DESCRIPTION: This doctoral seminar, open by special permission to a limited number of advanced master's students, is a systematic and comparative analysis of essential ingredients in an ethical method adequate for grappling with concrete issues. An analytical model of essential ingredients will be used to compare representative methods in Christian ethics.

SIGNIFICANCE FOR LIFE AND MINISTRY: Authentic Christian ministry helps persons become faithful disciples, which requires growing character and calling forth faithful deeds or practices. But we are shaped powerfully by perceptions, loyalties, beliefs, and styles of reasoning that we are often unaware of. The seminar identifies key variables that shape our ethics, and compares how they interact.

LEARNING OUTCOMES: I hope that you will develop skill in analyzing the key variables that shape some leading methods in Christian ethics. Second, that you will develop a holistic awareness of how these variables work together to shape the way Christian ethicists do ethics. Third, that these two analytical and synthesizing skills will help your writing about concrete questions in Christian ethics. Fourth, that your analysis and comparison of these variables can build the base for cumulative sharpening of your own self-critical definition of these variables in your own method in Christian ethics, and thus your own ethical growth. Fifth, that together we can discuss how to do Christian ethics within a tradition, while learning from other traditions.

COURSE FORMAT: Seminar discussions, in which we help each other map different methods in Christian ethics as they relate to a concrete issue. The seminar will meet weekly for three-hour sessions, with the final seminar discussion meeting during the final exam period if members vote to share what they are writing.

REQUIRED READING:

Farley, Margaret. Just Love. Continuum, 2008. (336 pp.) ISBN: 0826429246. Pub.price $29.95.

Gushee, David. Righteous Gentiles of the Holocaust. 2nd ed. Augsburg Fortress, 2003. (302 pp.) ISBN: 1557788219. Pub.price $16.95.

Hauerwas, Stanley. A Community of Character: Toward a Constructive Christian Social Ethic. University of Notre Dame Press, 1981. (312 pp.) ISBN: 0268007357. Pub.price $22.

Hollenbach, David. The Common Good and Christian Ethics. Cambridge University Press, 2002. (238 pp.) ISBN: 9780521894517. Pub.price $36.95.

Marsh, Charles. The Beloved Community. Basic Books, 2006. (292 pp.) ISBN: 9780465044160 Pub.price $17.95.

McClendon, James Wm. Ethics. 2nd ed. Abingdon, 2002 [not 1986 1st ed.]. (368 pp.) ISBN: 0687090873. Pub.price $38.

Rasmussen, Larry. Earth Community, Earth Ethics. Orbis, 1996. (376 pp.) ISBN: 9781570751868. Pub.price $30.

Sider, Ronald J. Scandal of Evangelical Politics. Baker, 2008 (275 pp.) ISBN: 0801068371. Pub.price $20.

Stassen, Glen H. A Thicker Jesus: Incarnational Discipleship in A Secular Age. Westminster John Knox, October 2012. ISBN: 9780664238179. Pub.price $25.

West, Traci. Disruptive Christian Ethics. Westminster John Knox. 2006. (240 pp.) ISBN: 9780664229597. Pub.price $30.