Methodist Morals
offers keen insight into the public church, interpreting the United
Methodist Social Principles as a dynamic discourse about morality and
human rights in light of faith. Revised every four years by the General Conference of the United Methodist Church, the
Social Principles exposes the moral deliberations of this distinctly
American and increasingly “worldwide” church as it struggles to achieve community across multiple languages and cultures. Perhaps no
other document provides as rich a depiction of Protestants participating
in the moral argument of public life.
This is the first full-length study of Methodist social teachings in
over fifty years. Examining official Methodist teachings from
institutional, historical, and cross-cultural perspectives, Darryl
Stephens provides a rich analysis of this case study of Protestant
social witness, drawing on his expertise in church polity, Methodist
history, and Christian social ethics. A wide range of comparisons— with
documents of the United Nations, with moral debate in Germany and
Zimbabwe, and with historical Methodist statements of social
witness—shows the Social Principles to be a unique form of social
witness. The issues of war, abortion, human sexuality, and marriage
illustrate the messiness of democratic deliberation in an ecclesial
context and the evolution of a people ever concerned with the sin of
“worldliness” even as they become more attuned to transforming social
structures. Stephens also contrasts this conception of the public church
with the ecclesiologies of prominent Methodist ethicists Stanley
Hauerwas and Paul Ramsey.
Intended for students of Methodism, ecumenical church leaders, and
scholars of Christian social ethics and contemporary US mainline
religion, this work reveals the challenges to and possibilities for
achieving moral community in an increasingly global and diverse world.
