This comprehensive anthology of primary documents and materials explores the evolution and study of Christian ethical principles. It may be used independently, or alongside the accompanying textbook, Introducing Christian Ethics, for a complete overview of the field. * Represents the entire canon of Christian ethics, including first-hand accounts from major figures in the theological and ecclesial tradition * Introduces foundational figures such as Augustine, Aquinas, and Luther; contemporary theorists including J rgen Moltmann, Stanley Hauerwas, and Wendell Berry; in addition to work by work by non-theoretical figures, such as Ghandi and Martin Luther King * Features useful introductory material that demonstrates the significance of each extract and how they relate to each other * May be used independently or together with the accompanying textbook, Introducing Christian Ethics; both books share the same structure and are cross-referenced for ease of use

Through an absorbing investigation into recent, high-profile scandals involving one of the largest kosher slaughterhouses in the world, located unexpectedly in Postville, Iowa, Aaron S. Gross makes a powerful case for elevating the category of the animal in the study of religion. Major theorists have almost without exception approached religion as a phenomenon that radically marks humans off from other animals, but Gross rejects this paradigm, instead matching religion more closely with the life sciences to better theorize human nature. Gross begins with a detailed account of the scandals at Agriprocessors and their significance for the American and international Jewish community. He argues that without a proper theorization of "animals and religion," we cannot fully understand religiously and ethically motivated diets and how and why the events at Agriprocessors took place. Subsequent chapters recognize the significance of animals to the study of religion in the work of Ernst Cassirer, Emile Durkheim, Mircea Eliade, Jonathan Z. Smith, and Jacques Derrida and the value of indigenous peoples' understanding of animals to the study of religion in our daily lives. Gross concludes by extending the Agribusiness scandal to the activities at slaughterhouses of all kinds, calling attention to the religiosity informing the regulation of "secular" slaughterhouses and its implications for our relationship with and self-imagination through animals.

Few issues are as complex and controversial as immigration in the United States. The only thing anyone seems to agree on is that the system is broken. Mark Amstutz offers a succinct overview and assessment of current immigration policy and argues for an approach to the complex immigration debate that is solidly grounded in Christian political thought. After analyzing key laws and institutions in the US immigration system, Amstutz examines how Catholics, evangelicals, and main-line Protestants have used Scripture to address social and political issues, including immigration. He critiques the ways in which many Christians have approached immigration reform and offers concrete suggestions on how Christian groups can offer a more credible political engagement with this urgent policy issue.

The Selected Prose and Poetry of Danny Siegel This first anthology of the most important writings by Danny Siegel, spanning and renewing fifty years of his insights intersperses soulful Jewish texts with innovative Mitzvah ideas to rouse individuals and communities to transform our lives, communities, neighborhoods, and world. As a renowned teacher Siegel describes the creative-often startling-ways individuals from different walks of life have brought compassion into the world, recognizes them as Mitzvah heroes, and suggests how we can apply their life lessons. He also plumbs how giving enriches living and presents Jewishly informed best principles for doing more world repair (Tikkun Olam). As a scholar of rabbinic literature Siegel offers translations and commentaries on Jewish texts illuminating Tzedakah, values, caring, and leadership. In addition he tops off a half-century of his thought with five new essays reflecting on his visions for a better world. The selected poetry asks religious and theological questions in the face of oppression and war, gives voice to personal moments often neglected by ritual, and exults at the wonders of modern Israel and the revelation of love. Both inspirational and pragmatic, this anthology offers practical guidance on using Siegel's classic and novel works in personal living and in Jewish organizational settings. Ultimately, in exploring the dynamic interaction between heroes, texts, and ourselves, Siegel seeks to engage each of us in discovering our own radiant potential for creative Mitzvah living.

