Reddit mentions: The best ethics in christian theology books

>I've been trying to challenge my ideas, and am seeking legitimate answers. I will debate you, but I will listen.

OK. I might be late to the party, but the below, essentially, is representative of contemporary Catholic thought in sexual ethics, and it is largely based on John Paul II's Love and Responsibility.

The starting point of Catholic sexual ethics is what John Paul II termed the 'personalistic norm,' which, in short, is the imperative to love. The lawyer's response in Luke 10:27, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself," is the best scriptural encapsulation of this imperative. In Catholicism, the response to any other person can only ever be love, which is defined as giving of oneself for the good of another. It is therefore inherently meta-subjective, as it pulls one out of the prison of their own subjectivity to realize some objective good for the other. The opposite of love in Catholicism is 'use,' that is, the utilization of another person solely for the realization of any subjective purpose.

Use, therefore, is intrinsically related to what is subjective. In order for an action to transcend the subjective and therefore to cross the boundary from use to love, it must take on an objective character, rooted in some concrete referent outside of the subjective.

Sexual actions in Catholicism are therefore only legitimate if they transcend use and are rooted in some concrete referent outside of the subjective. The physical pleasure of any of the parties taking part in a sexual act cannot alone justify the act, since pleasure is inseparable from the subjective (since it is all about how the person feels interiorly—pleasure has an intrinsically subjective, and not objective, character). This is not to say that Catholicism views pleasure as bad; rather, pleasure is a tool, it is something given, that can be used either to enhance the objective good of a particular action or to contribute to its immorality; it cannot, however, be the sole justification for sexual intercourse.

What gives sexual intercourse its concrete referent is precisely its orientation toward the generation of a child. That is, the objective possibility of the particular outcome towards which sexual activity is naturally ordered—the conception of a child—is what can enable a sexual action to transcend the sphere of the purely subjective. There will obviously be pleasure in sex (and it is incumbent upon X to seek to please Y as much as is reasonably possible; otherwise Y is entirely an object of use for X). With the introduction of this objective concrete referent, pleasure becomes decidedly positive, but there will also be the possibility of objective responsibility (hence the title of John Paul II's book, Love and Responsibility): the fact that, through sex, one might become a parent and thus be responsible for some concrete referent outside of the act of sex, namely the third party, the child, gives sex an objective character. Without this objective referent, without the possibility that one will become implicated in and bear responsibility for something outside the subjective, sex does not transcend pleasure and thus does not transcend use.

Sexual activity in Catholicism is therefore only fully legitimate if it is open to the generation of a child. Thus (1) sexual activity outside of a union conducive to the rearing of a child (that is, a permanent union, i.e. a marriage) is wrong, because sex, to transcend use, must be open to life, and if there is any possibility of offspring they must be able to grow up within the context of a lasting marital union. Wrong also is (2) sexual activity in which an attempt has been made to positively exclude the possibility of conception (hence Catholicism's longstanding opposition to contraception), and (3) sexual activity in which consent is lacking, for then the subjective desire of one party is imposed on the other. Finally, (4) sexual activity between people of the same sex is also prohibited. Since such sexual activity lacks the objective referent of the possibility of a generation of a child by its intrinsic nature, Catholicism cannot endorse it.

This is not to say, obviously, that LGBT people cannot will each other's good beyond their own subjectivity. All instances of selfless love within a gay partnership—the concern for the other, the willingness to sacrifice the self for the good of the other, etc.—is laudable. As Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Archbishop of Munich and Freising in Germany and president of the German Bishops' Conference, said in 2014, "Take the case of two homosexuals who have been living together for 35 years and taking care of each other, even in the last phases of their lives... How can I say that this has no value?" Even if a relationship emerged out of non-meta-subjective sexual activity, the relationship itself can take on qualities that are objectively good and desirable, rooted in meta-subjective concern for the other, even if, from a theological perspective, no affirmation of such sexual activity is possible.

Catholicism does not object to the genuine concern for the other that emerges in an LGBT relationship, and, if we are being consistent, should actually applaud it. It simply objects to morally significant action in the absence of some concrete referent, which, in the case of sex, constitutes the openness to the generation of a child. This not being possible in an LGBT relationship, the Church must counsel abstinence.

With the case of heterosexual couples unable to have a child (i.e. the infertile and those past childbearing age), the Church does not object to sexual activity between the parties because there is no 'defect of form' and what matters is the openness to offspring. Not every sexual action has to actually result in conception, obviously; what gives sex its objective character is the married couple's openness to its taking place (because then they are willing to be implicated as morally responsible for the child, thus transcending subjectivity), and this is not grounded in the biological fact of fertility so much as it is in the will of the two parties. For this reason the Catholic Church requires anybody getting married in a Catholic ceremony to publicly declare their openness to having children and considers marriages contracted without this openness to be illegitimate and subject to annulment.

