Introduction
1. For an extension of this argument to other world religions, see Miroslav Volf, Flourishing: Why We Need Religion in a Globalized World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016). For a discussion of the contribution that A Public Faith: How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common Good (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2011) makes to reflection on the place and role of the Christian faith in pluralistic societies, see Political Theology 14, no. 6 (2013), a special issue on the book, with contributions from Nicholas Wolterstorff, John G. Stackhouse, Jayne Svenungsson, M. T. Dávila, Julie Hanlon Rubio, Lenn E. Goodman, David Fergusson, and Yasir Qadhi, as well as a response by Miroslav.
2. On public theology, see Michael Welker, God the Revealed: Christology, trans. Douglas W. Stott (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013), 244–47. See also Wolfgang Huber, Gerechtigkeit und Recht: Grundlinien christlicher Rechtslehre (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlag, 2006), 12–13.
3. See Williams’s profound reflections on language in The Edge of Words: God and the Habits of Language (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), especially chap. 3.
Chapter 1: Christ the Center and Norm
1. Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ as the Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology, trans. R. A. Wilson and John Bowden (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 126–45.
2. See Michael Welker, God the Revealed: Christology, trans. Douglas W. Stott (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013), 192–97, 261.
3. Our point that the hope for a kingdom in which God will be all in all ought to inform our public engagement stands independently of whether we think that this verse implies universal salvation or not.
4. Karl Barth, “The Christian Community and the Civil Community,” in Community, Church, and State: Three Essays (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2004), 149–89.
Chapter 2: Christ, the Spirit, and Flourishing
1. On the contrast between political religions and politically engaged religions, see Miroslav Volf, Flourishing: Why We Need Religion in a Globalized World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016), 84–87. On Christ as the end of political religion, see Giorgio Agamben, Pilate and Jesus, trans. Adam Kotsko (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2015), especially 55–57.
2. Martin Luther, The Freedom of a Christian, in Martin Luther: Selections from His Writings, ed. John Dillenberger (New York: Anchor, 1962), 75–76.
3. Heribert Mühlen originally suggested this idea in Una Mystica Persona: Die Kirche als das Mysterium der Heilsgeschichtlichen Identität des Heiligen Geistes in Christus und den Christen; Eine Person in vielen Personen (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöning, 1968).
4. For a more extended discussion of this subject, see Miroslav Volf and Maurice Lee, “The Spirit and the Church,” in Advents of the Spirit: An Introduction to the Current Study of Pneumatology, ed. Bradford E. Hinze and D. Lyle Dabney (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2001), 380–407.
5. See Miroslav Volf, Work in the Spirit: Toward a Theology of Work (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), the main thesis of which is that all work of Christians ought to be seen and practiced as “work in the Spirit.”
6. Nicholas Wolterstorff makes the distinction between leading life well and life going well in Justice: Rights and Wrongs (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), 145–47. We think a complete account of human flourishing needs the third facet.
7. That is to say not that we can fully live life well without God’s grace but rather that grace fulfills our agency rather than destroying it. “For freedom Christ has set us free” (Gal. 5:1).
8. Claus Westermann, “Peace [Shalom] in the Old Testament,” in The Meaning of Peace: Biblical Studies, ed. Perry B. Yoder and Willard M. Swartley, trans. Walter W. Sawatsky (Elkhart, IN: Institute of Mennonite Studies, 2001), 44.
9. On this point, see Agamben, Pilate and Jesus, 26–38.
Chapter 3: Reading in Contexts
1. Obviously, this is not the only way of reading these texts that keeps them from justifying the slaughter of one’s enemies. Many Jewish interpretations do the same without appeal to Jesus.
2. Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981), 22.
3. Ibid., 56.
4. Martin Luther King Jr., Why We Can’t Wait (New York: Signet Classics, 2000), 50–51.
1. The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection, trans. Benedicta Ward, SLG, rev. ed. (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1984), 8.
2. See Miroslav Volf, Work in the Spirit: Toward a Theology of Work (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991).
3. Book of Common Prayer, “A Collect for Peace” (Morning Prayer Rite II).
4. See Michael J. Sandel, What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2012), 16–62.
Chapter 5: The Environment
1. “Facts about Rainforests,” The Nature Conservancy, accessed June 5, 2015, http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/urgentissues/rainforests/rainforests-facts.xml; Howard Falcon-Lang, “Anthropocene: Have Humans Created a New Geological Age?,” BBC News, May 11, 2011, http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-13335683. On climate change, see Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “Summary for Policymakers,” in Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Geneva: IPCC, 2014), http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/syr/AR5_SYR_FINAL_SPM.pdf.
2. Jürgen Moltmann, Creating a Just Future, trans. John Bowden (Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1989), 68.
3. Moltmann often speaks of this distinction between owning/disposing of the earth and “using” it. See, for example, ibid., 56.
4. It’s practically impossible to get a good estimate of the number of extinctions currently occurring because we don’t know how many species there are. It could be that we’ll never even know of the existence of the vast majority of species that go extinct because of human activity. See “How Many Species Are We Losing?,” World Wildlife Fund, accessed June 5, 2015, http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/biodiversity/biodiversity/.
5. See Tim Jackson, Prosperity without Growth (London: Earthscan, 2009), for a challenging presentation of the idea that we can, and must, learn to thrive without any more economic growth.
6. The figure is for purchasing power parity GDP in 2014 US dollars. See “World,” The World Factbook (Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 2013), https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/resources/the-world-factbook/geos/xx.html.
7. “Poverty Overview,” The World Bank, accessed June 3, 2015, http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/overview.
8. Stephen M. Meyer, “The Economic Impact of Environmental Regulation,” Journal of Environmental Law and Practice 3 (1995): 4–15, http://web.mit.edu/polisci/mpepp/Reports/Econ%20Impact%20Enviro%20Reg.pdf. Additionally, in 2013 the White House Office of Management and Budget estimated that while between 2002 and 2012 EPA regulations had an economic cost of $30.4–$36.5 billion, such regulations also led to benefits of $112–$637 billion (“2013 Draft Report to Congress on the Benefit and Costs of Federal Regulations and Agency Compliance with the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act,” https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/inforeg/2013_cb/draft_2013_cost_benefit_report.pdf).
