This book offers a fresh and up-to-date account of the ethical thought of one of the twentieth century's greatest theologians: Karl Barth. The author seeks to recover Barth's ethics from some widespread misunderstandings, and also presents a picture of them as a whole. Drawing on recently published sources, Dr Biggar construes the ethics of the Church Dogmatics as it might have been had Barth lived to complete it - not only separately in each of its three constituent dimensions but also in its dynamic, coinherent integrity. However, The Hastening that Waits is more than apology and description. For it recommends to contemporary Christian ethics the theological rigour with which Barth expounds the good life in terms of the living presence of God-in-Christ to his creatures; his conception of right human action as that which is able to hasten in the service of humanity precisely by waiting prayerfully upon God; and his discriminate openness to moral wisdom outside of the Christian church. Among the particular topics treated are: the concepts of human freedom and of created moral order; moral norms and their relation to individual vocation; the relative ethical roles of the Bible, the Church, philosophy, and empirical science; moral character and its formation; and the problem of war.

This volume explores the challenges and possibilities facing contemporary theological inquiry. Produced in honor of Wallace M. Alston, the book is framed around the areas of discussion that Alston, as director of the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, New Jersey, has diligently placed at the forefront of Christian reflection. Written by some of today's leading Christian pastors and theologians, these insightful chapters probe topics of interest to both the church and the academy. In the first section Denise M. Ackermann, Gerhard Sauter, William Schweiker, Max L. Stackhouse, Michael Welker, and Carver T. Yu examine cultural, social, political, and ethical challenges to Christian theology. In the second section Don Browning, Brian E. Daley, Botond Gal, Niels Henrik Gregersen, John Polkinghorne, and Dirk Smit discuss theology's ongoing dialogue with the sciences and the humanities. In the third section Milner S. Ball, L. Ann Jervis, John S. McClure, Allen C. McSween Jr., Patrick D. Miller, Jrgen Moltmann, Fleming Rutledge, and Virgil Thompson illuminate the role of theology in preaching and teaching. In the fourth and final section of the book David Fergusson, Thomas W. Gillespie, Colin Gunton, Cynthia A. Jarvis, Robert W. Jenson, J. Harold McKeithen Jr., A. J. McKelway, Daniel L. Migliore look at several cutting-edge themes drawn from Reformed and ecumenical theology. Loving God with Our Minds unites voices from the various enterprises of the Center of Theological Inquiry, from different churches, from different theological and academic disciplines, and from different countries across the globe. The book is thus a bouquet of diverse perspectives mirroring what is so central and admirable in Wallace Alston and reflecting what he so desires to see among fellow Christians and pastor-theologians -- loving God not only with our hearts but also with our minds. Contributors: Denise M. Ackermann Milner S. Ball Don Browning Brian E. Daley David Fergusson Botond Gal Thomas W. Gillespie Niels Henrik Gregersen Colin Gunton Cynthia A. Jarvis Robert W. Jenson L. Ann Jervis John S. McClure J. Harold McKeithen Jr. A. J. McKelway Allen C. McSween Jr. Daniel L. Migliore Patrick D. Miller Jrgen Moltmann John Polkinghorne Fleming Rutledge Gerhard Sauter William Schweiker Dirk Smit Max L. Stackhouse Virgil Thompson Michael Welker Carver T. Yu

This book details the development and contours of Karl Barth's robust and lively vision of Christian and ecclesial life in the early years of his career. In this remarkable work Michael O'Neil investigates Karl Barth's theology in the turbulent and dynamic years of his nascent career, between 1915 and 1922. It focuses on the manner in which this great theologian construed Christian and ecclesial existence. The author argues that Karl Barth developed his theology with an explicit ecclesial and ethical motive in a deliberate attempt to shape the ethical life of the church in the troublesome context within which he lived and worked. O'Neil adopts a chronological and exegetical reading of Barth's work from the initial dispute with his liberal heritage (c.1915) until the publication of the second edition of his commentary on romans. Not only does this work contribute to a broader understanding of Barth's theology both in its early development, and with regard to his ecclesiology and ethics, it also provides a significant framework and material for contemporary ecclesial reflection on Christian identity and mission.

What do you see when you look around? Where does it lead, and to what end? Is there some purpose to it all? And if so, where do you fit in? And how might we fit in together? Maybe you have a faith but desire greater understanding. Maybe you had a faith and are disillusioned. Or maybe you want a faith but are skeptical. This book invites another look. It begins a conversation. Who is God? What is faith? What does God want from us? Why suffering? Why worship? Why work? Through these and other everyday questions, this book suggests possible answers. Answers don’t arrest thought. Answers provoke thought and action—life. This book invites readers to look around so that they might discover a faith for the twenty-first century, a faith in conversation with science, a faith fit for deep personal questions, a faith ready to engage complex public issues. Like Moses on Mount Pisgah wondering about a land he could see but never enter, when looking around we may be awakened to hope.

