The theological virtue of hope has long been neglected in Christian ethics. However, as social, civic and global anxieties mount, the need to overcome despair has become urgent. This book proposes the theological virtue of hope as a promising source of rejuvenation. Theological hope sustains us from the sloth, presumption and despair that threaten amid injustice, tragedy and dying; it provides an ultimate meaning and transcendent purpose to our lives; and it rejoices and refreshes us 'on the way' with the prospect of eternal beatitude. Rather than degrading this life and world, hope ordains earthly goods to our eschatological end, forming us to pursue social justice with a resilience and vitality that transcend the cynicism and disillusionment so widespread at present. Drawing on Thomas Aquinas and virtue ethics, the book shows how the virtue of hope contributes to human happiness in this life and not just the next.

This study examines how the New Testament scriptures might form and foster intellectual humility within Christian communities. It is informed by recent interdisciplinary interest in intellectual humility, and concerned to appreciate the distinctive representations of the virtue offered by the New Testament writers on their own terms. It argues that the intellectual virtue is cast as a particular expression of the broader Christian virtue of humility, something which itself proceeds from the believer's union with Christ, through which personal identity is reconstituted by the operation of the Holy Spirit. This demands that we speak of 'virtue' in ways determined by the acting presence of Jesus Christ that overcomes sin and evil in human lives and in the world. The Christian account of the intellectual virtue of humility is framed by this conflict, as the minds of believers who live together within the Christian community struggle with natural arrogance and selfishness, and come to share in the mind of Christ. The new identity that emerges creates a fresh openness to truth, as the capacity of the sinful mind to distort truth is exposed and challenged. This affects not just knowledge and perception, but also volition: for these ancient writers, a humble mind makes good decisions that reflect judgements decisively shaped by the sacrificial love of Jesus Christ. By presenting 'humility of mind' as a characteristic of the One who is worshipped-Jesus Christ-the New Testament writers insist that we acknowledge the virtue not just as an admission of human deficiency or limitation, but as a positive affirmation of our rightful place within the divine economy.

De processibus matrimonialibus/DPM ist eine Fachzeitschrift zu Fragen des kanonischen Ehe- und Prozessrechtes. DPM erscheint jahrlich im Anschluss an das offene Seminar fur die Mitarbeiter des Konsistoriums des Erzbistums Berlin de processibus matrimonialibus.

Religion and welfare in Europe compares regional conceptions and variations of welfare in relation to national religious traditions across key parts of Europe. Using comparative case studies focusing on gender and minority perspectives, the book examines the transition from research to practical policy recommendations, highlighting the similarities and differences between selected European countries.

De processibus matrimonialibus/DPM ist eine Fachzeitschrift zu Fragen des kanonischen Ehe- und Prozessrechtes. DPM erscheint jahrlich im Anschluss an das offene Seminar fur die Mitarbeiter des Konsistoriums des Erzbistums Berlin de processibus matrimonialibus.

Central to the lives of the religiously committed are not simply religious convictions but also religious practices. The religiously committed, for example, regularly assemble to engage in religious rites, including corporate liturgical worship. Although the participation in liturgy is central to the religious lives of many, few philosophers have given it attention. In this collection of essays, Terence Cuneo turns his attention to liturgy, contending that the topic proves itself to be philosophically rich and rewarding. Taking the liturgical practices of Eastern Christianity as its focal point, Ritualized Faith examines issues such as what the ethical importance of ritualized religious activities might be, what it is to immerse oneself in such activities, and what the significance of liturgical singing and iconography are. In doing so, Cuneo makes sense of these liturgical practices and indicates why they deserve a place in the religiously committed life.

If the use of God in a moral debate raises more problems than it solves, is it better to leave God out of the argument altogether and find strong human reasons for the rules we live by? Godless Morality is a refreshing, courageous and human-centred justification for contemporary morality.

In this thorough update of a classic textbook, noted Christian thinker Norman Geisler evaluates contemporary ethical options (such as antinomianism, situation ethics, and legalism) and pressing issues of the day (such as euthanasia, homosexuality, and divorce) from a biblical perspective. The second edition is significantly expanded and updated, with new material and charts throughout the book. There are new chapters on animal rights, sexual ethics, and the biblical basis for ethical decisions, as well as four new appendixes addressing drugs, gambling, pornography, and birth control. The author has significantly updated his discussion of abortion, biomedical ethics, war, and ecology and has expanded the selected readings, bibliography, and glossary.

Augustine famously claimed that the virtues of pagan Rome were nothing more than splendid vices. This critique reinvented itself as a suspicion of acquired virtue as such, and true Christian virtue has, ever since, been set against a false, hypocritical virtue alleged merely to conceal pride. "Putting On Virtue" reveals how a distrust of learned and habituated virtue shaped both early modern Christian moral reflection and secular forms of ethical thought. Jennifer A. Herdt develops her claims through an argument of broad historical sweep, which brings together the Aristotelian tradition, as taken up by Thomas Aquinas, with the early modern thinkers who shaped modern liberalism. In chapters on Luther, Bunyan, the Jansenists, Mandeville, Hume, Rousseau, and Kant, she argues that efforts to make a radical distinction between true Christian virtue and its tainted imitations actually created an autonomous natural ethics separate from Christianity. This secular value system valorized pride and authenticity, while rendering graced human agency less meaningful. Ultimately, "Putting On Virtue" traces a path from suspicion of virtue to its secular inversion, from confession of dependence to assertion of independence.

Traditionally, Catholic moral theology has been based upon an approach that over-emphasized the role of normative ethics and subsequently associated moral responsibility with following or disobeying moral rules. Reframing Catholic Theological Ethics offers an alternative ethical method which, without destroying any of the valuable insights of normative ethics, reorients the discipline to consider human motivation and intention before investigating behavioural options for realizing one's end. Evidence from the New Testament warrants the formation of a teleological method for theological ethics which is further elaborated in the approach taken by Thomas Aquinas. Unfortunately, the insights of the latter were misinterpreted at the time of the counter-reformation. Joseph A. Selling's analysis of moral theological textbooks demonstrates the entrenchment of a normative method aimed at identifying sins in service to the practice of sacramental confession. With a firm basis in the teaching of Vatican II, the 'human person integrally and adequately considered' provides the fundamental criterion for approaching ethical issues in the contemporary world. The perspective then turns to the crucial question of describing the ends or goals of ethical living by providing a fresh approach to the concept of virtue. Selling concludes with suggestions about how to combine normative ethics with this alternative method in theological ethics that begins with the actual, ethical orientation of the human person toward virtuous living.

Thoughtful observers agree that the planetary crisis we now face-climate change; species extinction; the destruction of entire ecosystems; the urgent need for a more just economic-political order-is pushing human civilization to a radical turning point: change or perish. But precisely how to change remains an open question. In Earth-honoring Faith, Larry Rasmussen answers that question with a dramatically new way of thinking about human society, ethics, and the ongoing health of our planet. Rejecting the modern assumption that morality applies to human society alone, Rasmussen insists that we must derive a spiritual and ecological ethic that accounts for the well-being of all creation, as well as the primal elements upon which it depends: earth, air, fire, water, and sunlight. He argues that good science, necessary as it is, will not be enough to inspire fundamental change. We must draw on religious resources as well to make the difficult transition from an industrial-technological age obsessed with consumption to an ecological age that restores wise stewardship of all life. Earth-honoring Faith advocates an alliance of spirituality and ecology, in which the material requirements for planetary life are reconciled with deep traditions of spirituality across religions, traditions that include mysticism, sacramentalism, prophetic practices, asceticism, and the cultivation of wisdom. It is these shared spiritual practices that can produce a chorus of world faiths to counter the consumerism, utilitarianism, alienation, oppression, and folly that have pushed us to the brink. Written with passionate commitment and deep insight, Earth-honoring Faith reminds us that we must live in the present with the knowledge that the eyes of future generations will look back at us.