1. Barack Obama, “What’s Possible for Our Children,” text published by the Denver Post, May 28, 2008, http://www.denverpost.com/ci_9405199.
2. Governor Walker claims not to have known about the proposed changes before they were publicized.
3. John Henry Newman, The Idea of a University (Assumption, IL: Assumption Press, 2014), 90 (1.5.6).
4. See Anthony T. Kronman, Education’s End: Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of Life (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008).
5. See Miroslav Volf, “Hunger for Infinity: Christian Faith and the Dynamics of Economic Progress,” in Captive to the Word of God: Engaging the Scriptures for Contemporary Theological Reflection (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 161–64.
6. The same is true of pluralistic universities. See Miroslav Volf, “Life Worth Living: Christian Faith and the Crisis of the Universities,” ABC Religion and Ethics, April 30, 2014, http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2014/04/30/3994889.htm.
7. See, for example, Rachel Glennerster, Michael Kremer, Isaac Mbiti, and Kudzai Takavarasha, “Access and Quality in the Kenyan Education System,” May 2011, http://www.povertyactionlab.org/publication/access-and-quality-kenyan-education-system, 5, 15; Anna T. Schurmann, “Review of the Bangladesh Female Secondary School Stipend Project Using a Social Exclusion Framework,” Journal of Health, Population, and Nutrition 27 (2009): 505–17.
8. College Board, “Average Rates of Growth of Published Charges by Decade,” accessed June 3, 2015, http://trends.collegeboard.org/college-pricing/figures-tables/average-rates-growth-published-charges-decade.
Chapter 7: Work and Rest
1. This is a rough definition. Miroslav works to provide a more precise one in Work in the Spirit: Toward a Theology of Work (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991).
2. Jürgen Moltmann, Ethics of Hope (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012), 233.
3. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2012 the median annual pay for maids and housekeeping cleaners was $19,570. For food and beverage service workers, it was $18,400. Bureau of Labor Statistics, US Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2014–15 Edition, Maids and Housekeeping Cleaners, http://www.bls.gov/ooh/building-and-grounds-cleaning/maids-and-housekeeping-cleaners.htm; Food and Beverage Serving and Related Workers, http://www.bls.gov/ooh/food-preparation-and-serving/food-and-beverage-serving-and-related-workers.htm.
4. Lydia Saad, “The ‘40-Hour’ Work Week Is Actually Longer—by Seven Hours,” Gallup, August 29, 2014, http://www.gallup.com/poll/175286/hour-workweek-actually-longer-seven-hours.aspx; Rebecca Ray, Milla Sanes, and John Schmitt, “No-Vacation Nation Revisited” (Washington, DC: Center for Economic and Policy Research, 2013); Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Employee Benefits in the United States—March 2014,” US Department of Labor Press Release USDL-14-1348, July 25, 2014, http://www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/sp/ebnr0020.pdf.
1. “Hunger Statistics,” World Food Programme, accessed June 3, 2015, http://www.wfp.org/hunger/stats; “Child Hunger,” United Nations, accessed June 3, 2015, http://www.un.org/en/globalissues/briefingpapers/food/childhunger.shtml; “Hunger and Poverty Fact Sheet,” Feeding America, accessed June 3, 2015, http://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/impact-of-hunger/hunger-and-poverty/hunger-and-poverty-fact-sheet.html.
2. A very small sampling: Isa. 3:14–15; 10:1–4; Ezek. 16:49; 22:29–31; Amos 2:4–7; Zech. 7:8–10.
3. Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger), Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives, trans. Philip J. Whitmore (New York: Image, 2012), 72.
4. John Chrysostom, “Second Sermon on Lazarus and the Rich Man,” in On Wealth and Poverty, trans. Catharine P. Roth (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984), 50.
5. Basil the Great, “I Will Pull Down My Barns,” in Peter C. Phan, Social Thought: Message of the Fathers of the Church (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1984), 117.
6. “Poverty Overview,” World Bank, accessed June 3, 2015, http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/overview.
7. Computed using wealth estimates for the bottom three deciles of global adult population found in Credit Suisse’s Global Wealth Databook 2015 (Anthony Shorrocks, James B. Davies, and Rodrigo Lluberas [Zurich: Credit Suisse, 2015], 23–26, 110), along with their population estimates (approximately 4.772 billion adults worldwide). The asset-poor tend disproportionately to be women (see Carmen Diana Deere and Cheryl R. Doss, “The Gender Asset Gap: What Do We Know and Why Does It Matter?,” Feminist Economics 12 [2006]: 1–50).
8. Shorrocks, Davies, Lluberas, Global Wealth Databook 2015, 110. Our thanks to Cheryl Doss for her advice on this paragraph.
9. Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations 5.2.2.4, ed. Edwin Cannan (New York: Random House, 1994), 938–39.
10. See Miroslav Volf, Flourishing: Why We Need Religion in a Globalized World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016), 202–5.
11. Calculated by Toni Alimi from the Bureau of Economic Analysis’s data for fourth-quarter GDP in 1982 and 2014 (Bureau of Economic Analysis, “Current-Dollar and ‘Real’ GDP,” National Economic Accounts, accessed June 3, 2015, http://www.bea.gov/national/index.htm#gdp).
12. US Census Bureau, “Number in Poverty and Poverty Rate,” from Current Population Survey, 1960 to 2014 Annual Social and Economic Supplements, accessed June 3, 2015, http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/incpovhlth/2013/figure4.pdf.
13. Chrysostom, “Second Sermon on Lazarus and the Rich Man,” 54.
14. Groups such as Innovations for Poverty Action (www.poverty-action.org) are starting to provide reliable evidence for the efficacy of some programs, but there is still much that we don’t know about how to reduce poverty.
Chapter 9: Borrowing and Lending
1. “Consumers Rely on Car Financing More Than Ever,” ConsumerReports.org, September 6, 2013, http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2013/09/car-financing-on-rise-loans-and-leases/index.htm.
