Showing titles in Ethics

The Star Wars films have maintained a tremendous following for almost forty years, attracting successive generations of audiences while sustaining their appeal for lifelong fans. As viewers return to these stories again and again, the movies exert tremendous influence on their perceptions of the world. Star Wars offers an accessible starting point for considering substantive issues of faith, philosophy, and ethics. In A True Hope, Joshua Hays explores some of these challenging ideas through the sayings of the Jedi Masters, encouraging Christians to reflect on them thoughtfully. In so doing,...

“Why me?” is the cry I hear most often in my work as a hospice chaplain. I’m not a theologian, but through my encounters with people who are elderly, disabled, dying, and bereaved - and through my own quest for peace - Jesus’ teachings known as the Beatitudes have become essential. They describe the attributes of God’s people: God is with those who suffer, those beaten down by life and rejected by the world.

The church today faces great challenges, from outside and from within. Popular culture tempts Christians to compromise truth in the name of relevance and to ignore sin under the guise of tolerance. At the same time, serious doctrinal errors threaten to undermine the authority of God's word, leading to all sorts of unbiblical practices. Right Thinking in a Church Gone Astray offers responses from trusted evangelical voices on 15 timely issues.

Conventional wisdom says that marriage as we experience it and understand it hasn’t changed much through human history. But marriage has and will continue to evolve and change as human beings wrestle with what kind of loving forms marriage should take. Is our current construct of marriage helping us or hurting us? How could we begin to imagine new forms of marriage that are more loving?

Brad Braxton and Anthony Pinn represent two traditions—Christianity and Secular Humanism respectively—that have for centuries existed in bitter opposition. For too long, people with different worldviews have disparaged and harmed one another. Instead of fighting each other, Braxton and Pinn talk with, listen to, and learn from one another. Their wide-ranging conversation demonstrates the possibility of fruitful exchange that accounts for—rather than masks—their differences.

In a world of increasing moral relativism, there is one set of values that has not changed. In The Values of Jesus, pastor and storyteller David Crosby takes a look at the teachings of Jesus and shows us how to align our life’s values with what God holds important. What we value dictates how we spend our time, money, and energy and can distract us from or propel us toward a Christlike view in areas such as love, family, money, relationships, traditions, institutions, and more.

In Subversive Witness, Dominique DuBois Gilliard highlights how the stories of key biblical figures show that Christians have an opportunity and responsibility to steward, leverage, and at times forsake privilege for the furtherance of the kingdom and good of neighbor.

Marriage is a journey of both hills and valleys, and newlyweds are just beginning this great adventure. By following God's way and making him the center of their marriage from the start, couples can avoid rockier paths and create stronger foundations. In this spiritual and practical devotional, marriage coaches Chris and Jamie Bailey speak to the particular challenges that every newlywed couple faces and provide both inspiration and guidance.

When sin is disguised as virtue, the path to cultivating righteousness becomes impossible. Such is the challenge Christians face in the modern age. Not long ago, most people would agree that the seven deadly sins are in fact deadly. But ask them today, and you’ll hear a different answer. Today, “anger” is often considered an admirable emotion, “lust” the only expression of love, and “greed” the unassailable right to “get what’s yours”. The world can rebrand sin all it wants and declare the death of truth, but it has no power against the truth of the Scripture.

This substantive collection from noted scholar Serene Jones explores recent work in the field of trauma studies. Central to its overall theme is an investigation of how individual and collective violence affect one's capacity to remember, to act, and to love; how violence can challenge theological understandings of grace; and even how the traumatic experience of Jesus's death is remembered.

Writing with clarity and precision, within Pierre Viret the Theologian author Jean-Marc Berthoud examines the life and theology of this forgotten giant of the Reformation. Addressing both Viret’s writing and its theological and philosophical implications, he provides poignantly relevant applications to the contemporary moral battles of our own day. Within these pages Berthoud analyzes Pierre Viret’s thought on how man attains a true knowledge of God as well as how the world and history are to be viewed through this knowledge. Drawing on a work written by Douglas Kelly, Berthoud then ...

Luxury! The word alone conjures up visions of attractive, desirable lifestyle choices, yet luxury also faces criticism as a moral vice, harmful to both the self and society. Engaging ideas from business, marketing, and economics, The Vice of Luxury takes on the challenging task of naming how much is too much in today's consumer-oriented society.

Life is a gift, brimming with seemingly endless possibilities. Often, our days are filled with joy and purpose. But life can change in an instant, plunging us into a sea of chaos and fear as our faith is tested. Perhaps we are going through a prolonged season of suffering that feels like it will never end—and we spiral into the depths of despair. No matter our season of life, we're meant to live in a way that glorifies God. We're meant to find joy, hope, and peace in the midst of suffering.

So Help Me God relates the compelling story of Chief Justice Roy Moore, including his controversial Ten Commandments displays, his refusal to obey an unlawful order of a federal court, and why the critical legal and political question of our time is, 'Can the state acknowledge God?'

In Green Like God, Jonathan Merritt gently and insightfully observes that the Creator has a lot to say about environmental problems like unclean water, mindless materialism, wastefulness, over consumption, and pollution. In fact, Jonathan writes that "in the book of Genesis, God went green and never looked back." Relying heavily on the Scriptures, Jonathan gives the case for green living, but not because it's trendy and hip.

What will you do? Christians need to think about the seriousness, the risks, and the righteous duty for civil disobedience before the time comes to act. In this timely yet timeless book, you will be invited to think critically about your decisions to act or remain silent in the face of unjust policies. With powerful examples from history and a careful eye to Scripture, Peter Demos presents a solid case for when Christians ought to stand down and when we ought to rise up. Every Christian needs to consider the possible cost of our action or inaction. Are you ready for the days ahead?

Decrying the ignorance that masquerades as purity or godly sexuality, Jenson summons the liberal and conservative church alike to repentance and maturity in our understanding and experience of sex and spirituality. A lifeless and unbiblical “ethic” rooted in gnostic, platonic, and enlightenment thinking has sapped the spiritual vitality of the sexual experience for millions of Christians who do not know how to have a healthy relationship with the body and its natural desires.

Direct answers to 40 thought-provoking questions married couples ask regarding their sexual relationships. God's desire is for couples to enjoy passionate sexual relationships without inhibition, awkwardness, fear, resentment, guilt, or shame. With honesty and frankness, life coach and best-selling author Shannon Ethridge opens the minds of both husbands and wives to consider how to move beyond the mechanics of sex to cultivating a rich and rewarding connection.

Has God really left it up to us to discover the best way to govern ourselves? Is "trial and error" on a national scale the best we can do as we form our civil governments? Imagine if God suddenly formed a bunch of people into a nation from scratch one day. Imagine God giving them a structure for their government and a relatively small set of rules and concepts for the purpose of protecting the most vulnerable members of society. It might be worthwhile to study those things. Of course, that is precisely what happened in the early stages of the biblical narrative. God brought Israel out of ...

Charles E. Curran explores the social mission of the U.S. Catholic Church from a theological perspective, analyzing and assessing four aspects: the importance of social mission, who carries it out, how it is carried out, and the roles that the Church and individual Catholics play in supporting these efforts. In the early and mid-twentieth century the Catholic Church in the United States tended to focus its social mission on its own charities, hospitals, and schools.