Prep for a Case Study in Christian Thought

When people read my “Testing the Truth-Telling Thing” post in my Chesterton series, the first question everyone asked was: Which ethical beliefs do you have that fit better into a Christian context?  As luck would have it I recently gave a speech for my debating group that drew heavily on Christian ideas (even though I scrubbed them from the speech).  The speech is up at the Huffington Post, and if you go check it out, I’ll be back this afternoon to explain how most of the ideas I expressed make make more sense to me in a Christian context than in the framework of my atheism.

A little quick background:

The post is adapted from a speech I gave at the Yale Political Union‘s annual Gardner-White Prize debate.  You can read the two other prizewinning speeches here.  (Second place was taken by Tristyn of Eschatological Psychosis!).  The debate topic was “Resolved: Bring Back the Stocks” which boiled down to arguments about the role of shame in justice and what kind of punitive action justice requires.  As you’ll see if you read all three prizewinning speeches, the topic allowed a pretty wide range of ideas.