2. Jesus tells the parable in reply to Peter’s question about how many times to forgive another member of the church, but that doesn’t mean it is only relevant for “moral” forgiveness. As the two versions of the Lord’s Prayer (Matt. 6:9–15 and Luke 11:2–4) illustrate, forgiveness of sins and forgiveness of debts are closely related.
3. Luke Bretherton, “Neither a Borrower nor a Lender Be? Scripture, Usury and the Call for Responsible Lending,” Christian Ethics Today 21 (2013): 3.
4. “There Are More Payday Lenders in the U.S. Than McDonald’s,” NBC News, November 24, 2014, http://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/there-are-more-payday-lenders-u-s-mcdonalds-n255156; Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, “Payday Loans and Direct Deposit Advances,” White Paper, April 24, 2013, http://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201304_cfpb_payday-dap-whitepaper.pdf.
5. Christine LaMontagne, “NerdWallet Health Finds Medical Bankruptcy Accounts for Majority of Personal Bankruptcies,” NerdWallet, March 26, 2014, http://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/health/2014/03/26/medical-bankruptcy/.
Chapter 11: New Life
1. As is probably already evident, both of us are men. In this chapter, we’ll make some normative claims with respect to an experience (pregnancy) that we can never know “from the inside.” In doing so, we risk participating in a history of reflection on these questions that has fairly consistently ignored or marginalized women’s voices. While we hope that our remarks have been shaped by postures of listening to women’s voices, we welcome correction and clarification, and we fully expect that some revisions will be in order.
2. See James Mumford, Ethics at the Beginning of Life: A Phenomenological Critique (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).
3. “Baby Bonus,” Singapore Ministry of Social and Family Development, updated June 15, 2015, http://www.babybonus.msf.gov.sg/parent/; “Maternity Package,” Kela, updated February 24, 2015, http://www.kela.fi/web/en/maternitypackage.
4. We are convinced that if accessible and affordable birth control as part of these services reduces abortions, it too should be provided. We acknowledge that the magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church disagrees. We think, however, that the Catholic hierarchy’s reasoning on this question is mistaken. For a promising direction for Christian (especially Protestant) reflection about birth control, see Kathryn D. Blanchard, “The Gift of Contraception: Calvin, Barth, and a Lost Protestant Conversation,” Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 27 (2007): 225–49.
5. See, e.g., Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed., 2270, 2274, http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/catechism/catechism-of-the-catholic-church/epub/index.cfm#.
6. See David Albert Jones, The Soul of the Embryo: An Enquiry into the Status of the Human Embryo in the Christian Tradition (London: Continuum, 2004), 109–24, for an overview of the positions of various premodern Christian thinkers. The view of Thomas Aquinas that abortion even before “ensoulment” is a mortal sin illustrates that the question of when life begins does not necessarily answer the question of the justifiability of abortion by itself. See John Haldane and Patrick Lee, “Aquinas on Human Ensoulment, Abortion and the Value of Life,” Philosophy 78 (2003): 261–62.
7. “Miscarriage,” United States National Library of Medicine, last updated November 8, 2012, http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001488.htm.
Chapter 12: Health and Sickness
1. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, “Historical,” in National Health Expenditure Accounts, modified December 9, 2014, http://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Statistics-Trends-and-Reports/NationalHealthExpendData/NationalHealthAccountsHistorical.html; Christine LaMontagne, “NerdWallet Health Finds Medical Bankruptcy Accounts for Majority of Personal Bankruptcies,” NerdWallet, March 26, 2014, http://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/health/2014/03/26/medical-bankruptcy/; Tami Luhby, “Millions Can’t Afford to Go to the Doctor,” CNN Money, April 26, 2013, http://money.cnn.com/2013/04/26/news/economy/health-care-cost/; Committee on Population, “Explore Findings from the New Report: ‘U.S. Health in International Perspectives,’” The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, accessed June 3, 2015, http://sites.nationalacademies.org/DBASSE/CPOP/DBASSE_080393#deaths-from-all-causes; Richard Knox, “U.S. Ranks below 16 Other Rich Countries in Health Report,” National Public Radio, January 9, 2013, http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2013/01/09/168976602/u-s-ranks-below-16-other-rich-countries-in-health-report.
2. World Health Organization, “Malaria,” WHO Fact Sheet no. 94, accessed June 3, 2015, http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs094/en; UNICEF, “Goal: Reduce Child Mortality,” Millennium Development Goals, accessed June 3, 2015, http://www.unicef.org/mdg/index_childmortality.htm; World Health Organization, World Health Statistics 2011 (Geneva: WHO Press, 2011), 124; WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation, “Progress on Sanitation and Drinking Water 2010,” 2015, http://www.wssinfo.org/documents; cf. “3 Things Most of the World Can’t Do,” Water.org, accessed January 15, 2016, http://static.water.org.s3.amazonaws.com/public/02_Sanitation.jpeg.
3. “Fact File on Health Inequities,” World Health Organization, accessed June 3, 2015, http://www.who.int/sdhconference/background/news/facts/en/.
4. Centers for Disease Control, “CDC Health Disparities and Inequalities Report—United States, 2013,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report Supplement 62, no. 3 (November 2013), http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/pdf/other/su6203.pdf.
5. “2011 Quick Facts,” American Society of Plastic Surgeons, http://www.plasticsurgery.org/Documents/news-resources/statistics/2011-statistics/2011_Stats_Quick_Facts.pdf.
6. World Health Organization, “Financing Malaria Control,” in World Malaria Report 2011, http://www.who.int/malaria/world_malaria_report_2011/WMR2011_chapter3.pdf.
7. See Environmental Protection Agency, “Contaminated Lands,” in America’s Children and the Environment, 3rd ed., EPA 240-R-13-001, 95–104, http://www.epa.gov/ace/pdfs/ACE3_2013.pdf.
8. “Food Deserts,” US Department of Agriculture, accessed June 3, 2015, http://apps.ams.usda.gov/fooddeserts/fooddeserts.aspx.
