No single piece of our mental world is to be hermetically sealed off from the rest, and there is not a square inch in the whole world domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry: “Mine!” Abraham Kuyper

Friday, July 28, 2006

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Christian ethics exam

David Field, of Oak Hill College, has posted an ethics exam here he gave to his thelogical students here.
  • You are permitted the following materials: Unmarked NRSV Bible (provided).
  • Time allowed: TWO hours.
  • Answer THREE questions – one from Section A, one from Section B, and
    one from Section C.
  • All questions have equal weight.

Elizabeth Humphrey

Elizabeth Humphrey, from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, has some useful resources here on same-sex erotic relations.

Robert A J Gagnon

Robert Gagnon, an Associate Professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, has some useful rersources on his website here. These include Material for Christian Sexuality.

Thursday, June 01, 2006

CUP's Studies in Christian Ethics

A new book from CUP has just been announced: Alcohol, Addiction and Christian Ethics by Christopher C. H. Cook.

There are excerpts from the book as well as a table of contents. It provides a good model for the appliction of Christian ethics.

It is part of a series of Studies in Christian Ethics . Other in the series include:

Saturday, April 22, 2006

Assignment 7

Denise and the vacation job

Assignment 6

1. Review of Leal's Debating Homosexuality


2. Homosexuality article

Assignment 5

1. Review of Jenkins' Cohabitation

2. Adultery

A number of excellent resources on divorce and (re)marriage are available on David Instone-Brewer's web site here. He has also written an excellent Grove booklet on Divorce and Remarriage.

See also:


Assignment 4

1. Science and Religion

There are no shortage of articles on science and Christianity in Pespectives on Science and Faith, the journal of the ASA.

The UK counterpart to the ASA is Christians in Science; the CiS journal is Science and Christian Belief.


2. Christian approach to the environment

  • The Christian Ecology Link (CEL) is a multi denominational UK Christian movement for people concerned about the environment. It also has a useful list of resources.
  • Christian Environmental Studies centre
  • A Rocha: an international conservation organisation working to show God's love for all creation
  • The John Ray Initiative (JRI) is an educational charity bringing together scientific and Christian understandings of the environment in a way that can be widely communicated and lead to effective action."

3. Celia Deane Drummond's Genetic Engineering booklet


Assignment 3

Assignment 3

On the church and politics:

1. Church report on Poverty

2. Right use of and abuse of power


3. Middle axioms

3 Chris Wright's The People of God and the State


Assignment 2

An anabaptist approach to the State

1. Rom 13: 1-7

2. Just war


Assignment 1

1. Whistle blowing

2. Employment ethics



Thursday, April 06, 2006

Yet more online resources

More online resources

Bioethics Website has a useful resources page, with a bibliography, a glossary, links and full text articles.

There is an online guide to ethics and moral philosophy here, complied by Robert Cavalier of Carnegie Mellon. He writes:

This web-site is designed to give users a very general "introduction to Ethics." The materials offer both historical and thematic perspectives on the subject. Key representatives of the history of ethics are presented and major ethical theories are analyzed and critiqued.

Part I of the site relies on original sources, excerpts from Ethics in the History of Western Philosophy (Macmillan, 1989), and excerpts from the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The treatment of 'ethical theories' in Part II is often informed by the approach of Beauchamp and Childress in their Principles of Biomedical Ethics (5th Ed.) And the introduction to the topics of Applied Ethics owes much to Brendan Minogue's pedagogical use of institutional review boards in his Bioethics: A Committee Approach. Of course, for a full appreciation of these authors' positions, a reading of their texts is required. I make no claim to fully represent their views.

The section on "Applied Ethics" points to the use of interactive multimedia modules to simulate real world scenarios involving difficult moral choices. Specifically recommended are the CD-ROMs A Right to Die? The Dax Cowart Case and The Issue of Abortion in America. Both were produced by Carnegie Mellon's Center for the Advancement of Applied Ethics and both were published by Routledge Electronic Titles


The Online Journal of Ethics can be located here.

Internet resources

The Ethics Update site contains many excellent links, papers and discussions.

Andrew Goddard's web page has a number of useful bibliographies and resources

Here is a list of applied ethics resources on the web.

Here is another list of links to many ethical and moral web sites on the net.

