Freedom for Obedience: Evangelical Ethics in Contemporary Times - Softcover

Bloesch, Donald G.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1579109322 ISBN 13: 9781579109325

Publisher: Wipf & Stock Pub, 2002

Synopsis

The Christian ethic . . . is an ethic that cannot be assimilated into the moral consensus of the wider community . . . The way of the cross cannot be reconciled with the way of the world, just as the gospel cannot be conjoined with the laws that gave stability to social order . . . The thesis of this book is that human justice can never be a substitute for divine justification . . . but it can be a sign and witness to the justifying grace of God in Jesus Christ. Humanitarian works can never reach the heights of deeds of sacrificial love and mercy, but they can point to this higher righteousness and awaken a thirst for it . . . We must always be on guard against two perils: the Scylla of legalism and rigorism and Charybdis of antinomianism. An ethics of the divine commandment, by uniting law and grace, the imperative and the indicative, shows how we can live the authentic Christian life in obedience to the highest, which is not a law but a person, not an ideal but the reality of the New Being, the power of crucified love, as we see this in Jesus Christ" - (from Freedom for Obedience)

About this title

About the Author

Donald G. Bloesch (1928-2010) earned his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and was professor of theology emeritus at Dubuque Theological Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa. He did postdoctoral work at the universities of Oxford, Tubingen and Basel. He wrote numerous books, includingFaith and Its Counterfeits, Evangelical Theology in Transition, Theological Notebook: Volume 3, Essentials of Evangelical Theology, The Future of Evangelical Christianity, The Struggle of Prayer, Spirituality Old & New, Freedom for Obedience and the seven-volume Christian Foundations series. He also served for a time as president of the Midwest Division of the American Theological Society.

Edition details

• Publisher: Wipf & Stock Pub
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 1579109322
• ISBN 13: 9781579109325
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 362