Written Rationale/Commentary

Resource for Others Written Rationale/Commentary
For this assignment, you will provide a core script for a 90-minute session to introduce a
non-specialist church audience to one of topical areas discussed in the course. These are:
1. Can a war ever be truly just?
2. Can we justify property ownership? How does it fit with charity and with taxation to
support a welfare state?
3. Should access to abortion be tightened or loosened in the UK?
4. What is the place of marriage and family within the family of the baptised?
5. How should Christians think and act in light of the climate crisis?
6. Is it right to eat meat?

Your aim in this second assignment is not simply to present a carefully argued response to a
question (as in an essay), but to develop a resource intended to inform, guide and educate
others. However, the general rule for assignments still applies: any material and/or knowledge
taken from elsewhere needs to be referenced.

For the Resource component, you should provide: (a) the script for a talk (around 30
minutes); (b) a set of discussion questions for groups and a few key points that you will aim
to bring out when the groups feedback; (c) any other input you would make during the
session.

To spell this out further:
• You are designing a session for a non-specialist church audience. So, the talk and the
questions are likely to be fairly informal in nature and not use lots of academic
language (though remember you still need to reference sources). The goal is to draw
some key points from your understanding of the topic and to communicate them
effectively to the group, so they come away with a clearer sense of the issues.
• It is important to cover the key material in sufficient detail through the talk,
discussion and any other elements – and that is the reason for a talk of around 30
minutes. That doesn’t imply a particular number of words which will depend on
individual style, approach and so on. But regardless of its actual length, the Resource
will count as exactly 1,000 words for your word count.
• Within the overall guidance we are content for you to organise the material as
seems most effective. For instance, you could have two or three short talks
interspersed with discussion or other elements.
• It is fine to use other resources (‘any other input’), such as videos, but for this
exercise it is important that you don’t rely on them to do the work of setting out
the arguments in place of doing it yourself. They could still serve helpfully to
illustrate or reinforce points.
Use the Rationale/Commentary component to explain why you shaped the resource the
way you did, in view of your own learning on the topic addressed in the resource. The
commentary you provide here should attain a measure of theological depth and detail,
comparable to what is expected from an essay. This means that in providing your rationale
you should not only comment on, say, the pastoral and educational dimensions of the
resource; you must also reflect on how your own learning about the topic – including the
resources you used (books, articles, etc.) – informed the way you designed the resource.
And the process of developing the resource may well have led to new insights in the main
ethical topic or issue, so make sure to comment on that, too.
What follows are a few examples of questions that may help you shape your rationale.
Please bear in mind this list is not exhaustive (and you should feel free to focus on those
that seem most appropriate to your resource):
• Context: What is the context and make-up of your intended audience (size, age,
experience, etc.)? In light of this, how did you seek to tailor your resource for this
particular audience?
• Aims: What were your aims and objectives for this resource? Why did you choose
these? What would you hope participants would learn from the event?
• Focus: Which angle or emphasis did you take, and which aspects did you deliberately
leave out? Why?
• Challenges: Which likely barriers or misunderstandings does this resource aim to
tackle? How did your own learning help you in this respect? How is the resource
meant to overcome fear, embarrassment or antagonism regarding the particular
moral issue?
• Christian education: How might the resource help participants to develop a
‘Christian mind’ on moral issues more generally (i.e., not just in relation to this
particular topic)?
The two components of the assignment must be submitted as a single document:
1. Resource (1,000 words) – NB this component will count as exactly 1,000 words,
regardless of its actual length which is likely to exceed 1,000 words.
2. Rationale/Commentary (1,500 words)
You may submit extra material as an appendix to the resource (e.g., PowerPoint
presentation). This should either be integrated in the assignment document itself or
uploaded as an additional document on Moodle (the settings will allow for a second
document). In either case, make sure to label clearly which (part of the) document is the
appendix.

The following list is a selection of texts on Christian ethics more generally. Please refer to
Moodle for further guidance and suggestions relating to specific assignment topics, including
a more extensive bibliography.
Austin, V., Christian Ethics: A Guide for the Perplexed (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2012).
Atkinson, D. J. et al, eds, New Dictionary of Christian Ethics and Pastoral Theology (Leicester:
Inter-Varsity Press, 1995).
Banner, M., Christian Ethics: a brief history (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009).
Biggar, N., Behaving in Public: How to Do Christian Ethics. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011).
Bonhoeffer, D., Ethics, vol. 6, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005).
Boulton, W. et al, eds, From Christ to the World: Introductory Readings in Christian Ethics (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994).
Brown, M. Tensions in Christian Ethics: An Introduction (London: SPCK, 2010).
Catechism of the Catholic Church (London: Burns & Oates, 1994). Especially Part Three, ‘Life
in Christ’. Available at http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/ccc_toc.htm
Childress, J. F. and J. Macquarrie, eds, A New Dictionary of Christian Ethics (London: SCM
Press, 1986).
Cunningham, D. S., Christian Ethics: The End of the Law (London: Routledge, 2008).
Dowler, E., Theological Ethics. London: SCM, 2011. (Common Awards Hub)
Gill, R., A Textbook of Christian Ethics, 3rd edn (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2006).
—–. ed., The Cambridge Companion to Christian Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2001).
Goddard, A., A Pocket Guide to Ethical Issues (Oxford: Lion, 2006).
Hauerwas, S., The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics, 2
nd ed. (London: SCM,
2003).
Hauerwas, S. and S. Wells, eds, The Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics (Oxford:
Blackwell, 2004).
Hoose, B., Christian Ethics. An Introduction London: Cassell, 1998).
Leyden, M., Faithful Living: Discipleship, Creed and Ethics (London: SCM, 2019).
Meilaender, G. and Werpehowski, W., eds, The Oxford Handbook of Theological Ethics (Oxford:
OUP, 2005).
Messer, N., Christian Ethics (London: SCM, 2006). (Common Awards Hub)
—–. ‘Public Engagement’, in Respecting Life. Theology and Bioethics (London: SCM, 2011), pp.
44-76.
Moltmann, J., Ethics of Hope (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2012).
O’Donovan, O., Resurrection and Moral Order. An Outline for Evangelical Ethics, 2nd edn
(Leicester: Apollos, 1994). See esp. Part Three, ‘The Form of the Moral Life’.
—–. Self, World and Time, vol. 1, Ethics as Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013).
Sandel, M. J., Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? (London: Penguin, 2009).
Volf, M. and McAnnally-Linz, R., Public Faith in Action: How to Think Carefully, Engage Wisely,
and Vote with Integrity. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2016).
Wells, S. & Quash, B., Introducing Christian Ethics. (London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010)