Informal customs are the casual norms for most young adults in matters of sexual intimacy. Unfortunately, the sexual revolution has not proven to be as beneficial to women as was once thought and young men enjoy themselves without preparing themselves to be husbands and fathers. In this book, Piderit argues that a natural law approach to morality provides a grounded pathway toward marriage, and shows why these fairly traditional practices help young people find a partner to whom he or she can realistically promise love "until death do us part." Any effective culture consists of practices, which are accompanied by narratives, norms, and benefits. By offering theory but focusing on practices, this book helps young adults understand why sexual intimacy should be reserved to marriage. The first two thirds of the book develop the natural law approach; seeking common ground early in the volume makes it possible to understand a Christian approach to morality as grounded in nature, not primarily in religion. The goal is to highlight the reasonableness of this approach. The final third (Part III) of the book explores what religious practice and membership in a Christian denomination adds to the natural law approach. In addition to a morality based on natural law, Piderit also proposes a morality based on virtue ethics, which give precedence to positive goals over forbidden actions. The focus is on individual actions, explaining why any individual action falls into the category of exemplary, acceptable, or corrosive; these are terms developed, explained, and used in the book. Individual actions, of course, get repeated over time, and this leads to the formation of habits. And the reason for bracketing the formation of habits is to focus on individual actions and in this way make clear to young readers why certain actions lead to human fulfillment and why others actions undermine that fulfillment.

Rival understandings of the meaning and practice of the religious and the secular lead to rival public perspectives about religion and religious freedom in North America. This book explores how debates over the American Office of Religious Freedom and its International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA, 1998) and very recent debates over the Canadian Office of Religious Freedom (2013) have pitted at least six basic, but very different meanings of the religious and the secular against each other in often undisclosed and usually unproductive ways. Properly naming this 'religious problem' is a critical first step to acknowledging and conciliating their practically polar political prescriptions. It must be considered how we are to think about religion in political offices, both the Canadian and the American experience, as an essentially contested term, and one which demands better than postmodern paralysis, what the author terms political theology. This is especially critical since both of these cases are not just about how to deal with religion at home, but how to engage with religion abroad, where real peril, and real practical policy must be undertaken to protect increasingly besieged religious minorities. Finally, a principled pluralist approach to the religious and the secular suggests a way to think outside the 'religious problem' and productively enlist and engage the forces of religion resurging around the globe. The book will be of great use to scholars and students in religion and foreign affairs, secularization, political theology, and political theory, as well as professionals and policy makers working in issues relating to religion, religious freedom, and foreign affairs.

For the last several decades, the Just-War debate amongst theologians has been dominated by two accounts of moral rationality. One side assumes a presumption against harm (PAH), and the other identifies with a presumption against injustice (PAI). From Presumption to Prudence in Just-War Rationality argues that the time has come to leave behind these two viewpoints in favour of a prudentially grounded approach to Just-War thinking. In Parts 1 and 2 of the book, Kevin Carnahan offers immanent critiques of the PAI and PAH positions. In Part 3, utilising Paul's treatment of the atonement and use of the idea of the imitation of Christ, he lays out an alternative to the ways in which theologians in favour of the PAI or PAH have construed the Christian narrative. In Part 4, Carnahan then develops a neo-Aristotelian account of prudence as a higher order virtue governing the interpretation of moral reality. Drawing on this account, he explores what Just-War rationality would look like if it were prudentially grounded. The work concludes with a case study on noncombatancy in the 2011 Israeli bombardment of Gaza. This book offers a compelling new perspective on this important and pertinent subject. As such, academics and students in Religion, Theology, Philosophy, Ethics and Political Theory will all find it an invaluable resource on Just-War theory.

Two powerful and interrelated transnational cultural expressions mark our epoch. They are Charismatic spirituality and the global city. This book offers a fresh and challenging articulation of the character of the charismatic renewal of Christianity in the framework of global cities, the socio-economic situation of poor urban residents, and urban space, resulting in a vision for the future city as a religious, ethical, and political space. The book studies the social, economic, and ethical implications of the charismatic renewal on urban living and urban design aimed at promoting human flourishing. From multidisciplinary perspectives Nimi Wariboko investiages the nature and impact of interreligious dialogues and encounters between charismatic Christianity and other religions in global cities.

With the ending of the strategic certainties of the Cold War, the need for moral clarity over when, where and how to start, conduct and conclude war has never been greater. There has been a recent revival of interest in the just war tradition. But can a medieval theory help us answer twenty-first century security concerns?
David Fisher explores how just war thinking can and should be developed to provide such guidance. His in-depth study examines philosophical challenges to just war thinking, including those posed by moral scepticism and relativism. It explores the nature and grounds of moral reasoning; the relation between public and private morality; and how just war teaching needs to be refashioned to provide practical guidance not just to politicians and generals but to ordinary service people.
The complexity and difficulty of moral decision-making requires a new ethical approach - here characterised as virtuous consequentialism - that recognises the importance of both the internal quality and external effects of agency; and of the moral principles and virtues needed to enact them. Having reinforced the key tenets of just war thinking, Fisher uses these to address contemporary security issues, including the changing nature of war, military pre-emption and torture, the morality of the Iraq war, and humanitarian intervention. He concludes that the just war tradition provides not only a robust but an indispensable guide to resolve the security challenges of the twenty-first century.

This book offers an examination of the importance of fundamental issues involved in ethical thought with a view to its significance for future generations.Our relationship to future generations raises fundamental issues for ethical thought, to which a Christian theological response is both possible and significant. A relationship to future generations is implicity central to many of today's most public controversies - over environmental protection, genetic research, and the purpose of education, to name but a few; but it has received little explicit or extended consideration.In "Living for the Future", Rachel Muers argues and seeks to demonstrate that to consider future generations as ethically significant is not simply to extend an existing ethical framework, but to rethink how ethics is done. Doing intergenerationally responsible theology and ethics means paying attention to how people are formed as theological and ethical reasoners (reasoners about the good), how social practices of deliberation about the good are maintained and developed, and how all of this relates to an understanding of the world as the sphere of God's transforming action. In other words, an intergenerationally responsible theological ethics will pay attention to the ethics, and the spirituality, of "ethics" itself.Her account of the ethical relation to future generations centres on three key concepts: "choosing life" (see Deut 30:19); "keeping the sources open"; and "sustaining fruitful contexts". These concepts are developed theologically and in engagement with extra-theological conversations on intergenerational responsibility. She shows how they take up and move beyond concerns expressed in those conversations - for "survival", for the right distribution of resources, and for the maintenance of human values.

Luxury. The word alone conjures up visions of visions of attractive, desirable lifestyle choices, yet it also faces criticism as a moral vice harmful to both the self and society. Engaging with ideas from business, marketing, and economics, The Vice of Luxury takes on the challenging task of naming how much is too much in today's consumer-oriented society. David Cloutier's critique goes to the heart of a fundamental contradiction. Though overconsumption and materialism make us uneasy, they also seem inevitable in advanced economies. Current studies of economic ethics focus on the structural problems of poverty, of international trade, of workers' rights -- but rarely, if ever, do such studies speak directly to the excesses of the wealthy, including the middle classes of advanced economies. Cloutier proposes a new approach to economic ethics that focuses attention on our everyday economic choices. He shows why luxury is a problem, explains how to identify what counts as the vice of luxury today, and develops an ethic of consumption that is grounded in Christian moral convictions.

This volume brings together a prominent group of Christian economists and theologians to provide an interdisciplinary look at how we might use the tools of economic and theological reasoning to cultivate more just and moral economies for the 21st century.

Between 1850 and 1970, around three hundred thousand children were sent to new homes through child migration programmes run by churches, charities and religious orders in the United States and the United Kingdom. Intended as humanitarian initiatives to save children from social and moral harm and to build them up as national and imperial citizens, these schemes have in many cases since become the focus of public censure, apology and sometimes financial redress. Remembering Child Migration is the first book to examine both the American 'orphan train' programmes and Britain's child migration schemes to its imperial colonies. Setting their work in historical context, it discusses their assumptions, methods and effects on the lives of those they claimed to help. Rather than seeing them as reflecting conventional child-care practice of their time, the book demonstrates that they were subject to criticism for much of the period in which they operated. Noting similarities between the American 'orphan trains' and early British migration schemes to Canada, it also shows how later British child migration schemes to Australia constituted a reversal of what had been understood to be good practice in the late Victorian period. At its heart, the book considers how welfare interventions motivated by humanitarian piety came to have such harmful effects in the lives of many child migrants. By examining how strong moral motivations can deflect critical reflection, legitimise power and build unwarranted bonds of trust, it explores the promise and risks of humanitarian sentiment.

