(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best ethics in christian theology books

Just read a few chapters of this and it's really damn good. It's very theological, which makes it a bit difficult to process sometimes for Heathens Like Me, and sometimes he overstates his case, but I've really caught on to the idea that, given the simple fact that people have a limited amount of time to absorb information about a limited amount of functions in society, some things just have to be taken on faith. That certain societal positions should have authority, or at least, should be able to produce statements towards which the public is automatically biased, seems intuitive if you stare at it long enough, but, I've found, is sorely missing from public discourse. Nobody gets on a rally stage to talk about how kids these days need to listen to the intelligence officials or the economists or the biologists or what have you because they have training: if a politician is appealing to the inherent trustworthiness of the expert, it's always "common sense," or, in certain circles, a very thinly-veiled attempt to align one political identity with sophisticated use of evidence and the other with backwoods ignorance.

Point is, our political culture is severely biased against a positive idea of authority of any kind. This doesn't mean, mind you, physical authority, and it shouldn't mean, as the author seems to think, authority handed down from God: it's cultural authority baked into institutions and professions over the decades so we can implicitly trust -- or at least think a bit before we question -- that someone actually knows what they're talking about. It's a systemic problem in ancient societies too: the more I read about it, the more I'm beginning to realize that an innate distrust of technocracy is pretty much why Athenian Democracy turned out the way it did (which is, if you haven't read your Thucydides, very, very badly). They trusted the authority of the collective -- a very closely guarded, anti-elite, "pureblood Athenian" demos identity -- over the authority of the individual, and so competence -- outside the public slaves who wound up rising to management positions because they were the only people who stayed on the same job for more than a year -- was dangerous, and often worthy of exile.

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This is partly because in much of Greek political philosophy individual competence was inseparable from social class, so the Demos was this gigantic hivemind of Proleterian self-interest and the Aristos was a smaller hivemind that was arguably more competent at just about everything but also looked out exclusively for its own self-interest: oligarchy vs. democracy back then boiled down almost entirely to whose interest better served a broader array of citizens -- anyway, I'll touch on that in a later post.

That's exactly why I am reinforcing what you said. I'm not a religious type (more spiritual than anything), but a friend showed me a book that has a chapter on marriage... The whole books is pretty decent, but the friend was trying to help me out: https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Quiz-Surprising-Answers-W-W-J-D/dp/1490426140

I'm a Pentecostal and I am interested in liberation theology. You might be interested in The Liberating Spirit by Eldin Villafane (I also recommend Beyond Cheap Grace). I second the Yolanda Pierce suggestion. To be honest though, most Pentecostals aren't big into liberation theology and are enamored with white-monogamous-heteropatriarchy, so you might have problems finding stuff. Pentecostals and Charismatics for Peace and Justice is probably the closest thing to an application of liberation theology within Pentecostalism.

Read Chapter 17 from Tim Keller's "Center Church". In his typical fashion, he attempts to take several views of the Church's relation to culture to find the strengths and weaknesses of each. Here is a diagram from that chapter.


You will also find interesting the two interviews which Mortification of Spin did with Van Drunen [listen] and Tim Keller [listen]. VD holds the NL2K position, and Tim Keller falls more on the Transformationalist side. By listening to each interview I think you will have a good idea of how to start approaching the issue.

Edit: Also, just as a side note - the best Christian book on Ethics I have encountered is John Frame's "The Doctrine of the Christian Life" which is basically a 900 page exposition on the Ten Commandments.

I would also want to mention David Clough who has written a very good book on Animal Theology from a Christian perspective. This is the first volume of two (I believe), the second of which he hasn't released yet. My understanding is Volume 1 lays out a systematic theology or framework for how to think about animals and their status within Creation while Volume 2 will attempt to apply that theology in hopes to answer questions about how we should treat animals in our lives today.

Consider doing some reading on theology.

For example, Theology, the Basics by Alister McGrath is pretty good and accessible. I also really enjoyed Hans Kung's Great Christian Thinkers: Paul, Origen, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Schleiermacher, Barth.

Overcoming Sin and Temptation (Owen) - https://www.amazon.com/Overcoming-Temptation-Foreword-John-Piper-ebook/dp/B0028BEE4C/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1511369319&sr=8-2&keywords=john+owen+sin

Holiness (Ryle) - https://www.amazon.com/Holiness-J-C-Ryle/dp/1481031287/

Those books are long but classics on sin/temptation in general.

I would get married ASAP if you are sure she's the one. I sure wouldn't make it being engaged very long. We are to flee from sexual sin and that's hard to do being engaged.

It could be argued that the government contract isn't the point of marriage. 1000 years ago you would just start having sex and have a family. So you aren't sleeping around and you are committed. I don't want to say it's ok though either.

