This volume draws together leading theologians and Christian ethicists from across the globe to critically engage with and reflect upon Gerald McKenny, widely acknowledged as one of the most original and important Christian ethicists working today. The essays highlight the significance of McKenny’s interventions with a range of important debates in contemporary theological ethics, ranging from analyses of the Protestant conception of grace to bioethics and medicine.
The Ethics of Grace is the first volume to facilitate critical engagements with a number of key themes in McKenny’s work, not in the least his interpretation of Karl Barth. Among the contributions, Jennifer Herdt discusses McKenny’s Barthian interest in the relationship between nature and grace; Angela Carpenter uses his Barthian understanding of grace and human action as a framework to discuss Jonathan Edwards; Stanley Hauerwas pushes McKenny’s theology beyond Barth. Economic, political, and technological themes are also discussed in depth, for instance in Robert Song’s chapter on the phenomenology of biotechnological enhancement.
Reaching far beyond the work of Gerald McKenny, this multifaceted volume is a high-level resource for students and scholars of theological and philosophical ethics.
Introduction, Paul Martens (Baylor University, USA) and Michael Mawson (Charles Sturt University, Australia) 1. The Dialectic of Grace, Gilbert Meilaender (Valparaiso University, USA) 2. The Fulfillment of Creaturely Nature, Jennifer Herdt (Yale Divinity School, USA) 3. Grace and Christian Freedom Revisited: A Barth-Edwards Conversation, Angela Carpenter (Hope College, USA) 4. Encountering Grace after the Fall, Michael Mawson (Charles Sturt University, Australia) 5. Engaging Barth: With and beyond McKenny, Stanley Hauerwas (Duke University, USA) 6. The Problem of Ethics, Revisited: The New Law and Human Freedom in Aquinas and Barth, Jean Porter (University of Notre Dame, USA) 7. The Place of Obligation and Supererogation in Protestant Ethics, Eric Gregory (Princeton University, USA) 8. How Long is Long Enough?, Celia Deane-Drummond (University of Notre Dame, USA) 9. “The Word Became Flesh”: What are the Implications of Incarnational Economy for Biotechnology?, Travis Kroeker (McMaster University, Canada) 10. Resistance, Witness and Identity: Protestant Ethics after Totalitarianism, Robin Lovin (Southern Methodist University, USA) 11. The Normative Status of Human Nature and the Limits of Ecosystem Engineering, Paul Martens (Baylor University, USA) 12. Optimization, Normalization, and Enhancement: The Role of the Quantification of Traits in Debates about Human Nature, Paul Scherz (Catholic University of America, USA) 13. Phenomenology and the Ethics of Enhancement, Robert Song (Durham University, UK) Bibliography Index
Paul Martens is Associate Professor of Christian Ethics at Baylor University, USA. Michael Mawson is Senior Lecturer in Theology at Charles Sturt University, Australia.
Reviews for The Ethics of Grace: Engaging Gerald McKenny
This is a thrilling book to read. Working at the creative boundary between ethics and grace, its comprehensive coherence, lively discussion, and probing analysis offers more than standard edited volumes. Its critical and respectful dialogue with McKenny is a fitting tribute to a scholar whose influence is broad and deep. -- Celia Deane-Drummond, University of Oxford, UK Gerald McKenny has, without doubt, been amongst the finest Protestant ethicists of recent times in the English-speaking world. This is an outstanding collection of engagements with his work, which beautifully mirror the scholarly breadth, analytical rigour, and above all the deep intellectual generosity that have marked his own writing. -- Robert Song, Durham University, UK Theological ethicists owe a tremendous debt to Gerald McKenney; the following work is a modest response to that debt. As the introduction notes, he has been a “patient and gracious” reader of others’ while at the same time presenting an ethics of grace attentive to nature. I’m tempted to say that he offers the best version of a Reformed ethic available today, but the ecumenical and theological diversity of the authors and chapters demonstrate that such a sentiment is far too limiting. Mawson and Martens are to be commended for bringing attention and honor to the importance of McKenney’s work. -- D. Stephen Long, Southern Methodist University, USA
