This module is not currently running in 2024 to 2025.
Please note: all Module Handbook information is subject to change pending faculty approval.
• Introduction: studying Christian Ethics
• Christian Ethics: biblical roots
• Christian Ethics: philosophical roots
• Key Christian Thinkers: Augustine
• Key Christian Thinkers: Aquinas and Natural Law
• Key Christian Thinkers: Luther
• Christian Ethics in the 20th century
• Committed Perspectives: Liberation Ethics
• Committed Perspectives: Feminist Ethics
• Tradition Revisited: narrative, pluralism and postmodernity
• Christian Ethics in the Multi-cultural Public Square
1x 2hr lecture per week, 1x 1hr seminar per week for 10 teaching weeks
Also available under code TH594 (Level 5)
100% Coursework
Indicative reading:
R. Gill, ed., 3rd ed. 2006. A Textbook of Christian Ethics (Edinburgh T&T Clark)
R. Gill ed., 2001. Cambridge Companion to Christian Ethics (Cambridge CUP)
S. Hauerwas & S Wells eds, 2004. The Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics. (Oxford: Blackwell)
D.S. Cunningham 2008. Christian Ethics: The End of the Law. (London: Routledge)
A. Torrance & M. Banner eds, 2006. The Doctrine of God and Theological Ethics (London: T&T Clark)
N. Messer 2006 Christian Ethics (London: SCM)
A. MacIntyre, 1985 (2nd ed.). After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (London: Duckworth)
P. Beattie Jung and Aana Marie Vigen 2010 God, Science, Sex, Gender: an Interdisciplinary Approach to Christian Ethics (University of Illinois Press)
N. Messer (ed.), 2002 Theological Issues in Bioethics: An Introduction with Readings. (London:DLT)
O. O’Donovan 1994 Resurrection and Moral Order. (Leicester: IVP2nd ed.)
P. Wogaman 2000 Christian Perspectives on Politics (Westminster John Knox Press)
J. Fletcher 1966 Situation Ethics: the new morality (Westminster Press)
J. Barton 1998 Ethics and the Old Testament London (SCM)
C. Rodd, 2001 Glimpses of a Strange Land Edinburgh: T & T Clark)
R. Hays 1996 The Moral Vision of the New Testament: A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics (Edinburgh: T&T Clark)
R. Bauckham 2009 The Bible in Politics (SPCK)
See the library reading list for this module (Canterbury)
Level 6 students who successfully complete this module will be able to:
1. Give a critical account of the major methodological issues involved in the study of Christian ethics
2. Use theological, theoretical and philosophical skills to contribute to critical analysis and discussion of selected ethical issues
3. Locate Christian ethics in the historical, social and political contexts which have helped to shape contemporary theological think, with a particular focus on selected key thinkers in the early, medieval and contemporary Church periods
4. Identify and evaluate the key theological resources used to inform Christian ethics
5. Provide an informed account of the diversity and plurality of Christian ethical thinking
6. Compare and contrast theological ethics with other secular approaches
7. Apply these theological, philosophical and methodological principles through an in-depth study of a selected ethical issues
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