Already a subscriber? - Login here
Not yet a subscriber? - Subscribe here

Browse by:



Displaying: 1-20 of 25 documents


1. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 34 > Issue: 2

view |  rights & permissions | cited by

2. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 34 > Issue: 2

view |  rights & permissions | cited by

selected essays

3. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 34 > Issue: 2
Allen Verhey

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
Jesus was a teacher. That's not all he was, but he was surely that. This essay examines Jesus as a moral teacher who selectively retrieved the moral traditions of apocalypse, wisdom, and Torah. He taught as a seer, a sage, and a scribe. Through a ludicrously anachronistic thought experiment—convening a first-century tenure review committee—it will become clear that the apocalyptic tradition was preeminent in Jesus's teaching, giving shape to how he employed the wisdom and legal traditions. Although the decision about Jesus's tenure is shown ultimately to rest in God's hands rather than any human office or institution, lessons are drawn from Jesus as a moral teacher for the vocation of all those who teach Christian ethics.
4. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 34 > Issue: 2
Lisa Sowle Cahill

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
The dominant figure in Western Roman Catholic ethics is Thomas Aquinas, and Catholic tradition references a centralized magisterium. Nevertheless, Catholicism is internally pluralistic. After Vatican II, three models of theology and tradition emerged, all addressing gender equality: the Augustinian, neo-Thomistic, and neo-Franciscan. Latina, womanist, African, and Asian ethics of gender present more radical approaches to tradition—suggesting a Junian stream (Rom 16:7). Catholic ethical-political tradition is not defined by a specific cultural mediation, figure, or model but by a constellation of commitments shared by Catholic feminists: difference in unity, moral realism, social meliorism, human equality, preferential option for the poor, and interreligious dialogue.
5. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 34 > Issue: 2
Stacey M. Floyd-Thomas

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
Since women and girls compose more than 50 percent of the world’s population, feminist theology quite rightfully should be considered the most important and influential theological movement in our lifetimes. While it is certainly clear that feminism in religion and theology covers a broad spectrum of perspectives—Protestant and Catholic; conservative, progressive, and radical; female exclusive and male inclusive; straight or queer—feminist theology is not a monolithic theological school without differentiation either implicitly or explicitly. As a response to Lisa Sowle Cahill’s “Catholic Feminists and Traditions: Renewal, Reinvention, and Replacement,” this essay contends that Catholic feminist theology has common emphases with its various analogues but has its own inherent complexity and intrinsic debates that have to be reckoned with in order to guarantee that gender equality and sexual justice are realities in our time.
6. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 34 > Issue: 2
Gerard Mannion

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
This essay explores how it might be possible to recover a more pluralistic and therefore participatory understanding and exercise of the teaching office in the Christian Church by, first, briefly reflecting upon the historical backdrop to the emergence and development of the role of authoritative ecclesial teacher. Second, I identify some of the ecclesial fault lines and tensions that emerged in the modern and contemporary periods pertaining to teaching authority. Third, I raise the issue of the impact of such developments upon the manner in which Christian churches have sought to offer teachings on ethical issues in recent times. Fourth, I explore, via an ecclesiological analysis that is both a comparative and ecumenical in nature, three visions for retrieving a more participatory and life-giving understanding of the teaching office and practice of the teaching function for our times. The visions explored come from a Reformed, Roman Catholic, and ecumenical standpoint: respectively, those of Richard Robert Osmer, Richard R. Gaillardetz, and Willem Visser 't Hooft. The final section offers some brief conclusions about the potential for truly ecumenical collaboration in moral discernment in the light of such considerations.
7. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 34 > Issue: 2
Gilbert Meilaender

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
This essay considers what it means to work within and attempt to retrieve aspects of a tradition of thought, in particular, the Christian tradition. Doing so places us in close proximity to certain conversation partners, but it does so without closing off possible enrichment from those who do not share our tradition. Perhaps the most critical issue involves freedom—that is, whether retrieving one's tradition undermines our own freedom or our recognition of God's. As an illustration of thinking within the Christian tradition, the essay then considers the concept of a person, attempting to distinguish it from the more recent language of personhood.
8. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 34 > Issue: 2
David Elliot

