Patricia Beattie Jung - Moral issues and Christian responses

It is an interesting exercise to edit a volume of readings about moral issues and Christian responses over a period of some twenty years. Some things seem so dated; others so contemporary. The ones that seem contemporary required little tweaking, but others stand out.

It is clear to us that the scale of the moral issues we are facing today is quite different from that of the past. There are issues of corporate and global proportionssuch as climate change, world hunger, and the movement of refugees and immigrants in response to wars and economic opportunity. There are economic issues and issues of distributionthe fact that many sub-Saharan African countries have lower per capita incomes than they did ten years ago, for example. And what does it mean with regard to health care and the future for children there?

Another thing that is clear: the churches of the United States have lost direct political clout. The Christian Coalition is off the map; the Tea Party has arrived; who knows how long Occupy Wall Street will have an impact? Most members of the Tea Party are conservative Christians (some estimates range up to 80 percent), but little is articulated about the Christian values that inform that group.

The role of this book, in the midst of such change, is to provoke you to think about what values and virtues are central. What do you think? What are you committed to? Can you defend your position? To those ends, we have included a wide variety of essays that, although all Christian, frequently reach different conclusions. We have added a new feature as well: a brief case study at the beginning of each chapter. Professors could thus encourage a discussion of the case study both before and after students read the chapter.

We have quite a number of people to thank for their help: first, the anonymous professors who critiqued essays from the seventh edition and made suggestions for new ones. (About 70 percent of the articles are new to this edition.) Then there are the students whose opinions those professors reflect. There are the good people at Fortress PressMichael West, Susan Johnson, and especially Ross Miller, who persisted in encouraging us to get the rights to this book and who worked with us quite responsively. We thank Cengage for releasing those rights. Then there are our compatriots and scholars at our professional society, the Society for Christian Ethics. Our academic home has shifted to Kansas City, where we both work at Saint Paul School of Theology. We thank our colleagues, students, and administrators there for their support and encouragement. We are particularly grateful to John Oyler and Logan Wright, librarians at the seminary, and to Julia Scozzafava.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, there is Joy Simpson, a Saint Paul student, who was a model of efficiency and intelligence. She not only kept the work together but also made real editorial contributions.

Chapter 1: Foundations

Copyright 2001 by the Christian Century, Biblical Authority, by Walter Brueggemann, is reprinted by permission from the Jan. 3, 2001, issue of the Christian Century.

From, The Bible in Transit, by Phyllis Trible, which first appeared in Reflections 98, no. 1 (spring 2011): 3133. 2011 Divinity Publications.

From, A Death to Celebrate? by Ronald Osborn, Commonweal (June 3, 2011): 78. 2011 Commonweal Foundation, reprinted with permission. For more information, visit http://www.commonwealmagazine.org.

Copyright 2011 from How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Brain, by David A. Hogue. Reproduced by permission of Taylor & Francis Group, LLC, http://www.taylorandfrancis.com.

From, Wading through Many Sorrows: Toward a Theology of Suffering in Womanist Perspective, by M. Shawn Copeland, first published in A Troubling in my Mind, edited by Emilie M. Townes. Reprinted with permission. 1996 Orbis Books.

Chapter 2: Taking a Stand

From,The Eclipse of Love for God, by Edward Collins Vacek. Reprinted with permission. 1996 America magazine.

From Mujerista Discourse: A Platform for Latinas Subjugated Knowledge, by Ada Mara Isasi-Daz and Eduardo Mendieta, in Decolonizing Epistemologies: Latina/o Theology and Philosophy, 2011. Reprinted with permission of Fordham University Press.

Copyright 2008 by Christian Century. An Interview with Nicholas Wolterstorff: Rights and Wrongs, is reprinted by permission from the March 25, 2008 issue of the Christian Century.

The Unholy Trinity of Consumerism, by Skye Jethani, originally appeared in Cultural Encounters: A Journal for the Theology of Culture 6, no.1 (2010): 7985.

Chapter 3: Forgiveness

Full text first published as Imitating God: Nickel Mines, Forgiveness, and Yoder, by Donald B. Kraybill, in Brethren Life & Thought 54, no. 4 (Fall 2009): 113.

Blame Versus Forgiveness, by Jon Kekes, The Monist 92, no. 4 (Oct. 2009): 288506. Copyright The Monist: An International Quarterly Journal of General Philosophical Inquiry, Open Court Publishing Company, Chicago, Illinois. Reprinted by permission.

From Lessons in Mercy, by Daniel Philpott. Reprinted with permission. 2009 America magazine.

From Letting Go: The Final Miracle of Forgiveness, excerpted from The End of Memory: Remembering Rightly in a Violent World. Reprinted with permission. Eerdmans Publishing, 2006.

Chapter 4: Sexual Intimacy

The Bodys Grace, by Rowan Williams. Reprinted with permission. Rowan Williams/LGCM 1989.

From Marriage Prep and Double Standards: The Hookup Cultures Damaging Effects, by Kari-Shane Davis Zimmerman, first published in Leaving and Coming Home: New Wineskins for Catholic Sexual Ethics, edited by David Cloutier, 2010. Used by permission of Wipf and Stock Publishers. http://www.wipfandstock.com.

Good Sex: Its Meaning and Morals, by Dennis Hollinger. Originally published in Catalyst Journal 37, no.1 (Nov. 2010): 46. Used with permission.

From Karen Lebacqz, Love Your Enemy: Sex, Power and Christian Ethics, The Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics (1990). Reprinted with permission of Georgetown University Press, Washington, DC.

From Sexual Slavery on Main Street, by Elissa Cooper. This article first appeared in the May 2010 issue of Christianity Today magazine.

Chapter 5: Marriage and Family

From A Betrothal Proposal, by Michael J. Lawler and Gail S. Risch. Copyright 2007 U.S. Catholic. Reproduced by permission from the June 2007 issue of