I'd focus on marriage counseling also, it can be so helpful. There's a lot of arguments and ways to deal with them when they come.

I probably would agree with this guy though, many couples do break up while being engaged, not saying you will or anything - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pKceYIshIU

I totally understand, it sounded a lot like where I went to college which was an Evangelical Christian University in Southern California, APU. If it is the same place you can always shoot me a message, I may have more specific suggestions. My roommate did his senior seminar in Psychology and wrote on a similar sort of topic.

Anyway, I'd suggest starting with some kind of introductory text that gives an overview. I believe professors at APU used (Christian Theology: An Introduction)[https://www.amazon.com/Christian-Theology-Introduction-Alister-McGrath/dp/1118869575/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1488312822&sr=8-2&keywords=christian+theology+an+introduction] in a lot of their classes and this might give you a good start. He will probably source a lot of his material as well.

You may also be interested in looking at Liberation Theology's approach to sin. Check out Gustavo Gutierrez's (A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation) for an approach that might connect well with substance abuse. He has one quote where he says, "sin is not considered as an individual, private, or merely interior reality. Sin is regarded as a social, historical fact, the absence of brotherhood and love in relationships among men." I could see this connecting with substance use disorders.

McGrath's book should hopefully help you get a more traditional understanding of sin and human nature, where you can agree or disagree. And I think you might find things from the liberation perspective valuable as well? They tend to think in terms of systems, structures, and communities in way that traditional theology doesn't often do. Anyway, hope it is a helpful start, and let me know if I can offer you more resources.

Guy who studies Christian Ethics here. Actually, many Christians adhere to a kind of religious ethics where they have to act morally because God commands it.

Sure, it's not the popular view. Neither is it the exclusive motivation for Christians to act morally. But to say that's not why any Christian believes they are supposed to be moral is just patently false.

See "divine command theory." Popular proponents include John Hare and, my own professor, Robert Merrihew Adams.

Probably Seven Deadly Sins by Corey Taylor

So funny yet tearjerking at the same time, with a great message throughout. If you’re okay with lots of profanity I’d recommend this book a thousand times over.

I see SyntheticSyience already has cleared things up pretty well, but I thought I could contribute with what he says immediately after that quote:

"I am well aware that the claim that Jesus has abolished war will strike many as absurd. We live, as I just acknowledged, in a world of war. So what could it possibly mean to say that through his death and resurrection Jesus has brought an end to war?

... [T]here is another world that is more real than a world determined by way: the world that has been redeemed by Christ. The world that has been redeemed by Christ has an alternative politics to the constitutional orders that Bobbitt [a philosopher he has just engaged briefly] thinks are established by war. The name for that alternative politics is 'church'.

The statement that there is a world without war in a war.determined world is an eschatological remark. Christians live in two ages in which, as Oliver O'Donovan puts it, 'the passing age of the principalities and powers has overlapped with the coming age of God's kingdom.' O'Donovan calls this the 'doctrine of the Two' because it expresses the Christian conviction that Christ has triumphed over the rulers of this age by making the rule of God triumphantly present in the mission of the church. Accordingly the church is not at liberty to withdraw from the world but must undertake its mission in the confident hope of success."

This is from his recent book, "War and the American Difference". The Kindle sample won't tell me which pages, but it's from the introduction.

The idea is that he paganized the church.

A brief starting place is Constantinian Shift.

Unfortunately, I can't find it online, but a good scholarly look at it has been done by John Howard Yoder in Priestly Kingdom, particularly the chapter entitled The Constantinian Sources of Western Social Ethics.

There's a pretty good experience related all of this in this book:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1453780238/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1396567625&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40

TL;DR God's Politics by Jim Wallis is a decent starting place for frustrated American Christians in the modern era if nothing else. It's a little dated now, but it's still relevant. In general, any good Christian political theology will a) define the difference between the Church and the State and b) articulate how those two entities will relate to each other, especially in the life of the individual believer. You should step back from applying your faith to US politics until you can articulate your general Christian view of how believers around the world are to engage with States around the world. Once you have your broad principles of Christian political theology established, only then turn your gaze to US politics to apply what you believe.

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If I may be so direct, I think your core problem may be that you need a clearer political theology, not that you need to abandon politics altogether. As a pastor who's now lived all over the USA, I've noticed that many—if not the large majority—of professed Christians in America hear “faith and politics” and immediately assume you're talking about the religious right, the Moral Majority, etc. But the modern religious right is a rather new invention, one that didn't exist until the 1970s and 80s and emerged out of a targeted effort by Jerry Falwell, his fundamentalist allies, and Reagan's campaign team to link conservative politics and conservative theology. While today the politics of Falwell and friends is seen as normative for Christian politics, in reality there are nearly 2000 years history of Christian political thought, one in which you have everything from Prohibition organizers to pacifists rejecting politics altogether to Nazi theologians in the 1930s to medieval monarchists to Christian anarchists to the Civil Rights movement. In the words of Inigo Montoya, “Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.”

