RUSSELL MOORE, Christianity Today; The Scenario I Imagined for This Year’s Ethics Class Final
"Since the early aughts, I’ve ended every Christian ethics class I’ve taught with a scenario I’ve asked my students to solve. I imagine a situation and keep complicating and complicating until I’m not sure I know the answers.
That’s because what I want is not for students to pull the “right” answers from a list of predigested talking points. Instead, I want to see how they think through Scripture, Christian tradition, conscience, and prudence, as well as how they explore possible unintended consequences and what their process is for navigating an unfamiliar moral question.
I taught an ethics class at Lipscomb University here in Nashville this semester, and here is the scenario I posed to my students:
You are several decades in the future. Whatever your specific calling, you are a spiritual leader whom your community trusts with hard questions. Here is your situation."