Christian Social Ethics in the United States: A Partial Survey of the Landscape

Gerald BAYER

Department of Theology and Religious Studies, Villanova University, Saint Augustine Center 229, 800 Lancaster Avenue, Villanova, Pennsylvania 19085, USA , United States

Abstract

This article presents an overview of recent thinking in Christian social ethics in the United States. It presents a partial survey of the landscape, rather than a comprehensive view. As such, it focuses on some key areas of Christian social ethics in the United States. First, the article discusses the rise of ethics “from the margins.” This strand of ethics, developed by African American, Latina/o, and Asian American Christian ethicists, has challenged white ethicists in the United States to confront racism, white privilege, and sexism and to devote more attention to what Miguel de La Torre calls “praxis oriented ethics.” The second section of the article deals with U.S. Christian ethicists’ perspectives on the market economy, poverty, and inequality. It contends that they largely fall into one of three categories: market critics, market reformers, and market defenders. This section also presents various reactions to Pope Francis’ economic teaching by Christian social ethicists in the United States as a way of illustrating these three camps. The third section of the article discusses recent developments in Christian thinking on war and peace. In particular, it considers contemporary American reflections on whether or not preventive war can be considered a just cause. The concluding part of the article presents in a heuristic way some other key and controversial issues that remain in need of further consideration by Christian social ethicists in United States. The author points to religious liberty in a pluralistic society and capital punishment as examples of such issues.

Keywords:

Christian social ethics, liberation ethics, praxis, economic ethics, preventive war, just war theory, religious liberty, Pope Francis, capital punishment