Something in common?

Abstract

The relationship between the group and the individual poses an enduring challenge to our understanding of Christian social ethics. While some believe that individual moral responsibility is derivative of a collective personality, others suggest that the group is comprised of individual moral persons. The way that such dynamics work out in the ethics of Walter Rauschenbusch’s social gospel and Reinhold Niebuhr’s realist ethic is explored with reference to the philosophical and theological dynamics of the individual and corporate person. Insights gained are applied in a discussion of the corporate and individual person in more recent approaches, particularly as manifested in the World Council of Churches. The argument is made that although corporate personality must be acknowledged, when common consciousness is given primary emphasis, the responsibility of the self as moral agent is compromised.