Making up our Mind : Moral Discernment in the UCA. Doctrine. Information offered by the National Working Group on Doctrine

Transcription

1 Making up our Mind : Moral Discernment in the UCA Doctrine Information offered by the National Working Group on Doctrine THE UNITING CHURCH IN AUSTRALIA Assembly

2 Introduction The Christian faith is as much concerned with how we live out our lives as with what we believe. The Christian faith involves discipleship and participation in God s mission as members of the community of faith. Believing, belonging and behaving are interrelated in Christian faith and provide the environment in which moral discernment and a Christian ethic take place. The importance of Christian ethics Christian ethics is important for several reasons. It can form the integrity and character of our personal lives. It can colour our common life together in the church. It can help us shape the way in which we approach difficult issues concerning a range of complex matters in private and public life, such as euthanasia, abortion, sexual orientation, care of the environment, human rights, asylum seekers, war and peace, market economics, genetic engineering, business values, information technology, virtual reality etc. There is a need for the Church to provide opportunities for biblical, theological and pastoral study. There is also a need to provide opportunities to reflect on how a Christian ethic is formed and exercised in daily life. Congregations are more likely to have conflict over moral and ethical matters than theological ones. So assisting people to appreciate what is involved in Christian ethics is especially important. Many outside the Christian faith are rightly critical of Christians and the Churches for obvious failures in ethical matters, such as sexual abuse and financial scandals.

3 Context Our lives require moral discernment and making ethical choices. How individuals and communities negotiate these is not always clear. Simon Blackburn says: We have all learned to become sensitive to the physical environment. We know that we depend upon it, that it is fragile, and that we have the power to ruin it, thereby ruining our lives, or more probably those of our descendants. Perhaps fewer of us are sensitive to what we might call the moral or ethical environment; this is the surrounding climate of ideas about how to live. 1 These ideas come from our families, our society, peer groups, the media and the Church. We exercise moral discernment in a context that is post-christendom in which, in countries like Australia, the close relationship between culture and the Christian faith is a thing of the past. The public domain has historically been shaped at a foundational level by a Christian ethic but it no longer has such dominance; a range of worldviews compete for influence. Western culture is now characterised by individualism and consumerism. There has been a loss of community and the emergence of different ways of relating, especially electronically through mobile phones and the internet. For people from the Pacific the context is different. The Christian faith has been well received in Pacific nations but accommodated to a raft of cultural practices. It is also post-colonial. 2 For people who come from Asia, the context is also different: highly pluralistic in terms of religions, cultures and spiritual philosophies with Christianity a minority, though a distinctive minority. Those who have come to live in Australia from the Pacific, Asia or Africa bring their different experiences as well as having to understand the changing Australian context. The challenge for all Christians, whatever their background, is to seek to make appropriate decisions that are congruent with Christian faith. So it is helpful to examine what Christian ethics involves in order that people may live as individuals and communities that endeavour to be faithful to God as revealed by Jesus Christ.

4 What is ethics? The word ethics comes from the Greek language: ethike which has to do with morals, based on ethos which means nature or disposition. Like theology, with which it is connected, ethics is a second order reflection. It is reflection about what we should think, say and do. Neil Messer says ethics has to do with deciding what is right and wrong, good and bad, obligation and value. 3 Often it is not clear cut what an appropriate ethical response might be. So ethics is concerned with considering what we ought to do, or not do, and the kinds of people and communities we ought to be, or become. Ethics and morality are often used to mean much the same thing. Ethics is the thinking through of our often assumed morality. Our morality has to do with the rules and principles to which we adhere, our convictions about right and wrong, the values and goals by which we live our lives. Ethics reflects on these critically, analysing our moral rules and principles, and working out criteria for making judgments about right and wrong. Christian ethics In discussing Christian ethics, we are locating our talk of right and wrong, good and bad, obligation and value, in the context of Christian faith. It is part of Christian theology and, like theology generally, the sources for assisting us to make ethical decisions are: Scripture, tradition, reason and experience. For Protestant Christians, Scripture is primary but needs to be interpreted. There are many contemporary issues that Scripture does not deal with explicitly. The other sources, however, are not independent. Richard Hays says these other sources stand in a hermeneutical relation to Scripture. 4 They can help us to read and interpret Scripture and bring its guidance to bear on new and unfamiliar situations. Christian ethics is informed by our understanding of God and the world known through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. The life and teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus are central. This gives us a worldview that shapes our moral vision and provides a distinctive motivation. Paul says, We are ruled by the love of Christ (2 Cor. 5:14). We seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit to enable us to discern what to think and how to act in accord with God s loving and just purposes.

