Filial Failures

This critical study of Karl Barth's Christian theological ethics discusses Barth's controversial and characteristically misunderstood ethics of divine command. The surprising relation of his 'divine command ethics' to contemporary 'narrative theology' and 'virtue ethics' and specific moral themes concerning bonds between parents and children, the nature of truth telling, and the meaning of Christian love of God and neighbor are all discussed. This book reveals Barth's richness, depth, and insight, and places his work in constructive connection with salient themes in both Catholic and Protestant ethics. Attentive to the fullness of Barth's Christological vision and to the purposes and limits of his reflections on the Christian life in pursuit of the good, William Werpehowski also advances conversations in Christian ethics about the nature of practical deliberation and decision, the orientation and dispositions that embody moral faithfulness, and the question and features of 'natural morality.'

"When Justin Taylor was thirty, his father, Larry, drove to the top of an airport parking garage to take his own life. Thanks to the intervention of family members, he was not successful, but the incident would forever transform how Justin thinks of his father, and how he thinks of himself as a son. Moving both backward and forward in time from that day, this book captures the past's power to shape, strengthen, and distort our visions of ourselves and each other. We see Larry as the middle child in a chilly Long Island family; as a beloved Little League coach who listens to kids with patience and curiosity; as an unemployed father struggling to keep his marriage together while battling long-term illness and depression. At the same time, this book explores how the work of confronting a family member's story forces a reckoning with your own. We see Justin as a teacher, modeling himself after his dad's best qualities; as a caregiver, attempting to provide his father with emotional and financial support, but not always succeeding; as a new husband, with a dawning awareness of his own depressive tendencies. With raw intimacy, this book lays bare the joys and burdens of loving a troubled family member. It's a memoir about fathers and sons, teachers and students, faith and illness, and the complicated legacy that each generation hands down to the next"--

After the arrival of Buddhism toward the end of the Eastern Han dynasty (25–220), Buddhism found itself in a fierce conflict with indigenous Chinese thought. The controversies between Confucianism and Buddhism reached their peak in the time of the Northern and Southern dynasties (420–589). By then, these two ideologies had gone through a long period of mutual conflict. When Buddhism spread East from China and entered Korea and Japan, a wide array of intense debates was aroused in 14th and 15th century Korea and in 17th century Japan that resulted in an ultimate confluence between Confucianism and Buddhism. This volume tells the story of the debate between Buddhism and Confucianism in East Asia and explains the reason why the confluence between these two systems of thought is possible.

In this original study, Joshua Brown seeks to demonstrate the fruitfulness of Chinese philosophy for Christian theology by using Confucianism to reread, reassess, and ultimately expand the Christology of the twentieth-century Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar. Taking up the critically important Confucian idea of xiao (filial piety), Brown argues that this concept can be used to engage anew Balthasar’s treatment of the doctrine of Christ’s filial obedience, thus leading us to new Christological insights. To this end, Brown first offers in-depth studies of the early Confucian idea of xiao and of Balthasar’s Christology on their own terms and in their own contexts. He then proposes that Confucianism affirms certain aspects of Balthasar’s insights into Christ’s filial obedience. Brown also shows how the Confucian understanding of xiao provides reasons to criticize some of Balthasar’s controversial claims, such as his account of intra-Trinitarian obedience. Ultimately, by rereading Balthasar’s Christology through the lens of xiao, Balthasar in Light of Early Confucianism employs Confucian and Balthasarian resources to push the Christological conversation forward. Students and scholars of systematic theology, theologically educated readers interested in the encounter between Christianity and Chinese culture, and comparative theologians will all want to read this exceptional book.