THE DISCOVERY OF DETAINEE ABUSE AT ABU GHRAIB IN 2004 FOLLOWED by the gradual disclosure or release of government documents signaling that decisive policy shifts by the U.S. government led directly to such abuses contributed to a dispiriting national debate about the morality of torture—a debate that continues today. An ongoing fracture between competing social-political-ethical visions in the evangelical world has been revealed and further exacerbated by this debate over torture. Politically conservative evangelicals restrict their policy engagement to issues such as abortion and gay marriage and either steer clear of the torture issue or actually defend torture and attack antitorture efforts; centrist and progressive evangelicals favor a broader agenda that has included opposition to torture. Employing analytical categories derived from a study of Christian behavior in Nazi Europe as well as from personal experiences, this essay recounts and analyzes the torture debate as it occurred in the American evangelical community. The analysis yields the conclusion that white American evangelicalism has displayed structural theological-ethical weaknesses that make this community profoundly susceptible to state (or at least Republican) abuses of power. In response to this integrity-testing moment in evangelical life, this essay calls for a renewed evangelical commitment to a Christ-centered vision of the dignity and rights of every human being.

AS BABY BOOMERS BEGIN TO REACH RETIREMENT AGE IN 2010, THEY ARE faced with the prospect of twenty to thirty postwork years. Should this period have any goals or purpose other than be a very long vacation? Four gerontological theories propose alternative priorities for this time: continuity, new start, disengagement, and completion. Each has a place within a full life. Careful consideration of each theory exposes how certain vices and virtues mutate during this "third age" of life: integrity and dissipation; self-gratification and generosity; repentance, humility, and denial; and trust and detachment.

IN MANY CHURCH-BODY DISPUTES OVER THE MORAL STATUS OF SAME-gender unions, the last line of defense against the affirmation of such unions is often an appeal to homosexual orientation as inherently "disordered," rendering same-gender unions unacceptable regardless of the loving and just qualities they may embody. On the basis of a biblical anthropology shaped by the eschatological orientation of the scriptures and further enhanced by contemporary Trinitarian discourse, this essay engages and challenges this traditional view as it has been developed in the theological ethics of Helmut Thielicke. In so doing, the essay raises a key metaethical question of the theological foundations that inform Christian sexual ethics in general.

THIS ESSAY EXAMINES FEASTING AND FASTING IN LIGHT OF CHRISTIAN DEsires to eat as, with, and for Christ. Christ both fasted and feasted; Christians, in following his example, may embody him, encounter him, and eat in certain ways for his sake. In the Eucharist, Christians encounter and embody Christ, illuminating the ways that eating can be a holy practice. The Eucharist offers Christians transformative guidance and practical synthesis, allowing them to navigate the extremes of fasting and feasting. It encompasses and enshrines both, allowing both enjoyment and abstention to be transformed into a fulfilled practice of consumption. Consuming Christ in the Eucharist helps Christians find ways to sanctify their consumption in other areas of life.

POLITICAL MORAL LEADERSHIP IS GENERATED, SUPPORTED, AND BLOCKED by the political morality of the people. Moral communities must accept the clay feet of their leaders but carefully monitor the moral qualities of their leader's public policy. Currently this proper approach has given way to a skewed commitment to superficial personal morality. In earlier times, leaders were held to standards of personal morality and public policy both alike and different from those expected of leaders today. In this essay, I consider those similarities and differences to suggest a new moral index for public leadership.

PAULI MURRAY (D. 1985) WAS AN ACTIVIST, LAWYER, AND PRIEST WHOSE AVocation was writing. In this essay I first contextualize Murray's life and works, and I analyze her poetry and ethical vision (informed also by her prose). I focus on three themes in her poetry: race and interlocking oppressions, the "dream" of America and historiography, and the creative ethical power of productive anger. I engage womanist scholarship as a conversation partner throughout the essay. Moving inductively from my analysis of Murray's poetry, I offer several constructive suggestions about the role and heuristic of poetry in contemporary theological and social ethics.

IN HIS NICOMACHEAN ETHICS, ARISTOTLE ARGUES THAT MOST DEATHS are contemptible and offer no opportunity for the exercise of virtue. Thomas Aquinas, on the other hand, considers the publicly shameful death of the martyr to be not only the highest exemplification of the virtue of courage but also the greatest proof of moral perfection more generally. What accounts for this substantial divergence from Aristotle on the possibility of virtuous action in death? This essay investigates the theologically informed metaphysical and anthropological framework within which Aquinas situates his claims and then explores the implications of these claims for his broader ethical appropriation of Aristotelian virtue theory. It ultimately intends to show the extent to which Aquinas's conception of virtue depends upon a theological and specifically Christological understanding of human perfection.

ALTHOUGH STOIC THOUGHT HAS SHAPED THE CHRISTIAN TRADITION IN decisive ways, Christian ethicists largely overlook the insights Stoicism offers for contemporary Christian discussion of virtue. This essay expands and elaborates our retrieval of ancient ethics of virtue by exploring Stoic "assent" and its possible intersections with Christian ethics. Rather than being tragically fatalistic, Stoic assent functions as a response to divine providence that is compatible with theological commitments that find particular expression in historical Protestant traditions: the claim that salvation occurs by faith alone and a conviction that humans are both morally accountable and utterly dependent upon God. Stoic moral thought offers a framework for developing a morally rich account of the virtues that takes seriously these Christian beliefs.