9. Karl Barth laid out a general principle along these lines: “The general living conditions of all, or at least of as many as possible, are to be shaped in such a way that they make not just a negative but a positive preventative contribution to their health, as is the case already in varying degrees with the privileged” (Church Dogmatics III/4, ed. Geoffrey Bromiley and Thomas Forsyth Torrance [Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1961], 363).
10. For a thought-provoking discussion of how commodification affects a variety of goods today, see Michael J. Sandel, What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2012).
11. Paul Farmer, Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 152.
12. “Free Distribution or Cost-Sharing: Evidence from a Malaria Prevention Experiment in Kenya,” Innovations for Poverty Action, accessed June 3, 2015, http://www.poverty-action.org/project/bednets.
Chapter 13: Aging Life
1. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, ed. Bernard Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), §3; “‘Improving’ Humanity,” in The Anti-Christ, Ecce Homo, Twilight of the Idols, and Other Writings, ed. Aaron Ridley and Judith Norman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), §5.
2. William Shakespeare, As You Like It, act 2, scene 7.
3. Drew DeSilver, “Who’s Poor in America? 50 Years into the ‘War on Poverty,’ a Data Portrait,” Pew Research Center, January 13, 2014, http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/01/13/whos-poor-in-america-50-years-into-the-war-on-poverty-a-data-portrait/.
1. Nearly half of Americans die in a hospital. “Facing Death: Facts and Figures,” PBS Frontline, November 23, 2010, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/facing-death/facts-and-figures/.
2. Loulla-Mae Eleftheriou-Smith, “Brittany Maynard: Terminally Ill Euthanasia Campaigner Dying of Cancer Ends Her Life by Assisted Suicide,” Independent, November 3, 2014, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/brittany-maynard-dead-terminally-ill-cancer-patient-ends-life-by-assisted-suicide-9834808.html.
3. Penelope Wang, “Cutting the High Cost of End-of-Life Care,” Time.com, December 12, 2012, http://time.com/money/2793643/cutting-the-high-cost-of-end-of-life-care/.
4. Other accounts of the special preciousness of human life might start from the exceptional status given humans as bearers of the image of God or from the fact that God chose to assume human being in the life of Jesus, thus sanctifying all humanity. Whichever of these routes one takes, it is sure to lead to the conclusion that intentionally killing a human being is an evil.
5. Jürgen Moltmann, “Expectation” (unpublished manuscript, June 2015), 7.
6. “65+ in the United States: 2010,” US Census Bureau, P23–212 (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 2014), https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2014/demo/p23-212.pdf, 5.
7. Euthanasia can also apply to nonhuman animals and is a commonly accepted veterinary practice.
8. PAS could in principle involve means of death other than the use of lethal drugs, but we are not aware of any proposals that such other forms of PAS should be legalized.
9. Gilbert Meilaender, “Euthanasia and Christian Vision,” Thought 57 (1982): 472.
10. This argument assumes that there is a moral distinction between killing someone and letting someone die. Moral philosophers such as James Rachels have argued that there is no such distinction (see Rachels, “Active and Passive Euthanasia,” in Applied Ethics, ed. Peter Singer [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986], 29–35). Meilaender offers a version of likely the most common Christian argument in favor of the distinction between killing and letting die when he claims that our assessment of the results and motives of an act ought to be shaped by its aim. In some but not all cases, killing and letting die have different aims and so are morally different (see Meilaender, “Euthanasia and Christian Vision,” 465–75).
11. Karl Barth reminds us that “life is no second God, and therefore the respect due to it cannot rival the reverence owed to God” (Church Dogmatics III/4, ed. Geoffrey Bromiley and Thomas Forsyth Torrance [Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1961], 342).
12. Meilaender, “Euthanasia and Christian Vision,” 473.
13. By “terminal illness” we mean a condition that is both incurable (or at least extremely unlikely to be cured) and lethal.
14. See Rachel Aviv, “The Death Treatment: When Should People with a Non-terminal Illness Be Helped to Die?,” New Yorker, June 22, 2015, http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/06/22/the-death-treatment.
Chapter 15: Migration
1. Paul Adams, “Migration: Are More People on the Move Than Ever Before?,” BBC News, May 28, 2015, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-32912867; Somini Sengupta, “60 Million People Fleeing Chaotic Lands, U.N. Says,” New York Times, June 18, 2015, http://nyti.ms/1GtYhrH.
2. Although each of us has had different experiences leaving a home country and living elsewhere (Miroslav from Croatia to Germany and the United States, and Ryan from the United States to the United Kingdom and Latin America), we’re writing as residents of the country with the most immigrants, so we’ll focus our remarks on what faithful political engagement with migration would look like in that sort of country.
3. See Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996), 50–52, 58–71. See also Volf, A Public Faith: How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common Good (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2011), 77–97. For the idea of “soft difference,” see Volf, “Soft Difference: Church and Culture in 1 Peter,” in Captive to the Word of God: Engaging the Scriptures for Contemporary Theological Reflection (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 65–90.
4. For more details and reflection on this story, see Luke Bretherton, Christianity and Contemporary Politics (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 152–58; and Hillary Cunningham, God and Caesar at the Rio Grande: Sanctuary and the Politics of Religion (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995).
5. If the story of the Tower of Babel leads you to worry that linguistic and cultural diversity might be a punishment from God and not a created good, read Walter Brueggemann, Genesis, Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1982), 97–104.
6. See also Isa. 19:18–25; 60:1–14; Mic. 4:1–4; Rev. 21:24.
7. See “Latest Global Figures,” Missing Migrants Project, http://missingmigrants.iom.int/en/latest-global-figures for up-to-date numbers.
8. Tim Padgett, “People Smugglers Inc.” Time, August 12, 2003, http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,474582-1,00.html.
9. David Iglesias, “Perspectives on Immigration,” Wheaton, Spring 2015, 23.
1. Walter Brueggemann, Disruptive Grace: Reflections on God, Scripture, and the Church, ed. Carolyn J. Sharp (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2011), 53.
2. Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter from Birmingham City Jail,” in A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr., ed. James Melvin Washington (New York: Harper & Row, 1986), 295.
3. We echo here John Howard Yoder’s phrase “with the grain of the universe,” from his discussion of Leo Tolstoy, Mohandas Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. (“The Political Meaning of Hope,” in The War of the Lamb: The Ethics of Nonviolence and Peacemaking, ed. Glen Stassen, Mark Thiessen Nation, and Matt Hamsher [Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2009], 62).
4. Including the different Gospels’ versions of the same story, Jesus tells somebody not to be afraid a total of eighteen times in the four Gospels.
5. See the astute observations of Jamelle Bouie and Ta-Nehisi Coates about the consequences of letting police officers’ fear justify the use of lethal force: Bouie, “Lethal Force as First Resort,” Slate, December 28, 2015, http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/12/the_tamir_rice_grand_jury_decision_shows_that_we_give_police_too_wide_a.html; Coates, “The Paranoid Style of American Policing,” The Atlantic, December 30, 2015, http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/12/illegitimacy-and-american-policing/422094/.
6. For information on implicit bias, see the resources from the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University (http://kirwaninstitute.osu.edu/research/understanding-implicit-bias/).
7. “Black Boys Viewed as Older, Less Innocent Than Whites, Research Finds,” American Psychological Association, March 6, 2014, http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2014/03/black-boys-older.aspx.
8. This point also implies that in a democratic society the political majority must accept that it is responsible when the police are systematically abusive. See Ta-Nehisi Coates, “Blue Lives Matter,” Atlantic, December 22, 2014, http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/12/blue-lives-matter-nypd-shooting/383977/.
9. See “Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted, 2014: Officers Feloniously Killed,” US Department of Justice—Federal Bureau of Investigation, https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/leoka/2014/officers-feloniously-killed/officers-feloniously-killed.pdf. The comparison with other occupations uses data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries, 2014, specifically the tables “Fatal Occupational Injuries Resulting from Transportation Incidents and Homicides by Occupation, All United States, 2014,” http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/cftb0291.pdf, and “Fatal Occupational Injuries, Total Hours Worked, and Rates of Fatal Occupational Injuries by Selected Worker Characteristics, Occupations, and Industries, Civilian Workers, 2014,” http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/cfoi_rates_2014hb.pdf.
10. “The Counted: People Killed by Police in the US,” Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-police-killings-us-database. Data on police shootings in the United States have been horribly unreliable, in great part because departments are not required to report them and there is no standardized approach to cataloging police use of force.
11. It should be clear that we are using “killed” here to imply the use of nonaccidental violent force and thus not to include negligent manslaughter. Because these numbers are so shocking, it’s important for us to show our work. The Guardian recorded 178 Black men 18 to 34 years old killed by police in 2015. The US Census Bureau estimates that there were 5,536,665 Black men 18 to 34 years old in the United States in July 2014 (calculated using their figures for 18-to-24-year-olds plus 25-to-29- and 30-to-34-year-olds). Using the same population growth rate for that demographic between 2013 and 2014, we projected 5,613,060 for July 2015. Dividing 179 by 5,613,060 yields the rate of 3.19 per 100,000. Homicide data for 2015 were not yet available at the time of writing, so we used the FBI’s 2014 data (4,866 White victims of murder age 18 and over) and the Census Bureau’s 2014 estimates (193,000,553 White Americans age 18 and over). Dividing 4,866 by 193,000,553 yields the rate of 2.52 per 100,000. The FBI does not record the race of the victims of justifiable homicides, but even if all the 2014 victims had been White (which they were not), the rate would only rise to 2.89 per 100,000, leaving the comparative point intact. For reference, the incidence of White men 18 to 34 years old killed by police in 2015, calculated using the same method as above for Black men, was 0.98 per 100,000—less than one-third the rate for Black men of the same age. A caveat about our data: we were unable to include people who reported two or more races to the Census Bureau. See “Annual Estimates of the Resident Population by Sex, Age, Race, and Hispanic Origin for the United States and States: April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2014,” US Census Bureau, Population Division, http://www.census.gov/popest/data/national/asrh/2014/index.html; “Crime in the United States, 2014: Expanded Homicide Data, Table 2,” US Department of Justice—Federal Bureau of Investigation, https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/tables/expanded-homicide-data/expanded_homicide_data_table_2_murder_victims_by_age_sex_and_race_2014.xls.
12. See “Investigation of the Ferguson Police Department,” US Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, March 4, 2015, http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-releases/attachments/2015/03/04/ferguson_police_department_report.pdf, which shows that American police are not immune to grave abuses of power and flagrant disregard for the law.
13. See Sue Rahr, “From Warriors to Guardians—Returning American Police Culture to Democratic Ideals,” Seattle Times, August 26, 2014, http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/guest-from-warriors-to-guardians-mdash-returning-american-police-culture-to-democratic-ideals/.
1. Roy Walmsley, World Prison Population List, 10th ed. (London: International Centre for Prison Studies, 2014), 1, http://www.apcca.org/uploads/10th_Edition_2013.pdf; Alexia D. Cooper, Matthew R. Durose, and Howard N. Snyder, “Recidivism of Prisoners Released in 30 States in 2005: Patterns from 2005 to 2010,” Bureau of Justice Statistics, accessed June 3, 2015, http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=4987; “PREA Data Collection Activities, 2014,” Bureau of Justice Statistics, NCJ 245694, May 2014, http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/pdca14.pdf; Heather C. West, “Prison Inmates at Midyear 2009—Statistical Tables,” Bureau of Justice Statistics, NCJ 230113, June 2010, http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/pim09st.pdf.
2. On forgiveness, punishment, and retribution, see Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006), 127–91.
3. According to Criminal Justice Reports commissioned by the NAACP (“Death Row U.S.A.: Winter 2015,” http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/documents/DRUSAWinter2015.pdf), 35 percent of people executed since the 1976 reinstatement of the death penalty have been Black. Moreover, 42 percent of present death-row inmates are Black.
4. Federal mandatory minimum sentences for crack possession were abolished by the 2010 Fair Sentencing Act, which also reduced the disparity in sentencing treatment between crack and powder cocaine from 100:1 to 18:1 (see “The Fair Sentencing Act Corrects a Long-Time Wrong in Cocaine Cases,” Washington Post, August 3, 2010, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/02/AR2010080204360.html). On the racial disparities of the “war on drugs” more generally, see Doris Maris Provine, “Race and Inequality in the War on Drugs,” Annual Review of Law and Social Science 7 (2011): 41–60.
