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Bible and Ethics in the Christian Life
By Bruce Birch and Larry L. Rasmussen
Minneapolis, Augsburg, 1989. 239 pp. $12.95.

Christian Moral Judgment
By J. Philip Wogaman
Louisville, Westminster/ John Knox, 1989. 192 pp, $14.95.

An irreverent reviewer began his treatment of a distinguished church historian's latest volume by announcing, "Professor X has written his book again." The reviewer felt that the scholar had traversed the same terrain once again under a new title. In the cases of the revised and expanded versions of two significant works of 1976 in Christian ethics, the reverse is true; they are both considerably more than old friends in new jackets. Without abandoning the thrusts and central substance of the earlier works, Bruce Birch and Larry Rasmussen (Bible and Ethics in the Christian Life) and Philip Wogaman (Christian Moral Judgment, ne A Christian Method of Moral Judgment) have added dimensions to their works that make them even more attractive than before for use in a variety of educational contexts.

Both works address a need, articulated by Birch and Rasmussen, to provide, "scholarly but nontechnical works ... which treat both fundamental Christian moral concepts and the most important sources of the Christian moral life." Both trace definite contours of the Christian life without resort to narrow prescriptiveness. Both make more use than last time of such important contributors to contemporary Christian ethics as liberation theology and the twin emphases on vision and virtue in examinations of moral agency.

Although Rasmussen now teaches at Union Theological Seminary in New York, the three authors enjoyed a long association on the faculty of

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Wesley Theological Seminary. Therefore, we should not be surprised if these two volumes, in their respective efforts to provide more generally useful coverage, seem to converge more than the first editions did. Wogaman commends Birch and Rasmussen for their attention to both personal character and the decision-making process in view of prevalent tendencies to neglect one or the other. He now enriches his earlier focus on "a method of moral judgment" by giving significant attention to the character of the person who is judging. His new opening chapter examines the theological basis for Christian ethics in "revelation" that gives an "ultimate frame of reference" and relates people to "the whole of reality." (The Birch-Rasmussen treatment of "moral vision" as fundamental to both our being and our doing as moral agents plays a similar role in their new analysis.) His second chapter, also new, on "Christian Character and the Virtuous Life," provides theological entry points to Christian character as well as a treatment of virtue.

Although Wogaman clearly took the Bible seriously in the earlier work, he also adds a section on the authority of the biblical witness, a theme treated in particularly memorable and more extended fashion by Birch and Rasmussen. Like his colleagues, Wogaman believes that the Bible affects the faith community most profoundly as a moral authority through "the shaping of perspectives and values," although the specific moral teachings of Scripture should be accorded presumptive weight. When Wogaman asserts that "the integrity of Christian ethics depends on its faithfulness to the central metaphors of faith" (God as personal being, covenant, and the "Christ event"), he aligns himself with the Birch-Rasmussen position that much of the content of Christian ethics is determined by the biblical story and the impact of Jesus while the form and context of decision-making are provided by the Christian community. And while Birch and Rasmussen delve more deeply into the dynamics of the community matrix of Christian ethics, Wogaman underscores the "inescapable social influence" on the moral life.

Birch and Rasmussen set out to make their new edition a more inviting text for basic courses in Christian ethics in colleges, universities, seminaries, and church (a function often served by the first Wogaman volume). They substantially enlarge their earlier treatment of "the basic working concepts of Christian ethics." "Charting the Moral Life," introduces the vocabulary of morality. They also furnish new chapters on decision-making and on character and social structure that would be excellent material for any ethics course. The scholar-by-scholar review of ways of relating the Bible and Christian ethics has been scrapped, but the insights of those writers as well as more recent contributions to the discussion are woven beautifully into the tapestry of their treatment. In fact, the weaving was too good at times; the reader should not have to turn to the endnotes to find out who is speaking in quoted material.

Wogaman's basic thesis about how we best organize problems of moral judgment still dominates the new book and sets him apart both from ethical perfectionists who believe they can and must supply "the

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right answers" and from situationists and realists who weigh each new dilemma without sufficient attention to prior moral commitments. Once again, he is "seeking to clarify our moral presumptions and requiring exceptions or deviations to bear the burden of proof." Christian faith provides positive moral presumptions (such as "the goodness of created existence"), negative moral presumptions (specifically human finitude and sinfulness), polar moral presumptions (such as "the individual/ social nature of human beings"), presumptions of human authority (such as the Bible and the community of faith), and ideological presumptions regarding marriage and the family (a new section), political life, and economic life. Wogaman acknowledges the emphasis of Stanley Hauerwas and others who claim that Jesus did not have a social ethic. Nevertheless, Wogaman fears that this approach leaves moral decision-makers with no more counsel than to immerse themselves in the story and then do what their intuition tells them. His roll call of presumptions gives Wogaman's book a propositional tone that contrasts with the participation in story, myth, and ritual Birch and Rasmussen describe in the community of faith.

Birch and Rasmussen remain true to their earlier commitment to aid the community of faith "in traversing the distance between the primal documents of the faith-its Scriptures-and expressions of the faith in daily life" without claiming that biblical ethics and Christian ethics are synonymous. Coupling their twin major themes of community and moral agency, they explore the formation of moral selfhood in community in a probing and powerful way using specific historical examples and also making specific suggestions about how the church should use the Bible as it practices the morality of faith in its corporate life and its wider social involvements. In their discussion of "the moral world," they treat the ethics of virtue, of value (social consequences), of obligation, and of vision. Each ethic makes a needed contribution; each has biblical expressions; and moral vision is critical for the other three. I only regretted that, after treating justice as both a virtue and a social value, they did not explicity discuss it as principle. The authors are not loathe to point directions regarding specific moral problems, but their project does not attempt to address the impressive list of issues Wogaman treats in the course of spelling out implications of the presumptions.

It would be a shame to choose one of these books for a Christian ethics class to the exclusion of the other. Both are valuable resources for any serious consideration of our being, deciding, and doing. Each offers aspects the other lacks. Birch and Rasmussen immerse us in the life of the Christian community, with a nod toward the supplementary value of a juridical ethic espousing a rationality unbiased by provincial shortsightedness. Wogaman sets his discussion more in the forum of philosophical and theological critics in the academy and makes more of the common ground the whole human family occupies in the moral life. For teachers of ethics in both the academy and the church, it is fortuitous that these old friends have developed new and improved versions of work

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that has already brought great benefit to the study and practice of Christian ethics. Even if they bad only written their books again, with revisions of dated material, we would have been grateful; but they have done far more than that.

Eric Mount, Jr.
Centre College
Danville, Kentucky