Charts of Christian Ethics

Book excerpt: In the twenty-first century, Christian individuals and institutions routinely face ethical choices not imagined fifty years ago, with little ethical mooring in the surrounding culture to guide us. Thus, Christian ethics is an important field of study for the student, pastor, or concerned layperson. Unfortunately, it is also one of the most complicated of all the Christian academic disciplines, entailing numerous approaches and having roots in both philosophy and theology. Charts of Christian Ethics provides a wealth of valuable information, laid out in an accessible visual format, to help the student of ethics navigate and comprehend this complex field of study. It provides an outline for Christian ethics, explaining some of the major ideas and approaches. It is divided into five major sections: * Philosophical Foundations of Ethics (including logic, metaphysics, and epistemology) * Approaches to Ethics (metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics) * Biblical Foundations of Christian Ethics (hermeneutics, ethics in the Old Testament, and ethics in the New Testament) * Theological Foundations of Christian Ethics (including God, creation, man, and the church) * History of Ethics (including the premodern, modern, and postmodern eras) Containing more than 100 charts, this volume is a useful tool for classroom use, individual study, and as a handy reference.