Christian Faith and Social Justice: Five Views

by Vic McCracken

Overview

The Judeo-Christian tradition testifies to a God that cries out, demanding that justice "roll down like waters, righteousness like an ever-flowing stream" (Amos 5:24). Christians agree that being advocates for justice is critical to the Christian witness. And yet one need not look widely to see that Christians disagree about what social justice entails.

What does justice have to do with healthcare reform, illegal immigration, and same-sex marriage? Should Christians support tax policies that effectively require wealthy individuals to fund programs that benefit the poor? Does justice require that we acknowledge and address the inequalities borne out of histories of gender and ethnic exclusivity? Is the Christian vision distinct from non-Christian visions of social justice? Christians disagree over the proper answer to these questions. In short, Christians agree that justice is important but disagree about what a commitment to justice means.

Christian Faith and Social Justice makes sense of the disagreements among Christians over the meaning of justice by bringing together five highly regarded Christian philosophers to introduce and defend rival perspectives on social justice in the Christian tradition. The positions advocated and critiqued are: libertarianism, political liberalism, liberation theology, feminism, and virtue ethics. While it aspires to offer a lucid introduction to these theories, the purpose of this book is more than informative. It is purposefully dialogical and is structured so that contributors are able to model for the reader reasoned exchange among philosophers who disagree about the meaning of social justice. The hope is that the reader is left with a better understanding of range of perspectives in the Christian tradition about social justice.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781623568184
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	06/19/2014
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Vic McCracken is Assistant Professor of Theology and Ethics at Abilene Christian University, USA, and co-convener of the pedagogy working group of the Society of Christian Ethics. In 2010 he was recognized as the Honors College Professor of the Year at Abilene Christian University and the College of Bible's Professor of the Year in 2012.

Table of Contents

Contributors

Acknowledgements

Social Justice: An Introduction to a Vital Concept
Vic McCracken, Abilene Christian University, USA

Chapter 1: Libertarianism and Social Justice: A Christian Approach
Jason Jewell, Faulkner University, USA

Chapter 2: Political Liberalism, Social Justice, and Christian Faith
Daniel A. Dombrowski, Seattle University, USA

Chapter 3: Liberation Theology and Social Justice: A Defense
Miguel A. De La Torre, Iliff School of Theology, USA

Chapter 4: A Christian Feminist Theory of Justice
Laura Stivers, Dominican University, USA

Chapter 5: Virtue Ethics and Social Justice
Elizabeth Phillips, University of Cambridge, UK

Libertarianism: A Concluding Response
Jason Jewell, Faulkner University, USA

Political Liberalism: A Concluding Response
Daniel A. Dombrowski, Seattle University, USA

Liberation Theology: A Concluding Response
Miguel A. De La Torre, Iliff School of Theology, USA

Christian Feminism: A Concluding Response
Laura Stivers, Dominican University, USA

Virtue Ethics: A Concluding Response
Elizabeth Phillips, University of Cambridge, UK

Index

Editorial Reviews

McCracken has done a masterful job of putting five current, but very different, social justice 'voices' in critical conversation with one another. This is ethics pedagogy at its best-providing a diverse range of resources for one's own social ethical reflection!

This is a really useful and genuinely innovative work that will be excellent for teaching students about the nature of many of the most important complexities about and controversies regarding the idea of 'social justice, ' especially as that idea figures in the Christian traditions. The authors of the five foundational essays have done a very good job of laying out their own views, and the follow-up response essays are a brilliant pedagogical device. Conversational yet controversial, rich in detail but never losing sight of the main point, McCracken and his authors have given us a tremendous gift for use in teaching Christian ethics and theories of justice.
CHOICE

This is a valuable collection of contemporary writings on the relation between Christian faith and social justice. Rather than merely assembling secular and religious pieces from different perspectives, Vic McCracken has orchestrated a progressive dialogue between five notable authors, allowing each to comment on all the others. The five authors represent libertarianism, liberalism, liberation theology, feminism, and virtue ethics. Each asks how Christian belief impacts and is impacted by our understanding of what we owe each other and what constitutes a moral community. No consensus is arrived at - that is not the goal - but the conversation is highly edifying.

From the Publisher

This edited volume presents five views of social justice from Christian scholarly perspectives. Editor McCracken's introduction presents the essential connection between Christianity and social justice, using biblical and traditional sources…The lively exchanges between the authors make for good reading, sustained by the quality of the scholarship and argument, especially between Elizabeth Phillips (virtue) and Daniel Dombrowski (Rawls). The feminist and liberationist perspectives of Laura Stivers and Miguel De La Torre, respectively, concur in seeking to replace the status quo and challenge theoretical categories. Though the liberationist motif is most clearly rooted in Christian thought, the various views make fruitful connections to Christian faith, with the exception of libertarianism. This volume would work well as a supplemental text for a course. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above; general readers.

R. Ward