ET 1502 The View From Below: An Introduction to Christian Ethics

ET 1502 The View From Below: An Introduction to Christian Ethics

Bangor Theological Seminary

Fall Semester 1999

Thursdays 3:30-6:15 p.m. (Portland)

Instructor: Marvin M. Ellison

774-5212 (Portland office)

1-800-287-6781 (Bangor office)

Mellison@bts.edu

Course description

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 close of the twentieth 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 at the turn of the millennium.

Goals

To become familiar with the language of ethics and the distinctiveness of Christian ethics.
To learn about ethical method (authority, sources, and norms) from the approaches of several contemporary Christian ethicists.
To put it all together by applying one approach to one ethical issue.

A desired outcome of this course is for students to develop further their own "ethical voice" in the process of exploring moral inquiry as a Christian theological discipline and as they identify the strengths and limits of a variety of perspectives, including their own.

Texts

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

Cobb, John. Matters of Life and Death

Cumming Long, Grace. Passion and Reason: Womenviews of Christian Life

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

Weston, Anthony. A Practical Companion to Ethics

Requirements (details below)

Class preparation, participation, and "new insight/question" submissions (10%)
Brief reflection paper (20%)
Integration project in three parts (5% + 30% + 35%)

Measures of evaluation

Your class preparation and participation are vital, both for your learning and the quality of our shared work. Participation should give evidence of engaged reading, attention to the topic at hand, and coherent presentation of your thoughts.
Dialogue is crucial for ethical action and reflection. Respectful listening and "hearing one another into speech" are as important as respectful speaking and taking a stand.
Writing is a significant mode of doing ethics. The assigned papers are designed as learning exercises to help you organize your research and reflection. In your writing, show accurate knowledge and understanding of the materials studied, an ability to synthesize and express what you have learned clearly and in well-organized form, and a willingness to be creatively engaged as a "constructive critic" who is developing – and claiming – his or her own ethical voice.

Course requirements (in detail)

Class preparation, participation, and "new insight/question" submissions (10%) Due weekly

Do the assigned readings on schedule.
For sessions #2-#10 and #14, bring to class (typed, double-spaced, no more than 2-3 sentences) one new insight and one question relating to the week’s reading. Be specific with text reference(s). (1x10=10%)
Participate constructively in class discussion, including active listening.

Brief reflection paper on "Bible and ethics" (20%) Due October 7

To appreciate how the Bible variously functions as authority and source in Christian ethics, first explicate the assigned readings, noting areas of similarity and difference. Second, briefly describe a pivotal experience or event where a biblical image, story, principle (positive or negative) functioned. (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. (5-7 pages, typed, double-spaced. Include text references.)

Integration project in three parts (5% + 30% + 35%)

Part One. Library bibliographic search: Identifying a range of sources and perspectives. Due October 21. (5%)

The aim of this assignment is to familiarize yourself with library facilities and become comfortable with research databases necessary for work in this course and in your future work. In preparation for your final Research Paper, you will use the library’s databases to compile an initial bibliography to demonstrate how you would go about identifying a range of sources and differing perspectives on your topic. (See Part Three below for the selection of topics.) Your bibliographic search will ordinarily:

Be no less than 5 entries.
Cite books and articles.
Cite resources from denominations and ecumenical groups (e.g., National Council of Churches, World Council of Churches).
Cite opposing or divergent theological commentary on the topic.
Cite periodical listing(s) (e.g., Newsweek, Time, Utne Reader, Mother Jones, U.S. News & World Report).
Cite religious journals (e.g., The Christian Century, Sojourners, Theology Today).
Cite academic journals (e.g., Journal of Religious Ethics, Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics).
Be annotated with a sentence or two summarizing each item (i.e., look at each item, state its content, and determine its relative value).

Part Two. Mentor paper: Developing your vocabulary and stance as an ethicist.

Due November 11. (30%)

Choose as a mentor one of the ethicists listed below. This ethicist will provide you with a perspective on the discipline of ethics and a framework for examining an ethical issue in your final research project/paper. Create a dialogue using these questions as a guide: What did you learn about ethics from this person? What method did they present (e.g., Cumming Long uses a fourfold pattern: feel pain, see realities, think ethically, act morally)? How has the writer used some key categories (e.g., experience, reason, scripture, love, justice)? (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 has this book/ethicist enriched your own perspective?

