St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology

Christian Ethics
Esther D. Reed, Dion Forster and Rudolf von Sinner with Ernst M. Conradie,
Jörg Haustein, Daniel Heide, Ángel F. Méndez-Montoya and Upolu Lumā Vaai

First published: 30 August 2024

https://www.saet.ac.uk/Christianity/ChristianEthics

Citation
Reed, Esther D. , Dion Forster, and Rudolf von Sinner with Ernst M. Conradie, Jörg
Haustein, Daniel Heide, Ángel F. Méndez-Montoya, and Upolu Lumā Vaai. 2024.
'Christian Ethics', St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology. Edited by Brendan N. Wolfe et
al. https://www.saet.ac.uk/Christianity/ChristianEthics Accessed: 25 October 2024

Copyright information
Copyright © Esther D. Reed , Dion Forster and Rudolf von Sinner with Ernst M.
Conradie , Jörg Haustein , Daniel Heide , Ángel F. Méndez-Montoya and Upolu
Lumā Vaai CC BY-NC
ISSN 2753-3492
Christian Ethics
Esther D. Reed, Dion Forster, and Rudolf von Sinner with Ernst M.
Conradie, Jörg Haustein, Daniel Heide, Ángel F. Méndez-Montoya, and
Upolu Lumā Vaai

Contributed by scholars from diverse traditions and perspectives around the world, this
article evidences both unifying and diversifying impulses in Christian ethics and moral
thinking. Christian ethics is understood as both lived experience and academic study
reflecting upon practice, deploying moral norms, engaging present-day issues, and more.
Major topics include climate change, the body, peacemaking, and more. Consideration is
also paid to the powerful the role of the Bible in the everyday lives and decision-making
of Christian people. Persistent emphases include God’s bias to the poor and how God’s
gift of the earth to all in common requires human beings to ensure that those things
necessary for life are available to all, including future generations. Christian ethics is
shown to be distinctive because it follows from belief in Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of
God, and capable of argumentation without direct reference to revelation. Together, and in
a conscious effort to reflect the polyphony of Pentecost (Acts 2:4–6), the contributors find
Christian ethics to be an academic discipline of both sorrow and hope.

Keywords: Ethics, Christian theology, Bible, Climate change, Body, Peacemaking

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Table of contents
1 Introduction: what is Christian ethics?

2 How is Christian ethics done?

2.1 Historically

2.2 Theologico-practically

2.3 Socio-anthropologically

2.4 Philosophically

3 How might the role of the Bible in Christian ethics be understood?

3.1 Reading the whole Bible

3.2 Reading narratively

3.3 Reading with suspicion

3.4 Reading as hermeneutic endeavour

3.5 The Bible in everyday life

4 Christian ethics in diverse historical and ecumenical perspectives

4.1 An ethic of relationality: a Roman Catholic perspective

4.2 An ethic of transfiguration: Eastern Orthodox perspectives

4.3 An ethic of grace: Lutheran perspectives

4.4 An ethic of experience: Pentecostal perspectives

4.5 An ethic of liberation: perspectives from the majority world

5 Christian ethics and climate change

5.1 Earth-rooted relationality

5.2 Mutual belonging

5.3 Dirtification

6 Christian ethics and the body

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 6.1 Gender, sexuality, body, and food

6.2 Incarnational and eucharistic theology of the body

6.3 The body, life, and the cosmos

7 Christian ethics and peacemaking

7.1 History/ies of overly permissive religious authorization of war?

7.2 Just war reasoning?

7.3 New challenges

8 Concluding comments

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1 Introduction: what is Christian ethics?
Christian ethics may be understood in at least two ways:
(1) Faith seeking practical wisdom, i.e. the lived experience of Christian people
seeking the grace of God to embody resurrection good news in their life together,
public witness, and engagement.
(2) Academic study of this lived experience.

As lived experience, Christian ethics is the day-to-day walk of discipleship . This article
gives conceptual priority to Christian ethics as lived experience. It pays particular attention
to the diverse history/ies of experience, with awareness of geographical reach and
contextual specificity, socioeconomic inequalities, ethnic and sex/gender diversity, and
embodied experiences, and with priority always accorded to the poorest and most
vulnerable. A particular contemporary challenge is to engage the diversity of Christian
ethics as lived experience, especially the perspectives of historically marginalized peoples,
cultures, and identities, and those most vulnerable to the effects of climate change,
poverty, and conflict. This is because epistemic injustice occurs when knowledge of
history/ies systemically excludes, silences, distorts, or misrepresents perspectives or
contributions.

The academic study of Christian ethics demands no faith commitment. Nor does the lived
experience of Christians making ethical decisions demand academic study. Nevertheless,
symbioses between these diverse perspectives can be illuminating.

2 How is Christian ethics done?

There are broadly four ways in which Christian ethics can be done:
(1) Historically: Christian ethics done historically demands descriptive, analytic, and
otherwise evidentially-informed approaches in response to questions about what
happened in the past. Historical approach to Christian ethics might be focused on
geographical regions, the inseparability of much Christian history with military and
economic power, cultural changes, or the history of ideas.
(2) Theologico-practically: Christian ethics done theologico-practically involves
interpretive and normative approaches that variously investigate what Christians
believe, and how belief drives and/or should direct action in particular contexts and
situations.
(3) Socio-anthropologically: Christian ethics done socio-anthropologically involves
descriptive, analytic, and evidentially informed approaches that focus on how
Christians live and interrelate, and what makes their lives meaningful and
distinctive.

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 (4) Philosophically: Christian ethics done philosophically means that theorists use
analytic and reflective approaches to expose the many other dimension(s) of
Christian ethics, including doctrine, to questions of logical coherence, rigor of
argumentation, and comparison with other philosophies and worldviews.
These four broad approaches frequently intermingle and are not exhaustive. Openness
to methodological diversity and cross-fertilization is needed in response to the complexity
of the issues typically involved. All approaches are challenged to be undertaken
polyphonically, that is, bearing witness prophetically to the power of the Holy Spirit to
enable many voices and mutual understanding (Acts 2:4). How to meet this challenge
– with critical reflection on one’s own context, positionality, and inseparability from the
complex histories of formerly-colonizing and formerly-colonized countries, and socially-
conditioned if perhaps unconscious biases and prejudice (among other things) – is an
open question across contemporary Christian ethics (Katongole 2011; Maldonaldo-Torres
2014).

2.1 Historically
Christian ethics, approached historically, has been dominated by the story of Western,
originally Latin-speaking churches, Roman Catholicism, and the various branches of
Protestantism, to the exclusion of the many and various traditions of Eastern Christianity in
the Middle East, Egypt, parts of Africa, Asia Minor, the far East, and elsewhere. As it has
traditionally been centred on Western loci of power, a challenge for contemporary Christian
ethics, approached historically (i.e. using historical methodologies), is a more inclusive
recovery of the ethos/ethics of the many Orthodox churches – Eastern (Chalcedonian)
and Oriental Orthodox (non-Chalcedonian) – and, indeed, of believers and ecclesial
communities in all localities and regions of the world (Joy and Duggan 2012: xiii; Spivak
1988: 271–314). Achieving this inclusivity in historically-approached Christian ethics is
a challenge sought out by students and researchers who attempt to de-Westernize the
curriculum and include voices from Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia, Africa, the
Middle East, and elsewhere (Kwok Pui-Lan 2021; Nakashima Brock and Liew 2021;
Maldonaldo-Torres 2014; Moraña, Dussel and Jáuregui 2008; Sugirtharajah 2003).

2.2 Theologico-practically
The distinction between theory and practice should not be overdrawn: ‘Theory is a
practice, and practice always assumes theory’ (Long and Miles 2023: 1). As liberation
theologians have taught since the 1960s, theory and practice are each at their best
when mutually informing one another (Sobrino 1988; Bonino 1983; Gutiérrez 1973:
25). Sometimes described as ‘theology in action’, Christian ethics is the challenge of
understanding what it means to live oriented to God’s future when the whole earth will
be ‘full of his glory’ (Isa 6:3; Rom 8:18–25; Rev 21:1); to seek to acquire the mind of

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Christ (1 Cor 2:16); and to embody the gospel in a social ethic (Matt 11:4–6). As faith
seeking practical wisdom, Christian ethics is theology in action or performative knowledge,
wherein, for instance, beliefs about the goodness of God (orthodoxy) find expression
in right action (orthopraxis; Ward 2005: 170), as the Bible, church teaching, etc. are
interpreted in the light of experience.

