Bangor Theological Seminary
Fall Semester 2000

Tuesdays 8:30 -- 11:20 a.m. (Bangor)
Instructor: Marvin M. Ellison
774-5212 (Portland office)
1-800-287-6781 (Bangor office)
Mellison@bts.edu

This course assists students in acquiring greater confidence and skills in doing ethical reflection, especially within the context of Christian life and ministry at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

The Christian community, as both context and resource for shaping moral character and conduct, is called to sustain a way of life with distinctive loyalties, values, and commitments.

Adopting the "view from below" and advocating justice as right relatedness with those who are marginalized provide the starting points for inquiry into Christian ethics as a discipline of the church.

1. To become familiar with the language of ethics and the distinctiveness of Christian ethics.
2. To learn about ethical method (authority, sources, and norms) from the approaches of several contemporary Christian ethicists.
3. To put it all together by examining one or more ethical issues.

Birch, Bruce C., and Larry L. Rasmussen. Bible and Ethics in the Christian Life

Ellis, Anne Leo, ed. First, We Must Listen: Living in a Multicultural Society.

Maguire, Daniel C. The Moral Core of Judaism and Christianity

Dorothee Soelle, Creative Disobedience

Weston, Anthony. A Practical Companion to Ethics

 

Course requirements:

1. Class participation (30%):
1. Consistent attendance, timely completion of assigned readings, and constructive participation in discussions, including active listening. (20%)
2. In-class presentation on an assigned reading. (10%)
2. Writing assignments (70%):
1. A weekly insight-and-question (typed, double-spaced, no more than 2-3 sentences) in response to the week’s assigned reading. When citing a text, include author and page number(s). (10%)
2. Reflection paper on "Bible and Ethics" (5-7 pages, typed and doubled spaced) due November 14. (25%)

To appreciate how the Bible variously functions as authority and source in Christian ethics, first explicate the assigned readings, especially Birch and Rasmussen’s chapters 8-9 and Maguire, The Moral Core, Ch. 4 ("Unpacking Theopolitical Dynamite"). Second, briefly describe a pivotal experience or event in which a biblical image, story, or principle has functioned positively or negatively. (Outline that experience or event as a mini case study in two-three paragraphs.) Third, reflect on and apply how one or more of the authors helps you to identify how scripture works in your moral framework. Include text references (author, page number)

3. Final paper on "Mentors for Doing Christian Ethics" (8-10 pages, typed and doubled spaced), due January 8, 2001. (35%)

During the semester, we have read a variety of ethicists, including Anthony Weston, Dorothee Soelle, Daniel Maguire, and Bruce Birch + Larry Rasmussen. Create a dialogue among at least three of these, and use the following questions as prompts: What did you learn about ethics from these persons? What method did they present? How does each writer use key categories (e.g., experience, reason, scripture, love, justice, freedom)? (Note: These categories might be expressed in different words.) What did you find agreeable with your own outlook, and why? What was jarring or dissonant for you, and why? How have these ethicists enriched your own understanding of ethics and of Christian ethics? [Note: You may also wish to add other voices to the dialogue, including those from First, We Must Listen, or the Siker volume, or from individual essays by Walter Brueggemann, Beverly Harrison, Marcus Borg, or Sallie McFague.]

Written work will be evaluated in terms of:

• Overall clarity of your thinking and expression.

• Your critical engagement with texts, including demonstration of your understanding the author’s points and ability to evaluate them fairly.

• Your ability to state and give an accounting for your own position.

• Late work will be penalized.

Read: Anthony Weston, A Practical Companion to Ethics

Martin Marty, David E. Guinn, and Larry Greenfield, "To Speak and Be Heard: Principles of Religious Civil Discourse," Conscience (Winter 1998-99), pp. 16-21.

Read: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "After Ten Years: A Reckoning Made at New Year 1943," in Letters and Papers from Prison, ed. Eberhard Bethge (Macmillan, 1971), pp. 3-17.

Sallie McFague, Models of God: Theology for an Ecological, Nuclear Age, Ch. 2 ("Metaphorical Theology"), pp. 29-57, but especially 45-57.