Bowie's site provides a number of useful links. It is designed with A-level Religious Studies students in mind.

Here is the homepage of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. It contains a number of useful articles and resources.

Christian Ethics Today is available on-line

Here is a useful starting point for other links as is here.

Tips on writing philosophy/ethics papers are available here.

Sunday, January 29, 2006

Further reading suggestions

The Extension Studies grading scheme for tutors states that the following is expected for A grades:

Work of the quality not expected at first year undergraduate level. Work at this level involves the use of reading beyond that required in the course, and often involves an element of creativity, flair and originality. It uses creative judgment, and is expressed carefully and structured clearly.

In order to aid ‘reading beyond that required in the course’ I have the following suggestions:

Christian worldview


There is no substitute in ethics or theology for developing a distinctly Christian worldview. To that end, two books are indispensable:

Brian J Walsh and J Richard Middleton The Transforming Vision: Shaping a Christian Worldview (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1984)

Albert M Wolters Creation Regained: A Transforming View of the World (Leicester: IVP, 1986)

and two others are highly recommended

John Peck and Charles Strohmer Uncommon Wisdom (London: SPCK, 2001)

Nancy Pearcey Total Truth (Wheaton, IL: 2004)

General

Introductory texts

Arthur F. Holmes Ethics: Approaching Moral Decisions (Leicester: IVP, 1984)

Mel Thompson Ethical Theory (Access to Philosophy) (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1999) An A-level background reader.

Colin Brown Crash Course on Christian Ethics (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1998) A useful introductory book; it also has the advantage of being very readable.

Steve Wilkens Beyond Bumper Sticker Ethics: An Introduction to Theories of Right and Wrong (Downers Grove: IVP, 1995). An excellent and readable introduction to the major ethical theories; including: cultural relativism, utilitarianism, situation ethics and divine command theory.

Less introductory general texts

Stanley J. Grenz The Moral Quest: Foundations of Christian Ethics (Leicester: IVP, 1997); a very good general introduction. Contains useful summaries of the approaches of Augustine, Aquinas, Niebuhr, Barth, Bonhoffer etc.

Richard B. Hays The Moral Vision of the New Testament: A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1997); this is expensive but well worth getting from a library. The first part looks at the ethics of the NT; the second a synthesis of the NT view; the third a look at how to use the NT in ethics and the final several case studies (including homosexuality, abortion and divorce)

Harry Gensler Ethics (London: Routledge, 1998); a useful summary of several ethical positions. Develops the ‘Golden Rule’ idea.

Lawrence M. Hinman Ethics: A Pluralistic Approach to Moral Theory (2nd edn) (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1998)

An excellent, albeit expensive, resource. Each chapter provides a very good summary and critique of various ethical positions, including relativism, divine command theories, egoism, utilitarianism, Kantianism, right theories and virtue ethics. Each chapter has a series of discussion questions and a bibliographic essay.

Glenn H. Stassen and David P. Gushee Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context IVP, Downers grove, 2003)

The first third of the book develops the concept of kingdom ethics. The remainder examines contemporary ethical issues in the light of the kingdom.


Anthologies

Peter Singer (ed.) A Companion to Ethics (Blackwell Companions to Philosophy) (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991)

Contains 47 original articles dealing with everything from the roots of ethics, the history of ethics, the application and nature of ethics to the critiques of ethics. Includes short chapters on: Christian ethics, consequentialism, crime and punishment and how could ethics depend on religion. (Singer is a contemporary advocate of a form of utilitarianism.)

Robin Gill (ed.) Cambridge Companion to Christian Ethics (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2001)

A useful collection of original articles on different aspects of Christian ethics. Includes articles by Rowan Williams on ‘Making moral decisions’, Stephen Barton on ‘The epistles and Christian ethics’ as well as articles on gender and ethics, liberation ethics, the arms trade, ecology and family.

Wayne Boulton, Thomas Kennedy and Allen Verhey (editors) From Christ to the World: Introductory readings in Christian ethics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994)


Saturday, January 28, 2006

C2 Christian ethics

Welcome to C2 Christian ethics. In this blog I hope to post resources for my students of the C2 Christian ethics module of St John's College Nottingham, Certificate of Christian Studies.