Michael Walzer's endeavor to disentangle and explain the conflicting scriptural stories of the conquest of Canaan is resourceful and instructive but unfinished. The adequacy of his account as a means of coming to terms with the historica witness is compromised by what he does "not" examine: he does not, for example, examine very closely the lineaments of the program of limited war he praises, does not convey the complexity of the cultic pratice of "herem" and does not take account of (...) the impact of the failure of the Israelite experiment in royal statehood.more importantly, by treating the passages regarding holy war as an embarrassing problem to be solved, he leaves dangling the function of these texts in the life of the faith community. (shrink)

The recent resurgence of evangelical social action has been accompanied by some serious attention to issues in ethical thought. Evangelical scholars have been engaged in a search for ethical ''roots," for traditions of theological-ethical discourse that can give shape to twentieth century ethical explorations. Of special interest to many in this regard are the long-standing tensions between Anabaptist and Reformed thought. In this essay we argue against the "received wisdom" that there is a strict polarity between these two perspectives. The (...) ethical differences between the Reformed and Anabaptist communities are in fact "intra-family" ones that emerge out of some important commonalities. The exploration of these commonalities, we suggest, is crucial for the development of a healthier evangelical ethical perspective. (shrink)

Though there is no escape from the recognition of the community-dependent quality of moral knowledge, Jeffrey Stout is right to affirm the possibility of value-laden communication across community boundaries. My quarrel is not with his affirmation but with his effort to defend that affirmation by falling back on the project of establishing some universally recognized prohibition. I draw a contrasting model from the sixth century prophets in order to recast the question in light of the actual, powerful, transformative telling of (...) "good news" by one particular people to another. Concerning the possibility of such barrier-bridging communication, there is a long and venerable history of success that has not been accorded its due weight, perhaps because we are not accustomed to looking to the fields of translation and mission work for guidance in addressing moral and philosophical problems. (shrink)