What would Jesus do?

Go and Do Likewise: Jesus and Ethics.
By William C. Spohn. Continuum, 242 pp.

Some of my students wear bracelets bearing the legend "WWJD"—What Would Jesus Do? Sometimes in the midst of a discussion about some hard issue, I ask a student sporting such a bracelet to apply that question to the problem. The replies range from embarrassed silence and empty platitudes to wonderfully astute observations. The astute replies are usually based on the story or stories of Jesus, and exercise what William Spohn calls "the analogical imagination."

Sometimes our discussion leads to another question, "How do we go about figuring out WJWD?" Students report that they try to do so by reading the Bible, by praying, by talking with Christians whom they trust and respect, by consulting their consciences, by following their intuitions. Though such replies sometimes seem like substitutes for the hard work of moral deliberation, some of these students have hold of something important to any communal effort to be disciples.