(THE IMAGE OF) GOD IN ALL OF US

This essay compares Sikh and Christian thought about and practices of hospitality in light of the global refugee crisis. It aims to show how both practices of hospitality, and religious ethical thought about hospitality, can be enhanced by dialogue between traditions. The refugee crisis arises out of a global failure of hospitality, and the type of hospitality refugees most fundamentally need is that which confers membership in a political community. Comparing Christian and Sikh ethics of hospitality provides guidance toward building rooted religious communities that welcome outsiders, including by incorporating them into political communities. In particular, Christians who hold social power and privilege can better fulfill ethical mandates of hospitality by looking to the example of Sikhs and other marginalized groups. Sikhs have often built communities through acts of hospitality and welcomed outsiders without fear, even in contexts where their own belonging is questioned and their own security is under threat.     

Organizing Race

Faith‐based community organizing is receiving an increasing amount of attention from scholars of religious ethics. This essay is motivated by the worry that accounts of such organizing depend on a problematic embrace of multiculturalism, an embrace characteristic of our neoliberal era. Like the powers that they purport to challenge, organizing efforts often embrace difference (racial, gender, and religious) only when it is carefully managed. This is being challenged by theological accounts of organizing that take the religious dimension of such efforts seriously, as well as by feminist critiques of community organizing. This essay probes how race might be taken just as seriously by religious ethicists who study community organizing. Drawing on the civil rights movement's legacy of faith‐based community mobilization as well as traditions of Black theological reflection, this essay challenges the easy embrace of multi‐racial coalitions in faith‐based organizing.     

CONSTRUCTING A THEOLOGY OF EVOLUTION: BUILDING ON JOHN HAUGHT

The construction of a distinctively Christian “theology of evolution” or “theistic evolution” requires the incorporation of the science of evolutionary biology while building a more comprehensive worldview within which all things are understood in relation to our creating and redeeming God. In the form of theses, this article brings four support pillars to the constructive work: (1) orienting evolutionary history to the God of grace; (2) affirming purpose for nature even if we cannot see purpose in nature; (3) employing the theology of the cross to discern divine compassion in the natural world; and (4) relying on the divine promise of new creation. Among other things, John Haught's blueprint has located the pedestals on which these pillars will stand. For this groundwork, Haught deserves thanks.     

Where Have All the Proportionalists Gone?

Interest in proportionalism as an important trend in Catholic moral theology seems to have faded in the recent decade. This has led some to view it as a movement that was somehow defeated. I suggest that proportionalism's influence can still be seen in contemporary Catholic ethics, most noticeably in the current interest in virtue ethics, casuistry, and feminist ethics. I argue that proportionalism encouraged a reappraisal of the methodology for evaluating moral action in a direction that was more hospitable to concerns about the particularity and context of the agent.