5 Discerning a Christian ethic While the Christian faith has no overarching, comprehensive moral system, there is guidance and there are processes for determining a Christian ethical position. Jesus was a teacher but did not set out to develop a methodology and ethical theory. Rather he proclaimed the coming reign of God, invited even those regarded as sinners into it, and called people to live according to its values. His teaching was typically given in story form or picturesque sayings. At the end of his parable of the Good Samaritan Jesus told his hearers, Go and do likewise (Luke 10:37). Discernment is needed for the Bible often provides us with more than one ethical perspective. People can come to different ethical conclusions with integrity. We are called to follow the way of Jesus Christ. Paul tells the Corinthians to imitate him as he imitates Christ (1 Cor. 11:1). Similarly he urges the Philippians to have the same mind that was in Christ Jesus (Phil. 2:5). While Paul endeavours to explain what this means, there is what has been called the problem of hermeneutical distance. That is, how do we interpret the Biblical text, given its time and culture, to our very different context? It was not easy to do so in Biblical times. It is even more difficult now. It takes more than asking, What would Jesus do? Christian ethics seeks to interpret a situation by including Jesus Christ into the relationship between the moral agent and those who will be affected by whatever choice is made. Soren Kierkegaard argued that Jesus Christ is the middle term in Christian ethics. 5 Christianity is primarily expressed in community life. Therefore moral discernment involves followers of Jesus discerning how best to respond drawing upon the community of faith and Christian tradition. They benefit from the experience and wisdom of others who also look to Jesus and seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The Uniting Church values its Reformed and Evangelical tradition which emphasises Scripture, appreciates scholarly interpreters, urges prayerful reflection and thoughtful conversation between people in making moral discernments. Christian moral discrimination is aware of the human bias towards sin that puts oneself ahead of the well-being of others. It endeavours to be consistent with what we know of Jesus, his message of the loving and just reign of God, his non-violent actions, and his compassion especially for the least.

6 Some considerations The Bible is not a set of rules; it is richer and more varied. There are various sources of ethical reflection in the Bible including stories, psalms and proverbs, the words and actions of the prophets, and examples and discussions of right and wrong behaviour. There are laws and commands, most famously the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-7), the Great Commandment (Mark 12:30-31), the Golden Rule (Matt. 7:12), and the hard call of Jesus to love your enemies (Matt. 5:44). Richard Hays points out that the Bible has rules, principles, paradigms and a symbolic world. All are needed but he suggests that the ethical material in narrative form should take precedence because the New Testament is above all the story of God s work in Jesus Christ. 6 Hence the ethics of the Church necessarily derives primarily from the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. The Church lives from the crucified and risen One in the power of the Holy Spirit. It is not only informed by the story of Jesus but is to be formed into his likeness and guided by his Spirit. It seeks God s reign of love, justice and peace which he announced and embodied. Two of the major ways of approaching ethics are: 1) focusing on duties and 2) considering the consequences. In the first the emphasis is on doing what is right no matter what the outcome. Paul Ramsey for example places the command to love your neighbour at the heart of Christian ethics. 7 For him this generates absolute moral principles. The second approach emphasises doing what is good, that is has positive outcomes. Joseph Fletcher put forward a theory of situation ethics. 8 Wanting to get away from legalism, he drew attention to the command to love your neighbour as yourself saying it meant seeking his or her good according to the particular time and context. So it is helpful to consider what is right and our duty, and what the likely consequences of our decisions will be. In doing so we need to take into account what Wells and Quash call right relationships for moral discernment takes place in social contexts and has to do with acting responsibly, taking into account human rights and considerations of justice. 9 In order to make considered ethical decisions it is clearly important to gain information about the particular situation one faces. Gaining an understanding of the context and the possible ramifications of alternative decisions provides information, though this does not necessarily make the decision any easier to make. Similarly, it is helpful to find out what other people have experienced and draw upon their knowledge in order to have that awareness in making ethical choices. The experience of those on the margins is particularly important in Christian ethical thinking for the God of the Bible is on the side of the poor and oppressed.

7 The Christian person and community Christian ethics is not just about ethical theory. The theologian Stanley Hauerwas has argued that we need to refocus our attention on questions of virtue and character in ethics. 10 He gives attention to what sort of people and communities we ought to be as Christians. From our character - which is formed by the choices we make, the habits we develop and the people we follow - flows our moral behaviour. The primary Christian virtues are faith, hope and love. Others include forgiveness, humility, joy and gratitude. Hauerwas emphasises the importance of the church as a community of character in which our characters are formed and where we develop skills and habits for living a life of discipleship. As our Christian character develops so we will more readily make ethical choices in line with our faith in Christ, though at times we will need to evaluate or reevaluate situations to ensure we really are doing so appropriately. We do so in conversation with others within and beyond the life of the church. In recent decades there has been a renewal of interest in the ethics of virtue and character. Moral discernment involves more than focusing on what seems to be right or considering the consequences. Hauerwas puts it this way, Christian ethics is not first of all an ethics of principles, rules or values, but an ethic that demands we attend to the life of a particular individual Jesus of Nazareth. 11 For those who participate in the Church s life and worship this story becomes our story. We are formed by it and it shapes the way we view the world. It is out of this particular environment of believing and belonging that we make decisions about how to behave. We pray that with the Spirit s help we may not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of (our) minds, so that (we) may discern what is the will of God what is good and acceptable and perfect (Romans 12:2).

8 Notes 1. Simon Blackburn, Introduction to Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) p Post-colonial refers to the situation of now independent nations that are living with the legacies of colonialism and imperialism. 3. Neil Messer, SCM Study Guide to Christian Ethics (London: SCM, 2006) p Richard Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, New Creation (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1997) p Hermeneutics has to do with the theory and practice of interpretation. So a hermeneutical relation to Scripture has to do with helping to interpret Scripture. 6. Soren Kierkegaard, A Kierkegaard Anthology (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973). 7. Richard Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament p Paul Ramsey, Basic Christian Ethics (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1993). 9. Joseph Fletcher, Situation Ethics (London: SCM, 1966). 10. Samuel Wells and Ben Quash, Introducing Christian Ethics (West Sussex: Wiley and Blackwell, 2010) pp Stanley Hauerwas, The Peaceable kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics (London: SCM, 2003). 12. Stanley Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom p.76. Uniting Church Australia 2013 National Assembly PO BOX A2266, Sydney South NSW 1235