“As the title might suggest, this book would make an excellent text for an introductory undergraduate course in church history, an upper-level high school course, or an adult education course. It covers the entire gamut of the history of the Church from Jesus through Vatican II. This work is high recommended for all parish libraries, high school libraries, and those academic libraries serving undergraduate populations.”

“In the foreword, Tobias Winright says this book is ‘comprehensive yet accessible’ and imbued with ‘the author’s passion for teaching undergraduates and providing them with the tools for thinking critically about this timely yet perennial issue.’ I could not agree more.

“I used Who Would Jesus Kill? as one of the texts in a Christian Peacemaking course, and my students agree that it is thorough, informative, and readable. It presents the Christian tradition on war and peace in a substantive and critical manner. This text helps the student to understand the wisdom of the past and to clarify his or her own position on the morality of war. The first words of the introduction are ‘War is about killing’—to shock us out of our complacency regarding this massive evil. The introduction seeks to define war and concludes with a chart that places the approaches to war and peace on a continuum. Later chapters refer to this chart in clarifying the reader’s position on the morality of war.

“The first chapter is a ‘Crash Course in Christian Ethics’ that surveys the four sources of Christian ethics—Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience—in a way worthy of a good course on moral theology. The next three chapters explore the major approaches to war and peace in the Christian tradition—pacifism, holy war, and just war. The basic pattern of these chapters is to begin with definitions and distinctions, examine the biblical basis for this model, trace it through history, and discuss the criticisms of this model regarding the morality of war. The fifth chapter investigates ‘challenges and adaptations’ to the just war theory, including criteria for post-war justice (jus post bellum) and the just peacemaking model. After a brief concluding chapter, there is a substantial appendix devoted to ‘Jewish and Muslim Perspectives on War and Peace.’

“There are numerous sidebars throughout the text that present related topics, such as conscientious objection in the chapter on pacifism. Each chapter includes provocative discussion questions and endnotes, which demonstrate extensive research and point to further reading.

“This is an accurate, insightful, and user-friendly introduction to the Christian tradition on war and peace. I think it is the best text available on the topic.

“From my perspective, its major weakness is that the presentation of the New Testament basis for nonviolence is not challenging enough. Gandhi quipped that the only ones who do not think that Jesus was nonviolent are the Christians. Allman might have drawn on Scripture scholar Walter Wink, who presents Jesus’ ‘third way,’ and/or James Douglass’ theology of the nonviolent cross (or many others) to buttress the Christian foundation for peacemaking. Instead, the chapter on pacifism devotes more pages to the challenge from realism than to the gospel basis of nonviolent discipleship.

“In the end, Allman’s answer to the provocative question in the book’s title is that Jesus would kill unjust aggressors and those who oppress others (or at least the followers of Jesus can be morally justified in killing them). Perhaps that is right, but the unsettling power of the title’s question should be more convincingly presented. While many of my students appreciated the thoroughness of the book, some thought it gave too much information. I understand their point; it is like wanting to edit a movie we think is too long. I also appreciate, however, the author’s desire to be comprehensive. An instructor can always highlight sections for student focus. Nevertheless, there may be places where judicious summary might have replaced more comprehensive exposition.

“The College Theology Society confirmed the excellence of Who Would Jesus Kill? by bestowing the Best Book Award to Mark Allman for this book at the 2009 Annual Meeting. It is well-deserved.”

Used by permission of Horizons.

 

 

Saint Mary’s Press has engaged several authors and editors in the preparation of this small volume. It contains short introductory essays that explain both literary and historical aspects of the Bible, various translations, and the role played by the Bible in the Catholic Church. It then provides basic information about the major sections of the Bible: the Pentateuch, Historical Books, Wisdom and poetic books, the Prophets, the Gospels and Acts, the Letters and Revelation. Eleven pages of very helpful explanatory charts and four maps of the ancient world contribute to its usefulness. A seventeen-page glossary of important terms brings the book to a close. The book is meant as a guide for the college student. However, it will also prove to be valuable for the nontechnical adult Bible reader.

Dr. Tobias Winright offers a candid interview about the development of Green Discipleship and suggestions for use in the classroom as well how it can be used in your living room. Here is an interview at Catholic Ecology about Green Discipleship: http://catholicecology.net/blog/books-tobias-winright-editor-green-discipleship

“Mari Rapela Heidt has produced a very workable textbook for students of ethics in a number of the world’’s religious traditions. Beneath the usefulness of the textbook, she is making a claim for the application of comparative ethics as a methodology for studying moral action across these traditions. Her comparative ethics appears to concern itself primarily with social ethics vice [sic] personal ethics. The definition of morality that drives the text is very broad in nature. She claims that it is “about human actions toward others” (ix). There is less space given to categorizing the content or intent of the actions. Instead of offering various standards for moral judgment, she presents a variety of perspectives of worldview and shows how general behavior in the relevant society is influenced by the perspective.

“Chapter one on ‘Ethics, Morality, and the Study of Religious Ethics’ is laid out more to satisfy other academics than it is to inform students. From a scholar’’s perspective this is the most profitable portion of the book. The rest of the text is more sympathetic to the teaching endeavor. Heidt’’s selection of ethics categories including deontology, consequentialism, virtue ethics, and divine command ethics, although admittedly not exhaustive, would allow for a practical exploration of morality across cultural and religious borders. However, there is little specific mention of [these categories] beyond the first chapter even though it is often apparent which approach is being considered at points later in the text. One reason for downplaying these categories is her appropriate decision not to force a religion into a fixed classification. Since she shapes such concise and manageable descriptions of each ethics category there is some frustration that they do not play a more overt role in the rest of the book.

“Moving into a consideration of the specific traditions, she judiciously crafts her chapter lengths to be substantial in content without being overwhelming to the average college or upper-level high school student. She bravely faces the challenge of summarizing the disparate facets of belief and practice in these religions. Although she acknowledges the vast variety, she might have given some indication of how practitioners at the extremes differ from the most popular efforts. A technique she uses to translate religion into ethics is to reorient practices and beliefs in terms of responsibilities and obligations. After a general review of the tradition, she looks at the moral world of the particular religion by pointing out features that bear moral implications or influence ethical perspectives.

“Each chapter also contains a synopsis of the values and principles at play in the religion. The final section raises a contemporary moral issue and describes how ethical theory and moral practice might influence the individual’’s response. These [moral issues] include abortion, wealth and poverty, environment, war and peace, gender roles, and the one-child policy. Each issue is handled in a very balanced fashion, avoiding an application of a normative perspective that would be foreign to the tradition.

“She is also generally more positivistic, not dwelling solely on moral deficiencies. Perhaps the one element missing in Heidt’’s work is actual comparison. She provides all the elements necessary to develop a good comparative case study, but not the comparisons themselves. This limitation is actually a plus, since the classroom instructor is left with this as a lively and fulfilling task. I would recommend using Heidt’’s book as a textbook for a class in World Religious Ethics or simply as a supplement to add an ethical component to a World Religion’s class. I look forward to incorporating it into one of my own courses.”