Creation and Christian Ethics: Understanding God’s Designs for Humanity and the World

by Dennis P. Hollinger

Publisher:

Baker Academic

, 2023

Overview

A leading ethicist surveys the creation story and creation themes throughout Scripture as a foundation for Christian ethics, demonstrating how these themes offer guidance for a host of contested ethical issues today.

Creation is a foundational pillar of the biblical storyline, yet it plays little role in contemporary evangelical ethics. Seeking to correct this oversight, Dennis Hollinger employs the creation story and creation themes throughout Scripture as a foundation for Christian ethics.

After demonstrating why creation is theologically significant and important for Christian ethics, Hollinger develops major creation paradigms that provide ethical guidance on a wide range of issues, including money, sex, power, racism, creation care, social institutions, and artificial intelligence, among many others. Creation and Christian Ethics shows throughout that the triune God creates from love, and in that creation are moral designs for humanity’s journey in God’s world.

Professors and students of Christian ethics will find this a valuable resource for the classroom, while pastors and church leaders will benefit from personal and small-group study.

Key Features

• Breaks new ground in developing a theology of creation that explores the ethical significance of creation
• Develops major creation paradigms that guide readers in a wide range of contemporary issues such as racism, artificial intelligence, and euthanasia
• Surveys the creation story and creation themes throughout Scripture as a foundation for Christian ethics

Contents

• Introduction: Why Creation for Ethics?
• 1. In the Beginning God: A Loving, Designing, Self-Disclosing Maker
• 2. It’s a Good World After All: Money, Sex, and Power
• 3. Made in the Image of God: Human Dignity in All Humans and the Whole of Human Life
• 4. Creation Care: Stewarding God’s Good Creation
• 5. Created for Relationship (1): Sexuality, Marriage, Sex, and Family
• 6. Created for Relationship (2): Major Institutions of Society
• 7. Created to Work: Connecting Sunday to Monday
• 8. Sabbath: God Institutes a Rhythm of Life for Worship, Self-Care, and Justice
• 9. Limited and Dependent: The Ethics of Human Finitude
• 10. Embodied Souls or Ensouled Bodies: The Meaning and Implications of Being Whole Beings
• Conclusion: Living Out a Creation Ethic in a Pluralistic, Complex, Fallen World
• Indexes

Praise for the Print Edition

Dennis Hollinger is a wise ethicist who has given us a book that is full of wisdom. He argues convincingly—and eloquently—that a biblical ethics that is genuinely biblical must be firmly grounded in the knowledge of God’s creating purposes in designing the marvelous world where he calls us to do his will. I learned much from this book, and I plan to return to it frequently to learn even more.

—Richard J. Mouw, president emeritus, Fuller Theological Seminary

Hollinger’s fundamental instinct—which he consistently and ably applies throughout the book and across various subjects—is to make sure our ethics begin with the goodness of creation. It sounds easier than it often proves to be in practice: some downplay the goodness of creation because of a hyperemphasis on the fall, while others ignore creation by giving the spirit of this age too much unquestioned influence. I’m glad to see him push us toward the goodness and the faithful trajectory of God’s creation in the way he does.

—Kelly M. Kapic, professor of theological studies, Covenant College

As we’ve come to expect from Dennis Hollinger, Creation and Christian Ethics is another first-rate work in the area of Christian ethics. It is thorough and well documented and will be a rich resource for those thinking hard about questions at the intersection of Christian faith and culture. The evangelical tradition has not always given the doctrine of creation sufficient weight—Hollinger corrects that neglect well in this important work.

—Scott B. Rae, dean of the faculty and professor of Christian ethics, Talbot School of Theology, Biola University

Product Details

• Title: Creation and Christian Ethics: Understanding God’s Designs for Humanity and the World
• Author: Dennis P. Hollinger
• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Print Publication Date: 2023
• Logos Release Date: 2023
• Pages: 296
• Era: era:contemporary
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subjects: Theological anthropology › Christianity; Creation › Religious aspects--Christianity; Christian ethics
• ISBNs: 9781540967176, 9781540967282, 9781493444311, 9781493444328, 1540967174, 154096728X, 149344431X, 1493444328
• Resource ID: LLS:CRTNCHRSTNHWRLD
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2023-11-07T19:20:01Z

About Dennis P. Hollinger

Dr. Hollinger joined Gordon-Conwell from Evangelical Theological Seminary (ETS) in PA, where he had served as President and Professor of Christian Ethics since 2004. He brings to his post at Gordon-Conwell extensive academic and administrative experience. Prior to assuming the presidency of ETS, he served for seven years as Vice Provost, College Pastor and Professor of Christian Ethics at Messiah College, Grantham, PA. He also served as Associate Professor of Church & Society and Preaching at Associated Mennonite Biblical Theological Seminary, Elkhart, IN, and as Assistant and Associate Professor of Church & Society at Alliance Theological Seminary, Nyack, NY. In addition, he has served as a visiting and adjunct professor at seminaries in the U.S. and in Ukraine, Russia and India. Dr. Hollinger has also served as a full-time pastor at several churches. He was pastor of Washington Community Fellowship, an urban church in the nation’s capital; pastor of the Evangelical Free Church of Blairstown, NJ; and youth pastor of the Congregational Bible Church, Marietta, PA. He held interim pastoral and preaching positions in Indiana and New York. extensively in the U.S. and internationally.