Perhaps the greatest value of this third edition of Paul Wadell’s provocative, inviting, and elegantly written book, Happiness and the Christian Moral Life, is the insight it offers into the very nature of God as the source and satisfaction of our longing for love, peace, and an enduring happiness.
Wadell’s new edition of Happiness and the Christian Moral Life: An Introduction to Christian Ethics, is a fresh, enticing, and engaging entrée into Christian Moral Theology that will quickly 'Friend' and win a 'Like' from undergraduates. From Wadell’s pen flows a rich fundamental moral theology that is a formative guide for virtuous Christian living. Once again Wadell demonstrates his skill as a masterful teacher and scholar by including important additions, clarifications, and explanations to the chapters of his original, dynamic, and compelling work.
Wadell’s new edition of Happiness and the Christian Moral Life: An Introduction to Christian Ethics, is a fresh, enticing, and engaging entrée into Christian Moral Theology that will quickly 'Friend' and win a 'Like' from undergraduates.From Wadell’s pen flows a rich fundamental moral theology that is a formative guide for virtuous Christian living. Once again Wadell demonstrates his skill as a masterful teacher and scholar by including important additions, clarifications, and explanations to the chapters of his original, dynamic, and compelling work.
In the age of Pope Francis, Wadell provides an ideal introduction to Christian ethics for undergraduate students. This book situates ethical dilemmas within the larger context of the search for meaning and happiness and would provide a great anchor for an undergraduate course. Wadell is obviously a seasoned instructor who anticipates the questions young adults bring to the study of ethics. He meets students where they are and challenges them to embrace the quest for a virtuous life. Like Pope Francis, he speaks of the beauty of Christian life and insists that joy is essential to Christian discipleship.
In this new edition, Paul Wadell has substantially improved what was already a very fine book. While maintaining an engaging and down to earth style throughout, Wadell ably leads readers toward a sophisticated Christian understanding of the relationship among freedom, happiness, and the cultivation of virtue. Theologically rich, yet accessible and clear, Happiness and the Christian Moral Life would serve very well as a foundational text for an introductory undergraduate course in Christian ethics.
This is a marvelous book, helpful for scholars, students, and pastoral workers alike. Wadell brings the richness of the Catholic moral tradition to bear on the contemporary scene with clarity, enthusiasm and grace. Happiness and the Christian Moral Life is not merely a work of information, but an invitation to formation, an opportunity to think and feel deeply about the moral life as the locus of deepening our friendship with God.
Those of us who teach Christian Ethics are always looking for a new textbook that will cover the basics of our field. But if a student came to my office looking for a guide for the journey to the virtuous life, I would put a copy of Happiness and the Christian Moral Life: An Introduction to Christian Ethics in her hand, and I would know I had done her a real service. This is a book for the heart and mind yearning for the happiness that comes from becoming fully human.
Reading Paul Wadell on the Christian moral life is like sharing a conversation with a wise and faithful friend. Through his graceful engagement of Augustine, Aquinas, and a host of contemporary Christian thinkers, Wadell reminds us that the quest for true happiness requires virtue, friendship, and an awareness of the stories that bind us. This third edition of an already superb book is theologically rich and deeply human. One cannot read Wadell without about being challenged and inspired.
Happiness and the Christian Moral Life provides an extensive and wonderfully engaging introduction to deep thinking about the moral life. I have never read an introduction to Christian ethics which more warmly invites readers into the profoundly interconnected consideration of virtue, friendship, narrative, and happiness, or which more richly deserves a new edition. The welcoming tone and high precision with which we are invited by Paul Wadell to think about the Christian moral life as "learning to be happy" is effective in its approach and transformative in the challenging questions it poses to the reader. This edition takes Wadell's masterful ability to draw one into bone-deep reconsiderations of ethics through new connections between virtue and narrative, temporal happiness and eschatological fulfillment, communities of friendship and moral development, infused virtues and the natural law, and vocation and daily life. Sitting at the feet of this gentle, confessional, contemplative, and humorous voice for ten chapters is an aesthetic experience, yet always insightfully tied to the daily practice of Christian discipleship.
