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In this article I try to introduce the overall structure of Bretherton’s book Christ and the Common Life by showing how each chapter displays how talk of God and talk of politics are mutually constitutive. In particular I try to show how Bretherton’s ‘case studies’ are arranged to develop his constructive thesis. My paper was not meant to be critical, though I raise the question of whether Bretherton’s project is not a very sophisticated form of Constantinianism—a question that very much asks Bretherton to make clear for whom he has written this extremely impressive book.

In this essay I offer a nuanced account of my critique of “rights” language. I argue that my primary concern is not to discount the usefulness of rights language in contemporary expressions of legal and moral duties. Rather my concern is with the overreliance on rights language such that it guards a society from acknowledging prior claims to a common good. Rights language has become too powerful when appeals to rights threatens to replace first-order moral descriptions in a manner that makes us less able to make the moral discriminations that we depend upon to be morally wise. Finally, I turn to Simone Weil and Rowan Williams, who both turn to the body to suggest a more constructive way for thinking about rights as attending to the body, which forces us to attend to contingency. Human contingency can help us resist abstractions that fail to properly account for and address bodily needs.

In this essay Hauerwas explores the experience of children with developmental disabilities and their parents. Arguing against the problemitization of disability Hauerwas asks the piercing question: What are children for? He presents a case for suggesting that the ‘problems’ that children with developmental disabilities encounter are not inherent within their condition, but rather are created by the type of society that they inhabit and the assumptions about the purpose of children within such a society. Whilst society tends to treat children as commodities which can be picked and chosen according to personal desire, Hauerwas presents a case for a theological understanding of parenting which locates responsibility for the individual child firmly within the Christian community. Children are signs of hope in the midst of a dark world. To have a child is a profound act of faith. Children, whether disabled or otherwise, are gifts given to the community. The church is constituted by those people who ca...

In this final chapter Hauerwas responds to the papers that have been presented within this volume.

Hauerwas presents a moral vision of the church and reframes the way in which we might understand Christian education. He presents a model of the church as a social ethic. The church does not simply do ethics, it is an ethic insofar as it embodies the gestures of the coming Kingdom and reveals the good-life that is found in Christ. Hauerwas argues that religious education is the training in those gestures through which we learn the story, of God and God's will for our lives … It is ongoing training in the skills we need in order to live faithful to the kingdom that has been initiated in Jesus. Hauerwas suggests that the ‘mentally handicapped’ are a reminder, a test case, for helping us understand how any account of religious education involves assumptions about the nature of Christian conviction and the church. It is certainly true that they may not be able to read the story; nor are they always able to “understand” the “meaning” of the story nor do they know what social implications the story may...

The criteria for what is understood as authentic ‘humanhood’ have been much discussed in contemporary bioethics. Many of the ‘traditional’ arguments for the essence of humanness necessarily exclude people with developmental disabilities. Such definitions can easily lead to treatment which is inhumane. Hauerwas critque's the criteria for humanness arguing that the conditions of being human form a far too complex pattern ever to be reduced to ‘criteria.’ To be human is to be open to the call of what we are not, and there is therefore no chance that our humanity will be enhanced by excluding from our ranks those who we do not understand as ‘we.’

In this paper Hauerwas reflects on the significance of the L'Arche communities as exemplars of the true nature of Christian community. He explores the philosophy and theology of Jean Vanier as a mode of embodied theology. Hauerwas reflects critically on Michael Berube's book Life as We Know It, in which he describes his experiences with his son who has Down's syndrome. In drawing together the perspectives of Berube and Vanier, Hauerwas explores the nature of disability in liberal society and presents an ethical and moral perspective which calls us to take seriously the significance of meaningful community marked by friendship and ‘timefullness.’ Such a community will enable us to become ‘friends of time,’ a form of friendship which seeks meaningful ways to ‘be with’ and not to ‘do for’ people with developmental disabilities.

By focusing on questions concerning what kind of training graduate students in theology and ethics and religious ethics should receive, I try to initiate a conversation we need to have about the kind of work the JRE should foster.

