Description: What Would Jesus Really Do? examines what Jesus says (and doesn't say) about complicated contemporary ethical issues including abortion, euthanasia, the death penalty, war, homosexuality, and the family.
Brief description: Andrew Fiala is Professor of Philosophy at California State University, Fresno. Recent books include: Christian Nationalism and the Secular Paradox (2025); Can War be Justified? A Debate (ed. with Jennifer Kling, 2023); and Transformative Pacifism (2018). Fiala is a past President of Concerned Philosophers for Peace and former Director of the Ethics Center at Fresno State.
Review Quotes:
"Andrew Fiala faces openly and powerfully the limits of the Bible when dealing with contemporary ethical issues. He asserts the respect for scripture does not require the literalization of time-oriented ancient texts which we then apply to complex modern problems. The result is an exciting book designed to challenge traditionalists and modernists alike." --John Shelby Spong, author The Sins of Scripture
"I hope this book will be widely read by Christians, especially those who believe that so-called 'Christian Ethics' really is based on the sayings of Jesus as presented in the New Testament." --Peter Singer, author of The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter and Writings on an Ethical Life "I avidly read this book in one sitting. It is a thoughtful and insightful appraisal of the ethics of Jesus in the light of contemporary humanism and rational inquiry." --Paul Kurtz, professor emeritus of philosophy, State University of New York at Buffalo, Chairman, Center for Inquiry "Fiala synthesizes years of teaching and debate into an objective ethics textbook. He carefully elaborates on Jesus's fundamental moral teachings, as articulated in the New Testament, and extrapolates from these principles a moral system extending to modern situations like abortion, euthanasia, the death penalty, human sexuality, and social welfare-situations unfamiliar to the historical Jesus. He also incorporates the ethical reflections of great philosophers and psychologists like Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Sigmund Freud. His concisely written and succinctly argued survey of ethical studies is complete with chapter conclusions, notes, and a helpful index." --Library Journal