Modern societies are plagued with conflicts about basic beliefs, values, and ideals. What some call virtue, others count as vice. This book argues that the cultivation of the virtues as well as contestation about them are part and parcel of the goods that Christians and democratic societies share in common. Drawing on the work of Mary Wollstonecraft, Emily Dumler-Winckler aims to dissolve the anxieties of both defenders and despisers of virtue ethics and so form a rapprochement. Influenced by religious dissenters in eighteenth-century England, Wollstonecraft revolutionized ancient traditions of the virtues in modern ways for feminist and abolitionist aims. For this modern feminist, as for premodern Christians, moral formation requires putting exemplars to the test of critical examination-discarding some, adopting others, and emulating the virtues of each. By elaborating the specifically theological aspects of Wollstonecraft's account, this book demonstrates the important role religious traditions have played in feminism and radical socio-political movements in the modern era. By treating the relation between modern rights and virtues such as justice and friendship, Dumler-Winckler illuminates their vital relation and roles in modern democratic societies. With good reason, both modernity and virtue have cultured despisers. Modern Virtue provides an account of the virtues in modernity and, even, the virtues of modernity.

The book gives a detailed overview of relevant traditional indigenous Sami myths, beliefs and rituals based on empirical findings. The author inquires whether and how they are related to an ecologically sustainable use of the natural environment. Her main sources are ancient missionary texts, writings by Sami and contemporary interviews with Sami individuals. The traditional value system included ecological sustainability as a survival strategy. Beliefs and rituals, transmitted via stories, incorporated these values and transmitted a feeling of a round life, despite the strict rules for right behavior and punishment for transgressions. The term round symbolized a sense of safety, interconnectedness, reliance on mutual help and respect, identification and empathy with all living beings.

French legal culture, from the Middle Ages to the present day, has had an impressive influence on legal norms and institutions that have emerged in Europe and the Americas, as well as in Asian and African countries. This volume examines the lives of twenty-seven key legal thinkers in French history, with a focus on how their Christian faith and ideals were a factor in framing the evolution of French jurisprudence. Professors Olivier Descamps and Rafael Domingo bring together this diverse group of distinguished legal scholars and historians to provide a unique comparative study of law and religion that will be of value to scholars, lawyers, and students. The collaboration among French and non-French scholars, and the diversity of international and methodological perspectives, gives this volume its own unique character and value to add to this fascinating series.

Some of the deepest questions of women's hearts are about beauty: an innate desire to decorate ourselves and our surroundings, and the struggle to feel beautiful. But these desires are often in direct conflict with values and beliefs that tell us fashion (or any form of creativity) is frivolous and vain, and may actually be a sin. Jeanette Johnson, founder of popular style blog J's Everyday Fashion, shares her personal journey and the stories of other women, examining how we can best explore our quest for beauty while still honoring our faith and personal values and being responsible consumers. Jeanette delves into topics that many women grapple with: Is fashion selfish? Is it necessary? Does it dishonor our faith? With an in-depth look at issues like healthy self-esteem, modesty, and how fashion fits into the big picture, Jeanette offers practical, thoughtful insight, guiding every woman to conquer her fashion guilt and achieve "personal style with purpose."

Hope and Healing to Break Free From Sexual Addiction There is a battle going on. Millions of victims are trapped in the struggle of sexual addiction with no apparent way out. Pure Desire is the answer to this desperate cry for help from men and women who have tried to build sexual holiness into their lives and failed...and failed...and failed. This book is also for the shattered souls of mates who are puzzled, shamed, and wounded by their husband's or wife's sexual bondage and secret life. And, this book is for the Church to come alongside those who have come to them for help. Here is hope for establishing healthy personal boundaries with proven, practical applications to claim Christ's healing power and presence, perhaps for the first time. If you, someone you love, or someone you are counseling struggles with sexual addiction, Pure Desire is an anchor amid rough waters and the offer of a new appreciation for Christ's healing power and presence. The time is now to begin walking in victory and help others to do the same. Learn how to tackle this issue with confidence, clarity, and biblical perspective.

