DESCRIPTION: The course presents Christian ethics as a discourse of the
collective and personal formation of Jesus' disciples by the guiding light of
Scripture (with emphasis on peacemaking, truth-telling, economic faithfulness,
sexual integrity, and prayer). Special attention will be paid to the colonial
shape of the modern world and its import for Christian ethics, especially in
the Latino context. The course will specifically address matters such as the
place and function of Scripture, Christian understandings of social
responsibility, the development of Christian virtue, the church's relation to
other Abrahamic communities as well as to the rest of the world, and casuistry
of various kinds.
SIGNIFICANCE FOR LIFE AND MINISTRY: Without some training in Christian ethics,
Christians may find themselves too readily assuming the terms of what counts as
"ethics" in current public discourse and then accommodating Christian living
and reasoning to those terms. This course equips servants of the church to
approach and teach ethics as primarily a matter of Christian discipleship and
formation in the discipline of the Christian community and to understand the
peculiar situation of the church's current ethical challenges, particularly
in/from the Latino context. Students should emerge from the course better able
to embody with their fellow Christians the power of the gospel and to meet the
ethical challenges presented by our time and place.
LEARNING OUTCOMES: As a result of completing this course, students should be
able to articulate several predominant approaches to ethical reasoning and
understanding among Christian communities past and present and describe the
impact of those approaches on their own predispositions and patterns of
reasoning and behavior. Students should also be able to express clearly how
Christian ethics is related to Jesus, the people of God as a whole, and their
local Christian community. Expressing this complex relation should include a
nuanced understanding of the way that Scripture governs Christian ethics. As
they relate Christian ethics to their local Christian communities, students
should exhibit a theologically sensitive understanding of the modern
developments that have shaped the fault lines of current ethical debate. They
should be able to address intelligently the issues of that debate discussed in
class (e.g., immigration) and begin to develop fruitful ways of approaching
issues not directly discussed in class.
COURSE FORMAT: Lectures and discussion. Class will meet for four weekend
sessions, January 14-15, 21-22; February 4-5, 25-26.
REQUIRED READING: