Bible and Ethics in the Christian Life ― A New Conversation

Earth is changing in ways it hasn't for hundreds of thousands of years. At the same time, Christianity is breaking away from its millennium-long geographical and cultural center in the Euro-West. Its growth is in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, primarily in Pentecostal, evangelical, and independent churches. These dramatically changed planetary and ecclesial landscapes have led many to conclude that we need a new way of thinking about our collective existence: who are we and what is the nature of our responsibility in this deeply altered world? To address that question, biblical scholars Bruce C. Birch and Jacqueline E. Lapsley and Christian ethicists Larry L. Rasmussen and Cynthia Moe-Lobeda carry on "a new conversation" that engages how Christians are to understand the authority and use of Scripture, the basic elements of any full-bodied Christian ethic attuned to our circumstances, and the nature of our responsibility to our planetary neighbors and creation itself.

Bruce C. Birch is dean and professor of biblical theology at Wesley Theological Seminary.

Jacqueline E. Lapsley is associate professor of Old Testament and director of the Center for Theology, Women, and Gender at Princeton Theological Seminary.

Cynthia Moe-Lobeda is professor of theological and social ethics at Pacific Lutheran School of Theology, Church Divinity School of the Pacific, and the Graduate Theological Union.

Larry L. Rasmussen is Reinhold Niebuhr Professor Emeritus of Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary.