Biography

William Schweiker works in the field of theological ethics. His scholarship and teaching engage
theological and ethical questions attentive to global dynamics, comparative religious ethics,
history of ethics, and hermeneutical philosophy. He is especially know for his work in
Theological Humanism and Responsibility Ethics. A frequent lecturer and visiting professor at
universities around the world, he has been deeply involved in collaborative international
scholarly projects. His books include 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); 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); and Religious Ethics: Meaning and Method (2020, with David Clairmont).

Professor Schweiker has published numerous articles and award-winning essays, as well as
edited and contributed to ten volumes, including Humanity Before God: Contemporary Faces of
Jewish, Christian and Islamic Ethics (2006), Multi-Religious Perspectives on a Global Ethic (2021)
 and chief editor and contributor to A Companion to Religious Ethics (2004), a comprehensive
and innovative work in the field of comparative and religious ethics. He is now editor and
contributor to the three-volume Encyclopedia of Religious Ethics (forthcoming). Schweiker’s
present research and writing is a book titled Enhancing Life and the Forms of
Freedom. Professor Schweiker was awarded in 2014 an Honorary Doctorate from the University
of Uppsala in Uppsala, Sweden. He was a Mercator Professor, Universität Heidelberg, Deutsche
Forschungsgemeinschaft (2012-2013). He was the 2015–2016 President of the Society of
Christian Ethics and the Director of The Enhancing Life Project (2014-2017), supported by the
John Templeton Foundation. He was also a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar (2011-2012)
lecturing at six universities in the USA.

Professor Schweiker is an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church (Iowa Conference)
and theologian in residence at the First United Methodist Church at the Chicago Temple in
Chicago. He was also a World Methodist Intern at Wesley’s Chapel, London England (1978-
1979).