Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Arts and Humanities Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Religion

Selected Works

2012

Articles

Articles 1 - 4 of 4

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 …


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.


Spirit And Atonement In John, Keith L. Yoder Dec 2011

Spirit And Atonement In John, Keith L. Yoder

Keith L. Yoder

The Spirit texts in the Fourth Gospel fall into two subsets, one that speaks of an unqualified “spirit”, and the other that speaks of the “Spirit of Truth” or the “Holy Spirit”, also identified as the “Paraclete”. I find that the alliance of Spirit and blood at the end of First John is a clue that uncovers a similar Spirit and Atonement connection in the Gospel. I demonstrate that the subset of unqualified “spirit” passages in John are regularly supplemented or framed with Atonement material, while the Paraclete Spirit texts have no such supplements, and that this phenomenon reflects a …


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 …