Marcus Borg, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, Ch. 3 ("Jesus, Compassion, and Politics" and Ch. 4 ("Jesus and Wisdom: Teacher of Alternative Wisdom"), pp. 46-95.

Recommended:

Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, "The Basileia Vision of Jesus as the Praxis of Inclusive Wholeness," in In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (Crossroad, 1983), pp. 118-130.

Read: Dorothee Soelle, Creative Disobedience

October 10 Reading Week (no class)

#5. October 17 Christian Ethics as Community Ethics

Read: Bruce C. Birch and Larry L. Rasmussen, Bible and Ethics in the Christian Life (revised and expanded edition), Introduction and Ch. 1-6 (pp. 9-119).

Read: Anne Leo Ellis (ed.), First, We Must Listen, Introduction and Parts. 1-3

(pp. 7-85).

Recommended:

Mary E. Hobgood, Dismantling Privilege: An Ethics of Accountability, Ch. 2 ("Dismantling Whiteness"), pp. 36-62.

Read: Birch and Rasmussen, Bible and Ethics in the Christian Life, Ch. 7-10 (pp. 120-202).

#8. November 7 The Moral Core

Read: Daniel C. Maguire, The Moral Core of Judaism and Christianity, Preface,

Ch. 3 ("Religion and Common Weal"), and Ch. 4 ("Unpacking Theopolitical Dynamite: Questions of Method"), pp. ix-x, 31-84.

Daniel C. Maguire, "Ethics: How to Do It," in Maguire, Death By Choice, updated and expanded edition (Garden City, NY: Image Books, 1984), pp. 65-96.

Due today: Reflection paper on "Bible and Ethics"

Read: Maguire, The Moral Core, Ch. 6 ("Reimagining the World"), Ch. 7 ("Redefining Justice"), and Ch. 8 ("Connoisseurs of Conscience"), pp. 113-193.

Karen Lebacqz, "Implications for a Theory of Justice," in From Christ to World, ed. Boulton, Kennedy, and Verhey (Eerdmans, 1994), pp. 254-60.

Recommended:

Walter Bruggeman, "Voices of the Night – Against Justice," in Brueggeman, Parks, and Groome, To Act Justly, Love Tenderly, Walk Humbly: An Agenda for Ministers, pp. 5-28.

November 21 Thanksgiving Recess (no class)

#10. November 28 Love as a Moral Norm

Read: Maguire, Ch. 10 ("The Redefinition of Love"), pp. 208-30.

Beverly Wildung Harrison, "The Power of Anger in the Work of Love," in Harrison, Making the Connections: Essays in Feminist Social Ethics, ed. Carol S. Robb (Beacon, 1985), pp. 3-21.

Read: Jeffrey Siker, ed. Homosexuality in the Church: Both Sides of the Debate, Introduction and Parts 1-3, pp. xv-90.

Recommended:

James B. Nelson, Embodiment, Ch. 8 ("Gayness and Homosexuality: Issues for the Church"), pp. 180-210.

Read: Jeffrey Siker, ed. Homosexuality in the Church: Both Sides of the Debate, Parts 5-6, pp. 137-194.

Recommended:

Stanley J. Grenz, Welcoming But Not Affirming: An Evangelical Response to Homosexuality, Ch. 6 ("Homosexuality and the Church") and

Epilogue ("The Welcoming But Not Affirming Community"), pp. 131-157.

Read: Ellis, First, We Must Listen, Parts 4-6 and Postscript, pp. 87-125.

Sharon D. Welch, "’Dreams of the Good’: From the Analytics of Oppression to the Politics of Transformation," in New Visions for the Americas: Religious Engagement and Social Transformation, ed. David Batstone, pp. 172-193.

Jim Wallis, "America’s Original Sin: The Legacy of White Racism," in Batstone (ed.), New Visions of the Americas, pp. 197-214.

Note: If you wish to have your paper returned to you by mail, please submit your paper along with a stamped, self-addressed envelope.