In 1968, the Medellín statement by the Conference of Latin American Bishops spoke of
the love known by the light of Christ as both ‘the fundamental law of human perfection’
and also ‘the dynamism which ought to motivate Christians to realize justice in the
world’ (Bishops of Latin America 1968). Making practical sense of the gospel imperative
of love in the hermeneutic cycle that moves between orthodoxy and orthopraxis is an
unending work of interpretation. Christian ethics is more adequate than an exclusively
deductive processes of reasoning that runs from a ‘universal’ or major premise (which
identifies a general rule) and a ‘particular’ or minor premise (which identifies specific
details about the matter at hand) in order to reach a conclusion. Instead of this, Christian
ethics, as faith seeking practical wisdom, reads biblical texts, creedal statements, etc.
and the societies, cultures, and particular situations in which faith is lived. To approach
Christian ethics theologically and practically is always to think about the relation between
doctrinal beliefs, human attitudes, and action.

2.3 Socio-anthropologically
Christian discipleship is a lived experience (McGuire 2008; Ammerman 2006). For
example, many Christians meet together for worship and fellowship – albeit in diverse
ways. They often sing and pray together, celebrate the liturgy, eat together, and serve
the local community. Approaching Christian ethics socio-anthropologically is an attempt
to understand how the basic activities of worship and fellowship, etc. are modes of being
or life-orientation that set a pattern for everyday living (Guroian 1985). Christian ethics
approached socio-anthropologically is a way of appreciating the dynamic relationships
between worship – i.e. showing reverence, bowing down, and/or prostrating oneself before
God (Hebrew saḥa; Greek proskynéō) in thanksgiving or supplication – and day-to-day
living and decision-making. In worship, the affective dimension of knowing, i.e. knowing
as we love, is centred on God. Using socio-anthropological tools to inquire further into
this lived experience might help in ethics, for instance, to see why and how a Christian
understanding of creaturely relatedness – before God – to the entire created order can
assist in providing moral foundations to address the environmental crisis. The values and
virtues learned in worship prohibit abuse of the natural order and demand care for our
‘common home’ (Pope Francis 2020b: section 1).

2.4 Philosophically

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Approached philosophically, Christian ethics prioritizes questions about the precision,
conceptual coherence, and logical rigour of claims made about good and evil, the
relationship between divine and human justice, how practical reasoning arrives at
judgment about what to do, and more. It is ‘attuned to the deployment of the skills,
resources, and virtues of analytic philosophy’; the articulation of the central themes of
Christian ethical teaching illuminated by the best insights of analytic philosophy (Abraham
2009: 54). Christian ethics cannot be reduced to propositions with respect to values,
good, principles, obligations, rules, etc. but all of these play a role in responsible and
accountable decision-making.

As casuistry (that is, when dealing with cases of conscience), Christian ethics in
philosophical mode often draws conclusions deductively from practical syllogisms, and/
or reasons inductively towards conclusions. Thomas Aquinas, for example, engaged
difficult cases by using a form of deductive reasoning wherein a conclusion is drawn from
two given (or more assumed) premises. His letter to James of Viterbo attended carefully
to the specifics of the situations and the perplexity in dispute – here cases of fraudulent
payments, delays in payment, and what constitutes usury (Aquinas 1960). Creation in the
image of God (imago Dei) means, for Aquinas, that human beings are creatures of God,
free to make choices and open to the possibilities of both good and evil:

Since, as Damascene states [De Fide Orthod. ii. 12], man is said to be made to God’s
image, in so far as the image implies an intelligent being endowed with free-will and self-
movement: now that we have treated of the exemplar, i.e. God, and of those things which
came forth from the power of God in accordance with His will; it remains for us to treat of
His image, i.e. man, inasmuch as he too is the principle of his actions, as having free-will
and control of his actions. (Summa Theologiae [ST] I–II: Prologue; Aquinas 1981)

The quest is for practical reasoning capable of discerning the good in every circumstance
and choosing the right means of achieving it. Aquinas’ guidance includes the following
specification of the conditions required:

First, to order that which is befitting the end, and this belongs to ‘foresight’; secondly, to
attend to the circumstances of the matter in hand, and this belongs to ‘circumspection’;
thirdly, to avoid obstacles, and this belongs to ‘caution’. (ST II-II, q.48, a.1, c; Aquinas 1981)

In subsequent centuries, some casuists developed different techniques, e.g. identifying

paradigm cases and/or paying more attention to the character and aspirations of the
reasoner (Sedgwick 2018). Casuistry came to have a bad reputation in Christian history
because of its association with clever but false reasoning that could degenerate into
finding an apparently moral reason for doing what was desired in the first place. Casuistry
can be done in responsible and biblically-encountering ways, however, and remains

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needful as Christian ethics in philosophical mode seeks practical understanding in the
service of decision-making.

3 How might the role of the Bible in Christian ethics

be understood?
More than a collection of ancient texts, the Bible is the means by which disciples of Christ
Jesus find their place in salvation history, and learn of the triune God’s purposes for
the cosmos that was created entirely good (Bartholomew 2004: 161). It is not a book
of straightforward answers to ethical questions. The question of the role of the Bible in
Christian ethics attracts diverse answers, but three broad hermeneutical guidelines may be
followed.

3.1 Reading the whole Bible

As a collection of ancient texts, the Bible does not yield a single coherent moral vision;
rather, a polyphony of voices speak. Hence the wisdom of reading the whole Bible.
In ecclesial contexts, this is typically achieved by reading liturgically, i.e. by following
the sequences laid down in lectionaries. Statements, sometimes difficult to hear and
understand, are encountered in contexts of worship by the people seeking for moral
meaning in the word of God. Diverse witness to the identity and character of God is
experienced as an everyday occurrence – ‘the Mighty One of Jacob’ (Gen 49:24); ‘I am
that I am’ (Exod 3:14); like a bird protecting its young or a rock-solid wall (Ps 91:4–6); a
punisher of injustice (Mic 6:18); a compassionate and faithful father (Mark 14:36). Reading
the whole Bible ensures that its entire moral vision, rather than a selective choice, is
experienced, with implications for review and critique in how a Christian ethos is shaped.

3.2 Reading narratively

As texts telling of God’s care of creation through the calling of Israel, the life of Jesus,
the sending of the Holy Spirit, and more, the role of the Bible in Christian ethics may be
understood by reading narratively, i.e. as recounting the story of what God has done and is
doing in the world. Stanley Hauerwas, for instance, has emphasized that the church as a
community of faith depends for its existence upon memory (the remembering and retelling
of the story of salvation) rather than nature or reason (Hauerwas 1981); its ethic (Latin
ethos: ‘character’, ‘custom’) is (re-)discovered as the community continuously remembers
and reinterprets this story. The task of Christian ethics is then to seek and reflect on the
moral sense of the Bible, even as it allows a diversity of witness to the self-revealing grace
of the triune God to bear upon daily living. Telling this story in systematic form (e.g. through
orderly doctrine accounts) does not replace the ‘messiness’ of biblical stories but invites
continuous return to the gospel of God’s love, faithfulness, justice, and mercy, to Jesus’

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words and deeds, and to the Bible’s full spectrum of discrete histories (Conradie 2015;
Ritschl 2012).

3.3 Reading with suspicion

Tragically, the Bible has been used time and again to exclude, oppress, marginalize,
and side-line minority or powerless groups: ‘The Bible is open to abuse by the
powerful’ (Farisani 2014). How the Bible was used both to support apartheid in South
Africa and in the struggle against it is a case in point (Smit 2007). Advocates of apartheid
used scripture to justify their ideology (Maimela 1997). Certain biblical interpretations
have relegated women to a particular social status (Ruether 1983) and justified gender
discrimination (Althaus-Reid 2004). A ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’ is needed (Schüssler-
Fiorenza 1994; Faith and Order Commission 1998; Bouteneff and Heller 2001) to expose
the extent to which the authority of the Bible can be undermined, eroded, and even
hijacked, and to excise biblically rooted ideological justification of racial, sexist, and other
oppression. The challenge to discern between the ‘spirit of the age’, the human spirit,
and the Holy Spirit is unceasing, but is assisted by prioritizing grassroots groups, and
by celebrating ethnic and cultural diversity and the perspectives of the poor, womanist,
queer, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender/transsexual voices (Loughlin 2007). For the
hermeneutic of suspicion, feminist, ecological, postcolonial, and decolonial readings of the
Bible (West 2016; Dube and West 2001) are especially important.