Birch and Rasmussen, Bible and Ethics in Christian Life

Grace Cumming Long, Passion and Reason: Womenviews on Christian Life

Daniel Maguire, The Moral Core of Judaism and Christianity

Part Three. In-class presentation/research paper: Developing your skills in ethical reflection on an issue. In-class presentation due December 9 or 16. Research paper (10-12 pages) due January 6. (35%)

Choose one issue in ethics as presented either in John Cobb’s Matters of Life and Death or in Grace Cumming Long’s Passion and Reason: death with dignity, reproductive choices, sexuality and difference, welfare reform, or ableism (handicapping conditions).

For the in-class presentation, the group working on that topic will present Cobb or Cumming Long’s approach to the issue and discuss the writer’s method, use of sources, appeal to norms, etc.

For the research paper, draw on your class presentation, your mentor’s work and other assigned readings, as well as the bibliography you developed in your library search, including denominational and ecumenical literature. Write an ethical analysis of that issue in either an argument or discovery mode (see Weston, A Practical Companion to Ethics, pp. 87-96). In the introduction to your essay, be sure to state which presentation style and mentor you are using. 10-12 pages, typed and double-spaced. Use endnotes, citing specific text references. Include a bibliography of works cited.

Course schedule

SECTION ONE: INTRODUCING THE "VIEW FROM BELOW"

I. September 9 Introduction to this course. Expectations and requirements.

"The View From Below": Some working assumptions

II. September 16 Charting the Moral Life

Due today: Learning List

Read: Anthony Weston, A Practical Companion to Ethics, Preface,

Introduction, and Chs. 1-2 (pp. vii-27).

Bruce C. Birch and Larry L. Rasmussen, Bible and Ethics in the Christian Life (revised and expanded edition), Introduction and Ch. 1 (pp. 9-16).

Grace Cumming Long, Passion and Reason: Womenviews of Christian Life, Ch. 1 (pp. 1-7), plus questions on p. 128.

Daniel C. Maguire, The Moral Core of Judaism and Christianity, Preface and Chs. 1-3 (pp. ix-57).

SECTION TWO: SOURCES, NORMS, AND METHOD

III. September 23 Ethical Method and Principles

Read: Weston, Chs. 3-4 (pp. 29-65).

Birch and Rasmussen, Chs. 2-3 (pp. 17-65)

Cumming Long, Chs. 2-3 (pp. 11-33), plus questions on pp. 128-30.

IV. September 30 Sources: Experience and Tradition

Read: Birch and Rasmussen, Chs. 4-5 (pp. 66-99).

Cumming Long, Chs. 4-5 (pp. 34-54), plus questions on pp. 130-31.

Maguire, Ch. 5 (pp. 85-109).

Either: Beverly Wildung Harrison, "The Older Person’s Worth in the Eyes of Society," in Harrison, Making the Connections: Essays in Feminist Social Ethics, ed. Carol S. Robb (Beacon, 1985), pp. 152-166.

Or: Karen Lebacqz, "Empowerment in the Clinical Setting," in On Moral Medicine, ed. Stephen E. Lammers and Allen Verhey (Eerdmans, 1998), pp. 805-815.

V. October 7 Sources: Scripture

Due today: Short reflection paper on Bible and Ethics

Read: Birch and Rasmussen, Chs. 8-9 (pp. 141-158).

Maguire, Ch. 4 (pp. 58-84).

Christine E. Gudorf, "Churches Must Work to Reduce Violence Against Women," in Violence Against Women, ed. Karin L. Swisher and Carol Wekesser (San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1994), pp. 167-175.

October 14 Reading Week (no class)

VI. October 21 Practical Moral Reasoning and Models of Doing Ethics

Due today: Library Bibliographic Search

Read: Weston, Ch. 3 (pp. 29-48). [re-read]

Birch and Rasmussen, Ch. 6 (pp. 100-119).

