LOVE ASSIGNMENT
Essay Assignment for BTh/CTh
"All you need is love"
How should Christians respond to such an ethic ?
A large part of the discussion here is the relationship between love and law/rules. Lectures 5 and 6 should cover material relevant to this essay.
Introductory Reading
"Love",IVP Dictionary, Chpt 2, Part One, pp9-15.
"Love" in SCM Dictionary, pp354-9.
"Love" in Hastings, Mason & Pyper, Oxford Companion to Christian Thought, pp 394-7.
Scripture
Biblical passages
- Lev 19.18;
- Mt 5.43-48;
- Mt 22.34-40;
- Rom 13.8-10;
- Gal 5.13-14.
A critique of limiting NT ethics to law is found in Richard Hays, Moral Vision of the New Testament, pp
Tradition
For a very brief sense of the centrality of love in Augustine see On Christian Doctrine (in Boulton, Wayne G., et.al., From Christ to the World, pp26-7).
To get a broader grasp of Augustine's love-ethic see Grenz, Stanley, The Moral Quest, pp130-41.
Contemporary Situation Ethics
Part of this question revolves (unfortunately) around "situation ethics" -
- "Situation Ethics" in SCM Dictionary, pp586-8.
- Extract from Fletcher's book "Situation Ethics" in Gill, Robin. A Textbook of Christian Ethics, pp113-20.
- Peter Vardy and Paul Grosch. The Puzzle of Ethics, pp123-32.
See the critique of Stanley Hauerwas in 'Love's Not All You Need' in his Vision and Virtue
Contemporary Love Ethics
For other (better !) accounts of the role love should play in Christian ethics and its relationship to rules (sometimes expressed in terms of rule-agapism and act-agapism) see –
- Attwood, David, Changing Values, pp32-59.
- Oliver O'Donovan, "Christian Moral Reasoning" in IVP Dictionary, esp pp124-7.
- Grenz, Stanley J. The Moral Quest, pp174-8 & 276-97.
- Meilaender, Gilbert, Faith & Faithfulness, pp47-57.
- Holmgren, Stephen, Ethics After Easter, pp127-51.
One related question is the relationship of love and justice. If you wish to explore this further read -
- Biggar, Nigel. Theological Politics, 1988, pp28-30.
- Woodhead, Linda. "Love and Justice." Studies in Christian Ethics 5, no. 1 (1992): 44-63.
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