Readings in Christian Ethics: A Historical Sourcebook

I have little complaint with the book itself and its contents. The book is a great collection of a vast swath of primary source Christian writings relating to ethics, spanning from the earliest church fathers all the way to present day. It doesn’t take any particular position, it just simply presents various authors and various perspectives on Christian ethics throughout time. It’s a very helpful introduction, which may provide helpful direction for those wanting to get a broad overview and then dive into more in-depth study on particular authors.I would perhaps prefer a little bit more in the terms of introduction before each work, though. Since these works are not arranged topically, but rather chronologically, there’s no natural flow in the book. That’s OK, given what this book is meant to be, but it’s a little hard to figure out what the authors are trying to argue since everything is (by necessity) taken out of context. That’s where a better introduction before each work would be helpful. There is some introduction before each chapter, but they are very brief. (See pic above)My main complaint about this book, though, is that it has without doubt the worst binding I’ve ever seen on a book. Just in the normal process of reading it, multiple pages have fallen out or come loose. The glue is extremely thin, and completely insufficient to hold the book together. Forget about trying to bend the book cover backwards to make it more comfortable to hold—if you do that, the entire book will fall apart! I didn’t do that, I am merely tried to flex the spine to break it in a little bit, and that resulted in pages falling out. Even in sections where I’ve not bent the spine, pages have still come loose and fallen out. Worst binding I’ve ever seen in a book. For that reason, I’ve docked it two stars.

Yes, the book is good for class, but I received the book promptly and in an efficient manner. This is so great because this was the third time I ordered the book and the semester had already started!

This is a fine compilation of primary sources that provides a good picture of the development of Christian ethics from the birth of the church up through today. Obviously, covering 2000 years in 400 pages means Wogaman & Strong could only include selections of ethical writings from each figure, but this allows them to provide a diverse sampling from each time period from church history. This is a solid one volume historical sourcebook for Christian ethics.(Note the two-star review below still commends it as great study resource. They just found it drier than expected.)

OKAY

its great for ancient bible scholars, but very difficult to read. not what i would call a summer read. this is for studying