NON-ESSAY ASSIGNMENT FOR ETHICS FOR DIPLOMA STUDENTS
It is best to talk with me personally about doing one of these but the following are guidelines and suggested areas.
There are four main forms of non-essay assignment:
These would normally be single assignments but could be constructed in order to count as a double assignment in consultation with me.
Sermons
For any of the subjects set as essays you could instead submit a sermon on the subject.
Guidance
· Please include a short introduction setting the sermon in context eg intended audience, whether part of a sermon series, why you chose the biblical texts you did to preach on.
· The assignment should include a selection of reading taken from the essay assignment for the subject and also some commentary work
· If you wish to use footnotes to signal sources or add a more academic discussion you may do so but the text should be clearly a sermon and not an essay
· Whether or not you use footnotes, it is important that your sermon demonstrates some awareness of the scholarly issues even as you keep to the sermon style.
· The assignment will be assessed as a sermon not an essay
· Please include a bibliography (to show your engagement with the material you may wish to provide a short comment on each work)
Possible subjects
I am happy for you to choose any subject for which there is an essay. If you wish to
choose something else (eg an exposition of a passage related to Christian discipleship) then please talk to me about it.
Examples:
- Write a sermon on Romans 1.18-32 focussing on Paul's teaching about homosexuality and its relevance today.
- Choose a text or texts from Scripture for a Remembrance Sunday service and write a sermon whose aim is to help the congregation think in a Christian way about questions of war and peace.
- Write a sermon (selecting your own 2 or 3 biblical passages) on 'Christ & Riches'
Study Materials
You may wish to do an assignment which seeks to facilitate a group discussion of an ethical issue(s). This could be notes for small group study or an account of how you would organise a PCC discussion of a contentious subject (eg remarriage in church after divorce or responding to members in civil partnerships or making the church more environment-friendly).
Depending on its length this could be a larger double project.
Guidance
· Please include a short introduction setting the study in context eg intended audience, whether part of series of studies, why you chose to approach the subject this way.
· The assignment should include reading taken from the essay assignment for the subject
· Think about the proper balance of Bible study, contemporary context, pastoral issues
· Think about extent to which material instructs and supports one view and extent to which it lays out options, encourages diverse views to be aired
· Materials could include text of a talk, guidance for leaders, questions for discussion, Bible study notes depending on the nature of the study being developed.
· If you wish to use footnotes to signal sources or add a more academic discussion you may do so but the materials should be clearly for some form of group study or discussion and not an essay
· Whether or not you use footnotes, it is important that your material demonstrates some awareness of the scholarly issues even as you keep to the non-essay style.
· The assignment will be assessed as study materials not an essay
· Please include a bibliography (you can annotate this with a few comments on books used if you wish to demonstrate your engagement with the material).
Book Review
As a non-essay assignment you may wish to write a review of an ethics book.
Approved Books
The following are already approved, please discuss with me if you wish to review something else, either a study of a particular issue/area or a textbook on the subject.
· Matters of Life and Death by John Wyatt
· Bioethics: A Primer for Christians (2nd edn) by Gilbert Meilaender.
· Homosexuality and the Bible: Two Views by Robert Gagnon & Dan Via
· Remarriage After Divorce in Today's Church: Three Views by Wenham, Heth & Keener
Guidance
· The best guide to writing a book review is probably to read some in a Christian journal or newspaper (eg Themelios or Anvil or Third Way magazine) and to think what you look for when you read a review to find out about a book.
· It is up to you which audience you write for but you should note that in an introduction to the review itself. I suggest you think in terms of a general readership, perhaps such as parish magazine/diocesan newspaper (though the review will be much longer as an assignment than you could write in such a context !).
· The review needs to explain and not assume knowledge of technical terms etc.
· You should of course assume your review reader has not read the book and wants therefore to know something about:
o its contents and central arguments,
o who it is aimed at and with what end,
o its value as a book
o your assessment of its strengths and weaknesses both as a whole and perhaps in relation to particular sections/chapters.
· Think therefore about how your review answers such questions as:
o "What does the book cover and argue?"
o "Who is it aimed at?"
o "What is it trying to do and does it succeed?"
o "Is it worth reading/buying? Why? How does it help the reader?"
o "How does it differ from other books on the subject?" (you may not know enough to answer this but if you do then worth including)
o "What do you think is most helpful or persuasive about it? What least?"
· In terms of assessment I will be looking not only for the qualities of a review noted above but within that particularly for evidence you have read the whole book and understood and thought about its structure, contents and arguments. A review that only refers to one or two chapters will therefore not be as good as one which engages more widely with the book (though you do not need to give detail on every single chapter). For example, in relation to Bioethics, there would be various possible structures (eg a chapter-by-chapter discussion, a grouping of its chapters into 'beginning of life', 'medical intervention' etc, discussion of central themes illustrated by reference to specific chapters) and you should give some sense of your own thinking in relation to at least some of the issues it covers as well as a summary of Meilaender's own conclusions and rationale.
Moral Case
The BTh/CTh exam includes a moral case and we will discuss a number of these in seminars, especially in Hilary Term. The aim is to write an account of how you would handle a particular pastoral situation which raises important ethical issues.
Guidance
There is guidance about writing a moral case in another document.
Obviously you should do at least some of the relevant reading set for an essay on the area your moral case covers.
Subjects
You could use a past paper from BTh/CTh exams, one of the cases discussed in a seminar, or ask me to create a case related to your particular interest.
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