At the heart of Christian ethics is the biblical commandment to love God and to love one's neighbor as oneself. But what is the meaning of love? Does love require self-sacrifice? Does it involve eros, or sexual desire? Or is love an enlightened form of friendship? Scholars have wrestled with these questions since the recording of the Christian gospels, and in recent decades teachers and students of Christian ethics have engaged in vigorous debates about appropriate interpretations and implications of this critical norm. Simmons and Sorrells have assembled a who's who in the field of Christian ethics--including Lisa Cahill, Stephen Pope, Cathy Kaveny, Ron Green, Margaret Farley, John Kelsay, Emilie Townes, Ed Vacek, and Mark Jordan, among many others--to analyze and assess love from a variety of perspectives. The anthology includes three parts: Tradition, addressing biblical issues and great thinkers such as Augustine and Aquinas and Kant and Kierkegaard; Theory, focusing on various meanings of love; and Society, exploring an array of contemporary concerns such as law and health care and sex and religious pluralism. Gene Outka, author of the seminal book, Agape, An Ethical Analysis, provides an afterword on future trajectories for this research.
At the heart of Christian ethics is the biblical commandment to love God and to love one's neighbor as oneself. But what is the meaning of love? Scholars have wrestled with this question since the recording of the Christian gospels, and in recent decades teachers and students of Christian ethics have engaged in vigorous debates about appropriate interpretations and implications of this critical norm.
In Love and Christian Ethics, nearly two dozen leading experts analyze and assess the meaning of love from a wide range of perspectives. Chapters are organized into three areas: influential sources and exponents of Western Christian thought about the ethical significance of love, perennial theoretical questions attending that consideration, and the implications of Christian love for important social realities. Contributors bring a richness of thought and experience to deliver unprecedentedly broad and rigorous analysis of this central tenet of Christian ethics and faith. William Werpehowski provides an afterword on future trajectories for this research. Love and Christian Ethics is sure to become a benchmark resource in the field.
In Love and Christian Ethics, nearly two dozen leading scholars analyze and assess the meaning of love from a wide range of perspectives. Chapters are organized into three areas: influential sources and exponents of Western Christian thought about the ethical significance of love, perennial theoretical questions attending that consideration, and the implications of Christian love for important social realities. These major experts in the field bring a richness of thought and experience to deliver unprecedentedly broad yet rigorous analysis of this central tenet of Christian ethics and faith. Love and Christian Ethics is sure to become a benchmark resource in the field.