Final note: though, again, no endorsement of sexual activity outside of the context of heterosexual marriage is possible from a Catholic perspective, I have long thought that the general tone the Church has taken towards LGBT people has left so much to be desired (and that we should really recognize that civil marriage is quite distinct from Catholic sacramental marriage, and that some differences between the former and the latter are not really cause for excess concern). It must be understood that the above reflections are entirely theoretical and that facts on the ground must inform the Church's practical response. The love that exists between LGBT people is real and must be recognized as such by the Church; and I will not begrudge anybody their desire to be with the one they love. The Church's objections lie in the realm of sexual activity alone, and Catholics must remember that. It must also remember Jesus' proscription against judging, as well as Cardinal Ratzinger's 1986 reflections—

>It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the Church's pastors wherever it occurs. It reveals a kind of disregard for others which endangers the most fundamental principles of a healthy society. The intrinsic dignity of each person must always be respected in word, in action and in law.

>The human person, made in the image and likeness of God, can hardly be adequately described by a reductionist reference to his or her sexual orientation. Every one living on the face of the earth has personal problems and difficulties, but challenges to growth, strengths, talents and gifts as well. Today, the Church provides a badly needed context for the care of the human person when she refuses to consider the person as a "heterosexual" or a "homosexual" and insists that every person has a fundamental Identity: the creature of God, and by grace, his child and heir to eternal life.

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19861001_homosexual-persons_en.html

and the Catechism's call—

>They [homosexual persons] must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.

Respect. Compassion. Sensitivity. And I would add also: compassion and understanding. Our philosophical justifications for viewing sexual activity only as legitimate in the presence of an objective concrete referent (the possibility of the generation of a child and willingness to be responsible for said child) are, as has been made abundantly clear here, very theoretical. I do not think that we can practically expect all persons to recognize this theoretical logic and, still less, to be able to follow it. Gay people, gay Catholics, will fall in love powerfully and will find it difficult not to have sex. Though doctrinally our position is absolute, we must adopt a posture of compassion and sensitivity towards such persons, not one of judgment.

Nicholas Wolterstorff will be your man. And this will be your book. It's pretty technical and slow through the first 1/3 but it picks up. Wolterstorff does a fantastic job at keeping extremely technical and boring things interesting.

I do believe humans are valuable, immensely so. First off, without God (and especially without the Christian God), it seems almost impossible to ground any sorts of rights for human beings to have. If human beings do not have rights, it seems to follow they don't have any value (and I think the argument works the other way around as well).

Christians have a tendency to try and ground rights and value in the fact that they were created in the image of God. While I feel this pull, ultimately I don't think it is successful. Wolterstorff thinks, as do I, that if we ground human rights in the Image of God, then we need to get precisely at what this means. The bible, as Woltestorff thinks, always associates the Image of God with acting on dominion over the earth (exercising this sort of power human beings are endowed with). This is troublesome. Why? Well, there are human beings that clearly have value and rights but cannot exercise this sort of power (think fetuses, or those in a coma). What about them? It seems that we cannot ultimately ground value and rights in being created in the image of God.

This isn't a problem, thinks Wolterstorff; let's shift our thought to something that is more metaphysically powerful: God's love. Ultimately, Wolterstorff thinks that a society is just insofar as each and every human creature enjoys what they have a right to. Now your question is how can we get to a theory which satisfies this theory. Wolterstorff is brilliant here: because God loves each and every creature equally and permanently, an immense worth supervenes from that said love. With this value/worth, we can begin to ground rights. (He gets into Augustine's three forms of love which I wont explain here).

Let's suppose that I have a teddy bear. It doesn't have any inherent worth or value. But suppose I love this teddy bear with the love of attachment and benevolence. It is my teddy bear and because of how much I love it, it gains extreme value. If you were to wrong my teddy bear, not only would you be wronging the bear, but me! I think this is perfectly analogous with God's love (especially because God's love is absolutely perfect in every sense of the word). God loves each and every human being perfectly. Thus they have immense worth and value, etc. If God loves us, a great worth supervenes and thus we are able to ground rights in our worth through God's love.

If a human person is wronged, not only is the person's worth disrespected, but God is wronged. This is why justice is so important to God. I'll end with a quotation from Wolterstorff:

And God loves the presence of justice in society not because it makes for a society whose excellence God admires, but because God loves the members of society… God desires that each and every human being shall flourish, that each and every shall experience what the Old Testament writers call shalom. Injustice is perforce the impairment of shalom. That is why God loves justice. God desires the flourishing of each and every one of God’s human creatures; justice is indispensable to that. Love and justice are not pitted against each other but intertwined. (Justice: Rights & Wrongs)

Sorry for the short reply and the catpiss grammar. I'll come back later.

Good on you for diving into theology!

I think your goal of getting "all the topics straight" for yourself is a good one. Getting a sense for the playing field, so to speak, will give you the context within which to work through the elements.

Alister McGrath is hard to beat for this sort of organization. He isn't my favorite theologian ever (not that he's bad--just not my favorite), but for an introduction to theology, he's the best I know.

Theology: The Basics would be a phenomenal starting point. Here is why I like it so much:

1. The aforementioned organization is super helpful for getting a sense for the field.
   
2. While like everyone he comes from a particular theological perspective, McGrath really is trying to introduce theology generally here, and not argue for his personal systematic theological stances.
   
3. He is ridiculously easy to read. If anything, you may feel he's too accessible.
   
4. He introduces the major figures in the history of theology, which all the more provides context for engagement. This includes people McGrath definitely does not agree with. But it will help you get a sense for where ideas came from, and what other Christians, trying to be faithful to our God, have thought in their own struggles to understand God and the world.
   
5. Perhaps most importantly of all, he is pastoral in guiding his reader through an engagement with theology. For instance, at the end of many of his chapters, he has a selection from an important theological work. The first is from Calvin's Institutes. He includes this, not to prove a point, but to help the reader gain the skill of interpreting important theological texts. McGrath knows that his text is only a beginning, never intended to give all the answers, but instead there to help the reader engage theology beyond.
   
   If you'd like, you could also get his Theology: The Basic Readings, to supplement.
   
   My final recommendation couple of recommendations would be:
   
   
6. First go through the book fast, then go back and read. It is too easy to get bogged down when reading. Skim through the book to get a feel for it--maybe a couple minutes each chapter--then read, regularly referring back to the table of contents to keep a sense of the bigger picture.
   
7. Engage with other people. Come back here and post; DM me or another person if you'd like; talk to friends; audit a class at a local seminary, if you're near one. Find people who are knowledgeable, but much more importantly, find people who are encouraging and who make you want to read and learn more.
   
   Good luck, and God bless!

Write your story, but don't expect much. (Low expectations lead to pleasant surprises.) Religion is a very emotional topic for most people. Logic - usually - need not apply to the conversation.

I can empathize with you. My stepfather is wonderful. He has loved me and cared for me in ways beyond measure. And, he is not-quite-ultra-conservative in his beliefs. He has gay friends and is OK with gay marriage, but as for the rest, he has consumed the Fox News water. He thinks all Muslims should be banned from the US. He thinks Trump is a great businessman and would make a great president. He wants the military to solve all the world's problems. He thinks more guns = more safety.

I can quote more New Testament scripture than my dad can, but that doesn't matter. Also, prooftext as evidence is usually not the best from a source like the Bible. The book is so self-contradictory. The Gospel of Matthew says both "lay down your burdens" and "pick up your cross." Well, which one is it?!?

Instead, look into composed theologies.

• Theology of Peace by Paul Tillich
  
• Living Justice and Peace by Jerry Windley-Daoust
  
• Not in God's Name by Jonathan Sacks
  
  I will also warn you, that this could backfire. I have said these things to my dad before, only to get responses like, "I want peace, too, but Muslims don't," and "I just want to keep my family safe. If that means bombing (Syria/Iran/N. Korea), then that's what we have to do." Sigh.

>The point I was trying to make is that, in a power vacuum, churches are not going to react the same way as they did in the past. We've been there, and I do not think that humanity would accept it again.

I think that is a very bad assumption to make and it's based on a flawed understanding of human nature.

Monotheistic religions are all inherently defined by their exclusionary principals, and their intolerance to difference. They all lead to violence because the moral framework they construct only works if you can remove diversity of thought and enforce consistent belief. This so cleanly connects with our own tribal and evolutionary development, these beliefs invariably interconnect with our ethnic differences and become intertwined.

Ethnic cleansing is almost always religious cleansing. It becomes very complex to discuss the relationship of state/religion outside the context of the western world where we don't have the compounding factors of tribal and ethnic conflict. This is a big part of what has fucked us up so badly when dealing with Afghanistan and Iraq.

These religions have to be reflexively hostile to new information not already contained within the doctrine, because they all claim to already be in the possession of all relevant human knowledge, or have a connection to a divine source that can extend the doctrine. Either way, ultimately the church itself has to be the arbiter of what is "right" in the world or the whole thing doesn't work. I don't say this in a facile sense. There is a reason that canon and sharia law are so complex, and it's exactly this. Ultimately the church must either make the world incredibly simple for it's followers, or it must become incredibly complex and legalistic. Given that they will always be reflexively defending existing knowledge, not seeking new knowledge, they are always at least a little out of step with a rapidly advancing body of knowledge about the universe. They are under constant threat of having their divine authority up-ended, and that is the basis upon which their entire moral authority is built.

It is always easier and more credible to dismiss new information than to develop bridging logic to existing doctrine or belief. If you are a powerful religion in a weak state, it only makes sense to restrict the inflow of new information to the societies that you control.

If you are a weak religion in one or many powerful states, and you want to continue to exist, you had better become very good at adapting new information to what you already have. Both Islam and Christianity spread quickly in their early lives for a bunch of reasons, but 2 strong ones were:

1. people were by and large illiterate and or nothing was written down. If you made a goof about doctrine you could simply say it was misheard or misunderstood.
   
   
2. A great consequence of that was that you could simply make doctrine up on the fly to convert people and none of the other followers would even know. You could just say you hadn't gotten to that part yet.
   
   Once wide-spread literacy came about, and widespread access to religious texts became available, all the Abrahamic religions had to become legalistic. Much like how we still struggle to interpret the constitution, religion had to start explaining all the ways in which it failed to predict or understand phenomenon with now-unambiguous answers. It also had to continuously develop new reactions to new ideas and actions based on known and constrained and contradictory doctrine.
   
   So --- given all of that, what reason do I have to believe that existing religious pressures could undermine modern knowledge given a weakened secular state? Why would people put up with it?
   
   Dr. Paul actually makes the case very clearly. There are a handful of factors that powerful players use to gain control over societies. I'm going to massively gloss over most of them, but two of the big ones in free states are:
   
   
3. Control of childhood education
   
4. Control of social charity
   
   Generally speaking, if you can instill beliefs when people are young, they become very resistant to change as they get older. Crucially, if you can influence the ages where we're cementing in the neurons for shared social behavior almost everything else is easy to deal with.
   
   And one of the few times in adult life when our brains are actually willing to rewire those neurons is in times of crises. Get a divorce, have a loved one die, go bankrupt, and you start questioning the world view that got you there. If the church is there to reinforce your belief, provide comfort, and explain why god does painful things to good people, your work is pretty much done.
   
   So what you don't do is come in and immediately tear down everything. You've got too many people with different beliefs that will resist that kind of change and you don't have the political capital to make that happen without a revolt. This is still a "free" country after all. So you dismantle the social safety net, and you take over childhood education.
   
   Within 1 generation you can start defunding scientific research. Within 2 generations you can start putting up the great american firewall. Within 3 generations you can be Iran, within 5 you can be North Korea.
   
   All along the way, the church can take over more and more aspects of daily life and more and more parts of the government can be dismantled until they are primarily a form of political theater.
   
   Over time you can become less legalistic and explanatory, and more and more authoritarian.
   
   To win this, I don't have to change you, I have to change your grandkids.
   
   If you're willing to kill a lot of people, you can do this much much faster, but that would be a very hard thing to pull off in the US without some pretty extensive prep-work.
   
   This is all extremely high level, and I'm sure there are a lot of holes here, but this is the general idea. To really do it justice you really do have to write a book. You really need to have a sense of developmental neuroscience, political history, religious history, evolution and psychology.
   
   Here's one book that can covers some pretty big parts of it though:
   http://www.amazon.com/Name-God-Evolutionary-Religious-Philosophy/dp/1405183810
   
   See what I mean about this being really really complex?
   
   EDIT:
   
   Just wanted to add - why do I think this won't happen in the US?
   
   The US has long been a borderline plutarchy, and corporations, especially international corporations more or less functionally determine a lot of policy making in the US. These corporations love big government. They may hate taxes (largely because they have no interest in commanding the allegiance of the public), but they need a big government for lots of reasons. I'd highly recommend reading the leaked state department cables for a stark lesson in who our diplomatic wing of government actually serves.
   
   If for some reason the federal government became weak and a power vacuum emerged, the rich would almost certainly focus all their efforts on re-establishing it. Corporations have much much more money than organized churches, and the churches would lose every time, at least in "free" societies.
   
   Most of the history of the western world can be defined by this conflict of aristocracy, the merchant class, the church, and the general public. Currently the merchant class is winning by a lot. Although arguably with the best outcomes so far.
   

Beyond the obvious choices, Watts' The Book, Ram Dass' Be Here Now, Huxley's Doors of Perception, Leary’s The Psychedelic Experience, and of course Fear and Loathing (all of these should be on the list without question; they’re classics), here are a some others from a few different perspectives:

From a Secular Contemporary Perspective

Godel Escher Bach by Douglass Hofstadter -- This is a classic for anyone, but man is it food for psychedelic thought. It's a giant book, but even just reading the dialogues in between chapters is worth it.

The Mind’s Eye edited by Douglass Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett – This is an anthology with a bunch of great essays and short fictional works on the self.

From an Eastern Religious Perspective

The Tao is Silent by Raymond Smullyan -- This is a very fun and amusing exploration of Taoist thought from one of the best living logicians (he's 94 and still writing logic books!).

Religion and Nothingness by Keiji Nishitani – This one is a bit dense, but it is full of some of the most exciting philosophical and theological thought I’ve ever come across. Nishitani, an Eastern Buddhist brings together thought from Buddhist thinkers, Christian mystics, and the existentialists like Neitzsche and Heidegger to try to bridge some of the philosophical gaps between the east and the west.

The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way by Nagarjuna (and Garfield's translation/commentary is very good as well) -- This is the classic work from Nagarjuna, who lived around the turn of the millennium and is arguably the most important Buddhist thinker after the Buddha himself.

From a Western Religious Perspective

I and Thou by Martin Buber – Buber wouldn’t approve of this book being on this list, but it’s a profound book, and there’s not much quite like it. Buber is a mystical Jewish Philosopher who argues, in beautiful and poetic prose, that we get glimpses of the Divine from interpersonal moments with others which transcend what he calls “I-it” experience.

The Interior Castle by St. Teresa of Avila – this is an old book (from the 1500s) and it is very steeped in Christian language, so it might not be everyone’s favorite, but it is perhaps the seminal work of medieval Christian mysticism.

From an Existentialist Perspective

Nausea by Jean Paul Sartre – Not for the light of heart, this existential novel talks about existential nausea a strange perception of the absurdity of existence.

The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus – a classic essay that discusses the struggle one faces in a world inherently devoid of meaning.

----
I’ll add more if I think of anything else that needs to be thrown in there!

Much like you, I've also recently developed a strong interest in Levinas. I've yet to read him, though, so please take that into account when considering my recommendations.

I recently asked some of my professors and a friend of mine who wrote his master's thesis on Levinas to help me out with getting started. This is what they recommended:

• This introductory book by Colin Davis has been the most recommended to me. Davis succeeds in the difficult task of executing a clear exposition of Levinas' difficult prose without sacrificing too much of its nuance.
  
• Regarding Levinas' own writing, begin with On Escape. This work develops Levinas' fundamental ideas on Being and alterity, demonstrates how he does phenomenology, and reveals his engagement with Heidegger and Husserl
  
• The two next best works to read are Existence and Existents and Time and the Other.
  
  I'm not too knowledgeable of Husserl, so all I can really recommend from him is the Cartesian Meditations, which sort of serves as an introduction to Husserl's own method of phenomenology.
  
  For Heidegger, the most important work in this regard is certainly Being and Time. If you have the time, I recommend picking up the Basic Writings and reading through most of it.
  
  On a final note, Levinas was steeped within the Jewish intellectual tradition. Jewish philosophers often emphasize the role of community and social contextuality in general. It might serve you well to read works such as Martin Buber's I and Thou and Gabriel Marcel's Being and Having.
  
  EDIT: Another good compliment to Levinas is Maurice Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception.

1. Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Collection. The only fiction that I could re-read it without finding it boring or predictable.

2. The Post-American World. This is the book that shaped my understanding of contemporary foreign policy from an American perspective. I believed that my counterpart will gain an insight about my thoughts on major international conflict by reading this book;

• Freedom Under the Law. This is not really a book but a lecture delivered by Alfred Denning, the then British judge. In this book he laid down his legal philosophy regarding to how freedom is a commodity that should be cherished by individuals while state should be very careful in regulating it.
  
  3. With Reverence and Awe: Returning to the Basics of Reformed Worship. This book outline a compelling argument that I can't ignore: worship ultimately is broader than singing psalms or hymns to praise God. Also, I am attracted to the idea that liturgy during the Lord's day service is necessarily dialogical - it is a dialogue between God and His people. In essence, this book introduced me to Reformed understanding of Regulative Principle of Worship.
  
  
• Principles of Conduct: Aspects of Biblical Ethics. In this book I became increasingly aware that ethics issues can be intrinsically linked to our understanding of the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ.
  
  4.1 Probably NIV ed 1984. It is easy to understand for a seeker.
  
  4.2 KJV. Language used is beautiful

A few good books that I found helpful, at least for my own benefit (mid-20s, similar situation):

• "The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth" by Dr. M. Scott Peck
  
• "Further Along the Road Less Traveled: The Unending Journey Towards Spiritual Growth" by Dr. M. Scott Peck. In this book he discusses his four stages of spirituality, from (1) sinner to (2) churchgoing/religious to (3) skeptic/freethinker and finally (4) independently spiritual.
  
• "America's Four Gods: What We Say about God--and What That Says about Us" by Paul Froese and Christopher Bader is an intriguing look at people's views of God along a two-dimensional plane describing God's judgmentality and activity in human affairs, and how that affects their politics, morals, religion and other viewpoint (with atheists for control). This would be great for both your friend and her parents.
  
• Getting a little deeper into ethics and morality, "Justice: Rights and Wrongs" and "Justice in Love" by ethical professor Nicholas Wolterstorff can be good, especially for the parents, in highlighting the need to respect people as rational moral agents with the right to make their own decisions—as well as a rights-based system of justice that is different from authoritarian Christianity (without being moral anarchy).
  
  EDIT: Link formatting issues.

For a good textbook overview, McGrath has a great book called Historical Theology

He also has a book exclusively about justification, since you mentioned that above. I read these as a teenager, and they proved to be great starting points.

Otherwise, check out the sidebar to r/christianity for online reading of classic authors. Read some basic treatises like Augustine's Nature and Grace, Luther's on the Freedom of a Christian, and Introduction to Romans.

I'll always plug my man Gerhard Forde, too :) Books like Where God Meets Man and On Being a Theologian of the Cross are short, accessible books with a perspective that I think is very helpful in approaching the "problems" of God and faith. Justification is his main theme.

Also, just curious, what's your username about?

> Parish libraries are often composed of donated materials and this particular parish library already had the books in question.

Just because someone donated it, doesn't mean the parish had to use it. For example, if someone donated a copy of this book, it better not show up on a parish bookshelf as it has been censured by the Holy See.

> The banishing of these texts is what concerns me.

Banishing? Rather strong word there. The books were simply removed from the library. I'm sure those were not the only copies in existence and parishioners can still obtain a copy elsewhere if they wish to read them.

> This was a Newman Center, a place that by its very nature (a university setting) is tied to intellectual discovery and broad interaction with disparate viewpoints. I would argue that a parish is also by its very nature a place of higher learning (spiritual, ethical, and social).

No it is not. It is a parish whose mission is to minister to people who attend non-Catholic colleges. The college itself is the place of "intellectual discovery and broad interaction with disparate viewpoints", not the parish. The parish is the one place on campus where students can escape "disparate viewpoints" and focus on one thing, the Lord.

> Fiction is hardly a priority for parish libraries as it is, the locus in this Newman library as it is with others -- I'm speculating here -- was on philosophical, theoretical, socially-inclined, and perhaps non-Catholic religious texts. A treatise on Zen Buddhism is not comparable to the base-level pulp that climbs the NYT bestseller list.

