Spirit, Apocalypse and Ethics: Reading Catholic Moral Theology as a Pentecostal

Abstract

AbstractAs Pentecostals develop their own approach to theological ethics, the Catholic tradition may turn out to be their most promising dialog partner. At its core, Catholicism is a holiness movement with deep resources for ethical renewal. As Pentecostals appropriate their own quirky catholicity bequeathed by Wesley, they have much to learn from the narrative of Catholic moral theology given by Servais Pinckaers in The Sources of Christian Ethics. Negatively, Pentecostals have already developed some of the same destructive tendencies in their short history that took centuries for Catholic moral theologians to develop. Yet while the story of Catholic moral theology will at times be a cautionary tale, there is equal potential to shape Pentecostal ethics constructively, as exemplified by Pinckaers, Pope John Paul II and ultimately Herbert McCabe. With his approach to ethics as language, McCabe's important but still largely underappreciated Love, Law and Language is an especially provocative resource that could help Pentecostals articulate ethics as a pneumatically formed new language.