First, let's talk scriptures. You've got Romans 13:1-7, Matthew 22:15-22/Mark 12:13-17/Luke 20:20-26, Jeremiah 29:1-14, Isaiah 10:1-4, lots of case studies in Christian relationships to the State in Acts and the New Testament letters, and possible fodder from the Old Testament depending upon how you see the historic relationship between God and Israel via the law/covenant (i.e. setting the basic legal/economic framework for Israel), the monarchies (i.e. case studies in God's reactions to state actions), and the prophets (i.e. God's repeated calls for justice) speaking to God's present-day desires for any non-ancient-Israelite State. I've missed a few passages and themes, but those scriptures are the ones you're most likely to see in any Christian political theology and so should read on your own before going any further. You have to consider a lot of personal ethics stuff from scripture too. By what rule and on what scriptural grounds do we determine which Christian ethics—if any—apply to our political life and which—if any—do not. Does Amos' call for justice and the Old Testament decree of Jubilee speak to how we vote? If our State wants to go to war, how do we as Christians decide whether we support that war or not: do we reject all war, create a just war formula by which to evaluate wars, or give blanket endorsement to all that the State does? In general, how do we decide which parts of scripture speak only to our personal ethics, which to only our politics, and which to both?

Here is where Christian tradition comes in. u/jmj1970 cites Martin Luther's Two Kingdoms Doctrine, which essentially declares that some realms of human life belong to the State and some to the Church but that God ordains both kingdoms to our benefit. This idea is an old one, stretching back to St. Augustine in the 300s, and it's a good starting place for anyone new to Christian political theology. There are a few variations on this theme you might also consider. For instance, Abraham Kuyper advocated the notion of sphere sovereignty in the late 1800s, which expands the ideas of Two Kingdoms to set aside protected spheres of life not only for the State and Church but also for concepts like the family, economic life, etc. to ensure no one entity has totalitarian control of the human person. In general, most Christian theologies of politics will describe how the Church and State are distinct... and then go on to describe the nature of that relationship.

This is where you really get diversity in Christian political theology. To split this section into two broad categories, you have the Christian idealists and the Christian realists. Among the idealists and on a more pacifistic note, you've got John Howard Yoder and acolytes of his like Shane Claiborne—speaking out of the Mennonite pacifist tradition—who argue that the Church is wholly separate from but called to act prophetically towards the State, favoring personal pacifism, prophetic political acts, and the rejection anything that would appear to 'baptize' the State with the Church's endorsement or validation. Christian liberation theology and liberation theologians like James Cone and Gustavo Gutiérrez are similar in that they see Christ's life and work as one of standing in solidarity with the poor, the marginalized, and the oppressed. You've also got Christian anarchists like Leo Tolstoy in this branch. Finally, there are Christian groups who so radically reject politics they don't participate in politics at all, as well as others who claim that your faith has no bearing on your politics whatsoever, so don't even worry about any of these questions and vote however you like. These schools of thought can variously be seen as the “Christian political idealists”. In contrast, you have Reinhold Niebuhr and the school of [Christian realism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_realism_(international_relations). In this vein you can also find thinkers like Augustine (skip to section VII) and Aquinas, who typically will present the State as a necessary evil and give contexts, constraints, and justifications for how that necessary evil can be wielded. Most Christian theories of Just War fall into this camp. Finally, while I am not endorsing their views nor suggesting all Christian realists think this way, Hitler's German Christians, those who used Christianity to endorse slavery and apartheid or colonialism and the genocide of indigenous peoples, and others also fall into this camp in that they approve of necessary evils but take that approval to an extreme. Unfortunately for you, I fall into the Christian political idealist camp, so my understanding of Christian political realists is more limited and my view is that there is usually more similarity among the realists than among the more idealists. Mea culpa.

All this to say... don't let modern American politics cloud you into thinking that the modern religious right is the only form Christian politics has ever taken and that anything else is revolutionary or radically new. Conservative theology doesn't necessitate conservative politics. I myself am generally conservative in my theological beliefs but radically progressive in my politics, but until my conversion I was actually politically conservative and theologically liberal (i.e. my faith flipped my politics in contrast to what most might expect). While most Christian political thinkers will advocate some kind of distinction and separation between Church and State, the nature of that division varies widely from theologian to theologian and has done so for nearly 2000 years. To get you started on exploring this spectrum of Christian political, I would recommend God's Politics by Jim Wallis, followed by Reinhold Niebuhr's Moral Man and Immoral Society alongside Shane Claiborne's Jesus for President (admittedly not a scholarly work like Niebuhr's but still an accessible introduction).

