Introduction to Critical Issues in Christian Ethics

The articles in this issue cover a broad range of topics and bring together global perspectives originating in China, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States, but a unifying core to these works can be found in the belief, either explicitly stated or implied, that Jesus Christ—the content of his teachings and the pattern of his life and ministry―is the model for Christian Ethics. This would seem to be the least we could ask of Christian Ethics. In his close comparison of Divine Command Theory and Christian Moral Theology, Martin Jakobsen argues for the centrality of Christ in Christian Ethics, or as he terms it, Christian moral theory. He says, “Because the most central part of Christian theology is Christ, a moral theory that is not connected to Christ has a weak connection to Christian theology and hardly qualifies as a Christian moral theory” (Jakobsen 2023, p. 3). As he points out, he does not challenge the rightness of Divine Command Theory; he only maintains that it should not be labeled Christian.

Some may not be willing to draw a hard line between Christian ethics and divine command theory. Richard J. Mouw, who describes himself as a “divine command ethicist,” expresses appreciation for the exploration of virtue ethics in Christian circles. He sees that there is no incompatibility between the imitation of Christ and the divine command perspective (Mouw 2024, pp. 227–28). J. Caleb Clanton and Kraig Martin would go so far as to argue that virtue ethics, which holds a prominent place in the Christian intellectual tradition, requires “non-reductive versions” of both natural law theory and divine command theory to be complete (Clanton and Martin 2025, pp. 2, 9). They see these two theories as “dominant frameworks” in Christian tradition, and they see this combination approach with virtue ethics as nothing less than Christian (Clanton and Martin 2025, pp. 8, 11). There may be some debate over how Christian a particular moral theory might be, but it seems generally agreed that a Christian ethic must have significant grounding in Christ.

Another unifying core belief in these articles is that Christian ethical inquiry is indispensable for shaping proper response to current threats to human well-being and survival. Therefore, in this collection, ethics are formulated in the ominous shadow of alienation and despair among marginalized youth and young adults, ecological and environmental crisis, the encroachment of nationalism and its corrupting tendencies, the loss of human values in reproductive technology, political opposition to religion, conflict over human sexuality, social and political powerlessness, and a developing culture of death.

In her reflections on an anthology of studies focusing on Christian ethics and biocultural evolutions, Lisa Sowle Cahill mentions the current trend in Christian ethics toward practicality. She says,

Since the middle of the last century, and more decisively in the present one, Christian political and social ethicists have moved beyond normative analysis of decisions, policies, and institutions, attending more specifically to how values, norms, and teaching are or are not translated into practical commitment and change.

(Cahill 2025, p. 178)

She accepts this as a positive change in direction.

In relatively recent times, this lean toward practicality is described in terms of a shift from “quandary ethics” to “ordinary ethics” or from “hard case ethics” to “everyday ethics” (Banner 2014, pp. 4, 24; Tranter and Torrance 2018, p. 158; Kelly 2020, p. 415; Kelly 2021, p. 124; Stauffer 2023, pp. 13–74; Williams 2024, pp. 360–61). A special interest in ethnographic methodology has emerged in this area. Following the pivotal work of Michael Banner, Samuel Tranter and David Torrance highlight the significance of this methodological development in Christian Ethics. They say, “First, to be truly therapeutic, Christian ethics must cleave closely to the best descriptions of everyday lived reality it can find. Ethnographies help make sense of what a practice is actually for, and how it fits into life overall” (Tranter and Torrance 2018, p. 169). Banner himself sees everyday ethics and its turn to ethnography as a necessity for fulfilling its pastoral and therapeutic role. As he says,

But if moral theology is to set out an everyday ethics which would sustain and support the Christian imagination of the human, and yet address pastorally and therapeutically other ethical imaginaries and forms of life, it must attend to the psychological and sociocultural depth of the different forms of life which we encounter. And to do this, it should be willing to learn from social anthropology, which can assist moral theology, so I hope to show in subsequent chapters, both methodologically and materially.

(Banner 2014, p. 24)

I am reluctant to attribute this specific categorical shift in ethical methodology to any of the authors in this issue, only because none of them have explicitly claimed adoption of this shift in their articles. Nevertheless, these articles still share an interest in influencing everyday life.