Happiness and the Christian Moral Life provides an extensive and wonderfully engaging introduction to deep thinking about the moral life. I have never read an introduction to Christian ethics which more warmly invites readers into the profoundly interconnected consideration of virtue, friendship, narrative, and happiness, or which more richly deserves a new edition. The welcoming tone and high precision with which we are invited by Paul Wadell to think about the Christian moral life as "learning to be happy" is effective in its approach and transformative in the challenging questions it poses to the reader. This edition takes Wadell's masterful ability to draw one into bone-deep reconsiderations of ethics through new connections between virtue and narrative, temporal happiness and eschatological fulfillment, communities of friendship and moral development, infused virtues and the natural law, and vocation and daily life. Sitting at the feet of this gentle, confessional, contemplative, and humorous voice for ten chapters is an aesthetic experience, yet always insightfully tied to the daily practice of Christian discipleship.
Happiness and the Christian Moral Life provides an extensive and wonderfully engaging introduction to deep thinking about the moral life. I have never read an introduction to Christian ethics which more warmly invites readers into the profoundly interconnected consideration of virtue, friendship, narrative, and happiness, or which more richly deserves a second edition. The welcoming tone and high precision with which we are invited by Paul Wadell to think about the Christian moral life as "learning to be happy" is effective in its approach and transformative in the challenging questions it poses to the reader. This second edition takes Wadell's masterful ability to draw one into bone-deep reconsiderations of ethics through new connections between virtue and narrative, temporal happiness and eschatological fulfillment, communities of friendship and moral development, infused virtues and the natural law, and vocation and daily life. Sitting at the feet of this gentle, confessional, contemplative, and humorous voice for ten chapters is an aesthetic experience, yet always insightfully tied to the daily practice of Christian discipleship.
This is the best one volume work in fundamental moral theology now available for the widest possible audience. It represents the shift in the revision of moral theology from its focus on right actions to becoming good persons. In this theologically rich work, Wadell shows the difference the qualifier 'Christian' makes for understanding who we are, who we are to become, and how we get there. He draws from the storehouse of Christian ethics to develop his core theme of seeking happiness through virtue. Those who know Wadell’s work already appreciate the artistry of his lucid prose, rich images, and laser-like precision. This book does what all important books do—expand the conversation by giving a new slant on familiar themes. I plan to use it and recommend it as a must read for anyone who seeks to live their faith reflectively or who wants to know where fundamental moral theology is today.
It is Wadell's superb study.
November/December 2008 Books and Culture
It is rare to find a book one cannot wait to teach. Paul Wadell's Happiness and the Christian Moral Life is just such a book. Here the complex components of Catholic moral theology come alive through crystal clear, honest, and good-humored prose that will engage any reader, especially students. But even more delightfully, the book incarnates its claims. Wadell sees the moral life as 'training in happiness' and describes moral education as a process of 'becoming enchanted with goodness.' This book will enchant its readers, as it did me, with the beauty of the Christian journey. It is a book that imparts the joy that comes with friendship with God and those God loves. Suffused with the author's own contemplative spirituality, this book is a gift to the church, one with potential to actually change students' lives.
Paul Wadell's Happiness and the Christian Moral Life is an extraordinarily inviting treatment of the deep and expansive material of the discipline of Christian ethics. In Wadell's book the well-worn concepts and terms of Catholic moral theology are given new life, as he guides us with a friendly and gracious openness through discussions of happiness, friendship, virtue, truth, freedom, sin, conscience and justice. This is a comprehensive textbook that reads like a novel. In Wadell's competent hands, moral theology not only makes sense, it is engaging and exciting. I cannot think of a better place to begin thinking about the central questions of Christian ethics.
Happiness and the Christian Moral Life is a fantastic text. Yet to call this book an 'introduction' seems to diminish its depth. Wadell skillfully moves back and forth from ancient and medieval texts to contemporary insight on the nature of persons and society. In this book he addresses clearly the fundamentals of moral theology in a thoroughly 'un-textbook' fashion. Like a good storyteller, he shares these fundamentals with us—including friendship, freedom, sin, conscience, virtue, and love—in a coherent and compelling manner.
