Recent Shifts in Family Ethics and Theology: From Ethics of Families towards a More Encompassing Ethics for Families

This article analyses a selection of works of Western theologians, ethicists, and psychologists from the last two decades, which represent new shifts in the emerging discipline of family ethics. Taking into account such specialists as D. S. Browning, M. Ouellet. J.Wall, E. Eggerichs, X. Lacroix, K. Leman, D. McCarthy, D. Popenoe, J. H. Rubio, A. Thatcher and some others, the author of the article attempts to demonstrate the main trends in the development of family ethics (for example, broadening of the scope of the field and growing interdisciplinarity). Also, this article demonstrates some tensions in the field (how to refer to traditional Christian sources in ethics; how to evaluate the new social context of family life; how to keep in balance the ideal representation and the real situation of families…). A growing interest in everyday activities of familіes instead of the focus on extreme cases, as well as a paying more tribute to family member’s experiences is also underlined in this article.