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1. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 37 > Issue: 2
Scott Paeth, Orcid-ID Kevin Carnahan

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selected essays

2. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 37 > Issue: 2
Cristina L. H. Traina

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The 2016 American presidential campaign raised awareness of structural evil among segments of the population whose privilege has protected this knowledge, both making them self-conscious of their vulnerability as persons and revealing the role that the liberal narrative of progress has played in establishing and perpetuating structural evil. This moment of opportunity to shift both the political and the theological narrative demands liberal conversion: overcoming the temptations of anger, denial, and paralysis to embrace solidarity in vulnerability and power. An early liberationist narrative that embraces utopian praxis rather than utopian ideology is both more theologically honest and more effective than the liberal narrative of progress.
3. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 37 > Issue: 2
Ryan Darr

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Many of the most pressing moral problems that face our world are structural problems. Problems of this nature present difficulties for Christian ethicists because structural features tend to undermine conditions for the attribution of individual moral responsibility. This essay proposes an approach to this problem that reconciles a social account of sin with individual moral responsibility. Two key moves drive this proposal. First, I argue for a sharper distinction between sin and moral wrongdoing than is common. Second, I argue that both sin and individual moral responsibility ought to be understood socially. This proposal addresses deep conceptual problems and points practical efforts in a new direction.
4. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 37 > Issue: 2
Esther D. Reed

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This essay frames the question of responsibility as a problem of agency in relation to the systems and structures of globalization. Responsibility is a “shattered concept” (Paul Ricoeur) when considered too narrowly as a problem of act, agency, and individual freedom. Constructively, the essay introduces Dietrich Bonhoeffer as the most promising theological dialogue partner for rethinking the meaning of responsibility today. His challenge is to find a way of talking about responsibility that does not collapse into individualism or become ensconced within a univocal logic that subsumes socioeconomic, cultural, and religious differences within itself. The claim is that Bonhoeffer’s reflections on the center, boundaries, and limits of responsibility are helpful today to Christian people struggling with an increasingly exhausted concept of responsibility, when linear agent-act-consequence connections to distant others and far away harms are increasingly difficult to trace.
5. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 37 > Issue: 2
David Cloutier

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Social theory can help Christian ethics respond to structural evil, both by accurately naming “what is there” and by precisely specifying “what to do.” William Cavanaugh and Katie Grimes, representing distinct neo-Franciscan and Junian approaches, draw extensively on social theory to confront structural evils of nation-state violence and racism. Yet they fall short of an adequate account of how social structures and individual agency interact. Their works obscure the actual mechanisms of social change, call for overly heroic actions, and offer rival formulations of the church–world relationship. I use critical realist social theory to offer an alternative approach that better accounts for the interaction of structure and agency needed for effective Christian responses.
6. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 37 > Issue: 2
Elizabeth Sweeny Block

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This essay considers whether the model of conscience operative in Christian ethics, what I call the “reflexive conscience,” is adequate to meet the global moral challenges we face today, problems such as gun violence, climate change, and the Zika virus. Drawing primarily on the work of Willis Jenkins, I argue that conscience has not yet caught up to the scale and interconnectedness of our global moral challenges. A truly “engaged conscience” must be focused not primarily on the self but on the other, and must be active. I conclude by turning to Elisabeth Vasko’s criticisms of the victim/perpetrator binary to suggest that conscience must call us to greater responsibility for the systemic injustices in which particular moral challenges are embedded.
7. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 37 > Issue: 2
Stewart Clem

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Philosopher Harry Frankfurt has famously coined “bullshit” as a technical term—it refers not to outright lying but rather to a casual indifference to truth. Disregard for truth is accepted and even expected in many contexts, yet it creates conditions for gross injustice and dehumanization. I offer an account of widespread cultural indifference to truth as structural sin, a condition I call “truth indifference.” Drawing on Thomas Aquinas’s understanding of the virtue of truth (veracitas), I map out the conceptual framework that must be in place before Christian ethicists can provide an adequate moral analysis of structural truth indifference.
8. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 37 > Issue: 2
Christopher D. Jones, Conor M. Kelly

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Individualism is a popular cultural trope in the United States, often touted for its promotion of industriousness and rejection of laziness. This essay argues that, ironically, America’s brand of individualism actually promotes a more fundamental form of the very vice it purports to oppose. To make this case, the essay defines the unique form of individualism in the United States and then retrieves the classical definition of sloth as a vice against charity (not diligence), contrasting Aquinas and Barth with Weber to demonstrate that this peculiarly American individualist impulse undermines civic charity by reaping the benefits of civic relationships while denying any concomitant responsibilities. Identifying this narrative of individualism as a structural vice, the essay proposes structural remedies for reinvigorating civic charity, solidarity, and the common good in the United States.
9. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 37 > Issue: 2
Ryan Andrew Newson

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For many in the United States, an important step in dismantling the structural evil of racism would be the total removal of Confederate monuments from the southern landscape. While the motivation behind this recommendation is laudable, such a move may also serve to assuage white guilt while leaving the structures of white privilege basically untouched. This essay uses recent work in theology and memory to assess these monuments as well as calls for their removal, and suggests that at least some should remain standing as signs of a crisis that remains with us, bent toward the goal of justice by means of remembering a devastating history under the aspect of God’s judgment. The upshot is that Christians have a strong theological warrant to support calls to add markers around certain Confederate monuments in order to contextualize and “fill out” the untruthful story they currently tell.
10. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 37 > Issue: 2
Wonchul Shin, Elizabeth M. Bounds

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This essay explores small “ordinary” experiences of moral harm as problems of social injustice. Starting with two stories, we first argue against a dominant framework of personal responsibility that assigns responsibility to particular blameworthy agents. Instead we sketch an account of why structural responsibility for social harm must be considered, drawing on the work of Iris Marion Young and Pierre Bourdieu. Finally, drawing on Margaret Walker’s notion of moral repair and Christopher Marshall’s interpretation of the parable of the Good Samaritan, we sketch an account of Christian moral responsibility grounded in restorative justice that seeks to address daily experiences of moral harm through the moral repair work of neighbor-love.
11. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 37 > Issue: 2
Willa Swenson-Lengyel

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In environmental ethics, there has been too little attention to the question of why changes in environmental beliefs do not simply result in changes in behavior, given that this gap between belief and behavior is widespread. In this essay, I argue that two forms of inaction that exhibit this gap can be helpfully analyzed by reading them in terms of a Lutheran account of sin. To make the argument, I distinguish seven forms of and reasons for inaction, from which I pull out two “privileged” forms of inaction that characterize people who could act and yet do not. Using psychological and sociological research, I interpret these two forms of inaction as, on the one hand, people’s attempts at securing righteousness and, on the other hand, people’s terrorized consciences in response to the complexity and gravity of climate change. I end suggesting a turn to justification within Christian environmental ethics.

book reviews

12. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 37 > Issue: 2
Christine Fletcher

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13. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 37 > Issue: 2
Aleksandar S. Santrac

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14. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 37 > Issue: 2
Victor Anderson

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15. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 37 > Issue: 2
Kyle Lambelet

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16. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 37 > Issue: 2
Nichole M. Flores

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17. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 37 > Issue: 2
Christine Darr

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18. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 37 > Issue: 2
Elizabeth Sweeny Block

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19. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 37 > Issue: 2
Mary M. Doyle Roche

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20. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 37 > Issue: 2
Howard Harris

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