Christian Ethics, by Robin W. Lovin
Introductory courses and treatises can test even accomplished teachers and writers. It is not easy to simplify without compromising, to be comprehensive without exceeding one's limits. The challenge is especially great when it comes to ethics, which, as Robin W. Lovin explains in the preface to this fine text, "involves sorting out some ways of thinking about the good life that are so familiar to us that we do not always realize we are thinking about it at all."
Lovin, dean of the Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University and past president of the Society of Christian Ethics, succeeds admirably in helping readers to think about the familiar in unfamiliar ways. Attribute this not only to his years of teaching Christian ethics to graduate students, seminarians, professionals and parishioners, but also to his own scholarly efforts to think things through. Those familiar with his writings on natural law, public theology or the theology of Karl Barth, Emil Brunner and Dietrich Bonhoeffer will find these topics revisited here. But in this book Lovin's particular scholarly interests give way to an exposition of the broadest, most fundamental aspects of Christian ethics. The book's intent is to help Christians attain an intellectually mature understanding of what it is to live a good life.
Whether exploring traditional approaches to ethics--teleological, deontological and character--or simply explaining whether the noun "ethics" is singular or plural, Lovin joins clarity and economy of words. In an initial chapter on "choices" he sets up the problem: though committed Christians desire to do good, they are often unsure about what to do. Successive chapters weave together the Bible, figures from the past, theological themes, ethical theories, pressing moral issues, and homey examples as they discuss ethics in terms of goals, rules, virtues, church and society.
