Discerning Ethics

Racism. Immigration. Gun violence. Sexuality. Health care.

The number of ethical issues that demand a response from Christians today is almost dizzying. How can Christians navigate such matters? What are faithful responses to these questions?

Edited by two theologians with pastoral experience, this volume invites engagement with these issues and more by drawing on real-life experiences and offering a range of responses to some of the most challenging moral questions confronting the church today. With an unflinching yet irenic approach, this resource can help Christians as they seek to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.



Tim Dearborn (PhD, University of Aberdeen) is the former director of the Lloyd John Ogilvie Institute of Preaching at Fuller Theological Seminary. He is the author of several books, including Short-Term Missions Workbook, Business as a Holy Calling?, and Beyond Duty: A Passion for Christ, a Heart for Mission.



Hak Joon Lee (PhD, Princeton Theological Seminary) is Lewis B. Smedes Professor of Christian Ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary. He is the author or editor of several books, including Intersecting Realities: Race, Identity, and Culture in the Spiritual-Moral Life of Young Asian Americans, The Great World House: Martin Luther King Jr. and Global Ethics, We Will Get to the Promised Land: Martin Luther King Jr.'s Communal-Political Spirituality, and Covenant and Communication: A Christian Moral Conversation with Jürgen Habermas.

Foreword by Mark Labberton


Acknowledgments


Introduction (Hak Joon Lee)
Part One: Ethics of the Globe


1. Climate Change (Rebecca Shenton and John Mustol)


2. Poverty and Income Inequality (Seung Woo Lee)


3. Urban Degradation (Jessica Joustra)


4. Immigration (Joshua Beckett)
Part Two: Ethics of the Body


5. Access to Health Care (Brian White)


6. Abortion (Nick Brown)


7. Transgender (Jennifer McKinney)


8. Homosexuality and Sexual Identity (Matthew Jones)
Part Three: Ethics of Violence


9. Violence Against Women (Laura Rector)


10. War, Nonviolence, and Just Peacemaking (Jacob Alan Cook)


11. Gun Violence (Nick Brown)


12. Mass Incarceration (Joshua Beckett)
Part Four: Ethics of Formation


13. Racism (Jeff Liou)


14. Disability (Bethany McKinney Fox)


15. Social and Entertainment Media (Justin Ariel Bailey)


16. Public Education (Ryan Michael Huber)


Afterword (Tim A. Dearborn)


Contributors


Author Index


Subject Index


Scripture Index

"An excellent introduction to the most urgent contemporary ethical issues. Discerning Ethics demonstrates methodological sophistication, honest discussion of divergent views, and a solid biblical commitment. Highly recommended!"



"This volume of essays is exactly what we need in the classroom today, both in seminaries and college theology courses. Leaving practically no social issue uncovered, these diverse authors engage in moral analysis that is theologically rigorous but also genuinely humble. It is this humility that makes these essays especially worthwhile. This book demonstrates that Christians can indeed engage in communal discernment of what God wills for all of creation without falling into the temptations of our present-day, lamentably polarized political discourse. What we have here is a model of theological ethics that all Christians must learn from."



"Dr. Hak Joon Lee and Dr. Tim Dearborn, both scholars and pastors, have edited this fascinating and demanding volume of essays to enable Christian identity to be better understood and demonstrated in the face of complex ethical questions raised in a radically pluralistic and globalizing world. . . . May these essays cause all their readers, as they have me, to grapple thoughtfully and faithfully, in agreement or disagreement, toward a Christian life of more deeply formed moral thought and action, not as philosophical abstraction but as embodied and humble life that I pray will be a truer reflection of Jesus Christ."



"If American Protestants have been polarized between progressive-liberals on the 'left' and conservative evangelicals on the 'right,' Lee and Dearborn and their colleagues have broken through this either-or, not merely in pointing out that the middle is a much more expansive spectrum than just another stance, but in showing that both commitments to biblical and theological orthodoxy and attentiveness to the contemporary world and its complex realities require the virtuous practice of spiritual discernment, one that is faithful to the gospel rather than beholden to any ideology or tradition."



"As many leave the local church because of the conflation of Christianity with partisan politics, one related danger is the reflexive replacement of their former ethical commitments with secular ideologies of another stripe. Discerning Ethics is a helpful tool for those who are deconstructing their faith and looking for thoughtful theological reflections on key issues such as immigration, mass incarceration, racism, and education." weniger anzeigen expand_less