This book examines moral issues in public and private life from a religious perspective, without tying the inquiry to any specific tradition of revelation. Its subject is the relation between religion and moral obligations (including obligations to support or oppose, or to obey or disobey, certain legal requirements). It does not, however, proceed from a devotional perspective. It seeks rather to understand religious perspectives at work in the arenas under consideration and to articulate their relevant themes accurately, empathically, and in some depth. My goal is to enable readers with widely varying responses to the call of religion to understand their own responses more fully and to appreciate that they can understand as well the beliefs and practices of others, without having to validate or endorse them.

My premise is that the ways in which many of us think about questions of moral and legal obligation, and about our own unfolding careers, are related to our religious or spiritual consciousness. The book was conceived to provide a context in which to explore the content of that relation by reading and thinking about the interactions between religion and contested moral questions among colleagues with whom one is united only in the belief that the questions are worth pondering and a (perhaps tentative) willingness to bring something of oneself into the discussion. Some 15 years of teaching in this area have convinced me that the inquiry fills a powerful need and greatly benefits students’ professional development. My hope is that it will prove similarly useful for individual reading and reflection.