Divided into four parts-Earth, Air, Fire, and Water-this book takes an elemental approach to the study of religion and ecology. It reflects recent theoretical and methodological developments in this field which seek to understand the ways that ideas and matter, minds and bodies exist together within an immanent frame of reference. The Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Nature focuses on how these matters materialize in the world around us, thereby addressing key topics in this area of study. The editors provide an extensive introduction to the book, as well as useful introductions to each of its parts. The volume's international contributors are drawn from the USA, South Africa, Netherlands, Norway, Indonesia, and South Korea, and offer a variety of perspectives, voices, cultural settings, and geographical locales. This handbook shows that human concern and engagement with material existence is present in all sectors of the global community, regardless of religious tradition. It challenges the traditional methodological approach of comparative religion, and argues that globalization renders a comparative religious approach to the environment insufficient.

Causing a considerable stir when it was first published in Germany in 1965, "Theology of Hope" represents a comprehensive statement of the importance for theology of eschatology - and of an eschatological theology which emphasizes the revolutionary effect of Christian hope upon the thought, institutions and conditions of life in the here and now. Jurgen Moltmann understands Christian faith essentially as hope for the future of humankind and creation as this has been promised by the God of the exodus and the resurrection of the crucified Jesus. God's promise is the compulsory force of history, awakening hope which keeps human beings unreconciled to present experience, sets them in contradistinction to prevailing natural and social powers, and makes the church the source of continual new impulses towards, in Moltmann's own words, "the realization of righteousness, freedom and humanity in the light of the promised future that is to come". This new expanded edition of a theological classic includes his 2020 Charles Gore lecture 'A Theology of Hope for the 21st Century', in which he offers a powerful reflection on the nature of hope in our current times.

Christian Character Formation investigates worship and formation in view of Christian anthropology, particularly union with Christ. Traditions which value justification by faith wrestle to some degree with how to describe and encourage ethical formation when salvation and righteousness are presented as gracious and complete. The dialectic of law and gospel has suggested to some that forgiveness and the advocacy of ethical norms contend with each other. By viewing justification and formation in light of Christ's righteousness which is both imputed and imparted, it is more readily seen that forgiveness and ethics complement each other. In justification, God converts a person, by which he grants new character. Traditional Lutheran anthropology says that this regeneration grants a new nature in mystical union with Jesus Christ. By exploring the Finnish Luther School led by Tuomo Mannermaa, Gifford A. Grobien explains how union with Christ imparts righteousness and the corresponding new character to the believer. Furthermore, as means of grace, the Word and sacraments are the means of establishing union with Christ and nurturing new character. Considering Oswald Bayer's "suffering" the word of Christ, Louis-Marie Chauvet's "symbolic order" and Bernd Wannenwetsch's understanding of worship as Christianity's unique "form of life," Grobien argues that worship practices are the foundational and determinative context in which grace is offered and in which the distinctively Christian ethos supports virtues consistent with Christian character. This understanding is also coordinated with Stanley Hauerwas's narrative ethics and Luther's teaching of virtue and good works in view of the Ten Commandments.

This book presents an original and dynamic reading of the twentieth-century French sociologist and theological ethicist Jacques Ellul. Adopting Ellul's use of 'presence' as a hermeneutical key to understanding his work, it examines the origins of Ellul's approach to presence in his readings of Kierkegaard and the biblical book of Ecclesiastes, highlights the central structural role of presence in Ellul's theological ethics, and elucidates a crucial turning point in Ellul's theology following a personal crisis in Ellul's faith and life. Drawing from numerous unpublished and untranslated texts, Jacob Marques Rollison argues that this crisis involves confrontation with a critique of presence manifest in Ellul's reading of and engagement with Michel Foucault. Marques Rollison distills Ellul's sociological critiques and theological responses to this crisis, presenting Ellul's evolving theology against the background of major shifts in French intellectual life. In doing so, the author simultaneously calls for renewed engagement with Ellul's prophetic thought, critically appraises Ellul's dialectical theology and Marxist inheritances, and develops a robustly Protestant approach to theological communication ethics for our time.