In this second edition of the best-selling Cambridge Companion to Christian Ethics, Robin Gill brings together twenty essays by leading experts, to provide a comprehensive introduction to Christian ethics which is both authoritative and up to date. This volume boasts four entirely new chapters, while previous chapters and all bibliographies have been updated to reflect significant developments in the field over the last decade. Gill offers a superb overview of the subject, examining the scriptural bases of ethics as well as discussing Christian ethics in the context of contemporary issues, including war and the arms trade, social justice, ecology, economics, medicine and genetics. All of the contributors have a proven track record of balanced, comprehensive and comprehensible writing making this book an accessible and invaluable source not only for students in upper-level undergraduate courses, graduate students and teachers, but anyone interested in Christian ethics today.

Pacifism is popular. Many hold that war is unnecessary, since peaceful means of resolving conflict are always available, if only we had the will to look for them. Or they believe that war is wicked, essentially involving hatred of the enemy and carelessness of human life. Or they posit the absolute right of innocent individuals not to be deliberately killed, making it impossible to justify war in practice.
Peace, however, is not simple. Peace for some can leave others at peace to perpetrate mass atrocity. What was peace for the West in 1994 was not peace for the Tutsis of Rwanda. Therefore, against the virus of wishful thinking, anti-military caricature, and the domination of moral deliberation by rights-talk In Defence of War asserts that belligerency can be morally justified, even though tragic and morally flawed.
Recovering the Christian tradition of reflection running from Augustine to Grotius, this book affirms aggressive war in punishment of grave injustice. Morally realistic in adhering to universal moral principles, it recognises that morality can trump legality, justifying military intervention even in transgression of positive international law-as in the case of Kosovo. Less cynical and more empirically realistic about human nature than Hobbes, it holds that nations desire to be morally virtuous and right, and not only to be safe and fat. And aspiring to practical realism, it argues that love and the doctrine of double effect can survive combat; and that the constraints of proportionality, while real, are nevertheless sufficiently permissive to encompass Britain's belligerency in 1914-18. Finally, in a painstaking analysis of the Iraq invasion of 2003, In Defence of War culminates in an account of how the various criteria of just war should be thought together. It also concludes that, all things considered, the invasion was justified.

Many forms of Buddhism, divergent in philosophy and style, emerged as Buddhism filtered out of India into other parts of Asia. Nonetheless, all of them embodied an ethical core that is remarkably consistent. Articulated by the historical Buddha in his first sermon, this moral core is founded on the concept of karma-that intentions and actions have future consequences for an individual-and is summarized as Right Speech, Right Action, and Right Livelihood, three of the elements of the Eightfold Path. Although they were later elaborated and interpreted in a multitude of ways, none of these core principles were ever abandoned. The Oxford Handbook of Buddhist Ethics provides a comprehensive overview of the field of Buddhist ethics in the twenty-first century. The Handbook discusses the foundations of Buddhist ethics focusing on karma and the precepts looking at abstinence from harming others, stealing, and intoxication. It considers ethics in the different Buddhist traditions and the similarities they share, and compares Buddhist ethics to Western ethics and the psychology of moral judgments. The volume also investigates Buddhism and society analysing economics, environmental ethics, and Just War ethics. The final section focuses on contemporary issues surrounding Buddhist ethics, including gender, sexuality, animal rights, and euthanasia. This groundbreaking collection offers an indispensable reference work for students and scholars of Buddhist ethics and comparative moral philosophy.

The Bonhoeffer Legacy: Australasian Journal of Bonhoeffer Studies is a fully refereed academic journal aimed principally at providing an outlet for an ever expanding Bonhoeffer scholarship in Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific region, as well as being open to article submissions from Bonhoeffer scholars throughout the world. It also aims to elicit and encourage future and ongoing scholarship in the field. The focus of the journal, captured in the notion of 'Legacy', is on any aspect of Bonhoeffer's life, theology and political action that is relevant to his immense contribution to twentieth century events and scholarship. 'Legacy' can be understood as including those events and ideas that contributed to Bonhoeffer's own development, those that constituted his own context or those that have developed since his time as a result of his work. The editors encourage and welcome any scholarship that contributes to the journal's aims. The journal also has book reviews.

Quien escribe esta obra sobre Jesus de Nazaret, es un pastor, un hombre de fe, una persona que valora en gran medida las virtudes de la experiencia religiosa saludable y liberadora en la sociedad. La religion, desde esa optica vocacional y profesional, no debe ser opio cautivante, ni instrumento de dominacion, sino un importante agente de salud mental, bienestar social y redencion espiritual. Las ensenanzas y los valores que se manifiestan en la vida y obra de Jesus, representan lo mejor de los valores religiosos, que tienen como finalidad formar, informar, reformar y transformar a la humanidad. Una obra necesaria para quienes quieren entender y disfrutar la figura de Jesus de Nazaret en su entorno historico, social, politico, religioso y espiritual. Un libro necesario en las bibliotecas de pastores y pastoras, maestros y maestras que desean llevar a efecto un ministerio educativo inteligente y transformador."

The Bonhoeffer Legacy: Australasian Journal of Bonhoeffer Studies is a fully refereed academic journal aimed principally at providing an outlet for an ever expanding Bonhoeffer scholarship in Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific region, as well as being open to article submissions from Bonhoeffer scholars throughout the world. It also aims to elicit and encourage future and ongoing scholarship in the field. The focus of the journal, captured in the notion of 'Legacy', is on any aspect of Bonhoeffer's life, theology and political action that is relevant to his immense contribution to twentieth century events and scholarship. 'Legacy' can be understood as including those events and ideas that contributed to Bonhoeffer's own development, those that constituted his own context or those that have developed since his time as a result of his work. The editors encourage and welcome any scholarship that contributes to the journal's aims. The journal also has book reviews.

The literature on Kierkegaard is often content to paraphrase. By contrast, Michael Theunissen articulates one of Kierkegaard's central ideas, his theory of despair, in a detailed and comprehensible manner and confronts it with alternatives. Understanding what Kierkegaard wrote on despair is vital not only because it illuminates his thought as a whole, but because his account of despair in The Sickness unto Death is the cornerstone of existentialism. Theunissen's book, published in German in 1993, is widely regarded as the best treatment of the subject in any language. Kierkegaard's Concept of Despair is also one of the few works on Kierkegaard that bridge the gap between the Continental and analytic traditions in philosophy. Theunissen argues that for Kierkegaard, the fundamental characteristic of despair is the desire of the self "not to be what it is." He sorts through the apparently chaotic text of The Sickness unto Death to explain what Kierkegaard meant by the "self," how and why individuals want to flee their selves, and how he believed they could reconnect with their selves. According to Theunissen, Kierkegaard thought that individuals in despair seek to deny their authentic selves to flee particular aspects of their character, their past, or the world, or in order to deny their "mission." In addition to articulating and evaluating Kierkegaard's concept of despair, Theunissen relates Kierkegaard's ideas to those of Heidegger, Sartre, and other twentieth-century philosophers.

Das Buch stellt sich den essenziellen Fragen von Krieg und Frieden aus ethischer und religioser Perspektive. Ziel ist es, die gegenwartig stark umstrittene Lehre vom gerechten Krieg in den globalen Kontext einzubinden und aktuelle Weiterentwicklungen innerhalb - sowie ausserhalb - dieser stark vom Christentum gepragten Lehre zu analysieren. Erortert werden aktuelle theoretische Ansatze des gerechten Krieges, Gegenkonzepte wie das von den beiden grossen Kirchen in Deutschland unterstutzte und mitformulierte Konzept des Gerechten Friedens sowie Konzepte uber Krieg und Frieden in anderen Weltreligionen. Gerade mit den weltpolitischen Veranderungen nach 1989/90 ist eine systematische Reflexion der Kriterien, unter denen militarische Interventionen erlaubt sein konnten, wieder dringend geworden, und dies nicht nur im abendlandisch christlichen, sondern vor allem auch im globalen, multikulturellen und multireligiosen Kontext."