Exam board: OCR Level: A-level Subject: Religious Studies First teaching: September 2016 First exams: Summer 2017 Target success in OCR A Level Religious Studies with this proven formula for effective, structured revision; key content coverage is combined with exam-style tasks and practical tips to create a revision guide you can rely on to review, strengthen and test their knowledge. With My Revision Notes you can: - Plan and manage a successful revision programme using the topic-by-topic planner - Consolidate subject knowledge by working through clear and focused content coverage - Test understanding and identify areas for improvement with regular 'Now Test Yourself' tasks and answers - Improve exam technique through practice questions, expert tips and examples of typical mistakes to avoid

This book offers a creative and accessible exploration of two comic book series: Y: The Last Man and Saga It examines themes pertinent to the 21st century and its challenges, such as those of diversity and religious pluralism, issues of gender and war, heroes and moral failures, and forgiveness and seeking justice Through close interdisciplinary reading and personal narratives, the author delves into the complex worlds of Y and Saga in search of an ethics, meaning, and a path resonant with real world struggles Reading these works side-by-side, the analysis draws parallels and seeks common themes around four central ideas: seeking and making meaning in a meaningless world; love and parenting through oppression and grief; peacefulness when surrounded by violence; and the perils and hopes of diversity and communion This timely, attentive, and thoughtful study will resonate with scholars and students of comic studies, media and cultural studies, philosophy, theology, literature, psychology, and popular culture studies

This textbook does not focus on one major world religion, but uniquely looks more broadly to demonstrate the relevance and importance of ethics based in a variety of religious traditions. Each chapter includes a helpful pedagogy including a general overview, case studies, suggestions for further reading, questions for discussion, and a chronological structure, making this the ideal textbook for students approaching the topic for the first time. Explores controversial topics such as CRISPR, vegetarianism, nuclear weapons, women's leadership, and reparations for slavery, which are engaging topics for students and will instigate debate.

This book argues that Protestant theological ethics not only reveals basic virtue ethical characteristics, but also contributes significantly to a viable contemporary virtue ethics. Pieter Vos demonstrates that post-Reformation theological ethics still understands the good in terms of the good life, takes virtues as necessary for living the good life and considers human nature as a source of moral knowledge. Vos approaches Protestant theology as an important bridge between pre-modern virtue ethics, shaped by Aristotle and transformed by Augustine of Hippo, and late modern understandings of morality. The volume covers a range of topics, going from eudaimonism and Calvinist ethics to Reformed scholastic virtue ethics and character formation in the work of Soren Kierkegaard. The author shows how Protestantism has articulated other-centered virtues from a theology of grace, affirmed ordinary life and emphasized the need of transformation of this life and its orders. Engaging with philosophy of the art of living, Neo-Aristotelianism and exemplarist ethics, he develops constructive contributions to a contemporary virtue ethics.

The first book to argue for the concept of tragic dilemmas in Christian ethics Moral dilemmas arise when individuals are unable to fulfill all of their ethical obligations. Tragic dilemmas are moral dilemmas that involve great tragedy. The existence of moral and tragic dilemmas is debated in philosophy and often dismissed in theology based on the notion that there are effective strategies that completely solve hard ethical situations. Yet cases from real-life events in war and bioethics offer compelling evidence for the existence of tragic dilemmas. In Tragic Dilemmas in Christian Ethics, Jackson-Meyer expertly explores the thought of Augustine and Aquinas to show the limits of their treatment of hard cases, as well as where their thought can be built on and expanded in relation to tragic dilemmas. She recognizes and develops a new theological understanding of tragic dilemmas rooted in moral philosophy, contemporary case studies, and psychological literature on moral injury. Jackson-Meyer argues that in tragic dilemmas moral agents choose between conflicting nonnegotiable moral obligations rooted in Christian commitments to protect human life and the vulnerable. Personal culpability is mitigated due to constrained situations and society is also culpable when tragic dilemmas are a result of structural sin. In response, Jackson-Meyer implores Christian communities to offer individual and communal healing after tragic dilemmas and to acknowledge their own participation in injustice. Tragic Dilemmas in Christian Ethics offers practical strategies that Christian communities can use to provide healing to those who have acted in tragic dilemmas and to transform the unjust structures that often cause these tragedies.

The Power of Reconciliation will come to be seen as Archbishop Welby's most important book to date. Today there is so much intolerance of views that are other than our own as we demonize those we do not agree with. Conflict is widespread. With the after-effects of Covid, changes in science and technology, inequality, and increasingly polarized political and social strife, moves towards reconciliation are more necessary than ever. This book is full of practical and insightful advice relating to both religious and secular communities, from the household to the international, on how to bring about reconciliation. There is even a step-by-step guide, drawn from the author's own experience, which is extensive - both before ordination and since, Welby has seen conflict first-hand. His earlier career as a corporate executive gave him important insights on conflict resolution, and as leader of the global Anglical Communion, he has spent many years helping people work through their differences all over the world. Welby writes about Reconciliation as seeking to disagree well, also pointing out the dignity of difference. The book is thus down-to-earth, plugged into reality and devoid of pointless optimism, and yet hopefulness for the future can be found in Welby's words throughout.

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?

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. In novels, poems, and essays, Richard Gibson here 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.