DESCRIPTION: This doctoral seminar, open to a limited number of master's
level students by permission of the professor, will engage the thesis that Christian
ethics can be stronger if it pays attention to the way of Jesus Christ.
Increasingly interesting resources are at hand. We will analyze several books
that exemplify this thesis.
SIGNIFICANCE FOR LIFE AND MINISTRY: Many churches teach, preach, and practice
without much concrete attention to the way of Jesus, instead emphasizing
general inspiration, or doctrine, or exegesis of other aspects of biblical
literature. The result often is a church ripe for co-optation by secular
ideologies and accommodation to secular culture rather than being authentically
transformative. The same is true of much Christian ethics. Our objective is to
recover a transformative vision that is faithful to Jesus Christ, fully Lord
and fully Savior.
LEARNING OUTCOMES: Our objectives are (1) to detect methodological assumptions
in the frameworks that Christian ethicists use which block, divert, or enhance
their ability to write ethics that learns constructively from Jesus; (2) to
notice some approaches in New Testament scholarship for deepening and
strengthening awareness of Jesus' ethics, thus increasing knowledge of some
resources in exegetical approaches, historical Jesus approaches, recovery of
Jesus' Jewish context, and Christian ethicists whose writing is strengthened by
their methodologically interesting attention to Jesus; (3) to become ethicists
with somewhat deepened personal appreciation of Jesus' way, and who can
articulate this for others; and (4) to develop the skill to write a
constructive essay in Christian ethics that combines accurate interpretation of
the way of Jesus with a critical ethical method or framework.
COURSE FORMAT: Seminar discussions, weekly for three-hours, analyzing,
comparing, and assessing different understandings of Jesus in Christian
ethics.
REQUIRED READING: