L. Gregory Jones

The Craft of Forgiveness

“I have retold the story of Ian in Saint Maybe both because of its explorations of the problems of forgiveness and for its glimpses of the possibilities of a more adequate account. The novel depicts quite powerfully the dangers of fragmentary conceptions of forgiveness—and, more specifically, it exposes the ways in which diverse Christian traditions have tended to distort the overall significance of forgiveness.”

Crafting Communities of Forgiveness

Forgiveness is much more than isolated acts and words of individuals. The capacity to discover what it means to forgive and be forgiven depends, in part, on the richness of ones communal practices and disciplines.

Why the Virtues are Not Another Approach to Medical Ethics: Reconceiving the Place of Ethics in Contemporary Medicine

Despite the persistence of some polemical critiques, the virtues seem to have secured a place in the horizon of moral philosophy and theology.1 Precisely what this place will be, however, is still contestable. It would appear that the dominant trend is toward including such topics as a component within a more comprehensive pluralistic ethical method. That is, the ethical method will be one in which there is a relatively independent need for rules, for an assessment of consequences, and for an appreciation of the need for narrative, character, and/or the virtues. This is the strategy that has been adopted by a wide variety of scholars, both in terms of theological ethical method (for example, [8], [45], [63]) and with more specific reference to medical ethics (for example, [2], [19]).

Rising from the Rubble: The Vital Significance of Christian Research Universities in the Twenty-First Century

This essay begins with a framing from Vaclav Havel, suggesting that the modern age is exhausted. Havel suggests that something else, still indistinct, will rise from the rubble. I propose that a vision of a robust “Christian Research University” will be central to what rises from the rubble in higher education. This is because of the richness of each of those three key terms, understood in their intersections. The essay unpacks each term and shows why such a university is positioned for transformational leadership in the twenty-first century. The essay concludes with suggestions for the key commitments that the stakeholders in such a university need to have in order for the university to be sustained and flourish.