Dr Esther D. Reed
Research Interests
My research life began with a study of the political theology of Dorothee Soelle. Her work inspired me to study the pathologies of the modern era through the lens of G.W.F. Hegel's construal of the master/slave dialectic and theory of recognition. After completion of the PhD, I concentrated on relations between Hegel and Schleiermacher and concentrated on some of Schleiermacher's early political writings and hermeneutic theory.
More recently, my work has been with the systematic theological foundations of Christian ethics and moral reasoning. The Genesis of Ethics: On the Authority of God as the Origin of Christian Ethics (2000/2002) is a response to the challenge of radical, post-Christian feminists that the authority of God is the problem of Christian ethics not its answer. Using Mikhail Bakhtin's idea of authoring, the book explores connections between divine authoring and authority. Christian ethics is understood in terms of the answerability of God's Word.
The Ethics of Human Rights: Contested Doctrinal Problems (2007) offers an account of 'right', 'rights' and 'Christ the measure of natural rights' that seeks to support Christian people who use human rights instruments in diverse practical and legal contexts. Following Dietrich Bonhoeffer's starting point for discussion of natural rights, namely, Ecce Homo! 'Behold the Man' (Jn 19:5), the book argues that neither antagonism nor indifference are the only options available to Christian people in dialogue with, or working with, secularist approaches to human rights. A tropological reading of Genesis 9:1-17, God's covenant with Noah, is developed as a means of asking how the bible challenges, directs and gives substance to critical Christian engagement with human rights discourse.
My current work at the interface between theology and international law involves a reconsideration of aspects of Christian teaching about natural law reasoning. At a time when many secularist theorists seem variously unable or unwilling to denounce torture as wrong, my work with the Center of Theological Inquiry, Princeton, aims to articulate an account of natural law reasoning shaped in relation to Jesus Christ and oriented to God's future. Given that there are strong biblical and traditional reasons for affirming a basic doctrine of natural law - the content of which has often been identified with the Decalogue - the challenge is to find and use forms of discourse appropriate to God's ordering of creation that sustain the kind of natural law reasoning made possible by the resurrection. Mindful of various ways of conceiving of natural law that are to be avoided (e.g., as something that exists independently of God or that makes the human condition the touchstone for its interpretation), a particular focus is the constant in Christian tradition that the natural law represents the affirmation of human dignity in freedom against the degradations and oppressions visited on persons by corrupt powers.
I am very happy to discuss the possibility of research supervision in Christian ethics, practical and political theology. Contact me if you would like to talk through your project.
Research Supervision
Christian ethics and practical theology
Human rights in Christian perspective
Political theology and feminist theology
Research Topics Currently Supervised
The Theology of Miroslav Volf (submission Sept. 2011)
Godly Play and Childhood Spirituality (Sept. 2009)
A Theology of Disability (March 2008)
Women in 19th and 20th Century America: Religion and Reform (2011)
Research Topics Supervised Elsewhere
The Passions and the Moral Life
Homosexuality in the Church
Religious and Ethical Motifs in the Novels of George Eliot
An Historical and Theological Analysis of Korean Fundamentalism
Topics in Feminist Theology
