Summaries / Resúmenes - Studia Moralia

REVIEWS / RECENSIONES 509strate Niebuhr’s influence upon American theological discourse andidentify key themes for the future development of Christian ethics.The book is divided into eleven chapters. Chapter one,“Questions in Christian Ethics” (pp. 1-14), sets the stage for the comparisonsby identifying each of the four authors to be compared withNiebhur with a particular approach to Christian ethics. Ramsey’sapproach has to do with the covenant of love; Hauerwas’s with acommunity of character; Gustafson’s with theocentric ethics; andTanner’s with the (progressive) politics God. The chapter also offersa number of questions that resonate with Niebuhr’s thought andcome up in the four approaches:What is the relation between the “church” and the “world”?How does a general answer to this question apply to the specificrelation between a distinctive Christian community and Americanliberalism? Between the church, as it aspires, say, to a life of nonviolentdiscipleship, and the violent character of the nation-state?How does christian ethics fittingly bear on broader public discussionsof moral and political matters? Why and how shouldChristian ethical reflection deal with “the ways in which nature,history and culture are interpreted and understood by investigationsproper to them”? How does the particularity of Christian traditionrelate to these and other more general or even universalunderstandings? How should we gauge the emancipatory potentialof traditional Christian belief? What is the full meaning of our dignityas creatures of God, or as sisters and brothers for whomChristi died? (pp. 11-12).These questions guide the author’s investigation in the chaptersthat follow and are responded to specifically in the final chapter withthe author’s formulation of eight theses for theological ethics.Chapter two, “A Theology of Permanent Revolution” (pp. 15-32),provides a systematic presentation of the key themes in Niebuhr’sthought. It identities five interrelated polarities present in much ofhis thought. As a theologian, he “…would be neither a pre-Kantiantheological realist nor a post-Kantian critical idealist; neither a naturaltheologian (or metaphysician) nor a fideist; neither a Christianapologist nor a Christian henotheist; neither a moral situationalistnor a moral rigorist or legalist; neither a cultural Protestant nor asectarian” (pp. 28-29).