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61. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 31 > Issue: 1
Anna Floerke Scheid Under the Palaver Tree: Community Ethics for Truth-Telling and Reconciliation
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THE WEST AFRICAN NOTION OF THE "PALAVER," AS DESCRIBED BY CONgolese theologian Bénézet Bujo, is an excellent resource for postconflict reconciliation. The palaver creates physical, social, and psychological space for open communication so that persons can be integrated into the life and expectations of their communities. Through the palaver African communities heal sickness, educate their members about moral standards, and reconcile enemies. Three palaver-based commitments intersect with goals of postconflict reconciliation: a commitment to open communication, especially truth-telling; a commitment to memory or developing a shared sense of the past; and a commitment to reconciliation at the communal level. Given the violent conflict still roiling parts of Africa today, it is critical to make explicit those African traditions that can encourage postconflict reconciliation and promote a just peace.
62. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 31 > Issue: 1
Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator Ethics Brewed in an African Pot
63. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 31 > Issue: 2
Cristina L. H. Traina Children's Situated Right to Work
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ALTHOUGH "CHILD LABOR" IS UNIVERSALLY CONDEMNED, CHILD WORK will be a feature of global life for the foreseeable future because many children without adequate access to the requisites of human dignity must work to gain them. With help from the recent work of John Wall, Mary M. Doyle Roche, Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore, and others, the author claims children's right to work in Ethna Regan's sense, as an expression of a "situated universal." Rights on this view are real but contingent. They are means to protect universal human goods and vulnerabilities under attack in particular situations. In this case, a situated right to work protects children's flourishing in a global culture still shaped by liberal and capitalist institutions, even as it criticizes that culture's injustices and exclusions.
64. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 31 > Issue: 2
Tommy Givens The Election of Israel and the Politics of Jesus: Revisiting John Howard Yoder's "The Jewish—Christian Schism Revisited"
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IN THE JEWISH—CHRISTIAN SCHISM REVISITED, JOHN HOWARD YODER gives an account of the Jewishness of the politics of Jesus and Pauline Christianity. He rightly claims that irresponsible historiography has presented early Christianity as a departure from the Jewish ways of its time, reading the later schism into the New Testament and belying the Jewishness of Christian ethics. He contends that living in the faithfully Jewish ways of Jeremiah, Jesus, and Paul, as many Jewish communities did up to the time of Jesus and many non-Christian Jewish communities and free churches have done since, is what it means to be the people of God. After an appreciative exposition of Yoder's account and a brief articulation of its theological and ethical stakes, I argue that the biblical witness to the election of Israel (neglected in his account) troubles his understanding of the people of God as presupposed and conveyed by his revisionist historiography of the Jewish—Christian schism.
65. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 31 > Issue: 2
Michael R. Turner The Place of Desert in Theological Conceptions of Distributive Justice: Insights from Calvin and Rawls
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DOES A STANDARD OF DESERT BELONG IN CHRISTIAN CONCEPTIONS OF distributive justice? This essay places John Calvin and John Rawls, two of desert's most incisive critics, in conversation to examine the theological and philosophical issues raised by this question. Calvin and Rawls make similar arguments against deservingness as a moral principle, but Calvin emerges as the more adamant detractor, noting that God's grace and humanity's corrupt nature make the validity of positive human desert claims virtually unthinkable. Still, the moral force of desert invites a reevaluation of both Calvin's and Rawls's objections and the fittingness of this principle to theological conceptions of distributive justice.
66. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 31 > Issue: 2
Charles E. Curran How Does Christian Ethics Use Its Unique and Distinctive Christian Aspects?
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IN THIS ESSAY I RESPONT TO THE QUESTION OF HOW THEOLOGICAL ETHICS are theological by moving it in a direction that attends to the specifically Christian contribution to ethics. I begin with three somewhat related presuppositions or questions—on human wisdom, audience(s), and the relationship with other types of ethics—that indicate how I understand the discipline of Christian ethics. I follow with a discussion of quandary ethics before moving to a systematic overview of and approach to Christian ethics. I conclude with a challenge to raise the distinctive contributions that the Christian tradition makes to the discipline of ethics and its hearers today.
67. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 31 > Issue: 2
Lloyd Steffen The Ethical Complexity of Abraham Lincoln: Is There Something for Religious Ethicists to Learn?
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ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S UNORTHODOX RELIGIOUS VIEWS CONNECTED TO AN ethical stance that is not reducible to any single overarching philosophical theory. By attending to virtue cultivation, a rational utilitarianism, and a divinely grounded natural law commitment to human equality, Lincoln devised a principled yet flexible ethic that addressed the complexity of the moral life. Despite apparent philosophical difficulties, Lincoln's "hybrid ethic" nonetheless coheres to reveal familiar features of ordinary moral thinking while illuminating moral judgments in the face of dilemmas. As such, it is worthy of attention by ethicists, who have much to learn from the humility Lincoln expressed in connecting religious sources to ethical meaning.
68. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 31 > Issue: 2
John P. Burgess Christ and Culture Revisited: Contributions from the Recent Russian Orthodox Debate
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WESTERN SCHOLARS HAVE POINTED OUT BOTH THE USEFULNESS AND limitations of H. Richard Niebuhr's Christ and Culture. This essay relates Niebuhr's five types to discussions of church and culture in contemporary Russian Orthodoxy. I propose a sixth type, Christ in culture, that best illuminates the Church's current program of votserkovlenie ("in-churching"). To its Russian representatives, "Christ in culture" enabled the Christian faith to survive communist efforts to destroy the Church, and this cultural legacy continues to define Russia's national identity today. The Church's task, therefore, is not to convert Russians but rather to call them back to their historic self-understanding by means of historical commemoration, religious education, and social outreach. The essay critically evaluates this program of in-churching and the possibilities of a Christ-in-culture type for understanding distinctive features of historically Christian cultures in both East and West.
69. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 31 > Issue: 2
Douglas F. Ottati How Can Theological Ethics Be Christian?
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THIS ESSAY PRESENTS THE ARGUMENT THAT A THEOLOGICAL ETHIC CAN be Christian if it is shaped by a Christian theology or a reflective attempt to articulate a Christian worldview in the service of the life of faith. But there is no generic Christian theology, only historical varieties, many of which shape our ethics differently and also include distinctive self-critical resources. Therefore, although theology is not all you need, you must also be your own theologian to be a critical, interesting, and ecclesially relevant Christian ethicist.
70. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 31 > Issue: 2
Kathryn Getek Soltis Mass Incarceration and Theological Images of Justice
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THE NUMBINGLY HIGH RATE OF INCARCERATION IN THE UNITED STATES poses a challenge to our images of justice, particularly given the indirect consequences for families and communities. Two key theological sources for justice, the lex talionis and the (mis)interpretation of Anselmian satisfaction, offer key insights for adjudicating between restoration and retribution. Yet a Christian ethical response capable of addressing mass incarceration must also examine the collateral consequences of imprisonment. This essay ultimately argues for an image of justice that, while sensitive to restoration and retribution, is also attentive to community membership and the full scope of human relationality.
71. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 31 > Issue: 2
Amy Levad "I Was in Prison and You Visited Me": A Sacramental Approach to Rehabilitative and Restorative Criminal Justice
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ROMAN CATHOLIC ETHICISTS AND THEOLOGIANS HAVE REMAINED RELAtively silent about crises in US criminal justice systems, with two exceptions. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops published a document in 2000 calling for rehabilitative and restorative approaches to crime. Historian Andrew Skotnicki has criticized the bishops for ignoring traditional Catholic models of punishment—monastic and ecclesiastical prisons. This essay challenges Skotnicki and bolsters the bishops' argument by proposing that the sacraments, especially the Eucharist and Penance, provide a stronger basis in Catholicism for responding to crime and the crises in US criminal justice systems in ways that foster rehabilitation and restore justice while also reforming broken systems and promoting social justice.
72. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 32 > Issue: 1
William McDonough Sin and Addiction: Alcoholics Anonymous and the Soul of Christian Sin-Talk
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THE ESSAY DEMONSTRATES THE SUBTLETY OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS (AA) on sin and addiction. It suggests a parallel between Aquinas's understanding of acedia and invidia as the two vitia capitalia most directly undermining of God's caritas and AA founder Bill Wilson's understanding of two contemporary deadly sins, self-pity and resentment, as the "root" of alcoholics' troubles. I argue that AA's understanding of sin and addiction is relevant far beyond the lives of alcoholics. Indeed, its understanding could help the Christian tradition rediscover the "soul" of its sin-talk, aiding all of us in discerning our sin and in recovering from sin in our lives.
73. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 32 > Issue: 1
David Cloutier The Problem of Luxury in the Christian Life
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DESPITE ITS PROMINENCE IN BOTH BIBLICAL AND CLASSICAL LITERATURE, the moral category of luxury has been lost in contemporary Christian ethics. To address the spending of one's money as a moral act, I propose recovering the category. A survey of the history of the term illustrates its particular place in a set of economic virtues and vices, and suggests that its "defenders" in the eighteenth century rely on arguments that are antithetical to a virtue ethics perspective and are called into question by contemporary science and experience. But what counts as luxury? I conclude with a beginning casuistry in the context of the contemporary economy, suggesting that "cheap" goods may be luxuries but shared public goods are not.
74. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 32 > Issue: 1
John Senior Cruciform Pilgrims: Politics between the Penultimate and the Ultimate
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IN THIS ESSAY I CONSIDER WHETHER POLITICAL ENGAGEMENT MAKES good persons. I first examine how the self is formed as a moral agent in and through the exercise of moral agency in political life, which I call "political agency." Politics is a morally ambiguous context of formation. On the one hand, political engagement trains the skills and virtues conducive to good citizenship in particular and the good life in general. But it also entails the instrumental and even coercive uses of power to countervail the interests of others. This often leaves the self disintegrated. Drawing on John Calvin's moral theology, I argue that God transfigures this fractured, political self in the cruciform shape that lives dedicated to politics take. The political self becomes a site of God's redeeming work in the world.
75. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 32 > Issue: 1
Kevin J. O'Brien "La Causa" and Environmental Justice: César Chávez as a Resource for Christian Ecological Ethics
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CHRISTIAN ECOLOGICAL ETHICISTS INCREASINGLY RECOGNIZE THAT MORAL response to contemporary problems such as mass extinction and climate change must incorporate and build upon established movements for social justice. This essay contributes to that work by learning from the twentieth-century union organizer César Chávez and his advocacy for justice and environmental health among farm workers. I argue that understanding key themes of Chávez's morality in his context, particularly the universality of human dignity and the importance of personal and collective sacrifice, can contribute to a Christian ecological ethics with a program for social change and justice.
76. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 32 > Issue: 1
Karen V. Guth Reconstructing Nonviolence: The Political Theology of Martin Luther King Jr. after Feminism and Womanism
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SCHOLARS OFTEN VIEW MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO political theology in the context of his philosophy of nonviolence. Drawing on feminist and womanist thought, I reconstruct King's theopolitical practice to construe nonviolence more broadly as including any "agapic activity" that forms and sustains community. In doing so, I uncover in King's thought a conception of agape that resonates with feminist emphasis on the relational and community-oriented nature of love, and I draw on womanist thought to highlight the role of creativity, not solely love or justice, to King's ethical thinking. Both emphases suggest a vision of churches as communities of creativity with community-creating practices at the heart of their political roles.
77. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 32 > Issue: 1
Erin Dufault-Hunter The Downside of Getting It Up: How Viagra Reveals the Persistence of Patriarchy and the Need for Sexual Character
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I BEGIN THIS ESSAY BY EXAMINING HOW OUR "VIAGRA CULTURE"—ATAN-gled web of biotechnology, consumerism, and medicalization—creates an opening for patriarchy in our era. The second section examines how such large sociocultural forces invade women's bedrooms, impacting their intimate relationships. We then consider men who adopt a counternarrative to that of patriarchy and anxiety, whose sexuality is distinguished by tenderness and mutual regard. The essay closes with reflections on how the Viagra culture reminds us of the need to nurture the virtue of generosity, a virtue that marks good sex and characterizes the lovers who practice it.
78. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 32 > Issue: 1
Vic McCracken In Defense of Restraint: Democratic Respect, Public Justification, and Religious Conviction in Liberal Politics
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WHAT DOES RESPECT REQUIRE OF RELIGIOUSLY MOTIVATED CITIZENS AS they support coercive public policies? In his recent work, Christopher Eberle argues against the doctrine of restraint, a norm that requires citizens to refrain from supporting laws for which public reasons are unavailable. Against Eberle, I defend the doctrine of restraint as a necessary corollary to liberal democratic respect. For this defense, I draw from one imaginary case, Robert Audi's example of "sacred dandelions" and laws banning lawn maintenance, and one real-world dispute, current debates about same-sex marriage policies. I argue that the doctrine of restraint when coupled with an inclusive definition of public reason better accords with our intuitive sense of what respect requires in both cases.
79. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 32 > Issue: 1
K. Christine Pae, James W. McCarty III The Hybridized Public Sphere: Asian American Christian Ethics, Social Justice, and Public Discourse
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IN CRITICALLY ANALYZING THE DEADLY VIPER CONTROVERSY AND MARY Queen of Vietnam Catholic Church's social activism in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, we consider questions concerning the (in)ability of Asian Americans to participate in public discourse in meaningful ways that spur social change while fostering solidarity with other marginalized ethnic groups in the United States. Drawing on Christian theo-ethical reflection on the racial or social identity of Jesus as a hybridized concept, we argue for a robust public discourse that recognizes Asian Americans as a social group without succumbing to the ghettoization of Asian American identity or a withdrawal from engagement with other justice-seeking social groups. In doing so, we look toward constructive modes of public discourse carried out by multiple counterpublics that both give voice to the Asian American community and open the space for collaboration across ethnic, racial, class, religious, and national boundaries.
80. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 32 > Issue: 1
Andrea Vicini Imaging in Severe Disorders of Consciousness: Rethinking Consciousness, Identity, and Care in a Relational Key
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FUNCTIONAL MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING (fMRI) DETECTS DEGREES of consciousness in a few vegetative patients, despite the difficulty of establishing any form of communication with them at the bedside. What are the implications of our understanding of consciousness in defining one's identity? How do we care for these patients? To answer these questions, I propose relationality as an appropriate ethical resource. Relationality supports a renewed understanding of consciousness, identity, and care; it addresses the associated ethical issues; and it characterizes who we are, how we understand ourselves theologically, and how, through discernment, we promote justice and love.