Author: David Pfrimmer

David Pfrimmer is Professor of Public Ethics and Co-director of the Centre for Public Ethics at Waterloo Lutheran Seminary on the campus of Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario and an International Fellow at the Chester Ronning Centre for the Study of Religion and Public Life at the University of Alberta.

Routledge Handbook of Religion and Politics, second edition (Routledge, 2016)

[1] This is the second edition of Rutledge’s excellent Handbook on Politics and Religion by Jeffery Haynes. Haynes is Director of Research at London Metropolitan University in the U.K. The first volume was published after the events of September 11, 2011, looking at the implications of “religious terrorism” and “extremism.” Haynes asked some of the […]

Postsecondary Student Debt Bondage – A Case for Public Ethics

HIGHER EDUCATION AS A PUBLIC GOOD [1] At the 2014 Laurier University Governance Dinner, Andrew Newman, an Audit Partner with KPMG’s Public Sector Audit Practice in Ottawa, described how his grandfather had gone to school through to grade eight and then went out to work. He then recounted how his father went to school through […]

Moral Issues and Christian Responses

[1] Moral Issues and Christian Responses is a very comprehensive and practical one-volume introduction to the field of Christian ethics. This version, updated from their 2002 edition, brings together many of the well-known thinkers in the field from a wide variety of perspectives. Likewise it also covers the range of hot ethical topics of general […]

A New Deal for the Global Economy

A New Deal for the Global Economy The Current Crisis “Money is a singular thing. It ranks with love as man’s (sic) greatest source of joy. And it ranks with death as his greatest source of anxiety.”[1] [1] The current global crisis began as a crisis about money but quickly became a pandemic global economic […]

A Faith Basis for 60 Years of Human Rights Work by Churches

Introduction [1] I want to thank you for this opportunity to be with you again and to address the question of “The Faith Basis for 60 Years of Human Rights Work by Churches” during this consultation to commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the United Nation’s Universal Declaration on Human Rights.[1] [2] The international order has […]

The Changing Public Discourse on Ecology

[1] With the publication of Silent Spring in 1962, Rachel Carson launched environmental issues into the public consciousness and wider political debate. Carson, a scientist, expressed concern over the adverse impact of the widespread use of chemicals and the common assumption that such uses were safe. She argued that these chemicals – including the some […]