This is an academic book, based on the author’s seminars on Christian Ethics for the Eastern Region Ministry Course; but it is also an eager exploration of the Church’s reluctance to engage in public affairs and politics. Its structure is academic: the first half discusses Christian ethics historically and theoretically in order to articulate ‘tensions’, or disagreements, which Christians know but might not understand; then, using terms established in the first half, Brown focuses on legendary contemporary disputes about creation, sexuality, abortion and euthanasia, and less sensationalised matters of war, the market economy, and human rights. Beyond this academic structure, however, Brown’s even-handed arguments identify a malaise. On one hand ‘liberalism’, which accords value to human reason and advocates dialogue between Christian activists and those in other ethical systems, risks losing a distinctive Christian understanding and vision. On the other ‘communitarians’, who proclaim the Church as the only community within which a Christian life can be lived, and the sacraments as the focus of such a life, risk denying any role for Christians in the public world. We founder between the two. Brown’s arguments are based almost exclusively on English (yes, English) and American Christian practices, but readers might well want to look further afield: the arguments clarify habits of thought admirably, and stimulate urgent and prayerful thinking.