Methodist Morals: Social Principles in the Public Church's Witness

Methodist Morals: Social Principles in the Public Church's Witness by Stephens, Darryl W.. Hardcover edition. ISBN: 9781621902409.

Methodist Morals offers keen insight into the public church, interpreting the United Methodist Social Principles as a dynamicdiscourse about morality and human rights in light of faith. Revisedevery four years by the General Conference of The United MethodistChurch, the Social Principles exposes the moral deliberations of thisdistinctly American and increasingly "worldwide" church as it strugglesto achieve community across multiple languages and cultures. Perhaps noother document provides as rich a depiction of Protestants participating in the moral argument of public life. This is the first full-length study of Methodist social teachings inover fifty years. Examining official Methodist teachings frominstitutional, historical, and cross-cultural perspectives, the authorprovides a rich analysis of this case study of Protestant socialwitness, drawing on his expertise in church polity, Methodist history,and Christian social ethics. A wide range of comparisons--with documentsof the United Nations, with moral debate in Germany and Zimbabwe, andwith historical Methodist statements of social witness--shows the SocialPrinciples to be a unique form of social witness. The issues of war,abortion, human sexuality, and marriage illustrate the messiness ofdemocratic deliberation in an ecclesial context and the evolution of apeople ever concerned with the sin of "worldliness" even as they becomemore attuned to transforming social structures. Stephens also contraststhis conception of the public church with the ecclesiologies ofprominent Methodist ethicists Stanley Hauerwas and Paul Ramsey. Intended for students of Methodism, ecumenical church leaders, andscholars of Christian social ethics and contemporary US mainlinereligion, this work reveals the challenges to and possibilities forachieving moral community in an increasingly global and diverse world.