Francisco de Vitoria offers a stimulating vision of moral cosmopolitanism that foreshadows the cosmopolitanism implicit in contemporary Catholic social teaching. After drawing a distinction between mora/cosmopolitanism and politica/cosmopolitanism, this essay retrieves Vitoria's cosmopolitan vision in his efforts to defend "the rights of the Indians" through concepts such as subjective rights, ius gentium, the right to travel, and the inherent human dignity of all people. Nonetheless, he opposes all claims of universal sovereignty. Vitoria thus appears as advocating moral but not political cosmopolitanism, perhaps because his political imagination is shaped by monarchies, with their totalitarian tendencies, rather than by modern democracies. The final part of the essay explores how the distinction between different kinds of cosmopolitanism illuminates the variety of positions on the subject to be found in contemporary Catholic social teaching.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer's account of a transnational "confessing" church, developed with allusion to W.E.B. Du Bois, offers critical potential for addressing the problem of the global color line. To make this case, I first trace the ways in which Du Bois's and Bonhoeffer's German-American exchange studies contribute to their critical standpoints. Bonhoeffer's "Protestantism without Reformation" is then examined to show that its view of American denominations is not mere German paternalism but a critique of how atomized churches can mask racial segregation, even as it takes seriously America's founding as a "nation of refugees." Finally, Bonhoeffer's references to intercultural encounter, particularly with respect to the Jewish diaspora in his later Ethics, provide for the extension of his ecclesiology beyond Germany and the "West." Specifically, Du Bois's own creedal language and pan-Africanism require that a truly global confession of the "form of Christ" must attend to unrecognized histories from the "Black Atlantic."

I document the historically unprecedented challenges and opportunities attending the prospect of devising ecumenical ethics endorsed by both Catholics and Protestants. First, I offer several reasons for attending to the connection between ecumenism and ethics. This topic has received insufficient attention from scholars of ethics, especially given the importance and challenge of reaching a common moral witness. Second, I review previous comparisons of Catholic and Protestant approaches in ethics. Such work transitions over the twentieth century from dismissive to appreciative. Third, I show how one of the key methodological differentiators softens in recent decades as there emerges an increasing consensus on the moral sources of scripture, natural law, and history. I conclude by emphasizing the humility required for progress in the pursuit of any ecumenical ethics. The route to a common moral witness that manifests the divinely given unity of the church is continual conversion through corporate dialogue on a global scale.

Economic cooperative practices increase the ability of agents and communities to resist or curb ecologically damaging practices and to adapt to inevitable cultural and material transitions due to climate change. The history of African American economic cooperatives demonstrates how such efforts can build practical and leadership skills, transform local culture, and lay groundwork for wider collective action. Such practices fit Willis Jenkins's model of prophetic pragmatism insofar as they draw on inherited traditions and transform culture and us. Contemporary Christians and church communities can encourage economic cooperation as a form of resistance to ecological destruction and, in doing so, encourage the habits of humility, hope, and courage.

Recent religious reflection on the nature of justice divides largely along two camps: Nicholas Wolterstorff and others perceive strong compatibility between Christian thought and justice-as-natural rights, while "right-order" theorists committed to premodern notions of justice, such as Oliver O'Donovan, challenge the theological integrity of rights. Much is at stake in this debate. O'Donovan worries that Christian enthrallment with justice-as-rights betokens conceptual desperation. Wolterstorff argues that justice-as-right-order discounts human dignity. There is some truth to each claim, although each thinker also overlooks important constructive possibilities. This essay offers an extended critique of justice-as-rights, identifying crucial missing biblical and theological features. It then sketches out a contemporary right-order account that responds to Wolterstorff s concerns about human dignity. The insights uncovered in this theological debate extend beyond Christian ethics in ways that reconceive the pursuit of justice in religiously pluralistic polities.

In my writings on the history of human rights, the Axial Age, and the genesis of values, I have treated the experience of self-transcendence and the attribution of sacredness as a fundamental anthropological phenomenon. But this fundamental fact of ideal formation has a flip side: The sacralization of particular meanings is originally always also the sacralization of a collectivity. This I call the danger of self-sacralization. In this contribution I offer a brief, historically oriented sociological sketch of the tensions between "religion" and "politics" in light of this assumption, discuss H. Richard Niebuhr's relevance for this area of study, and illustrate my thesis with regard to contemporary cases where the danger of self-sacralization is particularly urgent.

What does it mean to be human in the aftermath of mass trauma and violence? When victims and perpetrators of gross human rights violations live in the same country, and sometimes as neighbors, what strategies can help individuals and communities deal with trauma in a way that restores dignity to victims and enables perpetrators to be accountable for their crimes? This essay explores these questions and discusses examples that illustrate attempts to create sites for listening, for moral reflection, and for initiating the difficult process of dialogue at community and individual levels after mass trauma and violence. It is argued that in the aftermath of historical trauma, restoring human bonds requires a new vocabulary of rehumanization. This new mode of being human calls for a "reparative humanism" that opens toward a horizon of an ethics of care for the sake of a transformed society. Examples drawn from two sources are discussed to explore the idea of an "ethics of care.'' First, insights from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of South Africa are discussed to show how the work of the TRC enabled dialogic spaces in which new subjectivities emerged in the encounter between victims/survivors and perpetrators. Second, the essay engages in a reinterpretation of Simon Wiesenthal's book The Sunflower as a story that continues to pose a challenge about how to reclaim a sense of being human in the aftermath of unspeakable crimes against humanity. The essay concludes with a critical reflection on Emmanuel Levinas's ethics of responsibility and suggests that it is a compelling vision in societies facing a violent and traumatic past.

The biblical love imperative—reframed as "Care for the aging other, as you care for your aging self"—is fundamental for an ethics of aging. Kantian, utilitarian, and eudaemonist theories assume an ageless, rational, active individual. Frail old age, however, comes with dependency and decay. An ethics of aging therefore needs to be relational and must account for the fear of aging. The elderly remind us that death is inescapable; the body, fallible; and self-esteem, transitory. The love command offers a relational ethics that overcomes the fear of aging and enables us to see that love for our aging self makes good elderly care possible.