Wadell’s new edition of Happiness and the Christian Moral Life: An Introduction to Christian Ethics, is a fresh, enticing, and engaging entrée into Christian Moral Theology that will quickly 'Friend' and win a 'Like' from undergraduates. From Wadell’s pen flows a rich fundamental moral theology that is a formative guide for virtuous Christian living. Once again Wadell demonstrates his skill as a masterful teacher and scholar by including important additions, clarifications, and explanations to the chapters of his original, dynamic, and compelling work.

Dawn M. Nothwehr O.S.F., Catholic Theological Union

Reading Paul Wadell on the Christian moral life is like sharing a conversation with a wise and faithful friend. Through his graceful engagement of Augustine, Aquinas, and a host of contemporary Christian thinkers, Wadell reminds us that the quest for true happiness requires virtue, friendship, and an awareness of the stories that bind us. This second edition of an already superb book is theologically rich and deeply human. One cannot read Wadell without about being challenged and inspired.

Darin H. Davis, director, Institute for Faith and Learning, Baylor University

In this new edition, Paul Wadell has substantially improved what was already a very fine book. While maintaining an engaging and down to earth style throughout, Wadell ably leads readers toward a sophisticated Christian understanding of the relationship among freedom, happiness, and the cultivation of virtue. Theologically rich, yet accessible and clear, Happiness and the Christian Moral Life would serve very well as a foundational text for an introductory undergraduate course in Christian ethics.

Christopher P. Vogt, St. John's University

Happiness and the Christian Moral Life provides an extensive and wonderfully engaging introduction to deep thinking about the moral life. I have never read an introduction to Christian ethics which more warmly invites readers into the profoundly interconnected consideration of virtue, friendship, narrative, and happiness, or which more richly deserves a second edition. The welcoming tone and high precision with which we are invited by Paul Wadell to think about the Christian moral life as "learning to be happy" is effective in its approach and transformative in the challenging questions it poses to the reader. This second edition takes Wadell's masterful ability to draw one into bone-deep reconsiderations of ethics through new connections between virtue and narrative, temporal happiness and eschatological fulfillment, communities of friendship and moral development, infused virtues and the natural law, and vocation and daily life. Sitting at the feet of this gentle, confessional, contemplative, and humorous voice for ten chapters is an aesthetic experience, yet always insightfully tied to the daily practice of Christian discipleship.

Carter Aikin, Blackburn College

This is a marvelous book, helpful for scholars, students and pastoral workers alike. Wadell brings the richness of the Catholic moral tradition to bear on the contemporary scene with clarity, enthusiasm and grace. Happiness and the Christian Moral Life is not merely a work of information, but an invitation to formation, an opportunity to think and feel deeply about the moral life as the locus of deepening our friendship with God.

Lisa Fullam, Jesuit School of Theology, Santa Clara University

Those of us who teach Christian Ethics are always looking for a new textbook that will cover the basics of our field. But if a student came to my office looking for a guide for the journey to the virtuous life, I would put a copy of Happiness and the Christian Moral Life: An Introduction to Christian Ethics in her hand, and I would know I had done her a real service. This is a book for the heart and mind yearning for the happiness that comes from becoming fully human.

Patrick T. McCormick, Gonzaga University, Spokane