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.

Roger Hutchinson, "Towards a ‘Pedagogy for Allies of the Oppressed’," Studies in Religion 13:2 (1984), pp. 145-150.

Recommended:

David Cook, The Moral Maze: A Way of Exploring Christian Ethics (London: SPCK).

VII. October 28 Moral Norms: Justice

Read: Maguire, Chs. 6-7 (pp. 111-165).

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

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.

VIII. November 4 Moral Norms: Love

Read: Maguire, Ch. 10 (pp. 208-30).

Christine Gudorf, "Parenting, Mutual Love, and Sacrifice," in Women’s Consciousness. Women’s Conscience, ed. Andolsen et al., pp. 175-191.

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.

Recommended:

Christine E.Gudorf, "Sacrificial and Parental Spiritualities," in Religion,

Feminism, and the Family, ed. Anne Carr and Mary Stewart van Leeuwen

(Westminster John Knox, 1996), 294-309.

IX. November 11 Moral Agency: Vision and Power

Due today: Mentor Paper

Read: 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.

Bernard Loomer, "Two Conceptions of Power," Criterion 15:1 (Winter 1976), pp. 12-29.

Karen Lebacqz, "Fair Shares: Is the Genome Project Just?," in Genetics, ed. Ted Peters (Pilgrim, 1998), pp. 82-107.

SECTION THREE: PUTTING IT TOGETHER
X. November 18 Moral Agency: Church as a Community of Moral Formation

Read: Birch and Rasmussen, Ch. 7 (pp. 120-40) and Ch. 10 (pp. 189-202).

David P. Gushee, "The Quest for Righteousness," in The Righteous Gentiles of the Holocaust (Fortress, 1994), pp. 149-175.

Recommended: Larry Rasmussen, "A People of the Way, Part I and Part II," Auburn Views 1:1 (Fall 1993), 1-7, and 2:1 (Fall 1994), 8-11.

Panel: How Pastors, Rabbis, and Other Religious Leaders Think About and Engage in Ethical Leadership

Rev. Karen Brammer (Unitarian Universalist)

Rabbi Carolyn Braun (Conservative Judaism)

Rev. Lynn Bujnak (United Church of Christ)

Tom Ewell (Society of Friends)

Rev. Steve Notis (United Methodist)

Rev. Linton Studdiford (Episcopal)

November 25 Thanksgiving Recess (no class)

XI. December 2 Preparation of In-Class Presentations

Group A: Death with Dignity

Read: John Cobb, Matters of Life and Death, Ch. 2 (pp. 44-68).

Group B: Reproductive Choices

Read: Cobb, Ch. 3 (pp. 69-93).

Cummings Long, Ch. 7 (pp. 70-83).

Group C: Sexuality and Difference

Read: Cobb, Ch. 4 (pp. 94-120).

Group D: Welfare Reform

Read: Cummings Long, Ch. 6 (pp. 57-69).

Group E: Ableism (handicapping conditions)

Read: Cummings Long, Ch. 9 (pp. 96-109).

XII. December 9 Ethical Analyses of Issues

Presentations by Groups A, B, and C

Read: John Cobb, Matters of Life and Death, Ch. 2 (pp. 44-68), Ch. 3 (pp. 69-93), and Ch. 4 (pp. 94-120).

Cummings Long, Ch. 7 (pp. 70-83).

XIII. December 16 Ethical Analyses of Issues

Presentations by Groups D and E

Read: Cummings Long, Ch. 6 (pp. 57-69) and Ch. 9 (pp. 96-109).

Course Evaluation

RESEARCH PAPERS DUE: January 6, 2000

ET 1502

Fall Semester 1999

Bangor Theological Seminary (Portland)

LEARNING LIST

Name:

Degree or audit status:

Prior coursework in Ethics:

At BTS:

At other institutions:

Name of institution(s)

Course(s), workshop(s), etc.

I am taking this course in order to: (list your specific learning goals)

Readings and practical experience that provide me with background for this course include:

Topics or ideas I hope to explore in this course include:

I plan to use my learning from this course in order to: