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Ethnography as Christian Theology and Ethics

Ethnography as Christian Theology and Ethics

by Aana Marie Vigen (Editor), Christian Scharen (Editor)

  • New

    Paperback 2011

    $38.80
Synopsis

This book is a primary resource in the new and growing field of Christian Ethnography. In response to a variety of critical intellectual currents (post-colonial, post-modern, and post-liberal), scholars in Christian theology and ethics are increasingly taking up the tools of ethnography as a means to ask fundamental moral questions and to make more compelling and credible moral claims. Privileging particularity, rather than the more traditional effort to achieve universal or at least generalizable norms in making claims regarding the Christian life, echoes the most fundamental insight of the Christian tradition - that God is known most fully in Jesus of Nazareth. Echoing this 'scandal of particularity' at the heart of the Christian tradition, theologians and ethicists involved in ethnographic research draw on the particular to seek out answers to core questions of their discipline: who God is and how we become the people we are, how to conceptualize moral agency in relation to God and the world, and how to flesh out the content of conceptual categories such as justice that help direct us in our daily decisions and guiding institutions.

$38.80

Quantity

10 in stock

More Information

Format: Paperback
 Pages: 304
 Publisher: Continuum
Published: 01 Jun 2011
ISBN 10: 1441155457
ISBN 13: 9781441155450

Media Reviews
'This engaging collection is a helpful foundation for exploring the use of ethnography in Christian ethics and theology. The authors provide thoughtful and probing challenges to how social scientists and theologians do our work-encouraging us to question and alter some of the basic assumptions of our work so that we do it with genuine rigor rather than with unexamined normative commitments or using the social sciences as lax sources for theological reflection. The challenge is genuine and I encourage us to read and learn from this fine collection.' - Emilie M. Townes, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of African American Religion and Theology Yale Divinity School, USA.--Sanford Lakoff
'The turn to practice in Christian Theology and Ethics has made engagement with the social and cultural reality of the Church an urgent concern. Many talk about ethnography but few actually do it yet it is in doing of it that the theological force of 'practice' gains any kind of traction. it is the focus on actually doing ethnographic research that makes his book is a timely and significant contribution to the conversation around ethics and communal practices. In the introductory section the editors introduce key elements in ethnographic research. These are then illustrated through a series of studies. The result is a major resource for any one who wants to start to do ethnography as part of Christian Theology and Ethics.' - Pete Ward, Kings College London, UK.--Sanford Lakoff
'A powerful affirmation of the human lives that animate theological reflection and practice. This timely and compelling book is a must read for all concerned with the creative interface of anthropology and theology.' - Joao Biehl is Susan Dod Brown Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University. He is the author of Vita: Life in a Zone of Social Abandonment and Will to Live: AIDS Therapies and the Politics of Survival. --Sanford Lakoff
Christian Scharen and Aana Marie Vigen have put together a remarkable book that fills many needs at once. The book surveys a wide range of ways scholars have engaged ethnography for the sake of theology and ethics. It consolidates a conversation. It then extends that conversation with a significant proposal for ethnography as theology and ethics. A series of examples begin to suggest the range and power of this vision. This book should become - immediately upon its publication - the generative center of one of the most important developments in contemporary theology and ethics. - Ted A. Smith, Vanderbilt University--Sanford Lakoff
Author Bio
Dr. Christian Scharen is Assistant Professor of Worship and Practical Theology at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN. He is an international leader working at the intersection of ethnography and theology, he is the author of five books and several scholarly articles, a number of which directly draw on ethnographic work and Christian Ethics. Dr. Aana Marie Vigen is Assistant Professor of Ethics at Loyola University, Chicago. She is author of a highly-regarded book on healthcare inequality that draws on ethnographic research and Christian theology and ethics, as well as several articles.