Overview
This book presents a wide-ranging study of Pauline ethics, examining how Paul's moral discourse envisages and constructs communities in which there is a strong sense of solidarity but also legitimate difference in various aspects of ethical practice. Unlike many books on New Testament ethics, this work reads New Testament texts with an explicit awareness of contemporary ethical theory, and attempts to assess Paul's contribution as a moral thinker in the context of modern debate.
The contents include a survey of the variety of approaches to understanding Pauline ethics and of the contemporary liberal-communitarian debate. Using a framework indebted to the social sciences, as well as to contemporary ethical theory, various chapters go on to examine the construction of community in Paul's letters, the notions of purity, boundaries and identity, Paul's attempts to deal with diversity in his churches, the role of imitating Christ in Paul's ethics, and the ethic Paul develops for interaction with 'outsiders'. Finally, the pattern of Paul's moral thinking is considered in relation to the liberal-communitarian debate, with explicit consideration given to the central moral norms of Pauline thought, and the prospects for, and problems with, appropriating these in the contemporary world. It is argued that, while Paul's ethics raise problems which prevent their easy application today, by thinking with, beyond, and sometimes against Paul, we can find in his letters valuable resources for the pressing moral tasks that confront us.