No it isn't, but a book about Zen Buddhism has no place in a parish library. Have read the Bible at all? Do you think God wants his pastors supplying pagan books to his flock?

> My very point is that the apostolic mission requires an intellectual engagement with non-Catholic sources of knowledge.

This parish is on a campus. The Zimmerman Library which is filled with non-Catholic sources of knowledge is literally a three minute walk from the chapel and even allows non-students to check out books. Perhaps those books the pastor removed will end up there.

> Pope Benedict famously co-produced/co-wrote an exquisite talk with German philosopher Jürgen Habermas (a Marxist & atheist) which I think serves as a model for this sort of rigorous encounter.

A debate between a Neo-Marxist and a Theologian serves as a model? I have said this before and I'll say it again. The pastor has better things to do than to debate secularization with a Marxist at his parish. This is a parish. Not debate club. Not a graduate-level theology class. The pastor is not your professor. The pastor is your pastor. He is your confessor. He is to help you grow on your personal journey of faith. He is to administer the sacraments to you. He, with the authority of his bishop, is to help you fully participate in the Body of Christ, not help you fully participate in whatever intellectual pursuit you fancy.

I'm not very well-versed in universal themes, or in Islam, but I have a few sources that might help you with some of the Christian side of your research:

The Christian Classics Ethereal Library has free PDFs of many primary sources from the early church fathers. Christian belief has taken many different forms over the last two millennia, and seeing some of their unique perspectives might help inspire you.

Also, The Mosaic of Christian Belief covers a lot of the different views held by different Christian groups today. If you're looking for a wide variety of thoughts and positions, it might be a good place to start.

Edit:

For Christian ethics, you might look at N.T. Wright's book After You Believe, or Samuel Wells' Christian Ethics: An Introductory Reader which includes a lot of great selections from different writers throughout history.

There's full books on apologetics. Honestly some of them are bad. Some good. Same with websites. When I speak of Christian philosophy I mean folks ranging (and ranging in answers!) from Augustine to Aquinas to Kierkegaard. Getting a book on basic historical theology like this one by Alister McGrath (a former atheist with a PHd in both Theology and Biochemistry who has also written apologetic books) would be a good place to start.

I found reading historical theology, and finding how much of what I took granted for what faith was being really modern, to be one of the most helpful things.

The website Seedbed and Reknew have good resources as well with varying answers.

Here's some on the problem of evil.

Article: seedbed--the problem of natural evil

Video: 7 minute seminary--the problem of evil

Alvin Platinga, philosopher Notre Dame, might have somethings you're interested in

But, well, for me, I started reading Christian existentialists like the Kierkegaardian Catholic novelist Walker Percy (which is pretty obtuse of a thing to say). He presents more questions than answers, and I'm a literary guy so you might not be into that.

I will say G.K. Chesterton's Chapter in Orthodoxy "The Ethics of Elfland" was also something which awakened my theological imagination.

And I also think Greg Boyd, one of the only megachurch pastors I can stand to listen to, also has some great resources. His popularization of "Open Theism" theology (that God is subject to time just was we are and knows all possible realities rather than knowing a single determined reality) has been a more popular "theodicy" (answer to how there can be a good God over a world of evil) recently. Here's his website.

Tim Keller's "The Reason for God" is a popular level book which uses everything from New Testament scholarship (like N.T. Wright--who is very good) to evolution's compatibility with Christianity (cf. Francis Collins, a Christian and director of the Human Genome project) to create a popular-level explanation of Christian faith. Each chapter takes a different common question. I don't agree with his take on everything but it's a good place to start.

Over the past 3 years I've also found good conversation on /r/christianity. You may want to search for old posts there and see what folks have to say. You'll find a variety of answers.

For anyone else reading this: don't be deterred by this guy's tone, Josef Pieper's Leisure, the Basis of Culture is an excellent little book which explains that true leisure - taking the time to learn, or create - is the fundamental basis of Western culture. And it's pretty true: everyone from Socrates to Virgil to Dante to Pieper himself (as a professor and philosopher) spent significant amounts of non-working time attempting to achieve something greater than a mere occupation.

Think of the difference between a vacation and a professor's sabbatical. According to Pieper:

>We mistake leisure for idleness, and work for creativity.

Furthermore, in abandoning TV and spending his weekends reading, this guy is trying to spend his free timeaccording to a Pieperian ideal of leisure:

>Leisure is the disposition of receptive understanding, of contemplative, beholding, and immersion — in the real. In leisure, there is, furthermore, something of the serenity of ”not-being–able–to–grasp,” of the recognition of the mysterious character of the world, and the confidence of blind faith, which can let things go as they will; there is in it something of the ”trust in the fragmentary, that forms the very life and essence of history.

However, you can't do High Leisure 24 hours a day. This Redditor illustrates this by spending some of his time bashing people on Reddit and bitching about his fellow parishioners and their iPhones and 'splaining to us how using Reddit on a desktop computer is philosophically superior to having portable devices on WiFi. Socrates illustrated it by getting drunk (read Plato's Symposium).

I'm sure Josef Pieper, being a European professor living in Saxony, Germany, went on a vacation and to a pub now and then.

What this Redditor probably needs to read along with Pieper's book on culture is his book on prudence and virtue.

