Ethnography as Christian Theology and Ethics

Christian Scharen,Aana Marie Vigen

• Publisher: Continuum
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781441130921
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Teología cristiana

This book is a primary resource in the new and growing field of Christian Ethnography. In response to a variety of critical intellectual currents (post-colonial, post-modern, and post-liberal), scholars in Christian theology and ethics are increasingly taking up the tools of ethnography as a means to ask fundamental moral questions and to make more compelling and credible moral claims. Privileging particularity, rather than the more traditional effort to achieve universal or at least generalizable norms in making claims regarding the Christian life, echoes the most fundamental insight of the Christian tradition - that God is known most fully in Jesus of Nazareth. Echoing this 'scandal of particularity' at the heart of the Christian tradition, theologians and ethicists involved in ethnographic research draw on the particular to seek out answers to core questions of their discipline: who God is and how we become the people we are, how to conceptualize moral agency in relation to God and the world, and how to flesh out the content of conceptual categories such as justice that help direct us in our daily decisions and guiding institutions.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Editorial
• Half-title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface: Blurring Boundaries
• About the Contributors
• Chapter 1 What is Ethnography?
• Chapter 2 The Ethnographic Turn in Theology and Ethics
• Chapter 3 Critiques of the Use of Social Science in Theology and Ethics
• Chapter 4 Theological Justifi cations for Turning to Ethnography
• Chapter 5 Ethnographic Research on African American Pastoral Leadership and Congregations Jeffery L. Tribble, Sr
• Chapter 6 The Listening Church: How Ethnography Can Transform Catholic Ethics Emily Reimer-Barry
• Chapter 7 Ethnography as Revelation: Witnessing in History, Faith, and Sin Robert P. Jones
• Chapter 8 Theology and Morality on the Streets: An Examination of the Beliefs and Moral Formation of Street Children in Light of Christianity and African Traditional Religions Melissa Browning
• Chapter 9 Living with Indigenous Communities in Chiapas, Mexico: The Transformative Power of Poverty and Suffering Andrea Vicini, S. J.
• Chapter 10 Whiteness Made Visible: A Theo-Critical Ethnography in Acoliland Todd Whitmore
• Chapter 11 The Cost of Virtue: What Power in the Open Door Community Might Speakto Virtue Ethics Peter R. Gathje
• Chapter 12 Benedictions: For Those Willing to Give Ethnography a Try
• Bibliography
• Index