Christ and Calling: A Survey of Bonhoeffer’s Social Ethics

This lecture will provide and introduction and orientation to Bonhoeffer’s ethical thought, particularly with regard to his mature doctrine of divine mandates, consisting of family, work, church, and government. The relationship between the personal and the social will be considered, as Bonhoeffer’s social thought is rooted in his understanding of the doctrine of vocation and “vicarious representative action.” Bonhoeffer’s social thought provides a dynamic and compelling vision of human social life, and a way forward beyond the sometimes stultifying debates of the twentieth century.

sponsored by the Oikonomia Network.

Biography

Jordan J. Ballor (Dr. theol., University of Zurich) is a research fellow at the Acton Institute and serves as executive editor of the Journal of Markets & Morality. He is author of Get Your Hands Dirty: Essays on Christian Social Thought (and Action) (Wipf & Stock, 2013), Covenant, Causality, and Law: A Study in the Theology of Wolfgang Musculus (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012), and Ecumenical Babel: Confusing Economic Ideology and the Church’s Social Witness (Christian’s Library Press, 2010). He is also associate director of the Junius Institute for Digital Reformation Research and a doctoral candidate in historical and moral theology at Calvin Theological Seminary.