I highly recommend it for an easy-to-read, Thomist organization of the four cardinal virtues of Catholicism.

These are some of the better books I've accumulated in school:

• An Introduction to the New Testament - Raymond Brown. Exactly what the title says.
  
  
• The Early Church - Henry Chadwick. This is more of a historical overview of the development of the Church, etc.
  
  
• The Shape of Catholic Theology - Aiden Nichols. This book is kind of a dense read. Not gonna lie.
  
  
• At the Origin of the Christian Claim - Luigi Giussani.
  
  
• The Craft of Theology - Avery Dulles.
  
  
• The Theology of the Church - Charles Jornet. - This one is about ecclesiology, or the structure of the Church.
  
  
• Early Christian Fathers -Cyril Richardson. Includes primary sources like letters and homilies.
  
  
• The Trinitarian Crontroversy - William Rusch. Very good history of early heresies, like Arianism and Nestorianism, and how they pushed the Church to develop the Creed.
  
  
• Called to Communion - Joseph Ratzinger.
  
  
• Catholicism: Christ and the Common Destiny of Man - Henri de Lubac. This book is fantastic!
  
  
• The Meaning of Tradition - Yves Congar.
  
  
• Introduction to Moral Theology - Romanus Cessario.
  
  
• The Major Works -Anselm of Canterbury. Nice collection, see especially: Cur Deus Homo.
  
  
• On the Incarnation - Ignatius of Antioch. I LOVED this one!
  
  
• Credo for Today - Joseph Ratzinger. Basically anything by Ratzinger.

I don't know if they're the strongest arguments, but I'll point you to some of the most interest ones.

First, a rather straightforward one, Paul Tillich's Dynamics of Faith. Tillich starts off talking about faith as a human phenomenon, but the latter half of the book veers off into Tillich's own brand of theism.

Secondly, Rudolf Otto's The Idea of the Holy, which analyzes the notion of holiness in much the same way that Tillich's book analyzes the notion of faith. This one is more structurally complex than the first, but like the first it's endgame is concerned with Otto's own existential protestantism.

Thirdly, Martin Buber's I and Thou takes a much less analytical approach. Buber's focus is on the nature of relation, and could be contrasted to both Otto's focus on the holy as a kind of experience.

Incidentally, all three of those are in the 150-200 page range, so apart from their increasing density of ideas, they ought to make for fairly short reads.

While you're at it, you might want to take a stab at Leo Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God is Within You. Yes, that Tolstoy. He was a Christian Anarchist. I haven't read it, so I can't promise you that it presents an argument for theism, but it should, if nothing else, present a novel view of Christian theism.

And lastly, the most recent heavyweight (in more sense than one) tome on the value of theism, which I'm gearing up to read myself, is Charles Taylor's A Secular Age. The general theme appears to be about the persistent vitality of religion amid the 18th-20th century growth of unbelief.

Alister McGrath's "Christian Theology: An Introduction" was super helpful for me.
He also has another called "Historical Theology" which I have yet to read, but have heard many great things about. He does a great job of tracing Christian theology throughout history, and framing it in a digestible, easy to understand way.

To begin with, I suspect I would ultimately agree with you about a reasonable approach to accepting refugees in today's conditions. However! Your assertion is stronger than that: you asserted that "it cannot be regarded in any way Christian . . . ", so all I will do is give an example where I believe a government guided by Christian principles would exclude refugees.


A government is unique in that it is responsible for distributive justice, the distribution of goods within society according to what it owed to each individual. This is balanced by other aspects of justice, but it covers things like law enforcement, building roads, and welfare. I take this as a Christian principle because St. Thomas Aquinas wrote about it; my main source is The Four Cardinal Virtues by Catholic philosophy Joseph Pieper. So the notion that the government must defend its citizens is not just a matter of self-interest, but of natural law, and therefore God's law.


The Christian conception of love influences justice to expand it in important ways, so of course a government must have some concern for foreigners. How much concern? That's a difficult question, and I don't think it can be fully answered outside of a real situation. In many areas of the law, a full understanding of the commands of Christ would likely compel the government to treat foreigners as if they were citizens, but ultimately the government can't completely fail its natural obligations to its own citizens. It can demand that its citizens take on hardships and stretch their means for the sake of helping refugees, but it can't endanger their lives (and there's a balance to strike somewhere between those two points).


Thus, if an entire nation was fanatically enraged at another, and there was a credible suggestion the angry nation was willing to resort to terrorism, the target nation would be entirely justified in blocking all refugees from the angry nation for fear of terrorism. In a situation like that, if they weren't at war already, I'm sure they would be soon.


---


I say this, although I am convinced it does not describe the situation that the U.S. is currently in. The real ability to screen refugees is also enormously important.

So after reading this, I simply typed in "catholic natural law" into Amazon to see what books would pop up.

Searching for a Universal Ethic: Multidisciplinary, Ecumenical, and Interfaith Responses to the Catholic Natural Law Tradition https://www.amazon.com/dp/0802868444/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_-Qubvb0YCRD8S
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0802868444/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_-Qubvb0YCRD8S

This was the first listing. It seems like an interesting read, might get you started in the right direction. If anything, ask your priest! They're very well-read individuals. Good luck!

