Ken Magnuson, Executive Director

Educational Background

  • B.A. Anthropology, Bethel College (now Bethel University)
  • M.Div. Bethel Theological Seminary
  • Ph.D. Cambridge University

Select Publications

Invitation to Christian Ethics (Kregel, 2020).

"Is Abortion Murder? Rhetoric and Reality in the Abortion Controversy," in Christian Cultural Engagement, ed. by Karen Swallow Prior and Joshua Chatraw (Zondervan, 2019).

"Competing Conceptions of Marriage, Family, and Procreation: Moral Reasoning and Assisted Reproductive Technologies," Augustine Collegiate Review 3/1 (Summer 2019), 35-52.

"Source for Ethics," in Christian Worldview Handbook, ed. by David S. Dockery and Trevin K. Wax (Holman Reference, 2019), 113-117.

"On Human Dignity, Compassion, and Physician-Assisted Suicide," in Canon and Culture, October 2015.

"Ethical and Moral Reasoning," in Faith and Learning: A Handbook of Christian Higher Education, ed. by David S. Dockery (B&H, 2012).

"Christian Engagement in Secular Society: Politics, The Gospel, and Moral Influence," in The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology (Winter 2007), 22-36.

"What does Contraception have to do with Abortion? Evangelicals vs. Augustine and Roe v. Wade," in The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 7/2 (Summer 2003), 54-67.

"Childlessness," in New Dictionary of Biblical Theology (Leicester, England: Inter-Varsity Press), 2000.

"Marriage, Procreation and Infertility: Reflections on Genesis," in The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology (Spring 2000).

About Dr. Magnuson

Dr. Magnuson has taught Christian Ethics for more than two decades. His interests are in the structure of ethics, with attention to teleology, virtue, and divine commands, as well as contemporary issues related to family, sexuality, the dignity of human life, and a theology of work. Ultimately Dr. Magnuson is interested in what it means for believers to strive to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. In addition to serving as Executive Director of ETS, he serves as Professor of Christian Ethics at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and as an adjunct professor of Christian Ethics at Phoenix Seminary. Dr. Magnuson and his wife Katherine have four children and reside in Phoenix, Arizona.