If God rescues us to be his people, then how can our lives demonstrate our love for him? Luke Davis takes us on a journey through some of the big questions in the arena of Christian ethics, highlighting why our ideas matter. He helps us to have a firm grasp of what the issue is, what God's Word has to say about it, and what practical impact that has on our lives.

Karl Heim (1874-1958) pragte als Theologe an den Universitaten Halle, Munster und seit 1920 in Tubingen sowie von 1920 bis 1948 als Fruhprediger an der Tubinger Stiftskirche Generationen von Pfarrern. Unter seinen Zuhoerern befanden sich auch viele Nicht-Theologen, denn Karl Heim konnte einerseits komplizierte naturwissenschaftliche Sachverhalte erstaunlich einfach und doch zutreffend elementarisieren und andererseits den christlichen Glauben mit diesen Ergebnissen in einen fruchtbaren Dialog bringen. Der 23. Jahrgang dieses Jahrbuches konzentriert sich auf das Verhaltnis von Evolution und Schoepfung einerseits sowie auf medizin- und gesellschaftsethisch relevante Problemstellungen andererseits. Auch mit diesem Jahrbuch wird die bleibende Bedeutung der Theologie Karl Heims fur eine dialogfahige Theologie im 21. Jahrhundert deutlich. Volume 23 of the Yearbook of the German Karl Heim Society presents a variety of articles. Most of them are devoted to the relationship between evolution and creation, and the remainder elucidates bioethical aspects. The authors want to show the enduring significance of Karl Heim's insistence on a dialogue between theology and the natural sciences, and to further the intention of the Karl Heim Society to present a biblical Christian orientation in a world shaped by technology and the natural sciences. Though the contributions are in German, an extensive summary in English is appended to each of them.

This book examines moral issues in public and private life from a religious but not devotional perspective. Rather than seeking to prove that one belief system or moral stance is right, it undertakes to help readers more fully understand the effect of religious beliefs and practices on ways of conceiving and addressing moral questions, without having to accept or to reject any specific religious outlook. It shows how the similarities between religions and the differences within any one religion are more important than the reverse. The book asks - Where do moral imperatives come from, and how do the answers found in religion and law interact? - How does the fact that a moral norm is grounded in religion affect our thinking about it? - What is the significance of the differences (and similarities) between religious and secular sources of moral norms?

The Year without a Purchase is the story of one family's quest to stop shopping and start connecting. Scott Dannemiller and his wife, Gabby, are former missionaries who served in Guatemala. Ten years removed from their vow of simple living, they found themselves on a never-ending treadmill of consumption where each purchase created a desire for more and never led to true satisfaction. The difference between needs and wants had grown very fuzzy, and making that distinction clear again would require drastic action: no nonessential purchases for a whole year. No clothes, no books, no new toys for the kids. If they couldn't eat it or use it up within a year (toilet paper and shampoo, for example), they wouldn't buy it. Filled with humorous wit, curious statistics, and poignant conclusions, the book examines modern America's spending habits and chronicles the highs and lows of dropping out of our consumer culture. As the family bypasses the checkout line to wrestle with the challenges of gift giving, child rearing, and keeping up with the Joneses, they discover important truths about human nature and the secret to finding true joy. The Year without a Purchase offers valuable food for thought for anyone who has ever wanted to reduce stress by shopping less and living more.

The Golden Book is a multi-volume in-depth study that sets forth a plan, strategies, and solutions to eradicate violations of human rights through the proposed theory of the divinity of God as the source of law distinct from religiosity. In turn, this divinity positively impacts the divinity of humanity in governmental systems, embracing the classification of law as eternal, divine, natural, and human as put forth by Thomas Aquinas. Charles Mwalimu focuses on the creation of the National State of Africa Under God (NSA) as the case study. The critical analysis seeks answers to what terms such as "A Nation Under God", "In God We Trust", and "We the People", really mean as sources of power in constitution-making.

