CONTEMPORARY SOCIAL ETHICS & THE CHURCH FATHERS

1988

Contact, 1975

2014

Writing a dissertation is, in many ways, like creating a new life: It takes time. There are failed attempts. Sometimes it is joyful and sometimes painful and in the end, there exists something new that stands alone, apart from the person who created it. Also like birthing a human being, the process of writing a dissertation occurs in community, and it takes the support of a community to manifest its completion. I wish to acknowledge, therefore, the many members of my community who believed in this project and its goals. First, I am profoundly appreciative of the wisdom of Dr. Shelly Rambo, who nurtured this dissertation by steering it in generative, lifegiving directions while supporting me in the process. I feel honored to have worked with and learned from her. I am also grateful to Dr. Bryan Stone, who from the start showed incredible enthusiasm for the framework of this project. The Boston University and wider academic community also offered incredible encouragement and assistance at various stages of this dissertation's development.

2011

The Heythrop Journal, 1999

This is an edited version of a fourth-year seminary paper submitted nearly 40 years ago. The subject matter is unchanged. This material is presented with the hope that it provides an overview of the kinds of issues related to abortion that were being discussed in the evangelical community in the early 1980's, providing a baseline against which today's issues may be compared.

Koers - Bulletin for Christian Scholarship, 1991

Christian theologians give many different interpretations to the Scriptures, particularly with regard to their ethical perspectives and their application to the present. A n examination and criticism o f various approaches adopted at present to the ethical dimension o f the Scriptures is undertaken. A distinction is made between the revealed and lasting message o f the Scriptitres and the message that is conditioned by culture and hence subject to change. Using the thought o f Ricoeur and Hauerwas an approach is presented which attempts to do justice to the twofold polarity o f the worid o f the Bible and the world o f today. In order to preserve a scenario o f concreteness, attention is given to one practical example, namely the issue o f homosexuality. After investigating the Scriptural approach to this question, an attempt is made to see how this issue can be viewed from a Christian perspective in the context o f the present world.

Pastoral Psychology

Views on marriage, sexuality, and gender changed remarkably in Western culture during the twentieth century. It has been argued that this change is, in part, the result of a therapeutic turn, which means that, after the Second World War, different psychological and therapeutic ideas, ideals, and techniques have increased in prevalence within culture as a whole, religion included. This article examines how the rise of different psychotherapeutic discourses changed the view on homosexuality in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland and how this cultural shift constructed religious and sexual subjectivity. The material for the analysis consists of memoranda, handbooks, articles, official statements, and reports of the Church and of the Family Affairs Committee of the Church. A close reading of the material shows that the therapeutic turn of the Finnish Church resulted from a turn to a psychoanalytical understanding of the human psyche. Within the new paradigm, homosexuality is seen as an identity and a trait of personality rather than a sin or a sickness, as it had been understood earlier. Instead of protecting society from homosexuality, the Church aims at accepting and supporting homosexual individuals.

Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie, 2020

In the Lutheran tradition, the particular aspects of theological ethics have often been overlooked, if not outright denied. Thus, it is not uncommon for Lutheran theologians to emphasize the universal aspects of theological ethics and to downplay its particular aspects, even to the point of arguing that a Christian ethics does not exist. Against this background, the article gives several arguments for drawing Lutheran ethics in a direction that will allow its particular aspects to be more clearly articulated. It also presents certain features of Luther’s ethical position that might foster an understanding of the particular aspects of Lutheran ethics. Building on this, the article points to a contemporary Lutheran position of relevance to a pluralistic society.

2013

Of all the Christian denominations in the United States, the United Methodist Church (UMC) is one of three probably experiencing the greatest amount of conflict over the rights of its members who practice homosexuality. History shows that United Methodists have always maintained a great diversity of opinion on many matters within the Church. Having dealt with its racist and sexist policies in the past, the UMC is now tackling its homophobic beliefs. Scripture, tradition, experience, and reason have been used as tools to deal with this debate, which has become one of the most divisive in the church and society. At present, there are two main positions concerning the debate on homosexuality in the UMC: the rejecting and accepting positions. Although the UMC-as set forth in its book of discipline-finds the practice of homosexuality incompatible with Christian teaching, its debate on homosexuality seems far from over. First, there is a majority conviction supporting the current position of the church. Second, there is a steadily growing minority conviction that maintains that the responsible practice of homosexuality should be accepted and homosexuals should enter into full membership with the church. Third, the UMC upholds basic human and civil rights. Nonetheless, gays and lesbians are not ordained into the ministry. Fourth, the UMC acknowledges that our human understanding of human sexuality is limited and a combined effort with other sciences will help us understand human sexuality more completely. One can see the church's struggle in search for a Christian sexual ethic. It seems difficult to foresee any form of consensus that could bridge the big differences of opinion and conviction behind the two camps in the struggle: "rejection" of homosexuality (non-punitive) and "full acceptance". They simply do not seem to be compatible, rationally and ethically. It is the task of this mini-thesis to explore the United Methodist Church's struggle in the search for ethical discernment on homosexuality. iv DECLARATION I declare that "A Case Study of the Debate on Homosexuality within the United Methodist Church" is my own work, that it has not been submitted before for any degree or examination in any other university, and that all the sources I have used or quoted have been indicated and acknowledged as complete references.

