Book Summary: How can theology speak to a world facing the effects of globalization, economic injustice, rampant militarism and ecological disaster? What guarantees the theological character and authenticity of Christian ethics, thus distinguishing it from secular social and moral theorizing? How may theological ethics avoid the pitfalls of modernist subjectivism without succumbing to a crippling postmodern relativism and without closing off vital conversation with non-Christian resources? David Haddorff, sets out to answer such questions in a broad and ambitious foray in constructive Christian theology and ethics with Karl Barth as his guide. Barth's ethics, as Haddorff's construes it, is decidedly post-liberal and anti-modern, but still seeks to "eavesdrop" upon the best insights that secular social theory and ethics can offer.

“Far more than a summary of Barth’s ethics, David Haddorff’s book is a first-class effort to think in company with Barth about the source of our knowledge of the good and about the meaning of human freedom and ethical responsibility as faithful correspondence to God’s free grace in Jesus Christ. . . . In the final section of the book, the author offers a highly creative deployment of Barth’s ethics as it bears on the political, economic, and ecological crises of our time.”----Daniel Migliore, Princeton Theological Seminary.

About the Author: David Haddorff, an ordained minister in the RCA, is Associate Professor of Theology and Ethics at St. John's University, New York. His field of study is Christian social ethics, Reformed theology, and especially Karl Barth’s theology and ethics. Some previous works include Dependence and Freedom: The Moral Thought of Horace Bushnell and a lengthy monograph on Barth's political theology in the reprint of Community, State, and Church.