The perennial academic issues involving what ethics are, what religion is, what is good, what is true, and what is real still abide in the background of these pages, but the overarching reach of these deliberations is toward street-level relevance. Only through a close engagement with the authors (an engagement to which all of us are invited) can we appreciate how each scholar aligns these interests with the investigation of their particular subject. It is my privilege to briefly introduce each scholar.

Sandra Lynn Barnes asks what Christian Ethics mean for young Black sexual minorities in a medium-sized metropolis in the southern part of the United States, and how “everyday sacredness” informs their thinking. She conducts a mixed-methodological qualitative study that uses content analysis to establish and frame the concept of everyday sacredness, which refers to a worldview that enables Black youth with diverse sexual identities to embrace positive valuations of themselves and their potential. Barnes leads us to consider how the church can draw upon everyday sacredness to more effectively serve this demographic.

Bin You, Zhaolei Li, and Timothy Knepper argue for a Christian ecological spirituality and ethic based upon the Laudato Si, Orthodox Christian doctrine, and cultural resources drawn from China’s religious and philosophical heritage. Their method is tradition analysis and intercultural dialog within the field of environmental ethics. While ecological theology is characterized by its focus on knowledge, ecological spirituality is characterized by its focus on practice. Their key emphasis is that Christian ecological spirituality comprises the core of Christianity. You, Li, and Knepper seek to revolutionize the global response to the current environmental crisis through a shift in Christian thought and practice.

Darryl W. Stephens mines the literary legacy of Theodore R. Weber (1928–2023) for a delineation and appraisal of his Wesleyan-based political theology and ethics. Using a method of close reading and synthesis, Stephens aspires to advance an overview of Weber’s outlook and approach for current and future generations of scholars. Stephens embraces Weber’s contention that a fully developed political theology and ethic must move beyond Wesley’s ordo salutis with its individualistic focus to a full application of political sanctification. In Weber, Stephens sees a trinitarian political theology and social ethic based on the Imago Dei. Weber’s political theology and ethic are valuable tools of social redemption for those who reject the idolatry of Christian Nationalism.

Xi Li and Lining Lin conduct a qualitative study that launches from secular Belief in a Just World (BJW) studies and new approaches that incorporate religious and cultural resources to initiate and frame “an explicitly Christian measure.” Christian thought and discourse have evoked themes of retributive and restorative justice and have furthermore involved discussion of distributive and procedural justice. Xi and Lining deploy a Christian Belief in a Just World (CBJW) scale grounded in 34 biblical texts to analyze CBJW and to discuss the nature of Christian divine justice. They found that respondents saw justice and love as independent characteristics of God, that moral laws are universal and not only applicable to Christians, and that religious belief overlaps with secular Belief in a Just World. However, Christian belief in God’s sovereignty and in God’s forgiveness is seen as irreducible to secular BJW. By clarifying the features of CBJW, Li and Lin highlight God’s sovereignty and forgiveness in eschatological justice.

María del Carmen Massé García shows how the Abrahamic religious traditions have contributed to the ethical evaluation of assisted reproductive technologies and their use. Her methodology is to analyze the perspectives inscribed in representative texts and other recorded deliberations from Judaism, Islam, and Christianity on specific ethical issues. She then provides an ethical framework for the cross-section of followers. Massé García finds that the Abrahamic religions have always dealt with the changes imposed by science and technology, but by forging ethical responses grounded in faith, they have protected humanity’s most precious values, such as, life, love, and family. She discovers common ground in these very different religious expressions. In all of them, human origins are filled with mystery and meaning not reducible to personal convenience, human desire, or economic means.

Edward Anthony David frames religion as “a reasoned action-guiding good” in response to Brian Leiter’s dismissal of religion as epistemically deficient. David draws upon John Finnis’s view of Thomistic tradition to support this understanding of religion. David is concerned with the moral status of religion itself, and therefore conducts a meta-ethical exercise. His article has bearing on issues at the heart of ethics, such as truth and natural law, the defensibility of moral teachings, utilitarianism, and deontology. Not only does his discussion concern the moral status of religion itself, but it also concerns the moral status of arguments against the legal, constitutional protection of religion.