3.4 Reading as hermeneutic endeavour

Reading the Bible as a hermeneutic endeavour is not a new challenge. Ancient Jewish
readers of the Hebrew Bible called upon diverse techniques, including the literal,
allegorical, midrashic/inquiry-based, and pesher/mystical, when seeking to discern the
words of the Lord/YHWH (Elman 2005). Diverse early Christian approaches to reading the
Bible drew variously on hermeneutic techniques from Jewish and Greek circles (Blowers
and Martens 2019). When the devil tempted Jesus, says John Cassian (fourth century), he
twisted the precious sayings of scripture into a dangerous sense. Likewise, the devil will
try ‘to cheat us with counterfeits’ (Conferences: conference 1, ch. 20; see Cassian 1994).
For Cassian and the ancient church, there was no ‘reveal-it-all’ formula but a reminder to
stay hermeneutically focused on the person of Christ Jesus and to ‘understand the drift of
Scripture’ toward the kingdom of God (Institutes: book VIII, ch. 21; see Cassian 1984).

Reading the Bible in search of the wisdom of the Holy Spirit must therefore be
distinguished from seeking specific answers to questions from philosophy, literature, art,
history, or science, etc. Using the Bible to provide information in the modern study of
biology could be dangerous, for instance, because the moral truth of biblical texts cannot
be captured in a system of ethical coordinates or arbitrary selections of verses. Finding
biblical ‘proofs’ is always in danger of claiming divine authority for the vested interests of

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humans. Analyses of the context will influence the reconstruction of the biblical message.
The opposite, namely an inductive case study approach that requires a social analysis of
the situation, can also be inappropriate if it over-emphasizes the context in assessing the
meaning of a text, e.g. as a ‘site of struggle’ (Mosala 1989; Bosch 1991: 420–432). The
critical task is one of hermeneutics, including a hermeneutics of suspicion over ideological
distortions, discerning what may have gone wrong where and when. Understanding
requires a selection of biblical motifs and a clustering together of such motifs in what
may be termed heuristic keys and/or doctrinal constructs that are necessary in order to
establish appropriate links between text and context (Conradie 2010).

3.5 The Bible in everyday life

As considered above, the Bible is commonly used – and sometimes misused – by
Christians in seeking to understand and resolve ethical issues in everyday life. There is
both promise and peril in how Christians draw guidance from the Bible for everyday life.
Regardless, most would agree that the Bible is an important source for the formulation of
beliefs (doctrines) and thinking about practice (ethics).

Richard Hays suggests that there are at least four necessary tasks that readers should
undertake: the descriptive, the synthetic, the hermeneutical, and the pragmatic (Hays
1996). First, readers are invited to engage in careful readings of the texts of the Bible
(the descriptive task). It is important to acknowledge the diverse contributions, differing
messages, cultural and religious characteristics, genres, and intentions of the many texts
that make up the canon of scripture. This allows readers to describe the varying ways in
which moral issues are thought through and recorded in scripture. Second, readers may
inquire into whether there are any coherences, or overarching theological characteristics,
that bind the scriptures to one another synthetically. Concerns for justice, mercy, and
peace, for instance, surface throughout the scriptures. An inductive approach (watching
for the emergence of themes that arise from the texts) allows every particular event to
be approached with questions about ‘a unity of ethical perspective within the diversity
of the canon’ (Hays 1996: 4). Third, as above, is the hermeneutical task of ‘building a
bridge’ between the reader’s context and the texts of the Bible. This requires honesty
and imagination – honesty in acknowledging that the Bible was not written for us or our
contexts, and imagination to see what we can learn from how God deals with people and
situations, and how people dealt with moral and ethical concerns (in both constructive
and problematic ways). The fourth, pragmatic, task invites believers to live out what they
learn from the scriptures individually, corporately, and societally. Responsible engagement
with scripture is shown, among other things, in how readers take positions in relation to
contentious contemporary ethical questions and concerns.

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In other words, the role of the Bible in Christian ethics cannot be reduced to finding proof
texts for moral decisions often taken on other grounds. Biblically informed Christian ethics
requires theological discernment and Christian formation, especially within Christian
communities. The Bible cannot and does not offer solutions to every question in life without
the need for interpretation, arguably only on how everything in life may be related to
knowing and serving God.

4 Christian ethics in diverse historical and

ecumenical perspectives
Christian ethics, approached comparatively and collaboratively across diverse historical
and ecumenical perspectives, is relatively underdeveloped as an area of study. The
four perspectives below are, in effect, a commitment to ecumenical colloquy in Christian
ethics, and begin to reveal where common ground is shared and where emphases differ
across Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, and Pentecostal approaches to Christian
ethics. Viewed as an exchange of gifts, ecumenical Christian ethics is a journey of mutual
understanding toward better agreement and, perhaps, disagreement (Daucourt 2006).

4.1 An ethic of relationality: a Roman Catholic perspective

Catholic theological ethics, or moral theology, contains an individual and a social approach
(often distinguished as ‘social ethics’). Both are strongly joined through the concept of the
human person, understood as a holistic, relational being, in relation both to transcendence
and to fellow human beings. For this, trinitarian theology – with analogies between God’s
and humanity’s relationality and personhood – has been central (Boff 2005; Greshake
1997). Ecofeminist approaches have extended this line of thought to include sensitivity
to gender and nature (McFague 1987; Gebara 1999; Johnson 1992). As laid down in the
Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (2004), such doctrine is based on the
love of God for humanity in creation; the liberation of Israel from the bondage in Egypt; the
revelation of triune love in the birth, life, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ; and
the mission of the Church as visible sign of God’s plan. It is also based on the recognition
of human beings’ fundamental rights as created in God’s image, respecting their integrity,
singularity, freedom, and dignity:

The revelation in Christ of the mystery of God as Trinitarian love is at the same time the
revelation of the vocation of the human person to love. This revelation sheds light on
every aspect of the personal dignity and freedom of people, and on the depths of their
social nature. ‘Being a person in the image and likeness of God [...] involves existing in
a relationship, in relation to the other “I”’ [Gaudium et Spes: 10], because Godself, one
and triune, is the communion of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. (Cassian,
Compendium: note 34)

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From there stem the principles of such doctrine: the common good, private property
in relation to the preferential option for the poor (which came into the Church’s social
doctrine through liberation theology), subsidiarity, participation, and solidarity. The intention
is to give a contribution from within – the Church’s theological reflection – in the light
of the perception of real contemporary challenges, towards an ‘integral and solidary
humanism’ (Compendium, introduction: note 19).

Such openness and humility seeks to make a true and full contribution in cooperation
towards the wellbeing of humanity. It is the result of social thought since Pope Leo XIII’s
encyclical Rerum Novarum on capital and labour (1891), reinforced especially by Pope
John XXIII’s encyclical Mater et Magistra (1961), the Second Vatican Council, namely
Gaudium et Spes (1965), and not least in Pope Francis’ recent encyclical Fratelli Tutti on
fraternity and social friendship (2020a). It is conceived around the biblical narrative of the
Good Samaritan, and deeply inspired by St Francis of Assisi – who, as it is recalled, in the
midst of a crusade went to see the Sultan Malik-el-Kamil of Egypt, and recommended to
those living ‘among the Saracens and other nonbelievers’ not to ‘engage in arguments or
disputes, but to be subject to every human creature for God’s sake’ (Fratelli Tutti: note 3;
Pope Francis 2020a). Francis also recalls the Grand Imam Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, together
with whom he declared that ‘God has created all human beings equal in rights, duties and
dignity, and has called them to live together as brothers and sisters’ (Fratelli Tutti: note
4; Pope Francis 2020a). Some issues of a still more individualized morality in Catholic
doctrine – especially those related to sexual issues, contraception, abortion, and marriage/
divorce – remain mostly closed to discussion, although they are highly disputed among
the faithful themselves. Despite this, there is a clear offer in Fratelli Tutti for dialogue,
mutual learning, and cooperation for the good of all, together with people of other faiths.
The thorough engagement of the Catholic Church, and its organizations like Caritas, in
diaconal work for refugees, the poor, children, elderly people, and people with disabilities,
among other groups of high vulnerability, is immeasurable.