5. For example, between 1980 and 2010 Black youths were arrested for drug offenses at more than twice the rate of White youths, despite the fact that data suggest they are actually a little less likely to have used illegal drugs in any given month (“Report of the Sentencing Project to the United Nations Human Rights Committee Regarding Racial Disparities in the United States Criminal Justice System,” The Sentencing Project, August 2013, 4, http://sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/rd_ICCPR%20Race%20and%20Justice%20Shadow%20Report.pdf). For more on racial profiling, see Andrew Gelman, Jeffrey Fagan, and Alex Kiss, “An Analysis of New York City Police Department’s ‘Stop-and-Frisk’ Policy in the Context of Claims of Racial Bias,” Journal of the American Statistical Association 102 (2007): 813–23. In January 2016 the Guardian reported that police officers killed 1,136 civilians in 2015. Of those, 223 were unarmed. And of those, 33.6 percent were Black. Approximately 12 percent of the US population is Black. See “The Counted,” Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-police-killings-us-database, for up-to-date information.
6. Research with jury-eligible participants in the United States shows a significant implicit association between Black faces and guilt and finds that this bias disposes would-be jurors to interpret ambiguous evidence as more indicative of guilt for Black than for White defendants (see Justin D. Levinson, Huajian Cai, and Danielle Young, “Guilty by Implicit Racial Bias: The Guilty/Not Guilty Implicit Association Test,” Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law 8 [2010)]: 187–208).
7. The Wall Street Journal reported in 2013 that Black men are sentenced to 20 percent longer prison sentences than White men for similar crimes (Joe Palazzolo, “Racial Gap in Men’s Sentencing,” Wall Street Journal, February 14, 2013, http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324432004578304463789858002). For academic studies of disparate sentencing in general, see Brian D. Johnson, “Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Sentencing Departures across Modes of Conviction,” Criminology 41 (2003): 449–89. Trial judges have been found to display implicit racial bias that can affect their judgments (see Jeffrey Rachlinski, Sheri Johnson, Andrew J. Wistrich, and Chris Guthrie, “Does Unconscious Racial Bias Affect Trial Judges?,” Notre Dame Law Review 84 [2009]: 1195–246).
8. When criminologist Cheryl Lero Jonson analyzed numerous studies on imprisonment and reoffending, she found that the highest-quality studies showed that, all else being equal, serving a prison sentence increased the likelihood of someone reoffending by 5 percent. Her findings are cited in Francis T. Cullen, Cheryl Lero Jonson, and Daniel S. Nagin, “Prisons Do Not Reduce Recidivism: The High Cost of Ignoring Science,” Prison Journal 91, no. 3 (2011): 48S–65S. Prison might increase reoffending even more for drug offenders than for others (see Cassia Spohn and David Holleran, “The Effect of Imprisonment on Recidivism Rates of Felony Offenders: A Focus on Drug Offenders,” Criminology 40 [2002]: 329–57).
9. For a portrait of what such a prison might look like, see the New York Times Magazine profile of Halden prison in Norway. Jessica Benko, “The Radical Humaneness of Norway’s Halden Prison,” New York Times Magazine, March 26, 2015, http://nyti.ms/1HMmyZ2.
10. See Michelle Alexander’s devastating critique of the American penal system in The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (New York: New Press, 2012).
11. Suzy Khimm, “Will the Government Stop Using the Poor as a Piggy Bank?,” MSNBC, September 9, 2014, http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/will-the-government-stop-using-the-poor-piggy-bank.
1. Milton Leitenberg, Deaths in Wars and Conflicts in the 20th Century, Cornell University Peace Studies Program Occasional Paper 29, 3rd ed., 1.
2. Ewen MacAskill and Ian Cobain, “British Forces’ Century of Unbroken Warfare Set to End with Afghanistan Exit,” Guardian, February 11, 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/feb/11/british-forces-century-warfare-end.
3. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI Military Expenditure Database, accessed June 1, 2015, http://www.sipri.org/research/armaments/milex/milex_database.
4. “God of peace” is one of the most common descriptions of God in the New Testament, especially the letters of Paul. In addition to the passages cited, it occurs in Rom. 16:20; 1 Cor. 14:33; 2 Cor. 13:11; Phil. 4:9; and 1 Thess. 5:23.
5. Oliver O’Donovan, The Just War Revisited (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 2. O’Donovan is loosely following some of John Milbank’s ideas from Theology and Social Theory (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990).
6. The English term pacifist comes from the Latin word pax, meaning “peace.”
7. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II-II.40. The broader “treatise on charity” runs from question 23 to question 46.
8. Daniel M. Bell, “Just War as Christian Discipleship” (pamphlet 14 in the Renewing Radical Discipleship series, Ekklesia Pamphlets, ed. Daniel M. Bell Jr. and Joel Shuman [Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2005], http://www.ekklesiaproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Ekklesia-14.pdf), offers a more extended but still accessible discussion of these criteria.
9. Augustine, Letter 189.6, in Political Writings, ed. E. M. Atkins and R. J. Dodaro (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
10. See Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996), 275–306. While writing that book, my (Miroslav’s) strong sense was that war could never be an instance of loving one’s enemies, an indispensable condition for a war to be justifiable on Christian grounds (a point on which Ryan and I agree); I am still hard-pressed to find one example of such war. Theoretically at least, such war is possible, so in the present text I am keeping that option open.
11. Bell, “Just War as Christian Discipleship,” 5.
Chapter 19: Torture
1. This definition might not cover everything we would want to call torture, but it highlights the most salient feature of torture in the world today.
2. Accurate overall data on torture are nearly impossible to gather. See Amnesty International, Report 2014/15: The State of the World’s Human Rights (London: Amnesty International, 2015), https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/pol10/0001/2015/en/, for information collected from nearly every country in the world.
3. It’s quite possible that some forms of coercion in interrogation are not torture but are still wrong. This question would not be able to identify them.
4. See the selections of the Theodosian Code and Innocent’s Ad extirpanda in Edward Peters, Torture, expanded ed. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 212–14, 236–37.
5. Both a 2009 Pew survey and a 2014 Washington Post/ABC poll found that over 60 percent of White evangelicals believed that torture of suspected terrorists could be justified “often” or “sometimes” (“The Religious Dimensions of the Torture Debate,” Pew Research Center, updated May 7, 2009, http://www.pewforum.org/2009/04/29/the-religious-dimensions-of-the-torture-debate/; “CIA Interrogations: The Ends Justify the Means,” Washington Post, December 2014, http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/politics/washington-post-abc-news-poll/1514/).
6. “Senate Report on CIA Torture Program,” CNN, December 9, 2014, http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2014/12/politics/torture-report/; cf. Mark A. Costanzo and Ellen Gerrity, “The Effects and Effectiveness of Using Torture as an Interrogation Device: Using Research to Inform the Policy Debate,” Social Issues and Policy Review 3 (2009): 182–85, https://www.cgu.edu/pdffiles/sbos/costanzo_effects_of_interrogation.pdf.
Chapter 20: Freedom of Religion (and Irreligion)
1. For the figures on government restrictions of religion and religiously motivated assault, see “Religious Hostilities Reach Six-Year High,” Pew Research Center, January 14, 2014, http://www.pewforum.org/2014/01/14/religious-hostilities-reach-six-year-high/. On Indian anticonversion laws, see Shoaib Daniyal, “As Clamour to Ban Conversion Grows, a Reminder: Five Indian States Have Already Done So,” Scroll.in, September 15, 2014, http://scroll.in/article/679080/as-clamour-to-ban-conversion-grows-a-reminder-five-indian-states-have-already-done-so. On French religious symbols laws, see “Resources on Faith, Ethics and Public Life: France,” Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, accessed June 4, 2015, http://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/resources/france. A new wave of controversy erupted in 2015 when a Muslim schoolgirl was sent home for wearing an ankle-length skirt (Alissa J. Rubin, “French School Deems Teenager’s Skirt an Illegal Display of Religion,” New York Times, April 29, 2015, http://nyti.ms/1zqrBPU). For the rates of harassment of Muslims and Christians, see “Rising Restrictions on Religion—One-Third of the World’s Population Experiences an Increase,” Pew Research Center, August 9, 2011, http://www.pewforum.org/2011/08/09/rising-restrictions-on-religion2/.
2. Thomas Aquinas, for example, opposed the forced conversion of Jews and Muslims, though not restriction on their freedom. He also held that heretics and apostates “should be submitted even to bodily compulsion” to force them to fulfill the promises they had made when they became Christians (Summa Theologiae II-II.10.8). He argued that the secular authorities should execute stubbornly unrepentant heretics (Summa Theologiae II-II.11.3). The early Protestant theologian Martin Bucer (1491–1551) held that Jews living in Germany should be forbidden from studying the Talmud (see Steven Rowan, “Luther, Bucer, and Eck on the Jews,” Sixteenth Century Journal 16 [1985]: 79–90).
3. See Miroslav Volf, Flourishing: Why We Need Religion in a Globalized World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016), 137–60.
4. All Parliamentary Group on International Religious Freedom, Article 18: An Orphaned Right, June 2013, 2, https://freedomdeclared.org/media/Article-18-An-Orphaned-Right.pdf.
5. Tertullian, Ad Scapulam 2, quoted in John R. Bowlin, “Tolerance among the Fathers,” Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 26 (2006): 27. Around AD 300, during the Diocletian persecution, the Christian apologist Lactantius insisted that “nothing is so much a matter of free-will as religion; . . . if the mind of the worshipper is disciplined to it, religion is at once taken away, and ceases to exist” (Lactantius, Divine Institutes 5.20, quoted in Bowlin, “Tolerance among the Fathers,” 18). On toleration in antiquity and the Middle Ages, see Reiner Forst, Toleration in Conflict: Past and Present, trans. Ciaran Cronin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 36–95.
6. Christianity is not the only religion with theological resources to make this argument. For a similar argument from a Muslim perspective, see Abdurrahman Wahid, “God Needs No Defense,” in Abraham’s Children: Liberty and Tolerance in an Age of Religious Conflict, ed. Kelly James Clark (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), 211–17.
7. See Judy Keen, “Mosque Projects Face Resistance in Some U.S. Communities,” USA Today, May 29, 2012, http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-05-28/DeKalb-mosque-projects-controversy/55250722/1; Soeren Kern, “Swiss Minaret Ban Survives Legal Challenge,” Gatestone Institute, July 14, 2011, http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/2263/swiss-minaret-ban-legal-challenge.
8. For the distinction between operative modes and moral principles, see Jocelyn Maclure and Charles Taylor, Secularism and Freedom of Conscience, trans. Jane Marie Todd (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011).
9. This is a version of a scenario that Maclure and Taylor discuss several times in Secularism and Freedom of Conscience.
10. Ibid., 101.
1. We are thankful to Dolores Vásquez Reanda, Mercedes Ajuchán, and José Reanda Sosof for providing much of the information in this paragraph. Dolores was kind enough to interview Mercedes and José in Tzutujil and translate their stories into Spanish for us. All three are residents of Santiago Atitlán, and Mercedes and José were adults at the time of Father Stan’s murder.
2. Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung, “Courage,” in Being Good: Christian Virtues for Everyday Life, ed. Michael W. Austin and R. Douglas Geivett (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 155. DeYoung is quoting Augustine, On the Morals of the Catholic Church 15.25, which Thomas Aquinas also quotes in his Summa Theologiae II-II.123.4.
3. DeYoung, “Courage,” 155.
4. A reference to the 1969 John Wayne movie True Grit, remade by the Coen brothers in 2010, and based on the 1968 book by Charles Portis.
5. Mercedes Ajuchán and José Reanda Sosof, personal communication with authors, with translation by Dolores Vásquez Reanda.
6. Most of what we say here about making judgments also applies to remaining resolute in our judgments in the face of inappropriate pressure to change them.
7. See Ulrich Beck, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (New Delhi: Sage, 1999), and Anthony Giddens, “Risk and Responsibility,” Modern Law Review 62 (1999): 1–10.
8. See Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II-II.126–27.
Chapter 22: Humility
1. We have altered the NRSV from “humility” to “humility of mind,” a more literal translation of tapeinophrosynē, in order to show the verbal connection with 2:5 (phroneite), and from “conceit” to “vainglory,” a more literal rendering of kenodoxian. We should also note that this chapter depends in great part on the research and argument of Ryan’s PhD dissertation (Yale University, 2016).
2. See Erich Auerbach, “Sermo Humilis,” trans. Ralph Manheim, in Literary Language and Its Public in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, 37–66 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965).
3. Julia Driver makes more or less this argument with respect to modesty, but claims that since modesty is a virtue, some virtues must depend on ignorance. Driver, “The Virtues of Ignorance,” Journal of Philosophy 86 (1989): 373–84.
4. This is, roughly, the view of Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153). See On Humility and Pride 4.14–5.18, in Bernard of Clairvaux: Selected Works, trans. G. R. Evans (New York: Paulist Press, 1987).
5. Rick Warren describes humility in very similar terms in The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012), 148.
6. Stephen Cherry, Barefoot Disciple: Walking the Way of Passionate Humility (London: Continuum, 2011), 43.
7. Ibid., 51.
8. David Brooks gives a compelling account of Marshall’s character in The Road to Character (New York: Random House, 2015), 105–29.
1. We have slightly altered the NRSV translation, which has “righteousness” where we have translated “justice.” The Greek word is dikaiosynē. This is the same word that Aristotle uses for the virtue of justice in his Nichomachean Ethics.
2. Ulpian, Rules, book 1, quoted in Emperor Justinian, Digest 1.1.10, trans. Alan Watson, rev. ed. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998), 1:2.
3. William Wilberforce, An Appeal to the Religion, Justice, and Humanity of the Inhabitants of the British Empire, in Behalf of the Negro Slaves in the West Indies (London: Ellerton & Henderson, 1823), 56.
4. Ibid., 19.
Chapter 24: Respect
1. Georgetown University, “Smart Power: Security through Inclusive Leadership,” video, 1:27:46, December 3, 2014, http://www.georgetown.edu/news/hillary-clinton-security-inclusive-leadership.html, quotation at 12:19.
2. E.g., “Hillary Clinton Says America Should ‘Empathise’ with Its Enemies, but Military Officer Strongly Disagrees,” Christian Today, December 6, 2014, http://www.christiantoday.com/article/hillary.clinton.says.america.should.empathise.with.its.enemies.but.military.officer.strongly.disagrees/43978.htm. Much of the controversy revolved around Clinton’s claim in the same sentence as the one quoted that “smart power” tries “insofar as psychologically possible [to] empathize” with an enemy’s perspective. We’ll refrain from commenting on that subject, although chap. 25, on compassion, might at least tangentially have ramifications for it.
3. Fox News Sunday, December 7, 2014, transcript, http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/fox-news-sunday-chris-wallace/2014/12/07/bill-cassidy-runoff-victory-over-mary-landrieu-rush-limbaugh-talks-race-relations#p//v/3928275071001.
4. Respect is thus a particular form of justice.
5. Stephen L. Darwall, “Two Kinds of Respect,” Ethics 88 (1977): 36–49. In our discussion, we’ll give a somewhat broader definition of appraisal respect than Darwall does in this article. He tends to restrict it to our approval of other people’s virtuous characters.
6. Nicholas Wolterstorff, Justice: Rights and Wrongs (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), 352–61.
7. How is it that respecting people on account of God’s relation of love to them is recognition respect if recognition respect is acknowledging someone’s worth simply as “being what she is”? Because God is the creator and sustainer of everything, God’s love isn’t a relation we might or might not have. Rather, it is fundamental to us being what we are. Without the child’s love, the Velveteen Rabbit would still be a stuffed animal, but without God’s love, a human wouldn’t exist at all.
8. The key word here is “only.” The people in question might in fact also be criminals, oppressors, racists, or terrorists, but they remain people whom we ought to respect nonetheless.
9. Herbert C. Kelman, “Violence without Moral Restraint,” Journal of Social Issues 29, no. 4 (1973): 25–61; “‘Less than Human’: The Psychology of Cruelty,” narrated by Neal Conan, National Public Radio, March 29, 2011, http://www.npr.org/2011/03/29/134956180/criminals-see-their-victims-as-less-than-human.
10. Desmond Tutu, “Our Glorious Diversity: Why We Should Celebrate Difference,” Huffington Post, June 21, 2011, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/desmond-tutu/our-glorious-diversity-wh_b_874791.html.
1. We should note that Stephen D. Moore beat us to the punch in making this classic rock allusion with his 2013 Society of Biblical Literature paper on joy.
2. Michael W. Austin uses the terms emotional, cognitive, and active for the three dimensions of compassion. Oliver Davies calls them affective, cognitive, and volitional, technical terms that come from the Latin words for (roughly) feeling, thought, and will. Davies also adds a fourth dimension, the ontological, but we can leave it aside for our purposes. See Michael W. Austin, “Compassion,” in Being Good: Christian Virtues for Everyday Life, ed. Michael W. Austin and R. Douglas Geivett (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 187; Oliver Davies, A Theology of Compassion: Metaphysics of Difference and the Renewal of Tradition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 18–22.
3. Augustine, City of God 9.5, trans. Henry Bettenson (New York: Penguin, 1984), emphasis added.
4. Martha Nussbaum, Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 306–10.
5. Aristotle, Rhetoric 2.8, discussed in Martha Nussbaum, “Compassion: The Basic Social Emotion,” Social Philosophy and Policy 13 (1996): 33.
6. See Donald P. McNeill, Douglas A. Morrison, and Henri J. M. Nouwen, Compassion: A Reflection on the Christian Life (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1982), 4.
7. This paragraph is based on Ryan’s personal communication with Rob Morris and Marilyn Murray of Love146.