Go and Do Likewise: Jesus And Ethics

by William C. Spohn

What does Jesus have to do with ethics? There are two brief answers given by believers: "everything" and "not much." While evangelical or fundamentalist Christians would find authoritative guidance in the words and commands of Jesus as recorded in the New Testament, many mainstream Christian ethicists would say that Jesus is too concrete or narrowly particular to have any direct import for ethics.In this book, Williams Spohn takes a middle way, showing how Jesus is the "concrete universal" of Christian ethics. By forming a bridge from the lives of contemporary Christians to the words and deeds of Jesus, Jesus' story as a whole exemplifies moral perception, motivation and Christian identity.In addition, Spohn shows how the practices of Christian spirituality--specifically prayer, service, and community--train the imagination and reorient emotions to produce a character and a way of life consonant with Christian New Testament moral teaching.

Genres: Theology, Christianity, Religion

238 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Noah Schumacher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another one I wish everyone I know would read... If it was possible, I'd give it 6 stars.

[Fred Matthews · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was required reading for a Christian Ethics class.

As the title suggests, I expected the author to present a discussion surrounding the text in Luke 10:25-37 where Jesus was presented with the question, “who then is my neighbour?” He begins with the question, “what moral significance does the life of Jesus have for Christians?” It was reminiscent of the question the Howard Thurman posed when he asked, “What does the religion of Jesus have to say to those with their backs against the wall?”

He writes around the theme of three sources of Christian ethics - virtue ethics, spirituality, and scripture. As a Roman Catholic, Spohn presented a very fundamentalist view of scripture and suggests that historical context is not important consideration for Biblical exegesis. This is make sense given much later he states that it was not the Roman Empire that destroyed Jerusalem but evil.

Although Spohn makes some good points on making ethical decisions, he goes off on different tangents.

[Jessie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciate his attempt to cohesively integrate the disciplines of virtue ethics, scriptural exegesis, and spirituality studies, but I disagreed with his assessment that spirituality, without critique or historical contextualization, is the magical answer to a system of ethics. Moreover, he presumed a normative interpretation of scripture. I acknowledge that ethics may require communally consented norms with
a degree of difficulty in changing them (at least that is what professors keep insisting). Nonetheless, he needed to more firmly define where in the Roman Catholic tradition he stood for his argument to be stronger.

All in all though, Spohn made an excellent start to the growing field of ethics in spirituality studies.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very well organized and written theology text that provided enough depth to be worth the time to read, yet accessible enough to be understood with a clear and concise set of points. The author, who is a Catholic theologian, does not take sides and provides a balanced view with the arguments and examples that are included in the book.

[Brynna · Rating 3 out of 5]

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