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
Thomas Aquinas describes the Christian as homo viator: the "human wayfarer" or pilgrim journeying through this world to the heavenly city. This journey is vulnerable to "worldly sin" or "worldliness": an excessive attachment to wealth, status, honors, prestige, and power. A major cause of apathy to the poor and the underprivileged, worldliness treats our identity as purely this-worldly and therefore shuts the door to eschatological hope through subtle forms of presumption and despair. Drawing upon Aquinas and other sources in the Western theological tradition, this essay argues that Christians should retrieve worldliness as a moral category to better understand threats to hope. As a remedy to worldliness, Elliot proposes hope's beatitude of poverty of spirit, suggesting that it both increases solidarity with the poor and helps one grow in the theological virtue of hope.
9. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 34 > Issue: 2
Michael R. Turner

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
Whether modern Protestant thinkers claim a direct inheritance to specific Reformers or not, they stand within a tradition that reveres grace as the preeminent moral standard, often at the expense of considerations of merit or desert. John Milbank and Kathryn Tanner exemplify such stances in their theological visions of economic exchange. I critique their positions by retrieving from John Calvin a more nuanced understanding of his outlook on deservingness, especially as it pertains to economic justice, and then suggest a concept of desert that works concomitantly with grace to overcome the frequent rejection or neglect of the standard in Protestant ethics.
10. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 34 > Issue: 2
Sarah Azaransky

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
Benjamin Mays's The Negro's God as Reflected in His Literature outlined a tradition of African American God-talk from the eighteenth century. Mays identified a black social Christianity, what he called "the ethical approach," that recognized why oppressed people "emphasize the justice of God." In doing so, he hoped the book would motivate a new kind of politically informed black religious leadership. In the midst of writing The Negro's God, Mays traveled to India. This essay examines how the Indian independence movement and meeting Gandhi motivated and gave meaning to Mays's work.
11. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 34 > Issue: 2
Ulrik Becker Nissen

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
In Jeffrey P. Bishop's The Anticipatory Corpse (2011) it is argued that the dead body has become epistemologically normative in contemporary medicine. In order to regain the communal bonds necessary for the responsive encounter with the other, medicine is in need of living traditions. This leads Bishop to question whether only theology can save medicine. The present essay takes up on this question with a reply from a Bonhoefferian anthropology, arguing for the embodied human being as being-there-with-others and shows how this is Christologically shaped. The broader aim of the essay is to contribute to the debate on embodiment in theological bioethics. The essay maintains a normative understanding of the corporeal reality of what it means to be human and yet argues that this must always be understood in connection with the responsive relation to the other.
12. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 34 > Issue: 2
John P. Burgess

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
This essay argues that in retrieving the new martyrs and confessors, the approximately two thousand people who suffered directly for their faith under Soviet communist oppression, the Russian Orthodox Church has made publicly available symbols and narratives that bear democratizing potential. The Church's "Icon of the New Martyrs and Confessors" can be interpreted as calling for broad representation of all parts of society in Church and political life, and freedom of the Church to represent its concerns to society without state interference. Although these two principles do not by themselves dictate a particular form of government, a liberal democracy may be their best guarantor. The Russian Orthodox Church therefore need not be seen as essentially antidemocratic. Its symbols and narratives of suffering can also be understood as authorizing democratic reform.

book reviews

13. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 34 > Issue: 2
Brian Hamilton

view |  rights & permissions | cited by
14. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 34 > Issue: 2
Kiara A. Jorgenson

view |  rights & permissions | cited by
15. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 34 > Issue: 2
Autumn Alcott Ridenour

view |  rights & permissions | cited by
16. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 34 > Issue: 2
Lindsey Esbensen

view |  rights & permissions | cited by
17. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 34 > Issue: 2
Dana Scopatz

view |  rights & permissions | cited by
18. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 34 > Issue: 2
Brian D. Berry

view |  rights & permissions | cited by
19. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 34 > Issue: 2
Guenther "Gene" Haas

view |  rights & permissions | cited by
20. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 34 > Issue: 2
Andriette Jordan-Fields

view |  rights & permissions | cited by