Books by Ronald H. Stone

John Wesley's Life & Ethics offers a comprehensive analysis of John Wesley's personal and social ethical thought. Ronald Stone places Wesley in a social location and examines his ethical thought biographically. He argues that in the case of John Wesley, the Christian traditions provide a biblically informed deontological ethic of love. This ethic is grounded in the Christian community to form the individual and in social reform to transform the nation within the limits of Christian realism concerning human nature and social order. The volume covers Wesley's complete ethical reflection and teaching and, at appropriate points, places them in comparative perspective to other 18th century ethics and social thought contributors. Ethical topics addressed include abortion, vocation, family, money, social nature of humanity, politics, economics, imperial relations, and war and peace. This book will be a supplementary text in Ethics classes, primarily in United Methodist schools. It will also be a useful text in Methodist history classes. Methodist scholars and pastors interested in a social biography of Wesley will want to own this book.

In this book, Ronald Stone breaks new ground by providing a fresh survey of Reinhold Niebuhr as a professor, demonstrating that this vocation was central to Niebuhr's lifework. This book reveals Niebuhr's passion for the development of an intellectually equipped, socially concerned Christian...

Moral Reflections on Foreign Policy in a Religious War argues that foreign policy thinkers and actors must take religion more seriously than they have in analysis and action. The tragedy of U.S. policy in Iraq is in part due to the dangers of ignoring religious conflicts in that country until it was too late, and then responding too lightly. Working as a philosopher of religion and politics, Stone shows how both in the United States and the Middle East unreflective religion in a dialogic relationship with politics power has proven hazardous. Stone proposes policy changes for the United States based on his analysis and calls for reform in the ways that both politics and religion are understood. Without peace between religions, there will be no peace in the Middle East. Without understanding how religion functions in international politics, the United States is doomed to repeat disastrous policies in the Middle East.