Christianity and the Laws of Conscience

This book explores the Christian theological, legal, constitutional, historical, and philosophical meanings of conscience for both scholarly and educated general audiences.

This book explores Christian theological, legal, constitutional, historical, and philosophical meanings of conscience. In doing so, it surveys how conscience has been deployed in the New Testament text, across Christian history, and in various contemporary applications, including rights to sexual expression and constitutional law.Conscience has long been a foundational theme in Christian ethics, but it is a notoriously slippery and contested term. This volume works to define conscience and reveal the similarities and differences between different Christian traditions' thinking on the subject. In a thorough and scholarly manner, the authors explore Christian theological, legal, constitutional, historical, and philosophical meanings of conscience. Covering a range of historical periods, major figures in the development of conscience, and contemporary applications, this book is a vital source for scholars from a wide variety of disciplines seeking to understand conscience from a range of perspectives.