A Reflection on Social Ethics from 7 years ago:
James Cone reveals a critical appropriation of Niebuhr along with MLK Jr. and Malcolm X in an interview on the cross and the lynching tree with Bill Moyers which airs Friday night on PBS. Virulent racism is resurgent.
I would add Black Womanist ethics, Latino/Latina ethics, Catholic social ethics (e.g. Thomas Merton), Jewish ethics (Abraham Heschel), socially engaged Buddhism (Thich Nhat Hanh) and post-modern criticism as important prophetic fragments.
The key is to appropriate an ethic to fight in the world for justice from our corner of the universe. I guess this reveals that at bottom I am a Christian existentialist. "If not me, then who? If not now, when?" How we are actually connected to Christ and practicing social ethics in community matters more than our disembodied abstractions. Having knowledge cannot be equated with doing good, though truth and goodness are somehow connected.
"Gather up the fragments that none will be lost."
I would add Black Womanist ethics, Latino/Latina ethics, Catholic social ethics (e.g. Thomas Merton), Jewish ethics (Abraham Heschel), socially engaged Buddhism (Thich Nhat Hanh) and post-modern criticism as important prophetic fragments.
The key is to appropriate an ethic to fight in the world for justice from our corner of the universe. I guess this reveals that at bottom I am a Christian existentialist. "If not me, then who? If not now, when?" How we are actually connected to Christ and practicing social ethics in community matters more than our disembodied abstractions. Having knowledge cannot be equated with doing good, though truth and goodness are somehow connected.
"Gather up the fragments that none will be lost."
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