Improvisation: The Drama of Christian Ethics

by Samuel Wells

Publisher:

Brazos

, 2004

Overview

“Improvisation.” We think of jazz—some bebop master following his horn in the genius of the moment. Or theater—an actor striking that authentic note by responding, on the spot, to the lines that came before his. But what does improvisation have to do with ethics. Samuel Wells defines improvisation in the theater as “a practice through which actors seek to develop trust in themselves and one another in order that they may conduct unscripted dramas without fear.” Wells suggests that such a definition is highly appropriate to Christian ethics. He establishes theatrical improvisation as a model for Christian ethics, a matter of “faithfully improvising on the Christian tradition.” The Bible is not so much a script to rehearse as it is a “training school” that shapes the habits and practices of a community in action. Drawing on Scriptural narratives and church history, he details six practices that characterize both improvisation and Christian ethics—including categories such as “forming habits”, “questioning givens,” and “reincorporating the lost.” He concludes with specific examples of ethical issues, such as facing evil and the perils and promises of genetically-modified food. Wells’s fresh and imaginative discussion reinforces the goal of Christian ethics—not to “help someone act Christianly in a crisis” but to teach Christians to “embody their faith in the practices of discipleship all the time.”

Product Details

• Title: Improvisation: The Drama of Christian Ethics
• Author: Samuel Wells
• Publisher: Brazos
• Print Publication Date: 2004
• Logos Release Date: 2015
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subject: Christian ethics
• ISBNs: 9781441226358, 1587430711, 9781587430718, 9780281057207, 1441226354, 0281057206
• Resource ID: LLS:MPRVSTNDRMCTHCS
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-30T01:35:59Z

About Samuel Wells

Sam Wells graduated from Merton College, Oxford, with an MA in Modern History, from Edinburgh University with a BD in Systematic Theology, and from Durham University with a PhD in Christian Ethics. Before training for ordination, Sam was a community worker in inner-city Liverpool. From 1991–2005 he served in parish ministry in the Church of England. He was assistant curate in Wallsend, North Tyneside and in Cherry Hinton, Cambridge, before being incumbent at St. Elizabeth’s, North Earlham, Norwich, and then St. Mark’s, Newnham, Cambridge. While in Norwich he helped to establish—and was for several years vice chair of—the North Earlham, Larkman and Marlpit Development Trust, the first organization in the East of England devoted to community-led urban regeneration. He also established a non-profit organization offering disadvantaged children opportunities to discover wonder and joy through creative play.

In the summer of 2005, Wells became dean of Duke University Chapel and research professor of Christian ethics at The Divinity School. Sam’s responsibilities include preaching at the majority of the 11 a.m. Sunday services, leading worship, interacting with and praying for all levels of the university—leaders, faculty, administrators, students and staff. His work also entails lifting up the connections between Christian faith and theology and the pressing issues of the day, and making the Chapel and the poorest neighborhoods of Durham visible to one another. He is married to Jo Bailey Wells, who is a former dean of Clare College, Cambridge and is now director of Anglican Studies at Duke Divinity School, and they have two children.