The Cambridge Companion to Christian Ethics (Cambridge Companions to Religion) [Paperback]

Robin Gill (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0521779189 | ISBN-13: 978-0521779180 | Publication Date: January 22, 2001 | Edition: 1

This book is written by leading international experts in Christian ethics and is aimed at students in upper-level undergraduate courses, at teachers and at graduate students. It will be useful as well to ministers and other professionals within the church. Its eighteen chapters provide a thorough introduction to Christian ethics that is both authoritative and up-to-date. All contributors have been chosen because they are significant scholars with a proven track record of balanced, comprehensive and comprehensible writing.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"For a number of years, Cambridge University Press has produced a well-received 'Companion' series on various theological topics. That fine series continues with this latest volume on Christian ethics...Each contributor produces a genuinely Christian perspective on their topics. They seek to relate Christian ethics to Christian doctrine in a positive manner." James McCullough, Princeton Seminary Bulletin

"The Cambridge Companion to Christian Ethics successfully lives up to the considerable reputation established by the rest of the outstanding texts in this series. The volume brings together some of the greatest essays in the field of Christian ethics by contemporary thinkers from the U.S. and Britain...The organization of this Cambridge volume brilliantly lends itself to the classroom, moving gracefully from the theoretical, through the methodological, and ending with practical questions. This companion to Christian ethics should become the standard text for ethics courses...It should become a standard text for the serious study of Christian ethics." Religious Studies Review

Book Description

Following the same formula as other Cambridge Companions, this book is written by leading international experts in Christian ethics and is aimed at students on upper-level undergraduate courses, at teachers and at graduate students. It will be useful as well to ministers and other professionals within the church. Its eighteen chapters provide a thorough introduction to Christian ethics which is both authoritative and up-to-date. All contributors have been chosen because they are significant scholars with a proven track record of balanced, comprehensive and comprehensible writing.

Product Details

• Paperback: 306 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 1 edition (January 22, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521779189
• ISBN-13: 978-0521779180
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #760,984 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good introduction to Christian ethics, December 29, 2003

By 

Kerry Walters (Lewisburg, PA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Cambridge Companion to Christian Ethics (Cambridge Companions to Religion) (Paperback)

By and large, the essays in this volume are well-researched, well-written, and tightly argued. The book is divided into three sections: a preliminary one that interprets the relationship between faith, scripture, and ethics; a middle one that explores various traditions in Christian ethics; and a final one that offers treatments of specific moral issues.

The first part is the most satisfying of the three. Rowan Williams' lead essay, "Making Moral Decisions," masterfully argues that Christians make moral decisions pretty much the same as everyone else, except (and this is a big "except") for the fact that the decisions are made within the context of a community of faith and reflect that community's worldview. This means that the Christian should also seek to exemplify divine holiness in her moral decisions, and that she should take seriously disagreements in the community that also strive for such an exemplification. The other essays in the first section take their cue from Williams' approach, carefully examining whether scripture is a set of definitive moral guidelines or whether it instead is an interpretive tool that invites contemporary readers to examine the issues confronting them in light of the Gospel message. The latter approach is endorsed.

The middle section discusses several traditions including natural law ethics and virtue ethics, but for my money Lisa Sowle Cahill's essay on gender and Tim Gorringe's on liberation are the most interesting. They're also the most unsatisfying, because space constraints prevent Cahill and Gorringe from providing more than sketchy overviews.

The third section is the most uneven part of the book. R. John Elford offers a rather uncritical endorsement of just war theory, thankfully offset by Robin Gill's reasoned but passionate argument that the arms trade is unacceptable from a Christian moral perspective. Max Stackhouse's essay is a strangely heavy-handed endorsement of neoliberal capitalism, but is balanced to some extent by Duncan Forrester's more reflective essay on social justice and welfare. Michael Northcott's essay on ecology is quite good, but Don Browning's on world family trends is overblown--one of his basic contentions is the (surely eurocentric) claim that father-less families are devastating in their consequences--and James Childress' on biomedical issues is a rather ho-hum rehash of standard issues revolving around abortion, euthanasia, and reproduction.

One interesting note: the influence of Stanley Hauerwas is evident throughout the essays in this volume. There are more references to him than to any other Christian ethicist-- including Thomas Aquinas, Augustine, Karl Barth, Martin Luther, and St. Paul!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Survey, April 11, 2006

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C. Dolack "c.d." - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Cambridge Companion to Christian Ethics (Cambridge Companions to Religion) (Paperback)

This book is a very good survey of the breadth of issues in Christian Ethics and the Christian moral life, with insight into the possible responses that many Christian thinkers have given to those issues. The book includes conservative and liberal views, and gives a good try at objective survey of these views using the thoughts and theories of respected Christian scholars. A trusted source and trusted publisher.

4.0 out of 5 stars Great short guide, November 30, 2011

By 

David L. Williams - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Cambridge Companion to Christian Ethics (Cambridge Companions to Religion) (Paperback)

This is a great short guide to ethics as seen from a Christian perspective. I specifically bought it for Rowan Williams' essay at the beginnnig but it has many other valuable additions. At this length it cannot hope to be inclusive but is a brilliant starting block from which to survey the area.