This essay explores the general issues of aging—loneliness, vulnerability, dispossession, disempowerment, fear of death—from a Christian perspective. Drawing on Aristotle and Aelred of Rievaulx, we argue first that Christian stories transform these issues such that we see aging as a gift rather than a threat. Second, friendships among the elderly, and between the elderly and the young, are essential to the church; we need the elderly to tell the Christian stories, to embody the church's memory, and to teach the young how to grow old and die. Finally, we make a few suggestions about how churches can approximate more closely Aelred's vision of a community of friendship.

This new, revised, and expanded edition of the popular Academic’s Handbook is an essential guide for those planning or beginning an academic career. Faculty members, administrators, and professionals with experience at all levels of higher education offer candid, practical advice to help beginning academics understand matters including: — The different kinds of institutions of higher learning and expectations of faculty at each. — The advantages and disadvantages of teaching at four-year colleges instead of research universities. — The ins and outs of the job market. — Alternatives to tenure-track, research-oriented positions. — Salary and benefits. — The tenure system. — Pedagogy in both large lecture courses and small, discussion-based seminars. — The difficulties facing women and minorities within academia. — Corporations, foundations, and the federal government as potential sources of research funds. — The challenges of faculty mentoring. — The impact of technology on contemporary teaching and learning. — Different types of publishers and the publishing process at university presses. — The modern research library. — The structure of university governance. — The role of departments within the university. With the inclusion of eight new chapters, this edition of The Academic’s Handbook is designed to ease the transition from graduate school to a well-rounded and rewarding career. Contributors. Judith K. Argon, Louis J. Budd, Ronald R. Butters, Norman L. Christensen, Joel Colton, Paul L. Conway, John G. Cross, Fred E. Crossland, Cathy N. Davidson, A. Leigh DeNeef, Beth A. Eastlick, Matthew W. Finkin, Jerry G. Gaff, Edie N. Goldenberg, Craufurd D. Goodwin, Stanley M. Hauerwas, Deborah L. Jakubs, L. Gregory Jones, Nellie Y. McKay, Patrick M. Murphy, Elizabeth Studley Nathans, A. Kenneth Pye, Zachary B. Robbins, Anne Firor Scott, Sudhir Shetty, Samuel Schuman, Philip Stewart, Boyd R. Strain, Emily Toth, P. Aarne Vesilind, Judith S. White, Henry M. Wilbur, Ken Wissoker

In the words of Stanley Hauerwas, John Howard Yoder (1927-1997) "is probably the major theologian/ethicist of this half-century in America". Written by scholars from within and outside of Yoder's own Mennonite community, these essays engage the most significant aspects of Yoder's thought -- from his landmark analysis of the politics of Jesus to his defense of Christian pacifism. A fitting tribute to Yoder's work, this book will be useful to readers from a wide range of disciplines.

The Gospel of Luke contains important clues about how Christians should care for the poor, that is, what form our charity should take and in what sense such a charity is politics.

A psychiatrist, an ethicist, and a pastoral counselor comment on the ways in which they conceive of homosexuality in their work, reflection, and efforts at counseling. Although each writes in isolation from the others, a surprising degree of consensus emerges. All three cite the problem of unclear terms and the peril of labeling. Each distinguishes between homosexuality as a state of being and homosexual acts or behavior. Mansell Pattison, the psychiatrist, comments on prejudice, norms, sickness, and deviancy and their relevance for understanding homosexuality, before suggesting a model himself. Stanley Hauerwas, the ethicist, seeks a context that will allow us to think seriously about homosexuality from an ethical point of view. John Patton, the pastoral counselor, argues that the major contribution of a counselor is to avoid labeling and preconceived notions about homosexuality and to relate to the counselee in such a way as to help him clarify what he seeks.

My title calls the relationship of theology and the new American culture “problematic.” That relationship is a problem, I think, on many sides and various levels. The issue involves questions I do not even know how to ask meaningfully, let alone resolve.

