General context of the research

Even the most cursory examination of publishers' lists from the last two decades will reveal an enormous upsurge of interest in matters of private and public morality. Other media reflect the same trend. While the reasons for this are no doubt extremely complex, two factors must figure prominently in any attempt to explain it. Recent and rapid technological developments on many fronts have placed us in some extraordinarily difficult moral predicaments. Previous generations have not had to face the dilemmas posed, for example, by the availability of safe abortions, sperm banks, and prostaglandins. They have not had to come to terms with the fact that new industrial processes, modern farming techniques, and unchecked exploitation of natural resources may precipitate an ecological crisis of unimaginable proportions. Worst of all, only in the current generation have human beings had to recognize that they have the capacity to destroy themselves and their environment. Such issues have provoked endless discussion and the formation of numerous pressure groups.

By no means unrelated to this first factor is the second, the rapid erosion of traditional Christian morality. For example, homosexuality has become a tolerated sexual option where once it was not even considered a fit subject for private conversation. The indiscriminate use of violence by terrorist organizations is something to which we have become increasingly accustomed but which strikes at the very heart of the Christian ethic.