WHO DO OUR METHODS SERVE AND PROTECT? Pedagogical and Meta-Ethical Challenges in Teaching Breonna Taylor 1

A crucial part of the ethicist's job is cleaning up the messes left by sloppy theologians. If Young is right that responsibility depends on social location, then critically reflective pedagogy is among the primary responsibilities as Christian ethicist educators. This entails interrogating perv...

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Published inCross currents (New Rochelle, N.Y.) Vol. 73; no. 3; pp. 304 - 360
Main Author Porter, Andrew Stone
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York The University of North Carolina Press 01.09.2023
Subjects
Black people
Christian theology
Christians
Cleaning
Emancipation
Ethical dilemmas
Killing
Social responsibility
Taylor, Breonna
Teaching methods
Theologians
Theology
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Summary:A crucial part of the ethicist's job is cleaning up the messes left by sloppy theologians. If Young is right that responsibility depends on social location, then critically reflective pedagogy is among the primary responsibilities as Christian ethicist educators. This entails interrogating pervasive bad theodicies like Mattingly's and Zimmerman's, which serve not only to justify the killing of innocent Black people but also to dissuade students from taking action to change society for the better. As important as it is to prioritize the gospel message of liberation, equally important is disrupting interpretations of Christian theology that sanctify the status quo. To paraphrase Brightman, if the world is already just as it should be, there is no reason people should lift a finger to make it any different. The vocation of the ethicist, then, involves collective discernment of individual and social responsibilities. It's dirty work, but someone's got to do it.
ISSN:0011-1953
1939-3881