Grace and Social Ethics: Gift as the Foundation of Our Life Together

Grace and Social Ethics demonstrates why the doctrine of grace has significant implications for social ethics and for Christian engagement with culture. The book reframes Christian social ethics by illuminating how grace shapes human identity and community.

Angela Carpenter integrates theology and social science to articulate a vision of human persons as constituted by gift rather than merit. This graced anthropology compellingly bridges theology and contemporary research on human dependence and mutuality. Carpenter insightfully applies this graced identity to pressing issues in social ethics such as criminal justice, labor practices, and gun violence.

Scholars and students of theological ethics as well as pastors seeking resources for moral formation will find illuminating perspectives in this integrative work, which situates social justice imperatives within God’s gracious purposes.

Angela Carpenter (PhD, University of Notre Dame) is the Leonard and Marjorie Maas Associate Professor of Reformed Theology at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. Her first book, Responsive Becoming: Moral Formation in Theological, Evolutionary, and Developmental Perspective, received the Martin Institute and Dallas Willard Research Center Book Award.