Grace and Social Ethics

“This is a wonderfully smart, effortlessly learned, and deeply insightful book. Angela Carpenter weaves together the best ideas from science, theology, and ethics to help us understand what it means to be human, and she explains all of it in prose that is not only clear but a genuine pleasure to read. I heartily commend this book to anyone who is interested in learning more about these subjects.”—Kevin W. Hector, Naomi Shenstone Donnelley Professor of Theology and of the Philosophy of Religions, University of Chicago

“In a culture obsessed with success and achievement, anxiety is always lurking. How easily even Christians lose sight of the fact that all we are and all we have is gift. In this wise and wide-ranging book, Carpenter deftly guides her readers through the findings of evolutionary anthropology and social psychology and into the thickets of contemporary debates around work, criminal justice, and gun control. Along the way, she uncovers the profound implications of the experience of grace for human sociality and builds a robust case for a social ethics deeply rooted in Reformation theology. Grace and Social Ethics is balm in Gilead!”—Jennifer A. Herdt, Gilbert L. Stark Professor of Christian Ethics, Yale Divinity School

“Angela Carpenter powerfully reminds us that grace is deeper than individual salvation because God is deeper than individual salvation, making redemptive action what individual salvation comes to in the life of God. The gift structure of creation comes with remarkable implications for ethics, ones we’d often rather forget on the way to forgetting ourselves. Grace and Social Ethics calls us back to ourselves by calling us back to divine grace, the first and final site of creaturely possibility.”—Jonathan Tran, Baylor University

“We human beings are relational creatures who need gifts of love. Without God’s love we would not even exist, but what does our need for grace mean for our life together? Angela Carpenter’s wonderfully erudite yet remarkably accessible book insightfully reveals an overlapping consensus in theological, biological, and psychological understandings of our dependent nature. She then draws out important implications concerning the ways we deal with fear and anxiety and encourages us to seek out meaning in life.”—Jesse Couenhoven, Villanova University