Journal of Homosexuality, Vol. 32, No. 1, p. 95-112, 1996

This essay explores the historical process in which homosexuality became an object for pastoral, medical, and mental health care in the Dutch Catholic community during the twentieth century. The confrontation between a moral-religious approach and the professional (medical and psychological) treatment of homosexuality is the central issue. In a continuing dialogue and a process of changing power relations between clergymen, physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists, and pedagogues as well as Catholic homosexuals themselves, homosexuality was transformed from sin and pathology into a psychological and social problem that could be treated in pastoral and mental health care. The changing attitudes of Catholics towards homosexuality can be explained in the context of the changing relations between religion on the one hand and health care on the other hand. Current viewpoints resulting from sociohistorical studies on the development of the medical and welfare professions have concluded that religion lost importance in modern society because physicians, psychiatrists, psychotherapists , and social workers not only created new areas of intervention in people's private lives, but also took over the traditional tasks of the church in the field of charity and pastoral care. Medical anamnesis, psychoanalysis, and psychotherapy took the place of confession and pastoral care, thus the argument runs, and remission of sins and redemption were replaced by health and welfare. However, especially in the case of the development of the Dutch welfare state, there was a more complicated interplay between changing religious values and professional strategies. In the Netherlands professional health care and welfare institutions often were organized in a religious context and it is difficult to make a clear differentiation between religious and moral discourses on the one hand and medical and psychological ones on the other hand. Moreover, professional interventions did not take the place of pastoral care; it appears that pastoral care for homosexuals gained ground and was intensified after medical and psychological definitions of homosexuality had found acceptance in the Catholic community. Professional strategies did not supersede religion, but rather contributed to a moral reorientation and a new pattern of Christian values and appreciations in the field of sexuality.

Socio-Historical Examination of Religion and Ministry, 2019

PREVIEW ONLY READ FULL ARTICLE HERE: https://doi.org/10.33929/sherm.2019.vol1.no2.12 Mark S. Massa argues that the history of natural law discourse in American Catholic moral theology, since the promulgation of Humanae Vitae in 1968, is marked more by discontinuity, rupture, and revolution than has been appreciated.

2007

This book is an evaluation and critique of 'new natural law,' a school of thought first advanced by Germain Grisez and ostensibly based on the work of Thomas Aquinas. Members of this school, in particular John Finnis and Robert George, have prominently defended conservative moral views about sexuality (in particular, about lesbian and gay and 'non-marital' heterosexual sexual activity) and gender (in particular, about contraception and abortion), and have presented their arguments as being of a secular rather than doctrinal character. Bamforth and Richards argue that the new natural lawyers' views-which were advanced before the U.S. Supreme Court in Lawrence v Texas (concerning decrimimalization of gay sex)-are neither of a secular character nor properly consistent with the philosophical aims of historical Thomism. Instead, their positions concerning lesbian and gay sexuality, contraception and abortion serve as a defense of the conservative doctrinal stance of the Papacy-a stance now properly rejected by many thoughtful Catholics. The book suggests that the new natural lawyers' arguments are rooted in an embattled defense of the highly patriarchal structure of Catholic religious authority, and as such are unappealing in a modern constitutional democracy. Alternative interpretations of Christianity, not flawed in the way that new natural law is, are both possible and more constitutionally acceptable.

TANGAZA UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, 2012

Human sexuality is a profound complex phenomenon in many of its aspects. Even now, when it has been shorn of the many taboos that used or are surrounding it, the significance of its expression is still very ambiguous to many people. Faced with such ambiguity in one of life’s most important aspects, people naturally ask what is right in human sexuality and what is wrong. They want to know what is permissible and what is not; what is moral and ethical and what is either amoral or outright immoral and unethical. They wonder aloud as to whether only heterosexuality is “normal” or whether homosexual activity too can be considered under the category of ‘normalcy’. On what religious and ethical grounds can this be determined? Religiously, what are the rules and principles to be applied in order to distinguish normal from abnormal sexual behavior? In this paper, I discuss the human rights from homosexuality point of view. First by defining the word homosexuality and the related concepts, how it is viewed today, what the position of the church, State and society on homosexuality, how the rights of homosexuals are violated, sources that recognize the rights of homosexuals, recommendation and conclusion.

The Linacre Quareterly, 2019