4.2 An ethic of transfiguration: Eastern Orthodox perspectives

Oriental and Eastern Orthodox Christianities may be studied across a wide range of time
periods, geographical regions, and political landscapes (Guglielmi 2022; Parry 2008;
Menze 2008). It would be a vast oversimplification to insist upon a single easily defined
ethics as being the ethics of the Eastern Church. Moreover, questions regarding what
distinguishes ‘East’ from ‘West’ bring up a host of problems, ranging from the geographical
and historical to the theological and ecclesiological. A modest proposal, therefore, is to
offer an ethics of the Eastern Orthodox Church, a single perspective which is nonetheless
broadly representative of the ‘spirit’ of Orthodoxy: an ethics of transfiguration (Harakas
1984; Guroian 1981; Ware 2015).

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This ethics of transfiguration can be approached from two perspectives: (1) that of the
end (telos), the ultimate good of deification (theosis), as the aim of the ethical life; (2)
the means to that end, the practical life as the embodiment of that end in the present,
and the path to its eschatological realization. These two perspectives can themselves
be subdivided into: (1a) personal deification; (1b) cosmic transfiguration; (2a) the ascetic
practice of the virtues; (2b) the contemplation of God and nature (Chistyakova 2021).

The telos of the Christian life in the Orthodox tradition is personal deification and cosmic
transfiguration. This is typically expressed in terms of the distinction between ‘image’
and ‘likeness’ (Gen 1:27). Humanity was created in the image of God (interpreted as
signifying potential for deification) and are called to realize the likeness (the actualization
of this potential: theosis). Personal deification means union with God – literally becoming
godlike – to the extent that this is possible for the finite human creature. This does not
imply identity with God’s essence, but participation in the uncreated ‘energies’ of God. Like
an iron in the fire, or air permeated by light, one becomes by grace what God is by nature.
This is the true aim of the incarnation, expressed by the bold patristic maxim: God became
human so that humanity might become divine.

What is arguably distinctive about the Orthodox doctrine of deification is its cosmic
aspect, sometimes referred to as a ‘cosmic liturgy’. According to the great seventh-
century Byzantine theologian Maximus the Confessor (cf. Louth 2017), the human is
a ‘microcosm’, a world in miniature, called to mediate between God and the whole of
creation. Insofar as the human is not separate from nature, but rather a kind of matrix in
whom the whole of creation is concentrated, personal deification coincides with cosmic
transfiguration. Just as human sin introduced death and corruption into the world, so
human deification in Christ culminates in a transfigured cosmos, a new heaven, and a new
earth (2 Pet 3:13).

The path to deification and transfiguration, the ‘ethikos’, is summed up in the practice of
virtue and contemplation. In this sense, the ethos of the Orthodox Church is inherently
‘mystical’; both monastics and lay people are called to a life of asceticism, prayer, fasting,
and vigils, to the extent that they are able. Crucially, the Orthodox tradition does not
separate the practical from the contemplative life, though one might naturally emphasize
one over the other. Lay people in particular have less time for contemplation and more
opportunity than monks for active engagement. Strictly speaking, however, virtue and
contemplation are inseparable. Together, they work to overcome the inner fragmentation
of the self and the outer divisions of the world introduced by ignorance and sin. All the
virtues – be they humility, forbearance, detachment, charity, love, fasting, contemplative
prayer, vigils, or worship – represent means of overcoming the instability of a life centred
upon the self (philautia), leading to a more grounded God-centred life (philokalia: ‘love
of the Beautiful’). The ethical life, in essence, represents the overcoming of divisions

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(both inner and outer) and the progressive unification of self and world, culminating in
union with Christ and the trihypostatic God who alone is One. The inherently unificatory
practice of the virtues (as manifold expressions of love) is corroborated by contemplative
insight into the unity of the self, nature, and the divine. Ultimately, theosis is effected by
the conjunction of creaturely love and divine grace. Both virtue and contemplation thus
culminate in love (Schmemann 1963; Thunberg 1995; Tollefsen 2008; Louth 2007).

One of the most promising aspects of the Orthodox ethics of transfiguration for the
contemporary milieu lies in the emerging field of environmental theology – led by the
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, dubbed the ‘Green Patriarch’ on account of his long-
standing environmentalism. The Orthodox understanding of deification as embracing the
whole of creation, along with its anthropology of mediation, finds practical application
in care for creation. The embodied form of Orthodox liturgical worship – particularly its
practice of icon veneration – results in a positive evaluation of the material world as a
vehicle for worship and a means of spiritual communion. The recently-published Toward
and Ecology of Transfiguration (2013) bears witness to the contemporary relevance of this
ancient Orthodox ethic. Its editors state that

while the divine essence (ousia) is eternally mysterious and unknowable, the uncreated
energies or activity (energeia) of God can not only be known but encountered and
experienced in this life and in this world, for they are at work everywhere around us.
(Chryssavgis and Foltz 2013: 3)

One of the challenges for contemporary Orthodox ethics lies in its application in the
ecclesiastical and political spheres. Ironically, perhaps, the ethics of transfiguration
understood as a progressive unification of self and world is, lamentably, often absent from
the world of ecclesiastical politics, which can descend into jurisdictional wrangling. While
unified in doctrine and liturgical worship, the autocephalous (self-governing) nature of
Orthodox Church polity issues in a multiplicity of ethnocentric communities with sometimes
conflicting nationalistic agendas, and even war (Hamalis and Karras 2017). This hampers
the Church’s ability to effectively bear witness to the eschatological unity of God’s kingdom
as a present reality. Such unity may be manifested locally, but its global catholicity
remains unfulfilled. In terms of church/state relations, the ethno-nationalist character of
Orthodoxy sometimes results in a subservience of the church to the state. While charges
of caesaropapism are inaccurate, the persistence of the Byzantine model of a ‘symphony’
between church and state can translate into giving sacred sanction to secular authorities
(Hovorun 2016).

4.3 An ethic of grace: Lutheran perspectives

Every aspect of Martin Luther’s (1483–1546) theology and ethics is determined by his
biblically-derived doctrine of divine righteousness and the justification of the believer

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by God’s grace alone. In part, this emphasis was a polemic attack against the popular
Catholic soteriology of his day that was based on human merit. In part, it was a simple
affirmation of Pauline teaching that no human can merit the gospel of Christ or baptism;
salvation is purely a gift, freely given (Bayer 2007; Wannenwetsch 2003; Bloomquist and
Stumme 1998). An Augustinian monk and Catholic priest, Luther entered public life to
dispute what he understood as being an abusive practice and a misunderstanding of
penitence: the sale of indulgences. In times when life was short and always in danger,
preoccupation with the afterlife weighted heavy in the minds of the populace. As Markus
Wriedt emphasizes, Luther had experienced God as a wrathful judge demanding justice:
‘the just God pursues the lawbreaker with wrath and punishment’ (Wriedt 2003: 89).
Famously, Luther’s reported his rediscovery of the truths of God’s grace through a re-
reading of Paul’s letter to the Romans:

I, impeccable monk that I was, stood before God as a sinner with an extremely troubled
conscience and I could not be sure that my merit would assuage him. I did not love, no,
rather I hated the just God who punishes sinners. [...] This was how I was raging with wild
and disturbed conscience. Thus I continued badgering Paul about that spot in Romans I
seeking anxiously to know what it meant. (Luther 1543: 46)

Luther’s ninety-five theses nailed to the church door at Wittenberg (equivalent of church
noticeboard; in 1517) emphasized that only God can forgive and that the church should
preach true prayer and repentance. There followed the 1518 Heidelberg disputation, and
Luther’s seminal pamphlet On Christian Liberty (1520b) which expounded Paul’s teaching,
especially Rom 13:8 concerning how love fulfils the law:

A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none.

A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to none. (Luther 1520b)

At the heart of Lutheran ethics is this seeming contradiction that makes sense only in
repentance and utter dependence upon the grace and mercy of God. Luther’s related
pamphlet A Treatise on Good Works (1520a) pursued the ethical question of living
in Christ as freedom from ‘works’ whilst doing ‘all kinds of works’. The believer is
simultaneously justified by God’s free grace and still in sin – a line of thought that helps the
disciple amidst the deep vulnerabilities and ambiguities of life.

For Luther, while both the secular and the spiritual regiment are under God’s rule, they
should be neither confused nor separated. There is to be a critical and constructive
relationship between church and state (von Sinner, Ulrich and Forster 2020). His influence
on Western modernity, given the political impact of the Reformation on Europe, is disputed
(Helmer 2019; Shagan 2019). So too is the extent to which Immanuel Kant can be
compared with Luther rather than contrasted (Wilms 1998). Integral to these debates

15
is Luther’s insistence that the fruits of faith should not be confused with the merits of
salvation. Hence Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s 1937 concern regarding ‘cheap grace’ that neglects
to recall that Jesus calls disciples to follow a path that might lead to their death (Bonhoeffer
2003: 53), and Paul Ramsey’s mid-twentieth-century question about the extent to which
Lutheran ethics lacks rules: ‘always in peril of opening the floodgates of anarchy and
license in the name of freedom from the law’ (Ramsey 1980: 77). Paul, writes Ramsey,
states in 1 Cor 10:23, 24: ‘All things are lawful’ for the Christian. All things might not be
helpful. However, the principle advocated by Paul is, says Ramsey, ‘Love and do as
you please’. Drawing upon his own Lutheran heritage, Bonhoeffer taught that to be a
Christian was to live self-sacrificially as Christ himself had done. Jesus called Levi, son
of Alphaus, to follow him. Levi got up and followed. The first step of discipleship is not a
spoken confession of faith in Jesus but the obedient deed (Bonhoeffer 2003: 57). More
recently, scholars have demonstrated anew the promise of Luther’s ethics for today with
its emphases on God’s grace, human sin, divine command and freedom (Bloomquist and
Stumme 1998; Wannenwetsch 2003; Bayer 2007; Westhelle 2016).

4.4 An ethic of experience: Pentecostal perspectives

Pentecostalism is an exceedingly variegated Christian movement, emerging in the
twentieth century from a renewed emphasis on the work of the Holy Spirit. Early
Pentecostals inherited strict holiness ethics, marked by an abstention from anything
‘worldly’ – from fashionable clothing, alcohol consumption, and movie theatres, to social
activism and warfare. This was paired with a strong millennialism, leaving the church to
evangelize while Jesus would soon sort out the world (Anderson 1979; Wacker 2001). As
end-time expectations faded and the movement spread into mainline Christianity, ethical
strictures receded and new theologies offered investments in Christian wellbeing here and
now. Large parts of the contemporary movement broadly align with evangelical ethics, but
outliers exist in all areas of ethical debate, often justified with particular insights from the
Holy Spirit. As a result, Pentecostal churches represent a wide array of ethical positions on
almost any topic.

Pentecostal theologians have sought to develop the shared emphasis on the experience
of the Holy Spirit into a foundational ethics. This is typically rooted in the central tenets of
Spirit baptism and glossolalia (speaking in tongues), seen to enable Christians to break
social boundaries and destructive behaviour as they participate in the liberating and
regenerative work of God’s Spirit in the world. While earlier publications were primarily
oriented toward a liberating practice (e.g. Dempster 1991; Villafañe 1993; Johns 1993;
Petersen 1996; Solivan 1998; Beckford 2000), more recent contributions have sought
to lay the theological and philosophical foundations for a pneumatocentric ethics that
encompasses all aspects of human and non-human life (Yong 2005; 2007; 2008; 2010;
Wariboko 2012). Others have emphasized the role of the Spirit in establishing a unified

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ecclesial community that projects God’s coming kingdom into this world (Christenson
1976; Castelo 2012). On this basis, Pentecostals debate a broad variety of ethical themes
(see for example Anderson 1979; Kärkkäinen 2009; Wilkinson and Studebaker 2010), but
two topics have been particularly challenging for the movement: racial reconciliation and
gender equality.

The Azusa Street Revival of 1906, which is seen by many Pentecostals as the starting
point of their movement, celebrated racially integrated services. This was a pioneering
achievement half a century before the civil rights movement, but the movement soon
frayed into racially segregated denominations, with other contexts, such as South Africa,
following a similar trajectory. However, since the movement is marked by a substantial
investment in its origin stories, the cosmopolitan vision of Azusa Street has become a
standard bearer for ethical reflections on race, often framed as historiographies of decline
(e.g. Clemmons 1996; Robeck 2006; Newman 2007). Such hagiographies of original purity
have tended to stand in the way of a more systematic and foundational ethical reflection
on race, in particular because racism tends to be framed in terms of individual prejudice
and exclusion rather than an institutional ailment (Daniels 2021).

A similar picture emerges with regard to gender equality as the Pentecostal promise
of a universal, liberating Spirit conflicts with a widespread affirmation of male headship
and the exclusion of women from leadership roles. Scores of biographical, historical,
and anthropological publications show how Pentecostal women have evaded gender
limits by emphasizing their personal calling and spiritual gifts, but inasmuch as these
are stories of exceptional empowerment they have prevented a systematic engagement
with Pentecostal gender inequalities (e.g. Lawless 1988; Blumhofer 1993; Warner 1994;
2004; Alexander and Yong 2009). This has changed in recent years, however, with
more comprehensive discussions emerging while significant parts of the movement are
shifting to more egalitarian gender practices (Alexander and Yong 2009; Holmes 2009;
Stephenson 2012). A critical engagement with gender-based violence and abuse has
only just begun, however, and reflections on the gender binary as such are still absent
(Alexander et al. 2022).

As the examples of race and gender show, Pentecostal ethical reflection tends to wrestle
with the contrast between the movement’s theological proclamation of a Spirit-driven
disruption of injustice and inequality and the outworking of this promise as racial prejudice,
misogyny, inequality, and culture wars beset the church and society at large. Operating
through the hermeneutical lens of the Pentecost event, the movement harbours an
exceedingly broad and ambitious pneumatic vision of a renewed humanity and cosmos,
which motivates Christians toward empathy and solidarity with all who suffer (Augustine
2021). However, inasmuch as this vision is idealized in Pentecostal historiography and

17
theology, it also prevents a critical reflection of the systemic barriers standing in the way of
God’s kingdom here and now.

4.5 An ethic of liberation: perspectives from the majority

world
Liberation theology, like an ethic of liberation, is deeply committed to working towards the
liberation of persons, indeed all of creation, that suffers injustice and oppression (Gutiérrez
1999: 19). This approach to Christian ethics emerged among Latin American Christians
in the 1960s and was later adopted by Christians from other parts of the majority world,
such as Asia and Africa. To understand the unique contribution of an ethic of liberation, it
must be acknowledged that all ethical positions come from – and relate to – convictions
of what is good, right, and just (or, as someone like Paul Ricoeur might say, what is good,
right, and wise; Lovin 2011: 3–4; Ricoeur 2000: viii, 4, 155; Mendieta 2013: 3013–3014).
In contrast to earlier (mainly European) theologies, which took their point of departure in
relation to questions of belief and unbelief (i.e. doctrine, evangelism, ecclesiology), Latin
American liberation theology took its point of departure as a critical engagement with the
dehumanization of persons by social processes (Mendieta 2013: 3018).

Most ethical systems throughout history have sought to answer the primary question,
‘what is the good life?’ What differentiates various ethical theories and moral convictions
is the understanding of the notion of ‘the good’. Is goodness prosperity? Is goodness
peace? Is goodness justice? What is ‘the good’ in the ‘good life?’ For an ethic of liberation,
the articulation of ‘the good’ has to do with the ways in which humans live in relation to
social systems. A social system can be understood to be either good or bad based on
its capacity to either recognize and affirm the dignity and value of human persons, or to
misrecognize human persons or even deliberately deny their dignity and rights. A good
life is one in which the systems of power (political systems, economic systems, gender
relations, religious systems, etc.) operate with justice and integrity that leads to human
flourishing. More recently, branches of an ethic of liberation have emerged that focus on
liberative animal ethics (cf. Linzey 2013; Singer 2015) and liberative ecological ethics (cf.
Castillo 2019).

Liberation theologians often work in the tension that exists between contexts – the
contexts of the lived realities of persons (such as suffering, injustice, and struggle), and
the contexts of Christian faith (what is read in the scriptures, what is believed about the
person of God, what is seen in the life and ministry of Jesus, what is believed the Church
is and should be doing etc.; Rowland and Corner 1989: 1–4). Christopher Rowland and
Miguel De La Torre explain that the agenda of liberation theology, as a distinct approach
to theology and ethics, is to be found in ‘its emphasis on the dialogue between Christian

18
tradition, social theory and the insight of the poor and marginalized into their situation,
leading to action for change’ (Rowland 1999: xv; De La Torre 2010; see also Bujo 2003).

The action-oriented, dialogical nature of liberation theology is one of its core

characteristics. It makes a deliberate choice for the experiences and lives of the ‘poor
and marginalized’, seeking to understand not only the content of the suffering that they
experience but also the social and historical systems that have led to contemporary
injustice and marginalization. Having understood these systems, an ethic of liberation
seeks to act to empower individuals and communities to replace evil with good (Gutiérrez
1999: 19–20). As such, an ethics of liberation is commonly committed to engaging
people’s everyday lived experiences of poverty and subjugation. Second, it relates to the
Christian scriptures and the Christian tradition as a source of moral authority that provides
both theological insight and moral courage, for concrete actions towards liberation. Third,
it is often a form of theology that envisions, and enacts, a radical form of Christian living
that is in conflict with the dominant and oppressive systems of the age (political, economic,
gender etc.). Fourth, an ethic of liberation is often enacted in practices of justice that both
disrupt dominant systems in society and sustain those who live on the margins of those
systems. In this schema, theology is a ‘second act’ which emerges from deep solidarity
with the poor and radical action for liberation and justice (Bradstock and Rowland 2008:
xxvi).

A precursor to Liberation Theology and an ethic of liberation is what has become known
as radical theology. Radical theologians, and some liberation theologians, contend that
the prophets of the Hebrew faith (found in many of the prophetic texts of the Hebrew
scriptures), Jesus (as a religious and social non-conformist), and even the Apostle
Paul and early Christians illustrate a radical disjuncture with the dominant religious,
political, and economic systems of their times which contributed towards injustice and
marginalization (Dussel 2004: 88). The radical nature of Jesus, the prophets, and the early
church often serves as a source of inspiration, and theological conversation, to inform both
liberation theologies and an ethic of liberation.

One can thus identify a clear hermeneutic commitment in this approach. It is predicated
upon an understanding that there is a more just way to live that does not subjugate and
oppress people or abuse creation. An ethic of liberation forms its understanding of what
is good, right, and just from how it understands the world (making use of social analysis).
However, it is also informed by how it understands the person of God (as a God of justice),
the will of God (whose will is justice and liberation, a God who is on the side of the poor
and marginalized), and the politics of faith (as advocating for political, economic, and
social systems – a polis – that is just, fair, and orientated towards the protection of those
who are most easily abused while also seeking to transform social systems to be more

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just). Phillip Berryman summarizes the approach to liberation theology and an ethics of
liberation as:

(1) An interpretation of Christian faith out of the suffering, struggle, and hope of the poor.
(2) A critique of society and the ideologies sustaining it.
(3) A critique of the activity of the church and of Christians from the angle of the poor.
(Berryman 2013: 6)

This hermeneutic commitment invites Christians to ask what the role of the church
and Christians should be in addressing contemporary injustices, often perpetrated
by politicians and political structures, businesspeople and corporations, and even by
religious leaders and faith communities, who identify with Christianity and are members
of churches. There are strong correlations between an ethic of liberation and other
contemporary theologies and associated ethics such as feminist theologies, contextual
theologies, queer theologies, Black theologies, and ecological theologies.

5 Christian ethics and climate change

Climate change refers to ‘long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns […]
primarily due to burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas’ (UN Climate Change). In
contemporary society, climate change is a global emergency in which disadvantaged
groups suffer disproportionately (Islam and Winkel 2017) and which extends to future
generations the risks produced by hard-heartedness among the rich, allowing the poorest
people to suffer and further disadvantaging the already-disadvantaged. A critically
important question in contemporary Christian ethics is how to contribute to the struggle
against climate change and ensure that the largest burden does not fall on the poorest
and most vulnerable people. Relationality, mutuality, and dirtification are presented here as
three pillars of a Christian ethics approach to climate change.

5.1 Earth-rooted relationality

A person cannot be a human alone; a person is never alone when born but is born ‘out
of’ and ‘into’ relationship. Everything that supports a human person shows that they are
independent only in their interdependence and relationships (see Vaai and Casimira
2017). As in personal relationships, so too in ecological relationships: living organisms
interact in complex ways that humans do not fully understand (Lovelock 1990). Indeed, in
many ecological communities, i.e. different species of living beings occupying the same
geographical area at the same time, relationality equates to survival. Thus, the initial
horizon for understanding and interpreting Christian ethics as ecology is not the ‘I’ but
rather the ‘we’. Relationality, understood in these earth-rooted and non-anthropocentric
ways, is integral to the conceptual framework needed for Christian ethics in the twenty-
first century. Relationality may thus be understood as a core principle that guides ethical

20
decisions and directs praxis and is sometimes described as the most sacred primordial
form of knowledge (see Vaai and Nabobo-Baba 2017). This focus on earth-rooted
relationality runs counter to mainstream theological narratives that emphasize God’s
timelessness and transcendence, and is seen by some as having been demonized or
silenced by the ‘culture of whispers’ (Tui Atua 2014: 12) in Western theology, especially
when partnered with ethics of development which prioritize economic growth. Mindful of
the perichoretic relationality of the three Persons of the Trinity and the presence of the
divine in the midst of all created life, many are crying out for an earth-honouring ethic of
relationship with the earth (Rasmussen 2012) as the only alternative to the Anthropocene
and its multiple layers of domination (Conradie and Lai 2021: 16; Wallace 2021: 241).

5.2 Mutual belonging

‘We lack an awareness of our common origin, of our mutual belonging, and of a future
to be shared with everyone’ (Laudato Si’: section 202; Pope Francis 2020b). Subtitled
On care for our common home, Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’ laments failures
to appreciate our mutual belonging within the earth’s ecology. The earth, like a sister or
mother, ‘opens her arms to embrace us’ (Laudato Si’: section 1; Pope Francis 2020b) but
has been so hurt and mistreated in the last two hundred years that ecosystems are failing,
high pollution levels are causing millions of premature deaths, and the constant rise in the
sea level is creating extremely serious situations for potentially a quarter of the world’s
population (Francis, Laudato Si’: section 24). God gave the world to all in common: ‘The
climate is a common good, belonging to all and meant for all’ (Francis, Laudato Si’: section
23). Networks of solidarity and belonging, in any place, can turn from being a hell on earth
into the setting for a dignified life (Francis, Laudato Si’: section 148). Heartfelt repentance
and desire to change are needed, especially on the part of some rich countries whose
huge consumption has repercussions on the poorest areas of the world (Francis, Laudato
Si’: section 51).

Recognition of humans’ mutual belonging – not only with all human beings but with the
soil, water and air, animals, and plant groups – calls for a radicalization of approaches to
Christian ethics, such that every ecological experience ‘can become the experience of
God’ (Moltmann 2012: 138). An ethic of mutual belonging calls for radical challenges at the
international level to rich and powerful countries that take from ‘our common home’ at the
expense of small and poor countries. An ethic of mutual belonging calls for every person
to understand themselves as part of multiple ecological relationships accountable to and
responsible for each other, and for attentiveness to God’s movement through the Spirit
to create a ‘liberation movement’ (Bergmann 2015: 6–7). This trinitarian focus recalls the
intrinsic goodness of all created things, the ‘conviviality of creation’ (Keller and Schneider
2011: 10), and uses a cosmological kinship model where everything is genealogically and
relationally structured. In the Pacific, for example, Christian people refer to themselves

21
as ‘we the Earth’, or ‘we the ocean’ (Hau'ofa 1993: 2–17); the identity of the human being
is tied to the identity of the ecological community of earth, air, sea, and water, and such
identity is genuine only through protection and enhancement of this wider community.

