The Penumbra of Ethics

Rev. Vigo Auguste Demant (1893-1983) was a significant theologian and social commentator of the first half of the twentieth century. This book contains his up-until-now unpublished Gifford Lectures, in which Demant provides cultural analysis as he attempts to address why humanity struggles so much with modernity and living in the contemporary world. The lectures have additional notes and commentary to make them comprehensible, since not all of them are complete. The first chapters set Demant in his context and the final section provides assessment of both his ideas and his impact. Although Demant died in 1983, his ideas continue to prove influential to thinkers and theologians today. This is a truly remarkable book, exploring and examining the work of Vigo Auguste Demant, one of the great Christian ethicists of the twentieth century. Markham and Faulstich have produced a scintillating text--the Gifford Lectures of V. A. Demant--that leads us into the heart of and mind of a thinker who gave us a genuinely original Christian Sociology. Markham and Faulstich deserve enormous credit for this outstanding critical introduction to one of the most original thinkers in the field of theology and ethics. --Martyn Percy, Dean of Christ Church, Oxford Vigo Demant is a figure undeservedly forgotten in current theology--despite his subterranean influence. Markham and Faulstich have done us all a great service in making available Demant's unpublished Gifford Lectures. The extensive introduction should make a new generation of theologians turn again to this important witness to the vibrant debates in British theological ethics during the latter half of the twentieth century. --Lewis Ayres, Professor of Catholic and Historical Theology, Durham University Vigo Auguste Demant was a Church of England priest and Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at the University of Oxford from 1949-71. Ian Markham is the Dean and President of Virginia Theological Seminary and is Professor of Theology and Ethics. Christine Faulstich is the Rector of the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany in Houston, Texas.