Scandalous Obligation

Responsibility is routinely overlooked, manipulated and oversimplified. In Scandalous Obligation, Eric Severson explores the scope and reach of Christian responsibility and social justice. This book is about the slippery nature of obligation, competing calls for justice, and the perilous temptation to dismiss or avoid responsibility. Severson approaches the question of responsibility using examples from popular culture and provides a stimulating perspective on responsibility that appeals to readers from a broad range of disciplinary backgrounds. This book presses readers to consider the many complications that arise when Christians seek to understand and apply their responsibility for the suffering that abounds in the world. How are Christians to turn this approach to responsibility toward the clouds of injustice and pain that hang over our world today?

Eric R. Severson is currently associate professor of philosophy at Eastern Nazarene College in Quincy, Massachusetts. He is also codirector of the Center for Responsibility and Justice and has served as pastor at Grandview Church of the Nazarene in Missouri. He received his PhD from Boston University and has edited such collections as The Least of These: Selected Readings in Christian History and I More than Others: Responses to Evil and Suffering.