How To Do Christian Ethics: Living the Grammar of Christian Life Every Day

Discover how pressing contemporary moral issues can be approached and discussed in a distinct and coherently theological fashion. This book displays a more direct approach that has the distinct advantage of being approachable, dramatic, and contemporary. It introduces the reader to the grammar of Christian moral reasoning and expands upon its intricate inner workings. By demonstrating ways in which a Christian believer or congregation can think through specific moral issues, the volume serves a church desiring to witness God's love in genuine and contextually truthful ways. Each chapter approaches its subject matter by demonstrating how the sources of Christian moral reasoning-Scripture and church doctrine-can be imaginatively brought to bear on contemporary moral perplexities. The form of teaching practices here makes tangible the ways in which the Christian gospel clearly and even penetratingly illumines our contemporary moral contexts.

Table of Contents:
Introduction (Brian Brock, University of Aberdeen, UK; Nadine Hamilton, FAU Erlangen- Nürnberg, Germany; Daniel R. Patterson, St Trivelius Institute, Bulgaria) Chapter 1 “Christ, Culpability, and Social Deprivation” (Michael Banner, University of Cambridge, UK) Chapter 2 “Garbage: An Invitation to Face our Creaturely State” (Brian Brock, University of Aberdeen, UK) Chapter 3 “In Our Image and Likeness: Theological Ethics and Artificial Intelligence” (Ad de Bruijne, Theological University Kampen/Utrecht, The Netherlands) Chapter 4 “The Trunk of the Cross is the Tree of Life: The Frailty of the Risen Christ and Theology of Disability” (Nadine Hamilton, Friedrich Alexander University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany) Chapter 5 “Who Cares? A Response of Christian Ethics to Shortages of Care” (Stefan Heuser, Nuremberg Institute of Technology, Germany) Chapter 6 “The Spirit and Surveillance: Examining Forms of Knowledge, Power, and Discernment in the Church” (Emily Beth Hill, InterVarsity, USA) Chapter 7 “What Will We Eat? Or What We Will Drink? Meat Consumption and the Messianic Contours of 'The Peaceable Kingdom'” (Marco Hofheinz, Leibniz University, Hannover, Germany) Chapter 8 “The Politics of Truth-telling in the 'Post-truth' Age of 'Fake News'” (Michael R. Laffin, University of Aberdeen, UK) Chapter 9 “Cancel Culture: Mobilising Christian Ethics at the Scene of Judgment” (Daniel R. Patterson, St. Trivelius Institute, Bulgaria) Chapter 10 “Family as Mystery: Theological Ethics Beyond Polarisation” (Petruschka Schaafsma, Protestant Theological University, Germany) Chapter 11 “The Grammar of Christian Ethics in Human Rights” (Christine Schliesser, University of Fribourg, Switzerland) Chapter 12 “Preserved in God's history: On the Ethics of Dying with Some Regard to the Discussion about Assisted Suicide” (Hans G. Ulrich, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany) Chapter 13 “What belongs to Whom?: Property and Sustainability in Theological Light” (Cornelius van der Kooi, Free University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands) Chapter 14 “Stress or Vocation: Ethics and/in work” (Edward van't Slot, Protestant Theological University, The Netherlands) Chapter 15 “The 'Risk of Faith' and the Desire for Safety in a Security Society” (Pieter Vos, Protestant Theological University, The Netherlands) Index

About the Author :
Brian Brock is Chair of Moral and Practical Theology at the University of Aberdeen, UK. Nadine Hamilton is Associate Professor in Systematic Theology at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany. Daniel R. Patterson is Lecturer in Theology at St Trivelius Institute, Bulgaria.

Review :
This volume is both theologically rich and ethically relevant for students of Christian ethics in the 21st century. By centering real-world moral problems rather than ethical theories, students will learn how to make sense of the contemporary world while centering the gospel. Grounding themselves in the work of trailblazing thinkers such as Arendt, Bonhoeffer, and Hauerwas, the Protestant moral theologians represented in this volume take up issues that are pressing in the contemporary Western context--including incarceration, ecological distress, AI, cancel culture, healthcare, vegetarianism and euthanasia. A serious and significant contribution!