The subject of poverty is rich in meanings and associations, among them hunger, stench, disease, disfigurement, shame, revulsion, and loss. It is a topic that has preoccupied the mind and hearts of the faithful since the inception of Christianity.
In this insightful volume, Susan R. Holman blends personal memoir and scholarly research into ancient writings to illuminate the age-old issues of need, poverty, and social justice in the history of the Christian tradition. Holman weaves together stories from late antiquity with three conceptual paradigms that can bridge the gap between historical story and modern action: sensing need, sharing the world, and embodying sacred kingdom. In the first four chapters, the author explores how personal need influences the way that we look at the world and the needs of others. Beginning with the story of her own encounters with need and her discovery of the world of early Christian texts on poverty and religious response, the author re-tells these historical narratives in new ways, and traces their influence on post-Reformation history. The second half of the book uses a complex amalgam of images and stories to consider several recurrent themes in any religious responses to poverty and need: poverty and gender, the dilemma of justice in material distribution, ascetic models of social activism and contemplation, the language of human rights and the "common good," challenges of hospitality, and the role of liturgy in constructing a vision for restorative righteousness.
Tying these historical texts to modern responses to need, Holman begins with her own encounters with need and describes her discovery of the existence of never-before-translated early Christian texts on responses to poverty, hunger, and disease. Holman's embrace of the historical perspective will prove useful in interdenominational and ecumenical dialogue on religious responses to social welfare needs. Through their sensitive exploration of nuances and tensions, these essays invite reflection, conversation, and response for scholars and students as well as concerned laypeople across a range of Christian faith communities.

As humans, we want to live meaningfully, yet we are often driven by impulse. In Religion and the Meaning of Life, Williams investigates this paradox - one with profound implications. Delving into felt realities pertinent to meaning, such as boredom, trauma, suicide, denial of death, and indifference, Williams describes ways to acquire meaning and potential obstacles to its acquisition. This book is unique in its willingness to transcend a more secular stance and explore how one's belief in God may be relevant to life's meaning. Religion and the Meaning of Life's interdisciplinary approach makes it useful to philosophers, religious studies scholars, psychologists, students, and general readers alike. The insights from this book have profound real-world applications - they can transform how readers search for meaning and, consequently, how readers see and exist in the world.

Wie kann man ehrlicherweise heute Christ sein und es im Dialog mit anderen Religionen und dem Atheismus vertreten? Es bedarf (trotz Karl Barth) einer philosophischen (metaphysischen) Ergrundung des Fur und Widers des Gottesglaubens sowie eines auch psychologischen, ethischen und politischen Verstandnisses von Christusglauben und Kirche. In einer Art phanomenologischer "Wesensschau" und stets korrigierbar wird hier nach der Idee gefahndet, aus der das Christentum in seiner gesamten Geschichte bis heute lebt, und eine entsprechende Erfassung des Wesens der Alternativen gewagt. Man gewinnt fur die Auseinandersetzung eine Basis, die Probleme differenzierter zu sehen.

This textbook untangles the complicated ethical dilemmas that arise during the day-to-day work of healthcare chaplaincy, and offers a sturdy but flexible framework which chaplains can use to reflect on their own practice. Tackling essential issues such as consent, life support, abortion, beginning and end of life and human dignity, it enables chaplains to tease out the ethical implications of situations they encounter, to educate themselves on relevant legal matters and to engage with different ethical viewpoints. The book combines case studies of familiar scenarios with thorough information on legal matters, while providing ample opportunity for workplace reflection and offering guidance as to how chaplains can best support patients and their families while preserving their own integrity and well-being. Clear, sensitive and user-friendly, this will be an indispensable resource for healthcare chaplains and all healthcare professionals interested in spiritual care.

Das reformatorische Schriftprinzip gilt vielen als nicht mehr tragfahig. Grund dafur ist die Losloesung der Schriftautoritat von ihrer kritischen und heilsamen Wirkung in Gesetz und Evangelium. Dagegen weisen die Aufsatze dieses Bandes Wege zu einer Wiederentdeckung der lebensgestaltenden Kraft der Schrift als Kanon und Sakrament. Dies geschieht in Auseinandersetzung mit theologischen Ansatzen, die selber die Relevanz der biblischen Botschaft gewahrleisten wollen und Gefahr laufen, das aussere Bibelwort in seiner Widerstandigkeit zu uberspringen. Auch die Ethik lebt von Grundlagen, die sie nicht schaffen kann. Gerade in der Debatte um Freiheit und Nachhaltigkeit erweist sich die biblisch-reformatorische Schoepfungstheologie als wichtiges Korrektiv in verschiedenen sozialethischen Kontexten.