The spirit of the Reformation is often expressed in the well-known slogan that Reformed churches are always being reformed according to God’s Word, ecclesia reformata semper reformanda secundum verbum Dei. Over the last century, the spirit of this slogan motivated someone like Dietrich Bonhoeffer to argue that the visible form and life of the church should reflect the truth and message of the church. Already in his doctoral dissertation called Sanctorum Communio, the communion of the saints, the young Bonhoeffer combined theological claims and traditions with social theory and analysis, in this spirit, in an innovative way, to study the nature and integrity and witness of the church. At the time, this was a radical claim, with major consequences and challenges for Protestant churches. Their life – which meant their order, structure, actions, statements, convictions, public presence and role – was to be measured by their gospel – which meant their message, proclamation, convictions, claims. They could no longer proclaim one truth yet live a different life. It was this spirit which led to the well-known Theological Declaration of Barmen in 1934 and to the formation of the Confessing Church in Nazi Germany. Many called this a moment of truth, a status confessionis. It was this same spirit which later inspired the struggle in South Africa for the integrity and faithfulness of the church and for the credibility of its message, proclamation and witness. The contributions in this volume – 52 papers, essays, sermons, studies – were all produced in this spirit. Most of them have not been published before. They were all occasional pieces, written over several decades, in different contexts and for different purposes and audiences, yet they all breathe this self-critical spirit of the Reformation, considering whether the real church – the concrete, every day, actual, living church that people know and experience and perhaps belong to – truly strives to embody the gospel itself, the message which it claims and proclaims. They all inquire, under different circumstances and in diverse ways, about different social forms of the real church – from worship to congregation, from denomination to ecumenical church, from individual believers to movements and organisations – whether and how they embody the truth of the church, or not. Together, these contributions tell a story – the story of this spirit, in South African circles, over several decades, but also in the ecumenical church in our globalizing world. They offer one small glimpse into different concrete moments in the story of this spirit in the life of this tradition and community of faith. Hopefully, some of these accounts may resonate with others who also shared the same spirit – and still share it today, in new and ongoing ways.

Stanley Hauerwas is arguably the most well-known figure in theological ethics of the last generation. Having published voluminously over the last 30 years, late in his career he has also published two volumes of essays discussing his corpus retrospectively, as well as a widely acclaimed memoir. The sheer volume of his work can be daunting to readers, and it is easy to get the impression that his retrospective volumes are restating positions developed earlier. Brian Brock delves into Hauerwas' formation as a theologian at Yale, his first book, Character and the Christian Life, and examines some of his early, and outspoken, criticisms of the guild of Christian ethics. This chapter is followed by a discussion of his memoir, Hannah's Child, and raises tricky questions about the role of autobiography in Christian ethics, as well as the troubling problem of race in the modern academy. Brock explores Hauerwas' work on disability, his criticisms of the discipline of medical ethics, and the role played by vulnerability in his work. The next chapter examines his views on just war and pacifism, here probing the sensitive issue of the role of gender in his work, and leading into a discussion on the nature of the church's peaceable politics, in which his supposed hyper-ecclesiocentricism is examined. Brock examines the role of virtue in Hauerwas' thought, and teases out why he hates to be called a virtue ethicist. A final chapter asks him to respond to the recently levelled criticism that scripture does no work in his theology, focusing especially on his under-appreciated commentary on the gospel of Matthew. The editor of this volume has managed to maneuver Hauerwas into positions where he has directly faced tricky questions that he normally does not discuss, such as the accusation that he is racist, too soft on Yoder, or misogynist.

Once considered inimical to ethics, Karl Barth's theology is now rightly recognized for the central role ethics plays in it. But can Barth be safely placed in the mainstream tradition of Christian moral theology or does he offer a challenge to the latter? Gerald McKenny argues that the claim that God not only establishes the good from eternity but also brings it about in time is of fundamental importance to Barth's mature ethics. The good confronts us from the site of its fulfilment in Jesus Christ, who has accomplished it in our place. The result is a vision of the moral life as a human analogy to God's grace, a vision which contrasts with the bourgeois vision of the moral life as an expression of human capability. Barth's moral theology is presented here as the attempt to reorder ethical thought and practice in light of this fundamental claim. This lucid and well-argued study is the most comprehensive treatment of Barth's ethics to date, offering a thorough account of the development of Barth's ethical thought and a wide-ranging analysis of its chief concepts and arguments. McKenny explains why certain widespread assumptions about Barth's moral theology are mistaken and explores the rich, complex, and often surprising ways in which Barth's position engages the traditions of Christian ethics and modern continental moral thought. Above all, McKenny shows why Barth's moral theology deserves our attention in spite of, or rather because of, its uneasy fit in the mainstream tradition of Christian moral theology.