To learn about the history and basic ideas of doctrines and dogmas, a good textbook is Alister McGrath's Christian Theology: An Introduction
It's definitely worth the investment. Even picking up a cheaper earlier version is great.
The Bible itself is a great tool, but having something alongside to help make sense of the ideas in it makes it much easier.

Non-fiction:

• Summa of the Summa
  
• Anselm's Monoslogion, Proslogion, and Gaunilo's Reply
  
• Peter Abelard's Ethics and Dialoge Between a Philosopher, a Christian, and a Jew
  
• This is just barely pre-Reformation, but I think it is valuable because it explains the views of someone who was faithful to the Catholic Church during the Reformation, but still thought it should change: Erasmus' In Praise of Folly
  
  Fiction
  
  
• A Canticle for Leibowitz
  
• The Lord of the Rings

The book that will stay a classic: Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem.

For Spirituality: Desiring God by John Piper. There is a reason why this book has become popular again with a lot of younger people. It takes Joy in God seriously.

For Apologetics: The Reason for God by Tim Keller. The man has dealt with skeptical New Yorker's for years. His book shows some deep thinking.

For Historic Developments in Theology: The Christian Theology Reader by Alister McGrath. This was a textbook in seminary. My prof. used to say that if you read it and do the study questions (and it's a long book I might add) it would be the equivalent of an MA in theology. It has writings from different people in church history for you to read and think through. It has a companion called Christian Theology: An introduction.

Any book from these authors (especially McGrath and Grudem) would be a great read for you.

Wait, the same Dr. Timothy Harvie that wrote the 150 dollar ebook titled "Jürgen Moltmann's Ethics of Hope: Eschatological Possibilities For Moral Action (Ashgate New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology and Biblical Studies)"?!

Please ask him to give all his blog posts on http://www.startrek.com/ equally long titles, that would be awesome!

Anyway, it was an interesting read, thanks for the link.

https://www.amazon.com/Christian-Theology-Introduction-Alister-McGrath/dp/1444335146


This is a very popular book and is used as a text book for foundation studies at a few different universities. Also there is a book called Faith Seeking understanding by Migliore that is good as well.

I appreciated Just Love by Farley
https://www.amazon.com/Just-Love-Framework-Christian-Sexual/dp/0826429246/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1503430756&sr=8-1&keywords=farley+just+love

This thread has lots of good answers. There are SO MANY resources out there, both in print and online, it can feel overwhelming. You could always go for an introduction like from David Ford or Alister McGrath. I personally like Mysteries of Faith by Mark McIntosh.

Not bullshit at all. Here's a book on the subject that you will never read because you're probably too afraid to (with enough source references to trump all the "sources" quoted by TRP for the entire duration of their existence as a subredditt):
Just Love; a book that explains the history of religion, culture, and sex, as well as sexual ethics today

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0268001030/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_eT9Kyb18C377R

Best book on the topic I have ever read.

Use this new translation, it's much closer to the original and much cleaner. Amazon Link

I wasn't specifically looking for secular literature for exactly that reason.

Someone mentioned this book that was written by a nun and might be helpful to her. She was raised Catholic.

For reference, you can find this quote in Lewis' collection God in the Dock, specifically "The Humanitarian Theory as Punishment." It's one of my favorites. And while I'm not a Lewis expert, I believe the sentiment recurs throughout his work.

Start with Nadia Bolz Weber, and especially her recent book Shameless.

For a scholarly approach, I tend to recommend Just Love by Margaret Farley.

If you can find it, I also recommend a lesser known book Memories of Bliss by Jo Ind.

Other books that have been helpful are Redeeming Sex by Debra Hirsch, Damaged Goods by Dianna Anderson, and His Porn, Her Pain by Marty Klein for a very different perspective on pornography than the usual moral panic.

If books aren't your thing then start with this podcast interview with Nadia Bolz Weber.

The American conservative church is heavily invested in controlling people's sexuality through shame, guilt, and judgement. But it doesn't have to be that way. There are better ways to live.

Um, no.

I'd advise reading up on Christian sexual ethics: Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics; Sex + Faith: Talking with Your Child from Birth to Adolescence

Also, this one might be helpful: Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free

A lot of your questions are answered in Alister McGrath's "Christian Theology - an introduction". It is a very handy tool for beginners in Theology as well as more serious study
/http://www.amazon.com/Christian-Theology-Introduction-Alister-McGrath/dp/1444335146

By "not believe in birth control" I assume you mean "not believe contraception is moral". Obviously we believe that there exist pills that are referred to as "birth control" pills.

Contraception (verb) is immoral according to Natural Law philosophy, as well as Catholic Teaching.

It may seem like a hard pill to swallow (pun absolutely intended), but this is the teaching of the Catholic Church, and has been (albeit less formally) for almost 2000 years. In fact, up until about a century ago, this belief was held more or less universally by all Christians.

If you're interested in why contraception is immoral, I suggest reading:

• Humanae Vitae
  
• Love and Responsibility
  
• Theology of the Body

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0802808689/qid=1146954305/theindepeende-20/002-6508816-9461647

One of the books I used as a source when writing about religion is "In The Name of God" which is about the evolution of religion and its role in intergroup conflict: http://www.amazon.com/In-Name-God-Evolutionary-Religious/dp/1405183810