Esther D. Reed

Narrative theology in Religious Education

This article advocates a pedagogy of Religious Education (RE) based upon a narratival framework informed by both narrative theology and narrative philosophy. Drawing on the work of narrative theologians including Stanley Hauerwas, the article outlines the nature of the framework, describes the four phases of learning that comprise the pedagogy, and explains how such an approach can overcome existing difficulties in how biblical texts are handled within RE. Working from the narrative assumption that individuals and communities are formed by reading, sharing and living within stories, it suggests that the pedagogy might encourage pupils to think about how the lives of Christians are shaped by their interpretations of biblical narratives, to offer their own interpretations of biblical and other texts, and to consider the stories – religious, non-religious or both – which shape their own lives. In so doing, the article moves away from a ‘proof-texting’ approach to the Bible towards one in which pupils are enabled to think about the significance of biblical narratives for both Christians and themselves.

In defence of the laws of war

This essay warns that Nigel Biggar’s permissive reading of the classic, theological just war tradition is problematic especially when combined with his highly contextual approach to the United Nations Charter and laws of war. Two points are made: (1) When compared to Augustine’s grappling with the disordered loves of the Roman empire—including ‘foreign iniquity’ as an excuse for military action, the animus dominandi, and wars of a kind that generate more war—In Defence of War lacks a political realism robust enough to defend against leaving the laws of war in the hands of the most powerful nations. (2) When compared to Augustine’s engagement with why and how secular law must constitute the conditions for peaceable and ordered co-existence, In Defence of War fails to incorporate into its just war reasoning a defence of the legal regime necessary for the protection of international peace and security.

Book Review: Carys Moseley, Nations and Nationalism in the Theology of Karl BarthMoseleyCarys, Nations and Nationalism in the Theology of Karl Barth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). ix + 215 pp. £60.00 (hb), ISBN 978-0-19-966892-2.

had not been answered. Perhaps Marshall will reply that that is their problem, and yet for two decades now restorative justice has failed to make the breakthrough which its proponents so much long for. The danger, then, with Marshall’s book—which sets up the biblical case, provides a good discussion of the experience of crime, and engages with the practitioners of restorative justice such as Zehr—is that this account of criminology, or what is in effect a profound political theology, simply marginalises itself. But this feels ungracious. What this book offers is a superb reading of the Lukan parables, as though the reader had come across them fresh, never having heard them before. That is an extraordinary achievement. It sets new standards for biblical hermeneutics. What it does not do is establish the case for restorative justice against its critics.

Peace Ethics in an Age of Risk

This article inquires into what the gospel of peace might mean for Christian theological engagement with international law and sets a provisional agenda for peace ethics in an age of global risks. Two warnings are sounded with respect to the language of ‘peace ethics’ and ‘the rule of law’. Three priorities are identified: (i) thinking with and about the global poor in ways that do not render ‘the other’ somehow different from myself; (ii) retrieval of the twin ideas of ‘naturalness’ and distributive justice in natural law reasoning as they bear upon international law and the use of force; (iii) how to conceive of international common good by considering ‘peace through law’ as a potentially subversive endeavour when employed in the service of the global poor.

Nation-States and Love of Neighbour: Impartiality and the ordo amoris

This paper is about love of one’s neighbour near and far given humanity’s division into nations. The primary dialogue partner is Peter Singer and his preference utilitarian approach to moral reasoning wherein the challenge is to count the welfare of individuals impartially, regardless—or, at least, with far less regard than is often given—of divisions into nation-states. The claim is made that, despite the considerable and proper challenges from Singer and other so-called new cosmopolitans, it remains possible and, indeed, necessary at the present time for Christian people to work with an account of nation and nationhood as permitted within divine providence. This claim is cast in terms of traditional Christian teaching about the order of love (L. ordo amoris).

Natural Law Reasoning between Statism and Dystopia: International Law and the Question of Authority

This essay argues that a restatement of Thomistic natural law reasoning is increasingly necessary in jurisprudential debate about international law. Mindful of Pope John Paul II’s call for a renewal of international law, the essay engages with the present-day tension between Morgenthau-type realism (Goldsmith and Posner) and neo-Kantian discourse-oriented cosmopolitanism (Habermas). The essay does not offer a fully-worked alternative to these two approaches but addresses whether the former is sufficiently realistic in our global twenty-first century context, and whether the latter is adequately cosmopolitan. Attention is drawn to Aquinas’s understanding of the relation between custom, consent and political authority in order to expose some of the limits of present-day statism, and to suggest that Thomistic natural law reasoning is, potentially at least, better able to cope with the intractable disagreement that characterises twenty-first century global relations than some forms of neo-Kantian jurisprudence. The essay grew from my involvement with the Theology and International Law Project based at the Center of Theological Inquiry (CTI), Princeton—which, in turn, arose from discussions at Princeton Theological Seminary in 2006 about torture and detainee abuse.1 Uppermost in our minds throughout our time together were the so-called ‘torture memos’ prepared by lawyers in the administration of US President George W Bush. These memos claimed, in effect, that the President had the legal authority to permit the use of torture during interrogation.2 As a Working Group, we were concerned that legal advisers to President Bush’s administration had not only misconstrued international law and thereby supplied bad advice but (2010) 1(2) Jurisprudence 169–196

Questions People Ask: 5. What is Worship All About?

an historian, she or he might comment on the development of liturgical rites and rubrics within one tradition as compared to others in different times and places.’ Each approach is legitimate in its own right, and together they offer a range of ways to understand the Christian practice of meeting together in worship. When a theologian’ is asked what worship is all about she or he has additional concerns to these other disciplines. She or he needs to understand the spiritual significance of worship as a mode of being or ’life orientation’ for the church institution and its members.5

Book Reviews : Christology Dislodged From the 'Malestream'

For the later periods Hastings selects themes which he develops by means of copious and detailed illustration drawn from a huge variety of sources. There are some unexpected but illuminating comparisons of European and African movements. Christian villages, mass evangelism, prophet movements, the emergence of new nationalisms, catechists, dreams, the emergence of modem leadership are among the topics discussed. There are a few slips: the CMS did not, for instance, leave Tanganyika when this passed under German rule; there are occasional inconsistencies in the spelling of