Writing theology well: Eight habits of effective academic writing

[See alsoย Reading theology well: Eight habits of effective academic reading.] Theological writing is more than presenting information or expressing personal opinion. It is the disciplined practice of entering an ongoing scholarly conversation with clarity, fairness, evidence, and intellectual humility. Good theological writing demonstrates that you have understood the relevant sources, weighed competing interpretations, and constructed …

Reading theology well: Eight habits of effective academic reading

[See also Writing theology well: Eight habits of effective academic writing.] Whether you are engaging in theological education formally or informally, serious study demands more than simply skimming large quantities of material. It is important to acquire the skills needed to adequately interpret biblical texts carefully, understand historical developments, evaluate competing theological arguments, and contribute …

Catholic and Protestant approaches to ethics

The question of how Christians ought to live has occupied believers since the earliest days of the church. The New Testament repeatedly links faith in Jesus Christ with transformed patterns of life, calling followers of the way of Jesus to love God, love their neighbours, pursue holiness, embody the character of Christ, and seek to …

What is Christian ethics?

Ethics is the disciplined study of how human beings ought to live. It asks enduring questions about right and wrong, justice and injustice, virtue and vice, duty and responsibility. More profoundly, ethics seeks to understand what constitutes a good life and what kind of persons and communities we should aspire to become. While every culture …

Theology and imagination in Robert Musil’s works

Robert Musil is one of the least widely read of the great European modernist writers, yet his work occupies a distinctive place in twentieth-century intellectual culture. His fiction is neither conventionally religious nor militantly anti-religious. It explores the spiritual exhaustion of modern civilisation, the collapse of moral certainty, and the persistent human longing for transcendence …