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141. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 30 > Issue: 2
Geoffrey Claussen Sharing the Burden: Rabbi Simḥah Zissel Ziv on Love and Empathy
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RABBI SIMḤAH ZISSEL ZIV OF KELME, LITHUANIA, WAS ONE OF THE EARLY leaders of the Musar movement, a pietistic religious movement in nineteenth century Europe that attempted to place concerns with moral character at the center of Jewish life. This essay introduces Simḥah Zissel's virtue-centered approach to the Torah's central commandment that one "love one's fellow as one-self." For Simḥah Zissel, love is a disposition of the soul, with emotional and intellectual aspects culminating in action. Love demands a sense of partnership with others and a sense of care that should extend to all of God's creatures; love requires that we not privilege ourselves over other people; and the highest level of love is "sharing the burden of one's fellow," compassionate love characterized by empathy and responsiveness, which can only be cultivated through great effort.
142. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 30 > Issue: 2
David VanDrunen Natural Law in Noahic Accent: A Covenantal Conception of Natural Law Drawn from Genesis 9
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MUCH RECENT SCHOLARSHIP HAS CALLED FOR THE INTEGRATION OF NATural law theory with biblical revelation, yet few writers have pursued such a project in detail. This essay presents the foundations of a constructive account of natural law grounded in an overlooked biblical text and in Reformed covenant theology, in conversation with contemporary biblical exegesis and recent Protestant and Roman Catholic literature on natural law. It explores the character of the Noahic covenant established with all creation (Gen. 8:20—9:17) and argues that this covenant provides necessary theological foundation for understanding nature and common human moral obligations. This account of natural law provides a sound way to integrate natural law theory with the biblical narrative and to conceive of natural law as a universal God-given standard mediated through a fallen world.
143. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 31 > Issue: 1
Matthew J. Gaudet, William R. O'Neill Restoring Peace: Toward a Conversation between the Just War and Reconciliation Traditions
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TRAGICALLY, ETHNIC CONFLICTS HAVE BECOME ONE OF THE HALLMARKS of the post-Cold War era. In response to this, two distinct traditions appear to be emerging.The first continues the classical just war tradition while the second represents a new "reconciliation tradition," built largely around questions of restorative justice in areas of social division. Our goal in this essay is to begin a rapprochement of these divergent traditions by asking the question, what does a restorative justice perspective offer to the just war tradition? We proceed in three stages: first, we survey the current state of the just war tradition; second, we introduce the reconciliation tradition, drawing on both reconciliation thinkers and the practical experience of experiments in social reconciliation in South Africa and Rwanda; and third, we draw these two traditions together with a series of constructive proposals for how the reconciliation tradition can enrich the just war tradition.
144. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 31 > Issue: 1
Maureen H. O'Connell Common Beauty and the Common Good: Theological Aesthetics and Justice in Urban America
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THIS ESSAY EXAMINES INNER-CITY NEIGHBORHOOD MURALISM TO ILLUMINATE the practical relationship between theological aesthetics and the ethical principle of the common good. I suggest collaborative public art as a viable resource for reframing or revisioning the common good in a way that counters its often conceptual, abstract, and pragmatic tendencies with an organic, selfcritical, and creative relationality that arises from the mutually dependent transcendental categories of the beautiful, the true, and the good. Ethical reflection on this public art exposes the mystagogical components of the common good, which foster the often-overlooked intuitive, experiential, tactile, and nonverbal potential of this central idea in Christian ethics.
145. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 31 > Issue: 1
Neil Messer Toward a Theological Understanding of Health and Disease
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THE CONCEPTS OF HEALTH AND DISEASE ARE FOUNDATIONAL TO BIOMEDical ethics. This essay critiques two widely used approaches to understanding health and disease: the World Health Organization definition of health as "complete physical, mental and social well-being," and the attempts by Thomas Szasz and Christopher Boorse to define health and disease in objective, value-free terms. Drawing particularly on the thought of Karl Barth, I argue that in Christian perspective, health must be understood in terms of the goods and goals toward which human life is directed, which must themselves be understood in terms of God's good purposes made known in Christ. We are called (in Barth's phrase) to "will to be healthy" and resist disease, but understanding what this entails in particular concrete situations requires skills and habits of attentiveness to God's command, cultivated in the context of the Christian community and its practices.
146. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 31 > Issue: 1
Jennifer Harvey Which Way to Justice?: Reconciliation, Reparations, and the Problem of Whiteness in US Protestantism
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IN THE LAST TEN YEARS SEVERAL MAINLINE PROTESTANT DENOMINATIONS have gone on record as supporting reparations for slavery. Reparations represent a new approach to racial justice and a transformed understanding of racial relationships from that which has characterized mainline US Protestantism since the civil rights movement. These initiatives importantly raise the issue of whiteness and white moral agency as these pertain to racism, without attention to which, the author argues, racial justice efforts will be inadequate. The essay engages in analysis that juxtaposes the difference between reconciliation and reparations approaches to healing racial injustice, locating these in historical moments in US Protestantism. It then explores movements for reparations in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the Episcopal Church in the United States and considers how these do and do not demonstrate a new (and more adequate) paradigm for understanding racism.
147. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 31 > Issue: 1
Julie Hanlon Rubio Moral Cooperation with Evil and Social Ethics
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THIS ESSAY EXPLORES THE POSSIBILITIES FOR RETRIEVING THE CONCEPT OF moral cooperation with evil for Christian social ethics. It begins with an exploration of the history of the concept and then argues that while discussions of social sin in political and environmental ethics correctly identify the problem of complicity, they fail to provide a way to distinguish among competing goods. The reality of competing goods presses the difficulties of making choices in a complex world referable to a duty to identify evil and avoid furthering its course.
148. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 31 > Issue: 1
Keith Warner Franciscan Environmental Ethics: Imagining Creation as a Community of Care
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THIS ESSAY SEEKS TO REDRESS THE SHORTCOMINGS OF CHRISTIAN ENVIronmental ethics by proposing Franciscan environmental ethics drawn from the affective and embodied experience of Francis of Assisi plus the Franciscan theological tradition that he inspired, as exemplified by Bonaventure and John Duns Scotus. Drawing its inspiration from the love Francis of Assisi had for nature, the Franciscan tradition holds that creation bursts with religious significance. This tradition interprets Francis' affective and direct sensory experience of the natural world with theological concepts creatively reworked from scripture and patristic sources, especially the Incarnation and theTrinity.The Franciscan understanding of the Incarnation emphasizes continuity between humanity, creatures, and elements. The Franciscan vision of Trinity as community-ofpersons, inspired by Francis's Canticle of Creatures, supports a more inclusive vision of the moral community. Franciscan environmental ethics can inspire an enhanced moral imagination and the praxis of an ethic of care.
149. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 31 > Issue: 1
Ki Joo (KC) Choi Should Race Matter?: A Constructive Ethical Assessment of the Postracial Ideal
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THIS ESSAY CONSIDERS THE COLOR-BLIND MORALITY OF POSTRACIAL discourse, whether racial identity is to be considered suspect or simply "forgotten," or whether it can play a constructive role in public life. I pursue this question by turning to two accounts of racial identity, a liberal-multicultural conception and a social perspective conception of racial identity. The latter, I argue, better meets the primary objections to the former and offers an advantageous framework within which to evaluate postracial assumptions. Racial difference does not need to be considered a threat to political community but can be envisioned in a way that supports the kind of political and moral deliberation necessary to support and advance a society committed to justice.
150. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 31 > Issue: 1
Emily Reimer-Barry HIV Prevention for Incarcerated Populations: A Common Good Approach
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IN THE UNITED STATES, 25 PERCENT OF PEOPLE LIVING WITH HIV/AIDS HAVE spent time in the correctional system. HIV is known to spread among incarcerated individuals through high-risk behaviors including unprotected sex, injection drug use, tattooing, and body piercing. When released from prison, persons living with HIV can spread the disease in the wider community. This essay explores the complex problem of HIV infection among US prisoners from a common good approach rooted in Catholic social teachings by examining available data on US prison populations, describing recent trends in the prosecution of drug-related crimes, and proposing concrete policy recommendations for HIV prevention interventions in US prisons.
151. 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.
152. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics: Volume > 31 > Issue: 1
Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator Ethics Brewed in an African Pot
153. 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.
154. 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.
155. 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.
156. 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.
157. 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.
158. 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.
159. 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.
160. 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.