Real-World Christian Ethics.(Making the Best of It: Following Christ in the Real World)(Book review)

Is John Stackhouse the evangelical Reinhold Niebuhr? It's not a perfect fit, but it's close. In Making the Best of It, Stackhouse, Sangwoo Youtong Chee Professor of Theology at Regent College, expounds a new Christian realism or realistic Christianity very much in the tradition of the man whose motto was "Love everyone; trust no one."

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For doubters I cite this statement of real-world Christian ethics in Making the Best of It:

  Most of the time ... we know what to do and must simply do it.
  Sometimes, however, the [Christian] politician has to hold his nose
  and make a deal. The chaplain has to encourage his fellow soldiers
  in a war he deeply regrets. The professor has to teach fairly a
  theory or philosophy she doesn't think is true. The police officer
  has to subdue a criminal with deadly force. We are on a slippery
  slope indeed--and one shrouded in darkness, with the ground not only
  slippery but shifting under our feet. So we hold on to God's hand,
  and each other's, and make the best of it.

That is Christian realism in a nutshell--refusing to abdicate public responsibility in a sinful world where one has to make difficult choices and sometimes even compromise with sin and evil when necessary to achieve a greater good.

The counsel of …