While South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission is widely regarded as a model of political ‘reconciliation’, Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s introduction into it of Christian notions of forgiveness is the subject of heated debate. What appears as Christian common sense to some, looks like a short-changing of justice to others.
The leading journal Studies in Christian Ethics released a Special Issue on the subject of the 2009 McDonald Conference on Nicholas Wolterstorff's ground-breaking book, Justice: Rights and Wrongs (Princeton, 2008).
Must religious voices keep quiet in public places? Does fairness in a plural society require it? Must the expression of religious belief be so authoritarian as to threaten civil peace? Do we need translation into 'secular' language, or should we try to manage polyglot conversation? How neutral is 'secular' language? Is a religious argument necessarily unreasonable?
Controversy about the morality of euthanasia and assisted suicide and their legalisation has been running for over a generation, and it shows no sign of flagging. The main arguments for and against are widely familiar, yet the horizon yields no sign of any approaching resolution.
The McDonald Centre for Theology, Ethics & Public Life is a research institute at the University of Oxford.