Abstract
Christians are skittish talking about happiness because it sounds selfish and shallow. But Christian theology has long engaged the topic on its own terms. While theology has been oriented toward eschatological happiness, the Bible offers a temporal teaching of happiness for individuals and communities in obedience to non-voluntarist divine commands that foster individual and communal flourishing. The Hebrew “ashrey” is the first word of the Psalter. It expresses the fulfilling and satisfying life lived in covenant faithfulness to divine commands that is self-enhancing and enables creation to flourish. Asherism is a way of life that enables God to enjoy creation and us to enjoy God. It is an offering in Christian ethics that mediates between the self-sacrificial teaching of agapism and the atheological offering of eudaemonism.
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