scholarly journals Truth and Christian Ethics: A Narratival Perspective

2021 ◽  
pp. 095394682110497
Author(s):  
Mark Wynn
Keyword(s):  
Christian Ethics ◽  
Christian Life ◽  
General Terms

In this article, I consider some of the forms that truthfulness can take in the Christian life. Drawing on the notion of storied identity, I address the following questions. In general terms, what does it take to live truthfully with respect to some narrative? More exactly, how might that truthfulness be realized in bodily terms? And, finally, how might living truthfully with respect to a narrative contribute to the further elaboration of the narrative? I examine these questions with reference to the concerns of Christian ethics in particular, by taking as my focus the kind of storied truthfulness that is embodied in the practice of neighbour love, and the question of how that truthfulness may be extended through participation in the eucharist.

scholarly journals What are the key characteristics of a Christian life? A comparison of the ethics of Calvin to that of Augustine and their relevance today

2010 ◽  
Vol 44 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
J.H. Van Wyk
Keyword(s):  
World History ◽  
Christian Ethics ◽  
Ecological Crisis ◽  
The Other ◽  
Personal Perspective ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
Christian Life ◽  
Key Characteristics ◽  
Present Life ◽  
Modern Sense

Augustine and Calvin are two of the greatest (western) theologians of all times and it is illuminating and inspiring to investigate what they have to teach as far as Christian life is concerned. Augustine never wrote a work on Christian ethics in the modern sense of the word but from his many writings we can easily deduce what the key characteristics are. He accepted the natural virtues of philosophers (prudence, for- titude, temperance and justice) but subordinated them to the “infused virtues” of faith, hope and love. Special attention was also paid to inter alia happiness, humility and truth. Calvin, on the other hand, although following Augustine in many aspects of theology, rejected the virtue ethics of the Greek philosophers and developed a Christological ethics within the broader context of pneumatology. The key characteristics of a Christian life are self-denial, cross-bearing and meditation on the future life – and of course the correct enjoyment of the present life. Although we appreciate much of what the two church fathers have to say, we live in a totally different world context today, facing challenges of far greater proportions, like economical uncertainty, political instability and an immense ecological crisis. Morality is chal- lenged today as never before in world history. Today we have to rethink the relevance of Christian life not only from an individual personal perspective but also in terms of broader social Christian ethics.

scholarly journals God en genot

1997 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
J. H. Van Wyk
Keyword(s):  
Christian Ethics ◽  
Correct Interpretation ◽  
Christian Life

It cannot be denied that the theology of Augustine in general and his ethics in particular have had an immense influence on theological scholarship, church practice and Christian life throughout the centuries. His use of especially the concepts uti and frui has had a great impact on Christian ethics. These concepts are generally understood in such a way that God must only be enjoyed (frui) for his own sake and everything else must be used (uti) (not enjoyed) for God's sake. The question, however, arises whether that is a correct interpretation of Augustine? Was he indeed more of a Neoplatonist and Stoicist than a Biblical theologian? In this article Augustine's use of these concepts as well as his influence on reformed ethics in this regard is investigated.

Christian Martyrdom and Christian Violence

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew D. Lundberg
Keyword(s):  
Just War ◽  
Christian Ethics ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Self ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Christian Life ◽  
Majority Opinion ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Way ◽  
Christian History

What is the place—if any—for violence in the Christian life? This book explores this question by analyzing a paradox of mainstream Christian history, theology, and ethics: at the heart of the Christian story, the suffering of violence stands as the price of faithfulness. From Jesus himself to martyrs who have died while following him, at the core of Christian faith is an experience of being victimized by the world’s violence. At the same time, the majority opinion for most of Christian history has held that there are situations when the follower of Jesus may be justified in inflicting violence on others, especially in the context of war. Do these two facets of Christian ethics and experience—martyrdom and the just war—represent a contradiction, the self-defeating irony of those who follow a Lord who refused to defend himself taking up deadly weapons? In arguing that they do not, the book contends that any meaningful coherence between a theology of martyrdom and commitment to a just war ethic requires shifts away from a common heroic conception of Christian martyrdom and a common secularized realpolitik conception of necessary violence. Instead, it requires a view of martyrdom that acknowledges even the martyrs as subject to the ambiguities of the human condition, even as they present a compelling witness to Jesus and the way of the cross. And it requires an approach to justified violence that reflects the self-sacrificial ethos of Jesus displayed in the lives of true Christian martyrs.

scholarly journals Forgiveness and Christian Character: Reconciliation, Exemplarism and the Shape of Moral Theology

2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 293-313
Author(s):  
Alan J. Torrance
Keyword(s):  
Moral Theology ◽  
Contract Law ◽  
Christian Ethics ◽  
Semantic Externalism ◽  
Human Identity ◽  
Christian Life ◽  
Law And Justice ◽  
The Mind

