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The Christian Moral Life
Practices of Piety
Timothy F. Sedgwick
Copyright © 1999, 2008 by Timothy F. Sedgwick
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record of this book is available from the Library of Congress.
First published in 1999 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 255 Jefferson Ave. SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49503.
Published in 2008 by
Seabury Books
445 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York 10016
An imprint of Church Publishing Incorporated
5 4 3 2 1
For Martha, Sarah, and Ellen
“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.“
HEBREWS 13:2
Contents
1. Describing the Christian Life
Roman Catholic and Protestant Perspectives
The Transformation of Sexuality
Worship and the Disciplines of Faith
Narrative Theology and Practice
Preface to the 2008 Edition
The Christian moral life seeks to offer an account of the Christian life. It is in this sense that the word “piety” is used. Practices of piety refer not narrowly to spiritual practices but—as the word “piety” originally meant—to our duties that bind us to God, to our neighbors, and to our true selves. Christian ethics as reflection on the Christian life are not then narrow and separate disciplines concerned with right action (whether in terms of ends, virtues, or principles), but are grounded in our encounter with God and the practices that witness, nurture, and shape our continuing relationship with God. In this sense, The Christian Moral Life is formed in conversation with theology and with what has been traditionally called ascetical theology and what is now referred to more frequently as Christian spirituality or Christian practices—hence the subtitle, Practices of Piety.
In the Roman Catholic tradition moral theologies came to be more narrowly focused on offering direction to confessors in order that they might help penitents in the confession of sins and offer appropriate judgment and counsel. However, moral theologies from Thomas Aquinas to Barnard Haring have sought more comprehensively to ground moral principles and specific moral judgments in understandings of the end of human life in God, the nature of the human person, and human virtues grounded in relationship to God, all placed