5.3 Dirtification
Dirtification is an approach to environmental ethics that finds its language in dialogue with
the Indigenous spiritualities of the Pacific grassroots communities, for whom dirt does not
have negative connotations but speaks of the inheritors of a profound eco-relational ethics
of life that connects all life to the dirt of the earth (Vaai 2021a: 15–29; Vaai 2021b: 209;
see also Tui Atua 2014: 15–17). Dirtification is an interpretive standpoint that embraces
the multiple ecological wellbeing narratives of people who are engaged with the dirt daily –
whether in agriculture, as the victims of pollution, or in developing resilience to the world’s
ecological plight. Rooting Christian ethics in protection of the environment from decay and
destruction often starts both with the victims of oppression who have no choice but to live
in dirt conditions and their struggle for alternative ways of caring for the earth (Zachariah
2010: 3).

6 Christian ethics and the body

As the world hungers for food and shelter, some Christian ethicists have made the
methodological commitment to do Christian ethics through rather than about the body:
the body gives tangible reality to the material and symbolic dimensions of existence,
actualizing personal and interpersonal experiences that mediate between selfhood and the
world, and inscribes human being in the world (Kristensen 2013). Hence the focus of this
section on gender, sexuality, and food as embodiments of the mystery of participation in
God’s creative love.

6.1 Gender, sexuality, body, and food

Gender, sexuality, the body, and food are intrinsic to creaturely existence and materialize
personal and interpersonal embodiments of human experience; this is how we live
in relationship ourselves, with other people, and with the surrounding world. Gender
actualizes discourses regarding bodily and social constructions of self and other-related
identities. Sexuality inscribes the desire for love and recognition in bodies shaped by social
conventions and compromises (and, at times, by imposed rules and norms). Food satisfies
our hunger, which is an embodiment of the desire and need to survive.

Simultaneously, gender, sexuality, body, and food exceed their material aspects insofar
as each can be poietic, i.e. iconic and symbolic expressions of who we are and what
we envision, desire, or imagine we might become (Ward 2005). Gender and sexuality
are more than biological and genetic factors; both embody, express, and symbolize

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a vast plurality of self-identities whilst also being shaped by social conventions and
assumptions. Gender and sexuality can become conventions that inscribe taboos and
determine expectations about what is (not) accepted and what is chastised. In some
societies, gender and sexuality are determining factors in social relations, with attitudes
and actions prescribed by heteropatriarchal and dualistic epistemologies that legitimize the
exploitation, subordination, and ghettoizing of the ‘other’ (Butler 1993); the ‘other’ typically
pertains to identities other than male and heterosexual, with alternative identities too often
considered ‘deviant’. In such societies, some bodies matter more than others, depending
on their gender, sexual, racial, ethnic, and economic classifications and beliefs, and their
cultural, religious, and political assumptions (see Butler 1993) – which runs counter to
Christian affirmation of the inalienable dignity of all (Laudato Si’: section 30; Pope Francis
2020b).

Likewise, food is not only material nourishment for the body, because it represents our
personal taste, cultural identity/ies, social constructions of what is (not) edible, and our
political and economic discourses that determine who eats plentifully – even to the point
of wasting tonnes of food – and who experiences hunger (Douglas 2001; Counihan and
Esterik 1997). As the body exceeds physical, biological, chemical, and genetic data and
is, in some sense, who we are, so too food is more than the sum of nutritional factors;
it represents who we are or imagine ourselves to be. Food can be profoundly poietic in
shaping and building communities, creating a sense of commensality and symbolically
expressing mutual care for people and the planet (Counihan 1999). Gender, sexuality,
body, and food are all profoundly relational. All mediate our relationships with ourselves,
people, and nature; they shape and are shaped by culture and historical contexts,
personal beliefs, and experiences at the interpersonal, inter-cultural, and trans-historical
level (Ward 2005).

6.2 Incarnational and eucharistic theology of the body

In Christian ethics, gender, sexuality, body, and food are understood to be intrinsically
good by virtue of their createdness and because God the Son became ‘flesh’ to ‘live
among us’ (John 1:14; Phil 2:7). Furthermore, because Christ Jesus took the ‘form of a
slave’, some Christians understand God’s Spirit to be present especially in the bodies
of those who are ‘other’, who live precariously and suffer abjection (Méndez-Montoya
2009; 2021). For some, Jesus’ gender transgression – as recognized by Julian of Norwich
who spoke of Jesus as Mother (Walker Bynum 1984) – invites resistance against any
heteropatriarchal absolutization of Jesus’ masculinity and also the transgressing of
racial, sexual, economic, and other limits to understanding Jesus’ personhood. This
transgression of rigid gender roles, and more, is argued to be further affirmed by Paul, who
reminded early Christian communities that identity is Christic (Gal 3:28), i.e. a dynamic
and ongoing process of becoming one diverse body yet to be fully discovered (Méndez-

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Montoya 2021). Through the breaking and sharing of bread with everyone – particularly
those who most hunger materially, emotionally, and spiritually – Christians are reminded of
God’s own koinonia, a communion of nurturing love that becomes life-giving food, inviting
us to become eucharistic people: by performing an inclusive table whereby the ‘other’ –
including the planet – really matters (see Méndez-Montoya 2009). The Eucharist imagines
and performs a Christic body, a trans-corporeal body that reaches out to, coabides with,
and embraces other bodies, overcoming frontiers and divisions, transforming hatred and
violence into a trans-corporeal practice of love and peace (Ward 2003: 108).

6.3 The body, life, and the cosmos

Christian ethics is an ethics of life. Although it recognizes finitude, the reality of suffering,
and vulnerability (Stålsett 2023), it engages in the preservation and deprecarization of
life. The ethics of life, bioethics – conceived by American oncologist Van Rensselaer
Potter – stems from distressing examples of the abuse of populations for research,
without their knowledge or acknowledgment, nor any chance of therapy. The bioethical
‘trinity’ that developed from there is that any medical treatment and/or experiment has to
consider all the potential benefits and risks, the informed consent of the patient, and the
principle of justice (see The History of Medical Ethics). Thus, beyond the involvement and
protection of individuals, there is a societal dimension involved – who is benefitted and
to whom are or will benefits be available? How should restricted resources be applied
responsibly? More recent challenges dig deeper into human nature, for instance in
terms of the potentiality – and dangers – of gene enhancement, prenatal diagnosis, and
therapeutic or reproductive cloning, which trigger new debates on identity, personality,
health, sickness, and cure. Ethics has difficulties in keeping up with the pace of research
and new possibilities.

Bioethics reflects mainly the right to life of humans – and their flourishing – from
conception to death (Meilaender 2020). However, it also refers to the embeddedness
of the human body within the whole of creation and therefore includes the protection
of animals and nature and namely of biodiversity. In the Anthropocene, when human
beings’ influence on nature through pollution and mineral exploration – to name just
two dimensions – is particularly visible and measurable, humans’ responsibility for their
imprint on the environment becomes a special challenge and task for Christian ethics
(Rasmussen 2023).

7 Christian ethics and peacemaking

Peacemaking is at the heart of Jesus’ teaching (Matt 5:9; Matt 26:51–52; Mark 9:50; Luke
19:42), which many have interpreted as meaning that Christians must live non-violently in
the world of violence (Cahill 2019). In the earliest years of the church, the first Christians
predominantly interpreted Jesus’ words as requiring strict non-violence and precluding

24
military service (von Harnack 1905; Cadoux 1919; Hornus 1980; cf Iosif 2013: 6). Much
changed when Emperor Constantine the Great made Christianity the official religion of the
empire (313); the early church was no longer liable to persecution and it became normal
for early Christians to revere the emperor as protector of the church. The state accepted
the church and the church accepted the state. Christians suddenly found themselves
transformed from a persecuted sect to a prominent position of influence within the empire
(Novak 2001). Unlike during previous military service, when all soldiers had previously
been required to utter oaths of allegiance to the (almost deified) emperor and to pagan
gods, it was now not necessary for Christians to object to the oaths of allegiance.