Acts of Christian forgiveness that run counter to natural inclinations and ethical intuitions raise questions about the nature of human identity and the basis of moral theology. An assessment of the biblical and theological warrant for Christian forgiveness challenges the ethical misappropriation of the language of covenant, torah and righteousness to that of contract, law and justice. The argument is made that forgiveness should be seen as normative—indeed, obligatory rather than supererogatory. A theological account is then provided of the conditions under which our natural inclinations are transformed so as to facilitate an orientation of forgiveness. It is argued that the doctrines of the incarnation and human participation in the mind of Christ (where transformation is conceived as both ‘evangelical’ and ‘ecclesial’) are axiomatic for interpreting the Christian life and thus moral theology. This leads to the conclusion that a combination of ‘reconciled exemplarism’ and ‘semantic externalism’ is key to the exposition of Christian ethics – the language of which tracks God’s historical engagement with humanity rather than denoting immanent, ethical categories.

scholarly journals Christian Oughtness for Today: Biblical Perspectives for Christian Living

2021 ◽  
pp. 42-51
Author(s):  
Ignatius Nti-Abankoro
Keyword(s):  
Religious Life ◽  
Christian Ethics ◽  
Christian Identity ◽  
Narrative Paradigm ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
Ethical Perspective ◽  
Christian Life ◽  
The World ◽  
Christian Understanding ◽  
Biblical Values

The world has traveled on a path that has presented inherent complexities and untold challenges as well as difficulties to the living of the ‘religious’ life in general and the Christian life in particular. Often, modern-day values offer a contradiction to traditional, religious, and biblical values which most of the time eclipses the Christian understanding of how one ought to live in the awareness of one’s Christian identity and vocation. This has culminated in the laxity of awareness in the Christian oughtness, in other words, of how the Christian ought to live in response to one’s identity and calling. This paper has sought to re-present the Christian oughtness anew situating it in its biblical-ethical perspectives. The paper used a narrative paradigm to reflect on biblical Christian ethics in the light of imperatives from the Old and New testaments. The paper envisages deepening a treatise on the awareness of the Christian oughtness from the biblical ethical perspective as a new paradigm through which Christians and people of goodwill would live as they ought to live, in promoting justice, progress and development of all people and their nations. Keywords: Christian Oughtness, Ethics, Biblico-imperatives

Nonviolence as Criterion of Martyrdom?

2021 ◽  
pp. 22-45
Author(s):  
Matthew D. Lundberg
Keyword(s):  
Historical Development ◽  
Christian Ethics ◽  
Christian Life ◽  
Imitatio Christi

In view of the possibility of violence en route to Christian martyrdom, this chapter explores the pacifist tradition of Christian ethics and its claim that true martyrdom demands nonviolence, as that is the intended shape of the Christian life. After presenting the biblical case for nonviolence and charting the historical development of Christian pacifism, the chapter focuses on historic Anabaptism’s link between martyrdom and nonviolent defenselessness as the distinctive texture of discipleship, especially as reflected in the martyrologies in Thieleman van Braght’s Martyrs’ Mirror (1660). The chapter concludes with an analysis of the role of the imitatio Christi ethic in the peace church traditions and the insights that this tradition offers to the question of the criteria or markers of true Christian martyrdom.

scholarly journals Christ Our Light: The Expectation of Seeing God in Calvin’s Theology of the Christian Life

Perichoresis ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-40
Author(s):  
Carsten Card-Hyatt
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Christian Ethics ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Christian Life ◽  
Beatific Vision ◽  
History Of ◽  
Biblical Commentaries ◽  
Vision Of God

AbstractThe beatific vision plays a prominent role in the history of Christian ethics. Reformed ethics has an ambiguous relationship to this history, on two counts. First, it offers some qualified critiques of the role of vision in ordering ethical understanding, and second, on some accounts, Reformed ethics shares some responsibility for the loss of transcendence in the modern world, and the narrowing of the ethical field that has resulted from this loss. This essay argues that the vision of God in John Calvin’s understanding of the Christian life offers resources to defend a Reformed ethics from some recent detractors. Further, it provides a constructive contrast with the role of eschatology in a prominent strand of 20th century ethics. This argument is sustained through a close reading of Calvin’s biblical commentaries on the role of theophanies and the promise of the vision of God, and of Book III, chapters 6-10 of the Institutes.

The Practicability of the Christian Life

1913 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-142
Author(s):  
Francis G. Peabody
Keyword(s):  
Christian Ethics ◽  
First Century ◽  
Christian Life ◽  
Doctrine Of God ◽  
Good Place ◽  
The Common ◽  
Present World

The unknown apostle who wrote the wholesome letter to Titus, “his own son after the common faith,” re-enforces his general doctrine of Christian ethics by a special application to the circumstances in which Titus finds himself at Crete. The Christian life, the apostle writes, is practicable even there. The Cretans, where Titus had been left “to set in order the things that are wanting,” were, as one of themselves had said, “liars, beasts, and gluttoners.” “This witness,” the writer agrees, “is true”; but this truth is precisely what gives an opportunity for Titus to teach the Cretans a “sound” or “healthful” doctrine of chastity, discretion, and gravity. “The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared unto all men.” Crete was a good place for a Christian “to adorn the doctrine of God.” The problem of the Christian life was not to run away from a bad place, but to serve it and save it. We should live “soberly, righteously, and godly,” not in a world of our own choosing, but “in this present world.” Soberly as concerns one's self, righteously as concerns one's neighbor, piously in one's relation to God,—these three laws made, according to the Apostle, a practicable rule of conduct for a young man of the first century in a vicious and pleasure-loving world.

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