberalism makes a powerful contribution to contemporary discussion of American public discourse.