Doing Ethics in a Pluralistic World is an apt title for this collection of essays in honour of Roger C. Hutchinson who, over many decades, has encouraged and participated in shaping a Canadian contextual social ethics. His abiding interest in social ethics and in religious engagement with public issues is reflected in his life’s work — seeking the consensus and self-knowledge required to achieve cooperation in the search for a just, participatory, and sustainable society.

One of Roger Hutchinson’s many notable accomplishments is his development of a method of dialogue for ethical clarification in situations of diversity. Some of the essays collected here apply this method to specific issues, while others discuss how religious persons and organizations can and do co-operate in a pluralistic world to achieve social and ecological well-being. All essays are of keen interest to those concerned with the role and function of ethics at the matrix of religious conviction and social transformation.

For nearly three decades Roger Hutchinson has been based at Victoria University in Toronto, first in religious studies, then at Emmanuel College, where he completed his teaching career as professor of church and society while serving as principal from 1996 to 2001.

Phyllis D. Airhart is Professor Emeritus of the History of Christianity at Emmanuel College and cross-appointed to the Department for the Study of Religion at the University of Toronto. She is the author of A Church with the Soul of a Nation: Making and Remaking the United Church of Canada (winner of the 2016 book prize from the Canadian Society for the Study of Religion and shortlisted for the 2015 Canada Prize in the Humanities from the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences) as well as a number of other books and articles on religion in Canada.

Phyllis D. Airhart's profile page

Marilyn J. Legge is associate professor of Christian ethics at Emmanuel College of Victoria University and the Toronto School of Theology in the University of Toronto.

Marilyn J. Legge's profile page

Gary L. Redcliffe is associate professor of pastoral theology at Emmanuel College of Victoria University and the Toronto School of Theology in the University of Toronto.

Gary L. Redcliffe's profile page

"A truly satisfying Festschrift requires both a deft hand on the part of the editors and contributors and a focus which has sufficient depth and breadth to hold the ensemble together. This particular Festschrift is precisely such a satisfying and tantalyzing colleciton....The articles certainly make one want to explore Hutchinson's method more fully, even as they consistently point out that there is no panacea here, only a consistent invitation to reason, honesty, attentiveness and methodological rigour. In sum, this volume is to be highly recommended for all three of its aims—historical, pluralist and methological....It provides a fitting homage to Roger Hutchinson in pointing to the enduring relevance of his work and the way in which his students and colleagues continue to tread the path he laid out. The editors and authors are to be congratulated."

Toronto Journal of Theology, Vol 21, no 2, Fall 2005