William Schweiker (born December 29, 1953) is an American theological ethicist. He is the Edward L. Ryerson Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Theological Ethics at the University of Chicago Divinity School and also serves in the College. His research focuses on globalization as an ethical problem, hermeneutic philosophy, theological humanism, the history of ethics, and comparative religious ethics.
Biography
Schweiker was born on December 29, 1953, in Des Moines, Iowa. He earned his B.A. from Simpson College in 1976, his M.Div. from Duke Divinity School in 1980, and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago Divinity School in 1985. After graduating, he accepted an assistant professorship in theology and ethics at the University of Iowa. In 1989, he returned to the University of Chicago as an assistant professor, was made full professor in 2000, and was appointed the Edward L. Ryerson Distinguished Service Professor of Theological Ethics in 2007. That same year, he became director of the Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion at the University of Chicago Divinity School.
He has been a guest professor at Uppsala University (where he received an honorary doctorate), a Mercator Professor at the University of Heidelberg, and has lectured in China, South Korea, and South Africa. In 2015–2016, Schweiker served as president of the Society of Christian Ethics. He is an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church and serves as Theologian in Residence at the First United Methodist Church at the Chicago Temple.
Academic Work
Schweiker's scholarship examines how humanity is vulnerable to new powers in contemporary times and the responsibility these powers and vulnerabilities generate for human agents. His work crosses the disciplinary lines of ethics, systematic theology, and hermeneutic philosophy. He has been recognized as a leader in the development of "Theological Humanism."
His book Theological Ethics and Global Dynamics: In the Time of Many Worlds (2004) was nominated for the Grawemeyer Award in Religion (2005). In this work, Schweiker describes the cultural dynamics of a globalizing world as "intrinsically bound to the representational, evaluative, and so motivational forces working on and in" human agents, arguing that globality presents a new moral space requiring a rethinking of human power and humanity's relationship with the nonhuman world.
Schweiker is the editor of the Blackwell Companion to Religious Ethics (2005) and co-editor (with David A. Clairmont, Maria Antonaccio, and Elizabeth Bucar) of the Encyclopedia of Religious Ethics (2022). He served as principal investigator (together with Günter Thomas of Ruhr-University Bochum) of the "Enhancing Life Project," an interdisciplinary research initiative supported by the John Templeton Foundation.
Selected Books
- Mimetic Reflections: A Study in Hermeneutics, Theology and Ethics (1990)
- Responsibility and Christian Ethics (1995)
- Power, Value and Conviction: Theological Ethics in the Postmodern Age (1998)
- Theological Ethics and Global Dynamics: In the Time of Many Worlds (2004)
- Blackwell Companion to Religious Ethics (2005) [Editor]
- Religion and the Human Future: An Essay in Theological Humanism (2008, with David E. Klemm)
- Dust that Breathes: Christian Faith and the New Humanisms (2010)
- Religious Ethics: Meaning and Method (2020, with David A. Clairmont)
- Multi-Religious Perspectives on a Global Ethic (2021, with Myriam Renaud)
- Ethics and Advocacy: Bridges and Boundaries (2022)
Honors
On January 31, 2014, Schweiker received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Theology at Uppsala University for his "insightful studies of the epistemology of morality, especially his reinterpretation of the conscience in the light of post-modern criticism." He received the 2011 Faculty Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching and Mentoring at the University of Chicago. His work is the subject of Responsibility and the Enhancement of Life: Essays in Honor of William Schweiker (2017).
