God’s Companions: Reimaging Christian Ethics

We are pleased to annouce that God's Companions by Samuel Wells has been shortlisted for the 2007 Michael Ramsey Prize for theological writing.
www.michaelramseyprize.org.uk

Grounded in Samuel Wells' experience of ordinary lives in poorer neighborhoods, this book presents a striking and imaginative approach to Christian ethics. It argues that Christian ethics is founded on God, on the practices of human community, and on worship, and that ethics is fundamentally a reflection of God's abundance.

Wells synthesizes dogmatic, liturgical, ethical, scriptural, and pastoral approaches to theology in order to make a bold claim for the centrality of the local church in theological reflection. He considers the abundance of gifts God gives through the practices of the Church, particularly the Eucharist. His central thesis, which governs his argument throughout, is that God gives his people everything they need to worship him, be his friends, and eat with him. Wells engages with serious scholarly material, yet sets out the issues lucidly for a student audience.

Samuel Wells was born in Canada, studied in Oxford, Edinburgh, and Durham, UK and spent fourteen years in parish ministry in the Church of England, mostly in socially deprived areas, before moving to North Carolina to be Dean of the Chapel at Duke University and Research Professor of Christian Ethics at Duke Divinity School. He has written several books in the field of theological ethics, including Transforming Fate into Destiny: The Theological Ethics of Stanley Hauerwas (2004), Improvisation and the Drama of Christian Ethics (2004) and Community-Led Estate Regeneration and the Local Church (2003). He co-edited with Stanley Hauerwas The Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics (Blackwell, 2004).