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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

Eight Is Enough?: The Ethics Of The California Octuplets Case, Scott Paeth Oct 2012

Eight Is Enough?: The Ethics Of The California Octuplets Case, Scott Paeth

Scott R. Paeth

The recent California octuplets case raises a number of important issues that need to be addressed in the context of the increasingly widespread practice of in vitro fertilization. This paper explores some of those issues as looked at from the perspective of protestant theological ethics and public theology, examining the moral responsibilities of the various participants in the process, both before and after the octuplets’ birth, including the mother, her doctors, the health care bureaucracy, the wider society, and the media. Each of these participants failed in significant respects to consider the ethical implications of the births in this complicated …


Ecocriticism And Christian Literary Scholarship, Timothy J. Burbery Aug 2012

Ecocriticism And Christian Literary Scholarship, Timothy J. Burbery

Timothy J. Burbery

This essay presents a case for ecocriticism as a viable critical method for Christian scholars. It begins with an historical overview of the method, then examines common ground shared by ecocriticism and Christianity, including what amounts to a kind of critical realism, and the belief in the inherent goodness of creation. Two potential obstacles are then addressed by way of Lynn White, Jr.'s famous essay, "The Historical Roots of our Ecologic Crisis." These include the relationship of the Bible and the environment, and the charge of anthropocentrism. I believe White is partly right, but contend that neither objection is fatal …


“Housing: The Civil Rights Issue For Our Time, Laura A. Stivers Jun 2012

“Housing: The Civil Rights Issue For Our Time, Laura A. Stivers

Laura Stivers

No abstract available


Blaise Pascal: From Birth To Rebirth To Apologist, Lew A. Weider May 2012

Blaise Pascal: From Birth To Rebirth To Apologist, Lew A. Weider

Lew A. Weider

No abstract provided.


Interviewed By Timothy Harris, On Disrupting Homelessness, Laura A. Stivers Apr 2012

Interviewed By Timothy Harris, On Disrupting Homelessness, Laura A. Stivers

Laura Stivers

Churches and helping homeless people go together like soup and sandwiches. From the Skid Row rescue missions of the 19th century right up to the present, modern Christians have responded to Matthew 25:35 by feeding the hungry and sheltering the stranger. Yet how many, asks Dominican University of California philosophy and ethics professor Laura Stivers, take the next step, advised in Isaiah 1:17, and work to "seek justice and encourage the oppressed?"

The answer, says Stivers, is not nearly enough. "Disrupting Homelessness: Alternative Christian Approaches (Fortress Press, $18) offers a manual of sorts to faith activists interested in building a …


The Moral Complexity Of Video Games, Scott Paeth Mar 2012

The Moral Complexity Of Video Games, Scott Paeth

Scott R. Paeth

Over the past two decades, video games have reached a level of technological sophistication that enables them to immerse players in complex stories and relationships. The games require players to draw not only on their hand-eye coordination skills and puzzle-solving prowess but also on their moral imagination as they navigate complex relationships and their consequences. Today's video games are light years away from Pong and Asteroids, and they have the potential not only to offer richly textured narratives and fantastically realistic-seeming worlds but to aid in forming us as moral beings, for better and for worse.


Making A Home For All, Laura A. Stivers Feb 2012

Making A Home For All, Laura A. Stivers

Laura Stivers

No abstract available


Disrupting Homelessness (Guest Lecture), Laura A. Stivers Feb 2012

Disrupting Homelessness (Guest Lecture), Laura A. Stivers

Laura Stivers

No abstract available


Disrupting Homelessness, Laura A. Stivers Feb 2012

Disrupting Homelessness, Laura A. Stivers

Laura Stivers

No abstract available


Confidence In Christ And The Sin Unto Death -- When Should A Believer Not Pray? 1 John 5:13-21, Leo R. Percer Feb 2012

Confidence In Christ And The Sin Unto Death -- When Should A Believer Not Pray? 1 John 5:13-21, Leo R. Percer

Leo Raines Percer

No abstract provided.


Breakfast With An Author For Book Disrupting Homelessness: Alternative Christian Approaches, Laura A. Stivers Dec 2011

Breakfast With An Author For Book Disrupting Homelessness: Alternative Christian Approaches, Laura A. Stivers

Laura Stivers

No abstract available


Interviewed By Annan Paterson, On Disrupting Homelessness, Laura A. Stivers Dec 2011

Interviewed By Annan Paterson, On Disrupting Homelessness, Laura A. Stivers

Laura Stivers

No abstract available


Interviewed By John Shorb, On Disrupting Homelessness, Laura A. Stivers Dec 2011

Interviewed By John Shorb, On Disrupting Homelessness, Laura A. Stivers

Laura Stivers

aura Stivers, professor of ethics at Dominican University of California, recently investigated the issue of homelessness from a Christian perspective. The result was her new book Disrupting Homelessness: Alternative Christian Approaches. She shared her thoughts on how churches and individual Christians might approach homelessness on a systematic level based on biblical understandings of hospitality and justice.


Profiles Of Dominican: Dr. Laura Stivers, Laura A. Stivers Dec 2011

Profiles Of Dominican: Dr. Laura Stivers, Laura A. Stivers

Laura Stivers

Dr. Laura Stivers, Dean, School of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences and former Associate Professor of Ethics believes homelessness is a preventable problem in the United States. The solution begins with education about the root causes of homelessness, but the political will to change social policies that create inequality and poverty also will be necessary.


Gregory Of Nyssa On Language, Naming God's Creatures, And The Desire Of The Discursive Animal, Eric D. Meyer Dec 2011

Gregory Of Nyssa On Language, Naming God's Creatures, And The Desire Of The Discursive Animal, Eric D. Meyer

Eric Meyer

The controversy between Gregory of Nyssa and Eunomius of Cyzicus over the origin and nature of human language might profitably be mapped across the tension between the two creation narratives in the opening chapters of Genesis. Eunomius, emphasizing the hexaemeron, finds the world a place of order divinely structured; Gregory reveling in Paradise, theologizes in a more mytho-poetic mode. Eunomius places great weight on the text’s assertion that God verbally calls the light “day” and the dark “night”—a clear indicator for him of the divine origin of language.1 In contrast, Gregory calls upon the moment in the Paradise narrative where …


Vincentian Pragmatism: Toward A Method For Systemic Change, Scott Kelley Dec 2011

Vincentian Pragmatism: Toward A Method For Systemic Change, Scott Kelley

Scott Kelley

When Pope John Paul II addressed the General Assembly of the Congregation of the Mission in 1986, he encouraged the Assembly to “search out more than ever, with boldness, humility and skill, the causes of poverty and encourage short and long term solutions; adaptable and effective concrete solutions.” Building from Vincentian heritage and the wisdom of the Vincentian family, this paper uses Pragmatic Inquiry to construct a method - Vincentian Pragmatism - that will foster the kinds of systemic change that Pope John Paul II envisioned.


The Great Recession: Some Niebuhrian Reflections, Scott R. Paeth Dec 2011

The Great Recession: Some Niebuhrian Reflections, Scott R. Paeth

Scott R. Paeth

"This moment of economic crisis has intersected with another moment, one of renewed interest in the thought of Reinhold Niebuhr. Niebuhr’s wide- ranging intellectual curiosity touched frequently on questions of ethics and economics, particularly during the period of his own economic crisis in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash. Niebuhr’s insights during that period, which formed the core of what came to be known as his “Christian realist” approach to issues of Christianity and public morality, have something to say to us as we grapple with the questions of justice, economics, and social reform in the wake of …