Churchgoing and Christian Ethics

Robin Gill argues that moral communities should take center stage in ethics. This book examines recent evidence about church communities in relation to faith, moral order and love, and shows that churchgoers are distinctive in their attitudes, beliefs and behavior. Some attitudes change over time, and there are several moral disagreements among different groups of churchgoers. Moreover, their values and behavior are shared by many nonchurchgoers also. The distinctiveness of church communities in the modern world is thus real but relative, and is crucial for the task of Christian ethics.

Preface; List of tables; Introduction; Part I. The Theoretical Context: 1. Churchgoing and the bias of virtue ethicists; 2. Churchgoing and the bias of sociologists; 3. Four theories of churchgoing; Part II. The Evidence: 4. The British Household Panel survey; 5. Faith in British social attitudes surveys; 6. Moral order in British social attitudes surveys; 7. Love in British social attitudes surveys; Part III. The Implications: 8. Churchgoing and Christian identity; 9. Churches and moral disagreement; Postscript; Works cited; Index.