A Textbook of Christian Ethics, 3rd Edition

Book excerpt: Robin Gill's Textbook of Christian Ethics has been a popular course book with students and lecturers for over 20 years. Now in its third edition this classic textbook has been completely revised to bring it up to date with recent developments in the field of Christian Ethics. All the popular features of the previous editions have been retained in this new edition. The book's main strength has always been its layout and structure. Integrating primary texts with explanatory material from the author, the book provides the student with a reader and textbook combined. The new edition focuses more strongly on current debates in all sections and expands on a variety of topics, with contributions on natural law approaches, virtue ethics in a pluralistic/postmodern world, the influential notion of the 'common good', just war theory, genetics and biotechnology, euthanasia and global justice, and sex and gender issues. Important modern contributions to Christian ethics are set out alongside classical texts from Augustine, Aquinas and Luther. The modern writers range from thinkers such as Niebuhr, Barth and Bonhoeffer to recent liberation and Third World theologians. Each series of texts is systematically analysed. The differing ethical positions and arguments are examined together with the social and historical factors which shaped them.