Christian here!

The basic principle of our faith is that Christ is God and became man to (somehow) defeat sin and death through his execution and resurrection. Ethics are secondary to that.

Some varieties of Christians don't think ethics should have any role in the faith (as they'd be "law" and not "grace"), so will mostly pick up their ethics from secular sources. The teachings of Christ are interpreted as unachievable goals that are genuinely good, but are intended to make you see that you can't free yourself from the effects of sin by your own efforts. This was a mostly unintended side effect of the more hardcore parts of the Reformation.

Other varieties think that's all mostly wrong. It's one of those "Eh I can see what they're saying, but no" types of things. However, they still generally will take a prudent approach to the teachings of Christ, which often demand a sort of vague perfection. It's not the teachings that are confusing, it's how to reliably translate them into reality. Even in the Bible, St Paul gave different advice to different churches. And how do you translate Jesus's apparent pacifism when it's the Army general who becomes a Christian? How do you navigate real life situations where both options result in bad outcomes? Do you violate the Ten Commandments and lie to Nazis if it saves Jews? That sort of thing.

Roman Catholics have (mostly) adopted a mashup of Jesus's teachings, the Ten Commandments, and Aristotle's classical virtue ethics in their attempt at it. They still have a several hundred page document (the Catechism) that goes over the basics.

And but so, there's never been a Christian ethic that all Christians have adopted. Charity to the poor and oppressed approaches that, though, being probably the oldest Christian ethic. Most Christians today still think that's very important, if not primary.

Conservative American Christians still think they're being good to the poor. They do give a lot to charities, and they really do believe that laissez-faire capitalism really is the best shot the poor have to improve their lives in the long term.

ETA: Oxford's Very Short Introductions series, which I love, has a great volume on Christian Ethics. Like most of the VSIs, it's rather dense and doesn't shy away from using technical terms after introducing them once, but it's a great overview of what exactly might constitute "Christian ethics". It's written partly in response to claims by Sam Harris that Christianity is inherently unethical.

point taken, y'all... on the other hand:

http://www.amazon.com/Unfinished-Lives-Reviving-Memories-Victims/dp/1608998118/ref=la_B001KI6L2M_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1370046642&sr=1-1

If you're interested in a more accurate and optimistic philosophy of sex, I highly recommend Alexander R. Pruss' "One Body": book | lecture.

As far as masturbation is concerned, it can be difficult to overcome (especially in our overly sexualized culture in which one can't turn on the television, watch a movie, listen to a song, open a book or magazine, or even go to the store in some cases, etc. without being exposed to some sort of sexual content or immodestly dressed individuals), but many people have and still do cease the practice.

With that all said, what does this have to do with Jungian typology?

It is the difference between a wide and strict mental reservation.

Wide mental reservations are simply ambiguous statements in which the truth can be discerned. A good example of this is a story about the apostle Paul. He was standing on the deck of a ship at night and the authorities were looking for him. They walked down the dock, saw a figure on the ship and yelled over, "Excuse me! Have you seen the one they call Paul?" Paul responds, "He is not far!"

Strict mental reservations are statements that are only true if one adds a missing qualifier not uttered. These are considered lies. For example, yesterday I took a cookie from a cookie jar and someone asks me if I did it. I answer, "I did not" but mentally add the qualification, "... today". There is no way someone could possibly discern my qualification and therefore my statement was a lie.

So given the OP's example, I take the statement, "This course requires no coding" to only be true if there is further qualification such as, "... if you use a very strict historical definition of the word coding which is no longer used." That is a strict mental reservation because the students could not possibly discern that qualification.

You can read about it in the Catholic Encyclopedia. There are also good treatments by Tollefsen, Cunningham, and McHugh & Callan.

[WSC 91], [WLC 161], [WCF 27:3]. [1 Corinthians 11:29], [WLC 166], [WLC 170], [WLC 173]. [Acts 2:38], [Acts 2:41], [Acts 19:4-5], [WLC 174]. [WCF 27:4] [Matthew 28:19] [1 Corinthians 11:20-23]. [1 Corinthians 4:1-2] [Hebrews 5:4]
[WCF 25:4] [Revelation 2:5] [Revelation 3:16] [2 Peter 2:1-3]


/u/versebot


Hodge:
http://hornes.org/theologia/charles-hodge/do-rc-clergy-count-as-gospel-ministers

Frame: https://www.amazon.com/Doctrine-Christian-Life-Theology-Lordship/dp/0875527965/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1496936202&sr=8-1

Try the Calvinist International and Natural Law: A Brief Introduction and Biblical Defense by David Haines.

Christian Theology: An Introduction https://www.amazon.com/dp/1118869575/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_D2I.zbTYEHY5R