The Yasukini Shrine: On Shame, Guilt, and Forgiveness (Biggar, 2016)
Nigel Biggar examines Japan’s ongoing failure to repent of its complicity in war crimes in order to explore broader questions of shame, guilt, forgiveness, and cultural memory.
The Legacy of the Scottish Independence Referendum (Biggar, 2016)
Nigel Biggar examines the impact on national identity of the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence. He reports recent social scientific evidence showing that the steady upward trend of Scots identifying themselves as British continues unabated, and argues that this implies that a large majority of Scots want ‘independence’ only within the United Kingdom.
The nation state and the case for remaining in the EU (Biggar 2016)
There may well be good reasons for Britain to remain in the E.U. But if that is so, the unchristian nature, or the obsolescence, of the nation-state is not one of them.
Saving the “Secular”: The Public Vocation of Moral Theology (Biggar, 2009 )
Ethical distinctiveness is no measure of theological integrity; and neither theology (pace Barth) nor biblical narrative (pace Richard Hays) should be expected to do all of the ethical running. If Christians are to be thorough in their moral theology and intelligible in their public statements, then they must borrow non-theological material, formulate abstract concepts, and engage in casuistical analysis. Nevertheless, if an anxious insistence on distinctiveness is a mistake, concern for theological integrity is not. When the moral theologian borrows ethical material from elsewhere, he should integrate it into a theological vision structured by the Christian salvation-historical narrative, which will sometimes modify the meaning of what is incorporated. So in affirming humane, polyglot liberalism, the moral theologian will at the
same time make salutary qualifications.
Church of England on war and peace (Biggar)
One of the Church of England’s Protestant features is that it lacks a Magisterium. This makes the task of describing what the Church has to say about war and peace less than straightforward, since it is host to many voices, each commanding a different degree of authority.
Letter on collateral damage (1999)
To describe these deaths as “collateral damage” is to say that they were not intended, but that they were the unwanted results of a deliberate attempt to stop and reverse the “ethnic cleansing” of Kosovar Albanians by damaging the Serb forces responsible. In so far as these death are effects outside Nato’s intention, but simultaneous with its intended effects, they were, literally, co-lateral.
Any news of what’s good for society? (1987)
The Church exists for the sake of the world. Its raison d’etre is to love the world and seek its highest good. Therefore, it must enter into the life of the world in all its complexity and ambiguity. Where its Lord has gone, the Church is called to follow.