Course Code: BTE01

Introduction to Christian Social Ethics

BDII, Semester 1, 4 Credit Hours, College Paper

No Final Examination

(It is Compulsory for the College to submit the Marks through Online Portal)

Course Objectives

1. To enable the students to engage in critical ethical reflections and praxis in Church and society informed by context-specific biblical, theological, and theoretical meditations.
2. To equip the students for ethical discernment and praxis through introducing methodological guidelines such as modes of ethical discourses, epistemological issues, a survey of sources, and the like.
3. To help the students to understand the interrelationship between ethics and the Bible, ethics and theology, and ethics and social theories.
4. To equip the churches in formulating social statements on contemporary social issues that are ethically ambiguous.
5. To challenge the students to enter into a deeper engagement with contemporary realities with a commitment to interpret and to change those realities through ethical reflections and praxis.

Pedagogical Methods

The course is divided into two parts. The first part deals with theoretical reflections and the second part analyzes selected ethical issues. The instructors are expected to identify ethical issues for the second part in consultation with the students and provide reading materials for each issue. Each issue will be presented and analyzed in the class through group seminar presentations.

Course Requirements

There will not be a final closed book examination for this course. Instead, the students will do a project on one of the ethical issues listed in the second part of the syllabus, engaging with different modes of ethical thinking and select ethicists discussed in the first part of the syllabus, in order to help the church in its ethical discernment and praxis. The project will be done under the supervision of the instructor and evaluated by two faculty members.

• Group Presentation on Part II
• Class Test on Part I
• Project (instead of examination)

Course Outline

Part I

UNIT I: Introduction

1. Definitions
2. Morality and ethics
3. Philosophy and Ethics
4. Ethics of other religious traditions and ideologies

UNIT II: Methodological Issues in Christian Ethics

1. Why Christian Ethics?
2. Different modes of ethical discourses/arguments:
   • a. Deontological
   • b. Teleological
   • c. Natural law
   • d. Virtue
   • e. Responsibility
   • f. Liberation

UNIT III: Sources of Doing Christian Social Ethics

1. Scripture
2. Traditions
3. Experience
4. Social theories
5. Social Movements
6. Moral Communities and Moral Agency

UNIT IV: Select Christian Ethicists

1. Reinhold Niebuhr
2. H. Richard Niebuhr
3. Paul Lehman
4. Stanley Hauerwas
5. Beverly Harrison
6. Enrique Dussel
7. M. M. Thomas
8. K. C. Abraham

UNIT V: Theology and Ethics

1. Christology
2. Theological Anthropology
3. Community
4. Praxis and the Reign of God
5. Doing Christian Social Ethics in India: Perspectives from the Margins

Part II: Ethical Issues

1. Globalization, Poverty, and Development
2. Casteism
3. Patriarchy, Sexual Violence
4. Ecological Crisis, Climate Change</ li>
5. Sexual Ethics: Marriage, Divorce, Human Sexuality, Homosexuality
6. Bio-ethics: Bio-technology, Abortion, Euthanasia, Genetic Engineering/Manipulation, Human Reproductive Technologies
7. Church and State: War, Militarization and Nuclearization, Capital Punishment, Terrorism and State Terror, Corruption
8. Church: Hierarchy, Patriarchy, Casteism, Democracy

Required Readings

• Abeysinghe, Rasika. ‘Interfaith and Interfaith Tolerance – A Religious Ethic in a Secular World.’ In Religious Tolerance and Harmony: Research papers presented at the International Conference on Religious Tolerance and Harmony, Dept of Religious Studies and Comparative Philosophy of the Buddhist and Pali University, Sri Lanka, 2015, (p. 10)
• Bruce Birch and Larry Rasmussen, Bible and Ethics in the Christian Life (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1989)
• D’Cunha, Jean. The Legalization of Prostitution. (Bangalore: Wordmakers for CISRS), 1991
• Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, Rhetoric and Ethic: The Politics of Biblical Studies, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999)
• Enrique Dussel, Ethics and Community (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1989).
• Gabriele Dietrich and Bas Wielenga, Towards Understanding Indian Society (Tiruvalla: CSS Books, 2003)
• Hunter P. Mabry, Christian Ethics: An Introductory Reader, edited by Hunter P. Mabry (Serampore: ITL, 1987)
• James, Emmanuel E. Ethics – A Biblical Perspective. Bangalore: Theological Book Trust, 2001
• K.C. Abraham, Transforming Vision: Theological-Methodological Paradigm Shifts, (Tiruvalla: CSS Books, 2006)
• Kath, Phanenmo. Human Sexuality: Real Issues – Right Answers. (Jörhat: Tribal Development and Communication Centre), 2009
• Larry L. Rasmussen, Moral Fragments and Moral Community: A Proposal for Church in Society (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993)
• Lehman, Paul. Ethics in a Christian Context. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1963.
• Niebuhr, R. H. The Responsible Self: An Essay in Christian Moral Philosophy. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1963.
• Robin Gill, ed., A Text Book of Christian Ethics (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1985)
• Russell J. Chandran, Christian Ethics (Delhi: ISPCK, 1998)
• Stanley Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983)
• Stephen, M. Introducing Christian Ethics. Delhi: ISPCK, 2013.
• Vinayaraj, Y.T. “Levinas, Ontology, and Ethics” in Intercessions: Theology, Liturgy, and Politics (Delhi: ISPCK, 2015), 71-82.

 

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