The distinctiveness of Christian morality – reflections after 30 years

Abstract

I completed my doctoral dissertation on The distinctiveness of Christian morality in 1978. In this article, now more than 30 years later, I critically examined the extent to which the view that I developed in my doctoral dissertation is still valid today and to what extent it stands to be corrected in the light of developments in Christian ethics in the meantime. Firstly, I provided a brief summary of the view developed in the dissertation. Secondly, I discussed the influential alternative view of Stanley Hauerwas and attempted to identify ways in which his view necessitates corrections to my own view in the dissertation. Thirdly, I criticised the onesidedness of Hauerwas’s view on the distinctiveness of Christian morality and discussed ways in which we need to go beyond Hauerwas’s view in order to develop a more satisfactory and also more inclusive approach.