No ETHIC is formulated in isolation from the social conditions of its time. The contemporary emphasis in Christian ethics on the dynamic and self-creating nature of man is a reflection of the kind of society in which we live. Perhaps our ancestors were born to pre-established roles in a world where faithfulness to those roles guaranteed the fulfilment of moral duty. But we are born into a social world that forces us to be free, to be autonomous; for now the moral imperative is to actually fashion our lives by choosing among the numerous alternatives our social world presents to us. In such a world it is not surprising that current moral discourse employs the language of freedom and responsibility to focus on man as self-creator. The moral life is not constituted by correspondence to an objective moral order; rather it is to be constantly readjusted to the nuances and ambiguities of our ethical choices and experiences. Modern ethicists recognize that there is often more to our moral situation than our principles and rules contain; so much of our significant moral experience and life simply does not fall within the areas marked off by clearly defined roles or principles. "Responsibility" names the fact that often we are simply forced to fall back on ourselves in order to make decisions that have no relationship to objective standards of right and wrong. In a social situation that seems to force the individual to be on his own, it is no surprise that the subject matter of ethics is centered around "problems/' i.e., situations in which it is difficult to know what one should do. Ethical discussion then focuses on the best way to respond to such "problems": Should an ethical decision be determined primarily in relation to principles and rules, or by a loving response to the peculiarities of the immediate situation? Those who argue for "principles" suggest that only their approach assures objectivity in morals, or that love is sentimentalized if it is not "imprincipled." Contextualists maintain that adherence to principles results in a false security that makes one insensitive to the complexity of modern moral issues. 1 For a much fuller account of the idea of responsibility and its use in contemporary theological ethics, see Albert Jonsen, Responsibility in Modern Religious Ethics (Washington: Corpus, 1968). 2 For an extraordinarily perceptive article that makes this point in a philosophical context, see E. Pincoffs, "Quandary Ethics," Mind 80 (1971) 552-71.

In trying to see what significance suicide and euthanasia have in the Christian community, and how the memory and the narrative framework of that community provide resources for determining an appropriate position on suicide and euthanasia, this essay advances an experimental model of how moral notions operate within the story and convictions that sustain human communities. It is suggested that given the Christian understanding of life as a gift and the necessity of trust for our lives as social creatures, suicide and euthanasia are incompatible with essential elements of the Christian story and must therefore be rejected. While this position, together with the ambiguity of suicide and the necessity of distinguishing between euthanasia and "letting die," may sometimes result in tragic circumstances, such tragedy is the inescapable result of truthfulness to a complex story. This essay is intended to contribute to discussion of suicide and euthanasia, to the bearing of moral notions and narrative, and to an understanding of the nature and function of ethics. If Suicide is allowed then everything is allowed. If anything is not allowed then suicide is not allowed. This throws a light on the nature of ethics, for suicide is, so to speak, the elementary sin. Wittgenstein, Notebooks, 1914-16, 10.1.17. Suicide and Euthanasia as Moral Problems THICISTS do not need to provide a reason to describe suicide and euthanasia as moral problems. Everyone seems to agree that if anything is a moral problem suicide and euthanasia are prime examples and thus ready grist for the ethicist's mill. As Wittgenstein suggests, we seem to be on fundamentally moral grounds when dealing with the taking of one's own life. Yet we feel it is by no means clear why it is assumed that suicide and euthanasia raise moral issues, or indeed, what those issues are and how the ethicist might relate to them. At the very least people have begun to realize that "acts" of suicide STANLEY HAUERWAS (Ph.D., Yale) is Associate Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame. RICHARD BONDI (B.A., Oberlin) is engaged in doctoral studies in theological ethics at the University of Notre Dame.

Mr. Dobel is right—as a society we act as if the war in Vietnam was just a nasty little mistake. This not only excuses those who, for a variety of good and evil reasons, unwarrantedly perpetuated that war; but, more important, it dishonors those who conscientiously served there and those who conscientiously refused to serve there. If there is any forgiving to be done, people in those two groups must lead the way; they alone know what such forgiveness might mean.Mr. Dobel is also right in stating that Vietnam continues to lie uneasily on our national conscience. Our inability to explain why we were in Vietnam and why we stayed there indicates the moral limits of our political self-understanding. We simply lack the moral means to recognize and understand what we did there. But then it would be a mistake to single out Vietnam—have we recognized or understood any better what we did to the Indians or that we were a slave nation?

Book reviewed in this article: Suffering Presence: Theological Reflections on Medicine, the Mentally Handicapped, and the Church. By Stanley Hauerwas.