Teaching ethics in a local junior college is a great opportunity to impact minds in my community. A somewhat ancillary discussion we have had in class is the usage of moral and ethical–terms with no meaningful distinction, though sometimes associated with different quadrants of society (e.g. business & ethics, religion & morality). Within evangelicalism, we similarly have our own usage for these terms, adding to the list Christian living and growing in Christ, among others. Again, no meaningful distinction, except that for many Christians, ethics/morality is often associated with the hotly debated issues in our culture such as abortion and gay marriage whereas Christian living and growing in Christ generally relate to personal spiritual maturity. But couple this softer ethical language with statements such as “Christianity isn’t a list of rules, it’s a relationship” and suddenly right and wrong are undermined with “I’ll pray about it” which in many cases means “I’m not going to let a reasoned argument influence a very emotional and private decision.”
Yes, ethics is my academic hobby horse, but I am also motivated by ministry, concerned for families and the crucial life decisions that are made without full consideration of the implications and never learning to think Christianly about them. For many families, its just a medical decision or an economic decision–they are surprised later to learn that there were moral implications to be considered, or they knew that there were and they chose to “pray about it” instead of actually saying “this is right” or “this is wrong.” As a matter of sanctification, we need to discover how to bring a more deliberate role for ethics in the church, so that encouraging ethical reflection is not like walking on eggshells.
I’m so honored to be a part of this blog and look forward to the many conversations that will take place here. As I have been reading and reflecting on the meaning of “evangelical” I kept going back to what evangelicals think and do. I’m not sure we can do anything to change the way we talk about ethics in the church, but I believe any attempt to move away from trite or insincere language has the potential to make real impact on the church at large.
October 23rd, 2009 | 9:41 am | #1
One unrelated point: I’ve sometimes thought that there is a distinction between morals and ethics, at least in philosophical discourse. Elizabeth Anscombe argues in “Modern Moral Philosophy” that ‘morals’ as a term stems from the specifically law based reasoning of the middle ages that (she thinks) is no longer viable. So she rejects ‘morals’ as a term with any meaningful content for us, and argues instead that we need ‘virtues.’
At any rate, it’s a great little essay. Anscombe is one of the best.
October 23rd, 2009 | 11:10 am | #2
Thanks for this Sarah. You expressed something here I had never thought of but that rings true – that is the possible negative consequences of the common view that “Christianity is a relationship.” I hadn’t thought of this in relation to ethical deliberation, but your point makes perfect sense. This mentality is wider in the church as the feelings generated by a sense of “personal relationship” justify most everything. It fits well with Harold Bloom’s description of the “American Religion,” a religion which is all about me and my god to the exclusion of all else.
October 23rd, 2009 | 11:43 am | #3
[...] Evangelicalism, Ethics, and Eggshells by Sarah J. Flashing on Evangel [...]
October 23rd, 2009 | 2:54 pm | #4
Great post, Sarah. I too teach an ethics class – media ethics – so I’m familiar with trying to make the ethics/morals distinction. I think Matthew’s citing of Anscombe is very helpful. At any rate, I agree that we need to engage ethical discourse in the church, at the global and local levels. I think what needs to happen is that we need to extoll the virtues of reasoning, and how we must reason well about matters of ethical import. I try to make that point myself by suggesting that we think more before we talk. See http://wp.me/pFLQa-b. Thanks again for an excellent post!
October 24th, 2009 | 12:54 am | #5
I just thrilled there’s at least one lady who’ll be mixing it up here with the mens! One of my frustrations with American evangelicalism is the silo-ing of different areas of Christian thought – theology for the pastors and professors, ethics for scholars (Christian or otherwise), and general Christian “living” for the rest of us (divided up, of course, into sports-themed books for the regular guys, and homeschooling, scrapbooking and marriage advice for us ladies).
Blech. No wonder the American church is such a mess!
I’m looking forward to reading your posts, and to learning from your interactions with the many learned gentlemen here, as well as with Frank Turk.
:)
October 24th, 2009 | 6:55 pm | #6
Rachael, it’s also pretty scary writing among these men! But I hear you and much of what I do is motivated by a desire to undo the stereotypes. No matter your view on women’s roles in the church (and I am a complementarian) women have got to do more than crafts because we have so much influence in our society as wives, moms, and career professionals.
October 24th, 2009 | 10:57 pm | #7
I don’t think a virtue approach is outside the realm of morality. It just places the primary item to be evaluated morality in our character rather than our actions. Besides, Aquinas had an Aristotelian virtue approach that he thought was compatible with natural law, something he also saw the seeds of in Aristotle. The Stoics also combined the two.
I think it’s actually a misreading, albeit a common one, of Anscombe to think she’s saying law approaches are wrong. What she explicitly says is that they’re only going to make sense on theistic views, which most philosophers in her day had rejected. But she herself was a faithful Roman Catholic, so she hadn’t abandoned that. She said all naturalistic views had to avail themselves of is ancient non-law ethics, with character traits as the primary element of ethics rather than actions or rules. She did advocate looking in that direction herself, but I’m pretty sure she had no problem with moral laws in addition, as Aquinas did.
I happen to think that paper is terrible, by the way. I don’t think it clears much up. It knocks down straw man versions of modern moral philosophical positions. I’m sure her work improved, but that first paper that often gets credited with starting the modern revival of ancient virtue ethics isn’t all that philosophically sound.
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