This article argues that ethics and spirituality are therefore interdependent. One cannot be practiced without paying attention to the other. One needs to be shaped and informed by the other. This article intends to support this claim by briefly using the book and story of the Old Testament prophet Amos. Here, a brief but fair description and definition of postmodernity is provided in order to prepare the ground for an examination, discussion, and reflection of the interdependency of ethics and spirituality (...) rooted in the book of Amos. This is followed by a description and discussion of the several principles or issues that are pertinent to address and attend to the interdependency between ethics and spirituality as it relates the story of the Old Testament Amos. Principles and issues are grounded the author’s perspective and experiences of the reality of the Hispanic Latin-American/Hispanic Pentecostal Church. The author is speaking and writing as a Puerto Rican – from which fairly or unfairly many assertions, statements, and conclusions that may or may not apply to the entire Hispanic/Latino(a) context are gathered. Critical and reflective thoughts conclude this article. (shrink)

ABSTRACT One of the most perceptive and ambidextrous social commentators of our day, Augustinian scholar Jean Bethke Elshtain furnishes in ever fresh ways through her writings a bridge between the ancient and the modern, between politics and ethics, between timeless moral wisdom and cultural sensitivity. To read Elshtain seriously is to take the study of culture as well as the “permanent things” seriously. But Elshtain is no mere moralist. Neither is she content solely to dwell in the domain of the (...) theoretical. For it is Elshtain the citizen—the creatively engaged and contributing citizen—whom the reader encounters on virtually every page of her writings. But reader beware: Elshtain does not shy away from controversy. At the same time, she is anything but a controversialist. In the essay that follows, several prominent themes that emerge from Elstain's writings—civic responsibility, justice, gender, and war—are considered afresh. Whether one agrees with her positions or not, one is forced to confess in the end that she cares deeply about the common good. And this alone makes her required reading for any engaged citizen of the republic. (shrink)