7.1 History/ies of overly permissive religious authorization of

war?
History/ies of Christian ethics reveal many instances of ecclesial authorities endorsing
the use of war in ways that confuse the furtherance of Christianity with advancement of
military and economic might. During the Roman Empire, use of the symbol of the cross
in battle introduced ambiguity into interpretations of the ‘enemy’ as both the devil and
his demons and potentially also the Visigoths or other political adversaries of the Roman
empire (Hopko 2010). The Crusades were a deeply problematic mix of genuine piety,
military ferocity, greed, prejudice, and violence, masked as religious devotion (Tyerman
2009; Riley-Smith 2001). Modern histories of colonialism saw conquest and territorial
possession (mis)construed as a divine providential plan for the expansion of Christendom,
and wars against idolatry (Lantigua 2020: 31). Oversimplifications are all too easy; for
example, sixteenth-century debates about the rights and treatment of indigenous peoples
by European colonizers contained discourses of universal natural rights alongside deeply
problematic ethno-racial assumptions. As David M. Lantigua summarizes, however,
‘Church law, or canon law, generated a normative vocabulary of difference contrasting
the orthodox faithful from heretics and schismatics among the baptized’ (Lantigua 2020:
31). The militarized expansion of Latin Europe was underpinned by theologico-ethical
judgment against non-Westerners, both Christian and non-Christian. Christian pacifism,
i.e. the claim that war and violence are unjustifiable under any circumstances, thus
has supporting arguments not only from Jesus’ teaching but also from history/ies of
unacceptable permissiveness.

7.2 Just war reasoning?

Just war reasoning describes a tradition(s) of moral argumentation that allows exceptions
to non-violence in certain circumstances. With theologico-ethical roots in the writings
of Ambrose, Augustine, Aquinas, Gratian, Isidore of Seville, the canon lawyers of the
eleventh and twelfth centuries, and the Salamancan school of moral theology (among
others), those who reason for just war theory tend to accept that violent coercion is

25
sometimes necessary for the restraint of wrongdoing and the functioning of divine
providence through human law-making and political activity. John Langan, SJ summarizes
the principal elements of Augustine’s founding contribution to Western Christian thinking
about war and peace as follows:

St. Augustine’s just war theory involves eight principal elements: a) a punitive conception
of war, b) assessment of the evil of war in terms of the moral evil of attitudes and desires,
c) a search for authorization for the use of violence, d) a dualistic epistemology which gives
priority to spiritual goods, e) interpretation of evangelical norms in terms of inner attitudes,
f) passive attitude to authority and social change, g) use of Biblical texts to legitimate
participation in war, and h) an analogical conception of peace. It does not include non-
combatant immunity or conscientious objection. (Langan 1984: 19)

Augustine was a pastor and bishop who nowhere wrote a systematic or textbook-like
account of just war reasoning, but responded in letters and longer reflections to matters
of immediate concern. There, he held that law’s violence is preferable to disorder and as
a way of countering the manifestations of fallen human nature. The purpose of law, wrote
Augustine, is to establish and maintain ‘the tranquility of order’ (City of God 19.13: 938;
see Augustine of Hippo 1984).

In the twentieth century, Paul Ramsey reconsidered just war reasoning. As Therese
Feiler has summarized, he ‘developed it into a Christian realism vis-à-vis the Civil Rights
movement, the Cold War, and the Vietnam War’ (Feiler 2015: 343; Ramsey 1980).
Oliver O’Donovan reinterpreted Augustine’s theologico-ethic of war to argue that the
moral authority to make war is at root a judicial authority. In a domestic context, the
police and criminal justice system undertake ‘ordinary’ coercive measures to ensure the
peaceable ordering of societies. In international affairs, judgment against wrongdoing
must sometimes be exercised using ‘extraordinary’ means of warfare. Critically important,
however, is that just war reasoning be understood as a judicial model of war:
(1) A belligerent has to act for the right not our right (or my right);
(2) Just war should not be conceived in terms of duellum, i.e. based on the national
right of self-interest or self-defence (at least primarily), but within a structure of
authorized arbitration;
(3) A just war is not the ‘confrontation of two’ (duellum) because all oppositions are
subject to the pacific judgment of God.
Hence, says O’Donovan:

We have identified two conditions for the authority to venture judgement [about and] in
war:
(a) the existence of a conspicuous right, and
(b) the want of a formal institution to enforce it. (O'Donovan 2003: 25)

26
Critically, armed conflict is conceived as an extraordinary extension of ordinary acts of
judgment: ‘There is only one “just intention” in armed conflict and that is to distinguish
innocence from guilt by overcoming direct co-operation in wrong’ (O'Donovan 2003: 42).
God’s will for humankind is peace; God’s peace is the ontological truth of creation, the
goal of history, and a practical demand laid upon humankind. The difficulty for the pacifist,
says O’Donovan, is that they choose not to act in defence of the weak and innocent, which
might be deemed as much a demand of Christian teaching as the idea of nonviolence
(O'Donovan 2003: 7). Pacifism is not simply a refusal to act but a refusal to enact the
reconciling praxis of judgment.

7.3 New challenges

Tactical nuclear weapons, robots, machine learning, and digital technologies more
generally are bringing new challenges to peacemaking. Hence Pope Francis wrote in
2022: ‘In view of this, it is very difficult nowadays to invoke the rational criteria elaborated
in earlier centuries to speak of the possibility of a “just war”. Never again war!’ (Fratelli
Tutti: section 258; Pope Francis 2020a). Yet threats to peace from aggressors of various
descriptions continue. How far Christian pacifists and just war reasoners will be able to
walk together is an open question, but both will perhaps keep company for a good part
of the way (Barth 1961: 458). Perhaps the religions have more contributions to make
together about the importance of political accountability on the world stage for threats to
justice and peace, and for new models of responsibility, regulation, and accountability with
respect to weapons control. In the meantime, the obligation upon Christian people to pray
for those bearing the burdens of governance – which include ‘the welfare of the city’ and
‘security of the whole kingdom’ – persists (Aquinas 2003: 58).

8 Concluding comments
Christian ethics is evangelical: while culturally and experientially diverse, an approach to
ethics described as ‘Christian’ is also unified in the sense of being centred on Christ Jesus
and the good news of his life, death, resurrection, and ascension.

Christian ethics is practical: comprising a hermeneutic that moves continuously between

doctrinal considerations and the everyday realities of lived experience, an approach to
ethics described as ‘Christian’ is always somehow about the seeking of good and striving
to avoid evil in human affairs.

Christian ethics is embodied: taking seriously the fact that God confers material bodiliness
upon human and other creatures, an approach to ethics described as ‘Christian’ is typically
committed to doing ethics through the body rather than merely about the body, in solidarity
with the experience of bodies in suffering and pain, health, and/or wellbeing.

27
Christian ethics is context-specific and global in reach: whether gross socioeconomic
inequality/ies, climate change and the resulting food insecurity and migration, the
destruction caused every day by oppression and war, care of the body, or more besides,
the realities engaged by Christian ethics are experienced locally but often exceed the local
and personal in terms of responsibility/ies (not) exercised, wrongs committed, and failures
in love of God and neighbour.

Christian ethics is biased to the poorest and least advantaged: mindful that spiritual
poverty has positive connotations of being unattached to material goods, the evil of
material poverty calls for an approach to ethics described as ‘Christian’ to strive always for
its alleviation.

Christian ethics is more than specified here. Future generations of believers and scholars
will continue the work, continuing to seek the practical wisdom of basic New Testament
concepts – apolytrōsis (redemption), alētheia (truth), kerygma (proclamation), koinonia
(community), leiturgia (worship), diakonia (service), iasis (healing), and eirēnē (peace).

Attributions

Copyright Esther D. Reed , Dion Forster , Rudolf von Sinner, Ernst M. Conradie ,
Jörg Haustein , Daniel Heide , Ángel F. Méndez-Montoya , Upolu Lumā Vaai (CC
BY-NC)

28
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