Forgiveness was a preoccupation of writers in the Victorian period, bridging literatures highbrow and low, sacred and secular. Yet if forgiveness represented a common value and language, literary scholarship has often ignored the diverse meanings and practices behind this apparently uncomplicated value in the Victorian period. Forgiveness in Victorian Literature examines how eminent writers such as Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, and Oscar Wilde wrestled with the religious and social meanings of forgiveness in an age of theological controversy and increasing pluralism in ethical matters. Richard Gibson discovers unorthodox uses of the language of forgiveness and delicate negotiations between rival ethical and religious frameworks, which complicated forgiveness's traditional powers to create or restore community and, within narratives, offered resolution and closure. Illuminated by contemporary philosophical and theological investigations of forgiveness, this study also suggests that Victorian literature offers new perspectives on the ongoing debate about the possibility and potency of forgiving.

This books maps out the territory of international law and religion challenging received traditions in fundamental aspects. On the one hand, the connection of international law and religion has been little explored. On the other, most of current research on international legal thought presents international law as the very victory of secularization. By questioning that narrative of secularization this book approaches these traditions from a new perspective. From the Middle Ages' early conceptualizations of rights and law to contemporary political theory, the chapters bring to life debates concerning the interaction of the meaning of the legal and the sacred. The contributors approach their chapters from an array of different backgrounds and perspectives but with the common objective of investigating the mutually shaping relationship of religion and law. The collaborative endeavour that this volume offers makes available substantial knowledge on the question of international law and religion.

In the last fifty years, the Appalachian Mountains have suffered permanent and profound change due to the expansion of surface coal mining. The irrevocable devastation caused by this practice has forced local citizens to redefine their identities, their connections to global economic forces, their pasts, and their futures. Religion is a key factor in the fierce debate over mountaintop removal; some argue that it violates a divine mandate to protect the earth, while others contend that coal mining is a God-given gift to ensure human prosperity and comfort. In Religion and Resistance in Appalachia: Faith and the Fight against Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining, Joseph D. Witt examines how religious and environmental ethics foster resistance to mountaintop removal coal mining. Drawing on extensive interviews with activists, teachers, preachers, and community leaders, Witt's research offers a fresh analysis of an important and dynamic topic. His study reflects a diversity of denominational perspectives, exploring Catholic and mainline Protestant views of social and environmental justice, evangelical Christian readings of biblical ethics, and Native and nontraditional spiritual traditions. By placing Appalachian resistance to mountaintop removal in a comparative international context, Witt's work also provides new outlooks on the future of the region and its inhabitants. His timely study enhances, challenges, and advances conversations not only about the region, but also about the relationship between religion and environmental activism.

This is a collection of the most important writings of Charles E. Curran from the 1980s and 1990s. He examines the history of moral theology in general, the development of Catholic medical ethics, the role of the laity in the thought of John Courtney Murray, and the evolution of Catholic moral theology from the end of World War II to the close of the 20th century. The volume also includes a selection of his writings on fertility control, homosexuality, public policy, gay rights, academic freedom and Catholic higher education.

Morality after Calvin examines the development of ethical thought in the Reformed tradition immediately following the death of Calvin. The book explores a previously unstudied work of Theodore Beza, the Cato Censorius Christianus (1591). When read in conjunction with the works and correspondence of Beza and his colleagues (Simon Goulart, Lambert Daneau, Peter Martyr Vermigli, among others), the poems of the Cato reveal the theoretical underpinnings of the disciplinary activity during the period. Kirk M. Summers shows how the moral fervor of the latter half of the sixteenth century had its genesis in a well-formulated theology that viewed a Christian's sanctification as a process of restoration to an original order created by God. Morality propels one on the journey of life to the ultimate goal of peace and contentment in which God receives the glory. The principles that constitute this morality, therefore, look back to the very moment of creation, when God structured human relationships, established a certain order in nature, and issued commands. After the Fall, the Mosaic Law and Christ himself, to whom the faithful are united by the Holy Spirit, embody these principles. They include an ethos of listening, sincerity of life, engagement with one's calling, love of neighbor, respect for divinely ordained order, and a desire for the purity of the flock.