In my own contribution to this Special Issue, I maintain that a preservationist Christian sexual ethic speaks for itself when its vehicles of verification and vindication are addressed in dialog with a revisionist perspective. After arguing for congruence between the normal and the natural, baseline features of normative sexuality, and the function of verifiers and vindicators in the preservationist perspective, I share an understanding of normative sexuality. I write for the reader who seeks ground for choosing between the preservationist and revisionist perspectives. However, I do not pretend to be impartial. Although I try to give the revisionist perspective a hearing, I write from a preservationist point of view. I leave it to the discerning reader to determine whether I have made a compelling case for the preservationist perspective.

Charles S. Brown takes issue with the domination theory of power so aptly represented by Max Weber. Brown argues that dominant forces are not the only entities that have power in a relationship of power imbalance. Even though the stronger side may have an advantage in the imbalanced relationship, the weaker side can still prevent the stronger side from achieving its desired goals. Power is the basic condition of being. Euro-American contexts prioritize the individual in the discussion of being vs. non-being, while indigenous African societies prioritize the community. Social bonding is an essential component of power. Social power is a unique possession of the group as a whole. Individualism and anti-social attitudes make it difficult to realize the social bonding that is necessary for positive expressions of social power. When power is constitutive of personhood and society, it is reciprocal, community building, and accountable. Violence and force are the opposite of power. Brown clarifies that all forms of social power are relational, but the options of forms among them are hierarchy, conflict, and co-operation. Echoing Hannah Arendt, Brown finds that non-violence is power.

Renzhong Cui and Siyi Han exhibit literary evidence for the influence of Karl Barth on Stanley Hauerwas. They argue that Barth’s rejection of Protestant liberalism was pivotal for Hauerwas. Following Barth, Hauerwas is particularly critical of the liberal tendency to separate theology and ethics, and to translate theological discourse into “common language.” However, while Barth maintained that these tendencies made Christian ethics less Christian, Hauerwas indicts these tendencies as features of “American” ethics. According to Cue and Han, Hauerwas sees the church as the place where theology becomes inseparable from ethics. “Faith” and “actions” are inseparable in the church. Both Hauerwas and Barth conclude that theology and ethics are inseparable, but they arrive at this conclusion in different ways. Hauerwas arrives at this conclusion through ecclesiology, and Barth arrived at it through theology. Barth tended to underestimate the significance of the church and particularly the presence and activity of the Holy Spirit in the church. Cui and Han maintain that although Hauerwas is not satisfied with Barth’s estimation of the church, Barth still occupies a significant place in Hauerwas’s thought. To characterize Hauerwas’s thought as a deviation from Barth in the direction of “ecclesism” is an exaggeration.

I think it is safe to say that none of these contributors imagine themselves as speaking the final word on the issues they raise. It is more likely that they see the publications of their articles as an invitation for dialog and springboards for further research. I am grateful to each scholar for their work and for their willingness to share their expertise with the rest of us.

I furthermore wish to express my thanks to my co-Guest Editors Sandra Morgan and Richard Rose for their support and willingness to serve. I also give special thanks to the panel of anonymous reviewers who assisted these authors in achieving the highest level of clarity in their writing. I am grateful to Academic Editors Cristobal Serrán-Pagán y Fuentes, David Baslinger, and Monique Moultrie who helped guide this Special Issue to completion. My thanks also go to Section Managing Editor Suncica Djordjevic for her help and support. I am deeply appreciative of Managing Editor Loretta Chen, who served as Assistant Editor for this Special Issue. I cannot adequately express what this opportunity to serve as a Guest Editor has meant for me, but it has truly been an enriching experience and the gift of a lifetime.

Any one or all of the articles that comprise this Special Issue can have a life beyond this Special Issue. At the very least, they have the potential to encourage discussion, which may in turn change a set of behaviors, which may in turn change the world. May the readers of this issue find light and inspiration for their own academic, professional, and vocational endeavors.