Common Callings and Ordinary Virtues: Christian Ethics for Everyday Life - Paperback

by Brent Waters (Author)

Every day, we do commonplace things and interact with ordinary people without giving them much thought. This volume offers a theological guide to thinking Christianly about the ordinary nature of everyday life. Leading ethicist Brent Waters shows that the activities and relationships we think of as mundane are actually expressions of love of neighbor that are vitally important to our wellbeing. We live out the Christian gospel in the contexts that define us and in the routine chores, practices, activities, and social settings that give ordinary life meaning. It is in those contexts that we discover what we were created for, to be, and to become.

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"Shows the formative power of the 'dailyness' of life"

Leading ethicist Brent Waters offers a theological guide to thinking Christianly about the ordinary nature of everyday life.

"Much of Christian ethics is concerned with the decisions we should make concerning the great issues of life and death. In this wise and richly pondered book, Waters reminds us that most of our lives are taken up with the mundane routines of everyday living, and that it is here that Christian discipleship forms us in the habits that enable us to flourish. Whether or not you dislike household chores as much as he does, these timely reflections may well open up a path to glimpsing God's glory right there amidst the dishes."
--Robert Song, Durham University

"Waters gives us a lucid and theologically rich account of the centrality and power of the ordinary in moral life as Christians understand it. In particular, he offers insight into the deformations that ensue when the framing realities of God's extraordinary love are lost, so that meaning must be injected by artifice and hyperbole into the everyday acts and relationships that are intended as the school of charity."
--Sondra Wheeler, Wesley Theological Seminary (emerita)

"Waters is one of the most insightful theologians I know, and this book is no exception to what we've come to expect from him--sound theology, relevant to important aspects of real life. This time Waters brings his theological acumen to bear on the so-called mundane aspects of everyday life. He shows the formative power of the 'dailyness' of life to shape us and enable us to become more Christlike. I highly recommend this work."
--Scott Rae, Talbot School of Theology

"I hope Waters will take no offense when I say that this book could not have been written by a young man. Wide-ranging in the topics it takes up, the fruit of much reading and much living, simultaneously respectful and politically incorrect--it cannot fail to provoke thought about the shape of a life well lived."
--Gilbert Meilaender, Valparaiso University

Author Biography

Brent Waters (DPhil, University of Oxford) is the Jerre L. and Mary Joy Stead Professor of Christian Social Ethics at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois, where he also directs the Jerre L. and Mary Joy Stead Center for Ethics and Values. He has written, edited, or contributed to many books and has lectured extensively on the relationship between theology, ethics, and technology. He received the Paul Ramsey Award for Excellence in Bioethics in 2016.