Christian Humanism And Moral Formation In A World Come Of Age

"Since its inception in ancient Greco-Roman culture, the main goal of humanism has been moral formation through education for the attainment of true humanity. Literature and religion have always played a central role in humanistic learning, especially in the Christian humanism that has deeply shaped Western ideals of higher education. Does Christian humanism remain important today? What does Christian humanism have to contribute to the idea of moral formation in contemporary Western culture that has been characterized by many as "a secular age"? This book addresses these questions by examining two prominent Christian humanists: the twentieth-century theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the contemporary American writer Marilynne Robinson. In this volume, a group of international scholars, from a variety of disciplines, bring Bonhoeffer and Robinson into conversation with current moral and ethical issues, from the residential school system to our increasingly consumerist and technology-obsessed society. The contributors demonstrate the profound affirmation of human dignity and freedom that characterize the humanism of both Bonhoeffer and Robinson, highlighting their import as resources for the relation of religion, culture and ethics. The essays in this book thus remind us that religious faith will remain relevant as we search for moral consensus in modern, post-Christian societies. The volume also features a new interview with Robinson that reveals her own religious humanism and her appreciation for Bonhoeffer's theology.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is many things to many people—committed pacifist, reluctant revolutionary, Protestant saint but in Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Ethics of Formation, Ryan Huber argues that Bonhoeffer should be engaged as a Christian ethicist of formation. Huber demonstrates that formation lies at the heart of Bonhoeffer’s ethical project and personal story, providing a third way between virtue and character ethics in contemporary Christian thought concerned with moral growth.

Racism. Immigration. Gun violence. Sexuality. Health care. The number of ethical issues that demand a response from Christians today is almost dizzying. How can Christians navigate such matters? What are faithful responses to these questions? Edited by two theologians with pastoral experience, this volume invites engagement with these issues and more by drawing on real-life experiences and offering a range of responses to some of the most challenging moral questions confronting the church today. With an unflinching yet irenic approach, this resource can help Christians as they seek to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.

In 1945, Dietrich Bonhoeffer—a theologian and pastor—was executed by the Nazis for his resistance to their unspeakable crimes against humanity. He was only 39 years old when he died, but Bonhoeffer left behind volumes of work exploring theological and ethical themes that have now inspired multiple generations of scholars, students, pastors, and activists. This book highlights the ways Dietrich Bonhoeffer's work informs political theology and examines Bonhoeffer's contributions in three ways: historical-critical interpretation, critical-constructive engagement, and constructive-practical application. With contributions from a broad array of scholars from around the world, chapters range from historical analysis of Bonhoeffer’s early political resistance language to accounts of Bonhoeffer-inspired, front-line resistance to white supremacists in Charlottesville, VA. This volume speaks to the ongoing relevance of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s work and life in and out of the academy.

By early 1943, it had become increasingly clear that the Allies would win the Second World War. Around the same time, it also became increasingly clear to many Christian intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic that the soon-to-be-victorious nations were not culturally or morally prepared for their success. A war won by technological superiority merely laid the groundwork for a post-war society governed by technocrats. These Christian intellectuals-Jacques Maritain, T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, W. H. Auden, and Simone Weil, among others-sought both to articulate a sober and reflective critique of their own culture and to outline a plan for the moral and spiritual regeneration of their countries in the post-war world. In this book, Alan Jacobs explores the poems, novels, essays, reviews, and lectures of these five central figures, in which they presented, with great imaginative energy and force, pictures of the very different paths now set before the Western democracies. Working mostly separately and in ignorance of one another's ideas, the five developed a strikingly consistent argument that the only means by which democratic societies could be prepared for their world-wide economic and political dominance was through a renewal of education that was grounded in a Christian understanding of the power and limitations of human beings. The Year of Our Lord 1943 is the first book to weave together the ideas of these five intellectuals and shows why, in a time of unprecedented total war, they all thought it vital to restore Christianity to a leading role in the renewal of the Western democracies.

From the 1960s until his death in 2000, Al Purdy was one of the most prominent writers in Canada, famous for his frank language and his boisterous personality. He travelled the country and wrote about its people and places from Newfoundland to Vancouver Island. A central figure in the CanLit explosion of the sixties and seventies, Purdy has been called the best, the most, and the last Canadian poet. But Purdy's Canada no longer exists. A changing country and shifting attitudes toward Canadian literature demand new perspectives on Purdy's impact and accomplishments. An Echo in the Mountains reassesses Purdy's works, the shape of his career, and his literary legacy, grappling with the question of how to read Purdy today, a century after his birth and in a new era of Canadian literature. Contributors to the volume examine Purdy's critical reception, explore little-known documents and textual problems, and analyze his representations of Canadian history and Indigenous peoples and cultures. They show that much remains to be discovered and understood about the poet and his immense body of work. The first sustained examination of Al Purdy's works in over a decade, An Echo in the Mountains showcases the critical challenges and rewards of rereading an iconic and influential Canadian writer.

The place of religion in society has changed profoundly in the last few centuries, particularly in the West. In what will be a defining book for our time, Taylor takes up the question of what these changes mean, and what, precisely, happens when a society becomes one in which faith is only one human possibility among others.

Jens Zimmermann locates Bonhoeffer within the Christian humanist tradition extending back to patristic theology. He begins by explaining Bonhoeffer's own use of the term humanism (and Christian humanism), and considering how his criticism of liberal Protestant theology prevents him from articulating his own theology rhetorically as a Christian humanism. He then provides an in-depth portrayal of Bonhoeffer's theological anthropology and establishes that Bonhoeffer's Christology and attendant anthropology closely resemble patristic teaching. The volume also considers Bonhoeffer's mature anthropology, focusing in particular on the Christian self. It introduces the hermeneutic quality of Bonhoeffer's theology as a further important feature of his Christian humanism. In contrast to secular and religious fundamentalisms, Bonhoeffer offers a hermeneutic understanding of truth as participation in the Christ event that makes interpretation central to human knowing. Having established the hermeneutical structure of his theology, and his personalist configuration of reality, Zimmermann outlines Bonhoeffer's ethics as 'Christformation'. Building on the hermeneutic theology and participatory ethics of the previous chapters, he then shows how a major part of Bonhoeffer's life and theology, namely his dedication to the Bible as God's word, is also consistent with his Christian humanism.