In a pluralistic society such as ours, tolerance is a virtue--but it doesn't always seem so. Some suspect that it entangles us in unacceptable moral compromises and inequalities of power, while others dismiss it as mere political correctness or doubt that it can safeguard the moral and political relationships we value. Tolerance among the Virtues provides a vigorous defense of tolerance against its many critics and shows why the virtue of tolerance involves exercising judgment across a variety of different circumstances and relationships--not simply applying a prescribed set of rules. Drawing inspiration from St. Paul, Aquinas, and Wittgenstein, John Bowlin offers a nuanced inquiry into tolerance as a virtue. He explains why the advocates and debunkers of toleration have reached an impasse, and he suggests a new way forward by distinguishing the virtue of tolerance from its false look-alikes, and from its sibling, forbearance. Some acts of toleration are right and good, while others amount to indifference, complicity, or condescension. Some persons are able to draw these distinctions well and to act in accord with their better judgment. When we praise them as tolerant, we are commending them as virtuous. Bowlin explores what that commendation means. Tolerance among the Virtues offers invaluable insights into how to live amid differences we cannot endorse--beliefs we consider false, actions we think are unjust, institutional arrangements we consider cruel or corrupt, and persons who embody what we oppose.

Religion is one of the most powerful forces running through human history, and although often presented as a force for good, its impact is frequently violent and divisive. This provocative work brings together cutting-edge research from both evolutionary and cognitive psychology to help readers understand the psychological structure of religious morality and the origins of religious violence. Introduces a fundamentally new approach to the analysis of religion in a style accessible to the general reader Applies insights from evolutionary and cognitive psychology to both Judaism and Christianity, and their texts, to help understand the origins of religious violence Argues that religious violence is grounded in the moral psychology of religion Illustrates its controversial argument with reference to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the response to the attacks from both the terrorists and the President. Suggests strategies for beginning to counter the divisive aspects of religionDiscusses the role of religion and religious criticism in the contemporary world. Argues for a position sceptical of the moral authority of religion, while also critiquing the excesses of the "new atheists" for failing to appreciate the moral contributions of religionAwarded Honourable Mention, 2010 Prose Awards

Soul food has played a critical role in preserving Black history, community, and culinary genius. It is also a response to--and marker of--centuries of food injustice. Given the harm that our food production system inflicts upon Black people, what should soul food look like today? Christopher Carter's answer to that question merges a history of Black American foodways with a Christian ethical response to food injustice. Carter reveals how racism and colonialism have long steered the development of US food policy. The very food we grow, distribute, and eat disproportionately harms Black people specifically and people of color among the global poor in general. Carter reflects on how people of color can eat in a way that reflects their cultural identities while remaining true to the principles of compassion, love, justice, and solidarity with the marginalized. Both a timely mediation and a call to action, The Spirit of Soul Food places today's Black foodways at the crossroads of food justice and Christian practice.

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.

This enlightening book steers readers through the challenges and moral issues, providing a clear and decisive history of the main figures and texts in Christian ethics.
A short and lively history of Christian ethics, exploring how Christianity has always had to grapple with complex moral problems - from questions about the status of early Christians who renounced their religion under Roman torture, through to current debates about euthanasia
Engages with the main texts and figures in Christian ethics, including Augustine, Benedict, Aquinas, Luther and Barth
Considers questions such as human will, the proper form of Christian life, natural law, and whether human nature is at odds with Christian ethics
Concludes with a thought-provoking chapter considering the role that Christian ethics can play in contemporary moral debates and ethical dilemmas

Compassion in Healthcare gives an account of the nature and content of compassion and its role in healthcare. While compassion appears to be a straightforward aspect of life and practice, Hordern's analysis shows that it is plagued by both conceptual and practical ills, and stands in need of some quite specific kinds of therapy. Starting from a diagnosis of what precisely is wrong with 'compassion'-its debilitating political entanglements, the vagueness of its meaning, and the risk of burnout it threatens-three therapies are prescribed for these ills: an understanding of patients and healthcare workers as those who pass through the life-course, encountering each other as wayfarers and pilgrims; a grasp of the nature of compassion in healthcare; and an embedding of healthcare within the realities of civic life. Applying these therapeutic strategies uncovers how compassionate relationships acquire their content in healthcare practice. The form that compassion takes is shown to depend on how doctrines of time, tragedy, salvation, responsibility, fault, and theodicy make a difference to the quality of people's lives and relationships. Drawing on the author's real-world collaborations, the way in which compassion matters to practice and policy is worked out in the detail of healthcare professionalism, marketization, and technology. Covering everything from conception to old age, and from machine learning to religious diversity, Compassion in Healthcare draws on philosophy, theology, and everyday experience to expand our understanding of what compassion means for healthcare practice.

Ideas have consequences. And sometimes those ideas can be squeezed into slogans, slapped on bumper stickers and tweeted into cyberspace. These compact messages coming at us from all directions often compress in a few words entire ethical systems. It turns out that there's a lot more to the ideas behind these slogans--ideas that need to be sorted out before we make important moral decisions as individuals or as societies. In this revised and expanded edition of Steve Wilkens's widely-used text, the author has updated his introductions to basic ethical systems: cultural relativism ethical egoism utilitarianism behaviorism situation ethics Kantian ethics virtue ethics natural law ethics divine command theory He has also added two new chapters: evolutionary ethics narrative ethics With clarity and wit Wilkens unpacks the complicated ideas behind the slogans and offers Christian evaluations of each.

This book presents an authoritative and comprehensive survey of human practice in relation to other animals, together with a Christian ethical analysis building on the theological account of animals which David Clough developed in On Animals Volume I: Systematic Theology (2012). It argues that a Christian understanding of other animals has radical implications for their treatment by humans, with the human use and abuse of non-human animals for food the most urgent immediate priority. Following an introduction examining the task of theological ethics in relation to non-human animals and the way it relates to other accounts of animal ethics, this book surveys and assess the use humans make of other animals for food, for clothing, for labour, as research subjects, for sport and entertainment, as pets or companions, and human impacts on wild animals. The result is both a state-of-the-art account of what humans are doing to other animals, and a persuasive argument that Christians in particular have strong faith-based reasons to acknowledge the significance of the issues raised and change their practice in response.

When tragedy strikes a community, it is often unexpected with long-lasting effects on the people left in its wake. Too often, there aren't adequate systems in place to aid those affected in processing what has happened. This study uniquely combines practical theology, pastoral insight and scientific data to demonstrate how Christian congregations can be helped to be resilient in the face of sudden devastating events. Beginning by identifying the characteristics of trauma in individuals and communities, this collection of essays from practitioners and academics locates sudden trauma-inducing tragedies as a problem in practical theology. A range of biblical and theological responses are presented, but contemporary scientific understanding is also included in order to challenge and stretch some of these traditional theological resources. The pastoral section of the book examines the ethics of response to tragedy, locating the role of the minister in relation to other helping agencies and exploring the all-too-topical issue of ministerial abuse. Developing a nuanced rationale for good practical, pastoral, liturgical and theological responses to major traumas, this book will be of significant value to scholars of practical theology as well as practitioners counselling in and around church congregations.

We live amid increasing ethical plurality and fragmentation while at the same time more and more questions of moral gravity confront us. Some of these questions are new, such as those around human cloning and genetics. Other questions that were previously settled have re-emerged, such as those around the place of religion in politics. Responses to such questions are diverse, numerous and often vehemently contested. Hospitality as Holiness seeks to address the underlying question facing the church within contemporary moral debates: how should Christians relate to their neighbours when ethical disputes arise? The problems the book examines centre on what the nature and basis of Christian moral thought and action is, and in the contemporary context, whether moral disputes may be resolved with those who do not share the same framework as Christians. Bretherton establishes a model - that of hospitality - for how Christians and non-Christians can relate to each other amid moral diversity. This book will appeal to those interested in the broad question of the relationship between reason, tradition, natural law and revelation in theology, and more specifically to those engaged with questions about plurality, tolerance and ethical conflict in Christian ethics and medical ethics.

Christianity is commonly held to have introduced an entirely new and better morality into the ancient world, a new morality that was decidedly universal, in contrast to the ethics of the philosophical schools which were only concerned with the intellectual few. Runar M. Thorsteinsson presents a challenge to this view by comparing Christian morality in first-century Rome with contemporary Stoic ethics in the city. Thorsteinsson introduces and discusses the moral teaching of Roman Stoicism; of Seneca, Musonius Rufus, and Epictetus. He then presents the moral teaching of Roman Christianity as it is represented in Paul's Letter to the Romans, the First Letter of Peter, and the First Letter of Clement. Having established the bases for his comparison, he examines the similarities and differences between Roman Stoicism and Roman Christianity in terms of morality. Five broad themes are used for the comparison, questions of Christian and Stoic views about: a particular morality or way of life as proper worship of the deity; certain individuals (like Jesus and Socrates) as paradigms for the proper way of life; the importance of mutual love and care; non-retaliation and 'love of enemies'; and the social dimension of ethics. This approach reveals a fundamental similarity between the moral teachings of Roman Christianity and Roman Stoicism. The most basic difference is found in the ethical scope of the two: While the latter teaches unqualified universal humanity, the former seems to condition the ethical scope in terms of religious adherence.

By the time of early modernity, a widely deployed tenet of Christian thought had begun to vanish. The divine ideas tradition, the teaching that all beings have an eternal existence as aspects of God's mind, had functioned across a wide range of central Christian doctrines, providing Christian thinkers and mystical teachers with a powerful theological capacity: to illuminate the Trinitarian ground of all creatures, and to renew the divine truth of all creatures through human contemplation. Already by the time of the Middle Platonists, Plato's forms had been reinterpreted as ideas in the mind of God. Yet that was only the beginning of the transformation of the divine ideas, for Christian belief in God as Trinity and in the incarnation of the Word imbued the divine ideas tradition with a remarkable conceptual agility. The divine ideas teaching allowed mystical theologians to conceive the hidden presence of God in all creatures, and the power of every creature's truth in God to consummate the full dynamic of every creature's calling. The Divine Ideas Tradition in Christian Mystical Theology brings to life the striking role of the divine ideas tradition in the teaching of its central exponents, and also suggests how the divine ideas might constructively inform Christian theology and spirituality today. Especially in an age of global crises, when the truth of the natural environment, of racial injustice, and of public health is denied and disputed for political ends, the divine ideas tradition affords contemporary thinkers a creative and contemplative vision that reveres the deep truth of all beings and seeks their mending and fulfilment.

In the twentieth century, Christian eschatology, the doctrine about the final reality, became a storm center for Christian systematic theologians because of the rediscovery of the eschatological character of Jesus Christ. In the twenty-first century, Christian theologians continue to wrestle with the claims of Christian eschatology because of a postmodern suspicion of eschatological certainty claims about a future that is, after all, objectively unavailable, yet still of great human concern. Human beings live on hope for the future. An Eschatological Imagination recognizes the problem of the future for Christian eschatology. Building on the major theological writings of David Tracy, it offers a revised way of thinking and living eschatologically in the form of an eschatological imagination as a rhetoric of virtue, an exhortation to live in Christian hope in a postmodern world and into an objectively unavailable and uncertain future. Within such a rhetoric, hope becomes action - not mere sentiment - that seeks to create a Christian eschatological future.

This book advances that history by exploring stories, images and discourses across a worldwide range of geographical, cultural and confessional contexts. Its twelve authors not only enrich our understanding of the significance of the contextual method, but also produce a new range of original ways of doing theology in contemporary situations. The authors discuss some prioritised thematic perspectives with an emphasis on liberating paths, and expand the ongoing discussion on the methodology of theology into new areas. Themes such as interreligious plurality, global capitalism, ecumenical liberation theology, eco-anxiety and the anthropocene, postcolonialism, gender, neo-pentecostalism, world theology, and reconciliation are examined in situated depth. Additionally, voices from Indigenous lands, Latin America, Asia, Africa, Australia, and Europe and North America enter into a dialogue on what it means to contextualise theology in an increasingly globalised and ever-changing world. Such a comprehensive discussion of new ways of thinking about and doing contextual theology will be of great use to scholars in Theology, Religious Studies, Cultural Studies, Political Science, Gender Studies, Environmental Humanities, and Global Studies.

This book is a pneumatological reflection on the use and abuse of the Spirit in light of the abuse of religion within South African Pentecostalism. Both emerging and well-established scholars of South African Pentecostalism are brought together to reflect on pneumatology from various approaches, which includes among others: historical, biblical, migration, commercialisation of religion, discernment of spirits and human flourishing. From a broader understanding of the function of the Holy Spirit in different streams of Pentecostalism, the argument is that this function has changed with the emergence of the new Prophetic churches in South Africa. This is a fascinating insight into one of the major emerging worldwide religious movements. As such, it will be of great interest to academics in Pentecostal Studies, Christian Studies, Theology, and Religious Studies as well as African Studies and the Sociology of Religion.

Based on an unfinished manuscript by the late philosopher Dallas Willard, this book makes the case that the 20th century saw a massive shift in Western beliefs and attitudes concerning the possibility of moral knowledge, such that knowledge of the moral life and of its conduct is no longer routinely available from the social institutions long thought to be responsible for it. In this sense, moral knowledge-as a publicly available resource for living-has disappeared. Via a detailed survey of main developments in ethical theory from the late 19th through the late 20th centuries, Willard explains philosophy's role in this shift. In pointing out the shortcomings of these developments, he shows that the shift was not the result of rational argument or discovery, but largely of arational social forces-in other words, there was no good reason for moral knowledge to have disappeared. The Disappearance of Moral Knowledge is a unique contribution to the literature on the history of ethics and social morality. Its review of historical work on moral knowledge covers a wide range of thinkers including T.H Green, G.E Moore, Charles L. Stevenson, John Rawls, and Alasdair MacIntyre. But, most importantly, it concludes with a novel proposal for how we might reclaim moral knowledge that is inspired by the phenomenological approach of Knud Logstrup and Emmanuel Levinas. Edited and eventually completed by three of Willard's former graduate students, this book marks the culmination of Willard's project to find a secure basis in knowledge for the moral life.

Despite the command from Christ to love your neighbour, Western Christianity has continued to be afflicted by the evil of racism and the acts of violence that accompany it. Through a systems theoretical and deconstructive account of religion and the political theology of St. Paul, this book traces how the racism and violence of modern Western Christianity is a symptom of its failure to secure its own myth of sovereignty within a complex world of plurality. Divided into three sections, the book begins with a philosophical and critical account of what it calls the immune system of Christian identity. Focusing on Pauline political theology as reflective of an inherent religious "autoimmunity" built into Christian community, a theory of theological-political violence is located within Western Christianity. The second section traces major theoretical aspects of the historical "apparatus" of Christian Identity. It demonstrates that it is ultimately around the figure of the black slave that racialized Christian identity becomes a system of anti-blackness and white supremacy. The book concludes by offering strategies for thinking resistance against such racialised Christian identity. It does this by constructing a "pragmatics of faith" by engaging Deleuze's and Guattari's use of the term pragmatics, Moten's theory of black fugitivity, and Long's account of African American religious production. This wide-ranging and interdisciplinary view of Christianity's relationship to racism will be of keen interest to scholars of Religious Studies, Theological Studies, Cultural Studies, Critical Race Studies, American Studies, and Critical Theory.

After the re-emergence of the tradition of virtue ethics in the early 1980s Reinhold Niebuhr has often served as a foil for authors who locate themselves in that tradition. However, this exercise has often proved controversial. This collection of essays continues this work, across a wide range of subjects, with the aim of avoiding some of the polemics that have previously accompanied it. The central thesis of this book is that putting the work of Reinhold Niebuhr and Christian realism in dialogue with contemporary virtue theory is a profitable undertaking. An introductory essay argues against locating Niebuhr as a consequentialist and in favour of thinking of his work in terms of a dispositional ethics Contributors take different positions on whether Niebuhr's dispositional ethics should be considered a form of virtue ethics or an alternative to virtue ethics. Several of the articles relate Niebuhr and Christian realism to particular virtues. Throughout there is an appreciation of the ways in which any Niebuhrian approach to dispositional ethics or virtue must be shaped by a sense of tragedy, paradox, or irony. The most moral disposition will be one which includes doubts about its own virtue. This volume allows for a repositioning of Niebuhr in the context of contemporary moral theory as well as a rereading of the tradition of virtue ethics in the light of a distinctly Protestant, Christian realist and paradoxical view of virtue. As a result, it will be of great interest to scholars of Niebuhr and Christian Ethics and scholars working in Moral Philosophy and the Philosophy of Religion more generally.

Christian Ethics: The Basics sets out clearly and critically the different ways that Augustine, Aquinas and Luther continue to shape ethics today within and across Christian denominations. It assumes no previous knowledge of the subject and can be read by religious believers and non-believers alike. Readers are introduced to Christian ethics from the ground up before being invited to consider some of the most controversial but important questions facing people across the world today. Topics addressed include: Social justice War and peace Migration/immigration Climate change Euthanasia Same-sex marriage Religiously-inspired violence Biotechnology Abrahamic ethics Concise, readable and authoritative, this is the ideal primer for anyone interested in the study of religious ethics and Christianity.

In his sharp, observant book, Stan Goff grapples with a problem crucial to modern Christian values. The sanctification of war and contempt for women are both grounded in a fear that breeds hostility, a hostility that valorises conquest and murder. In 'Borderline', Goff dissects the driving force behind the darkest impulses of the human heart. The un-Christian history of loving war and hating women are not merely similar but two sides of the same coin, he argues, in an 'autobiography' that spans two millennia of war and misogyny. 'Borderline' is the personal and conceptual history of an American career army veteran transformed by Jesus into a passionate advocate for nonviolence, written by a man who narrates his conversion to Christianity through feminism.