Doing Christian Ethics from the Margins Essay

Book Review Doing the Nazareneian Ethics from the Margins Dr. David Traverzo Christian Ethics Gregory A. Keels 02/13/2012 Doing Christian Ethics from the margins is all approximately helping large number explore the ethical issues of the marginalized. This book reveals as to how people who persist in the margins of fiat deal with ethics. Also this book reveals how the same marginalized people worldview is different from the overleap culture who is not apart of the marginalized. This book is divided into four sessions, the first component part dealing with guess while the last three gives specific example studies to the theory.The first session titled Ethical surmise deals with how Christian ethical systems ar formed. The author Miguel A. De la Torre gives his understanding of ethical theory. The first main and of the essence(p) statement he makes in this section is when he talks about ethics being do in a particular social location. When he stated that it proved that et hics and social eudaimonia comes together. A soulfulnesss upbringing and social surroundings adverts his or her ethics. Also in this section the author talks about how white males generally dominated the academic ethics.This domination has many pitfalls. whatever of these pitfalls take on spiritual concerns that are excluded from social concerns, individualism, grace in favor of works, thinking more of nirvana instead of the here and now, and failure to come up with a transformation praxis. These pitfalls reinforce ideologies of power that are connected to un only social structures that include racism, classism, and sexism. The author puts up a challenge to every whizz reader to come up with a code of ethics that go out identify with the interpreter of Christ of standing against the ppressed. In the other three parts of the book the author gives case studies and show how his own hermeneutic circle applied to different ethical situations such as relationships, business, and global relationships. in each(prenominal) section there are four chapters. the first chapter explains the topics and the other three explains the topic with case studies. The hermeneutic circle is made up of five steps. In each of those five steps a persons worldview ethics is challenged and encourages the person to be more engaged in social transformation.The steps include observing, reflecting, praying, acting, and releasing. This pattern is a continuous circle repeating itself over and over. The signifi thunder mugce of this book to the church service building is slap-up importation. This beat the author has presented could be used greatly in the church. When I was looking at this model I felt this is what the church should be doing. The church is only effective if it is active in the community. The church should be able to arrest what the need of the community, pray on it, act on it and then break onto the next need.Part of Christian ethics is doing the right thing when t he problem is presented. Two of the case studies that I felt can greatly impact the church was the case studies on global and national need. the church has always played a major role in helping the poverty both globally and nationally. However I believe that the church need to realize that poverty is more then just not having any food or being homeless. Poverty is connected to social class. It is connected to those who can afford an education and those who can not.Poverty is also connected to those who can get hired for the spicy paying jobs and those who can only get the jobs that pay minimum salary and is not enough to stir a family. The church can do a stop job in helping in that area. The main part of a Christians ethics is helping those who are in need. This is our direct responsibility. So in order to fulfill that responsibility we must understand the whole issue of poverty. The significance this book has on the society can be great. However I believe the church and socie ty must be connected together.This helps those who read it understand the problems of the marginalized and how it can be addressed. It would be really instrumental if those who were from the groups who hold the most power read this book for a better understanding of how the actions they do affect those who are marginalized. Just like I stated with the church and its response to poverty the society has to squander the same response. However since the society is not the church the ethical response would be different. Those who are in high powerful directs have the ethical contract to assist those who are in the marginalized.However what we consume is those people exploiting the marginalized. When it comes to ethics as a whole this book as revealed to me no matter what position you are connected to rather it is Christian ethics, business ethics, or society ethics you have an obligation to help those who do not have the power to help themselves. It is not just about poverty either. There is an ethical obligation to help the marginalized when it comes to things like affirmative action, war, the environment etc. A potency I found in this is how the author used real life examples in his case studies that include people who were marginalized.By using real life stories it brought a whole new experience than from a typical text book. This help take the readers from a spectator view to an up close and ain view of what it is like to be in the marginalized. Another strength I felt the author had was the word of honor questions at the end of each chapter. These discussion questions help the reader reflect and understand more about the marginalized. Also these discussion questions help the reader form a more solid ethic for the marginalized. The main weakness I saw in this book is how the author did not really go done the whole hermeneutic wheel.In each case study the first three wheels were used. It would have been better if the author used the whole cycle so tha t the reader could get a full example of how the cycle is used and the outcome of the cycle. Also it would have been helpful if the author had given some examples where this cycle has not worked. Perhaps it would even be helpful if the author had limited to just once case study in each section and go more in depth as to how the cycle worked in the case study. Overall I strongly recommend this book to those who have a proneness to get an action plan that will have an impact on dealing with the marginalized.De La Torre makes a great case in challenging those who are in the dominate culture to give up the heavy power and special privilege they have so that those who are in the marginalized can live a better life. With making this challenge the author has given great tools for those who are committed to perceive the transformation of the marginalized. While this seem like a no brainer to some it might be all the same difficult for those in the dominate culture to accept. Some people might just not see how the dominate culture affects the marginalized while others feel they are doing just enough.Also you might get those who will say they will embrace De La Torres model but will fail to real attempt to do it. It is going to take a lot of work and sacrifice to see confessedly change. Who is willing to actually do that hard work? Who is going feel it is actually worth it? dis disregarding of where you fit in the spectrum we all have to do our part. If we all do not step in and say we are willing to make the sacrifices need to see a transformational change then regardless of what one group does it will not work. this has to be a group effort. I believe this is the stop consonant De La Torre was trying to bring across.