Response to Harold O. J. Brown
Myron S. Augsburger
"For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one....
to create in himself one new man out of the two.... to reconcile both of
them to God through the cross...." Ephesians
2:14-16
Introduction
Christian ethics is a Christological life-style. While ethics is the science of morality, the guide for right behavior, the underpinning of integrity, Christian ethics finds its full character in the Christ who lived the will the God. Ethics emphasizes the higher expression of humanness, of being human, responsible, free moral agents, of being made in the image of God with the inner resource of a God-given conscience. Ethics, with its various concerns, deals with our relation with others. Therefore ethics, while personal, is not private individualism; morality is never without social dimensions.
Reading the insightful presentation by Dr. Harold O. J. Brown has been a positive experience for me. His emphasis on knowing and doing, on word and deed, on living in obedience to the Word of God is excellent. His paper is a corrective for those who do not see the relation of love and law, of grace and obedience. His call for "orthopraxy" beyond existential experience is greatly needed among us evangelicals; likewise is his call to balance correct doctrine with consistent discipleship as Jesus
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commissioned us (Matthew 28:19-20). To my thinking he correctly calls for a separation of church and state that emphasizes the role of the church and keeps personal ethics from being hampered and social ethics from being supplanted by the state. His statement that a culture can become pagan while Christians in the culture may be unaware of the seriousness of changes taking place is very penetrating and relevant. I join him in the call for a quality revival that will bring about "the moral reformation of individuals and the transformation of society."
Perhaps between the two of us we can find a stance somewhere between the Reformed and the Anabaptist positions. In part because I stand in the Anabaptist theological position I do raise questions on some aspects of Dr. Brown's presentation. One issue is that our primary calling as Christians is to clarify an ethic for the people of God rather than to "shape the laws of the larger community, of secular society." Christians living by the will of God will qualitatively enrich society.
Another area calling for more clarity is the primacy of God's kingdom. This was basic to the Anabaptist movement, which before Menno had already spread so widely that as Roland Bainton has said, "both Catholics and Lutherans were afraid that all of Europe would become Anabaptist," evidenced by their call for a clear separation of church and state. This was based not on a political but a theological interpretation of the Lordship of Christ, a position held by my colleague as well. This theology in turn calls for an emphasis on reconciliation, love, justice, and peace.
I note the absence of expression of ethical concern over nuclear arms as he lists the two great issues in the U.S. since World War II as
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consisting in the civil rights movement, and abortion on demand. I also question the references to Emperor Constantine who made church and society (state) to be coterminous, without adequate reference to the resultant "fallen church" or the difference between a Christian state and a "Christian nation." Further, his reference to "value pluralism" and the apparent negation of pluralism seems to make the acceptance of the general pluralism of our "global village" as a setting for evangelistic dialogue something less than acceptable. And finally, more attention should be given to the global network of Christians as our affirmation of the primacy of the body of Christ, affirming as it does the presence of his kingdom, as a realm which is trans-racial, trans-cultural, and trans-national.
A Third Way
My approach to ethics from the Anabaptist perspective, with its high view of Scripture as supreme authority, involving a high Christology which maintains a high view of the community of the redeemed as those who pursue whole-life discipleship, serves to interpret ethics first for the people of God. Separation of church and state is not to be understood as antistructure, but rather freedom in and from societal structures even while we respect them as serving in God's order for creation.
In placing the priority on the Kingdom of God I have frequently described this as a "Third Way," one which recognizes with Paul that there is Greek and Jew but also the people of God as a "Third Way" (1 Corinthians 10:32). To contemporize, there is a rightist and a leftist position but also a "Third Way" that is not structured as a similar position but exists as a critique of each that
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may accept and reject elements of both, depending on an understanding of God's will as discerned by the community of faith.
Biblical Realism
Evangelicals could well work together to achieve a Biblical Realist approach to ethics, especially from a Christological perspective. This would mean that we take the historical Jesus seriously just as we take the historicity of Jesus seriously. Christ expressed the will of God in his total person, in his words, in his deeds, and in his person as the Word Incarnate. The interpretation of ethics Christologically means that we relate ethics to Christ just as we relate salvation to Christ. This calls for identification with Christ in the totality of our lives.
Jesus' emphasis on the two "tablets" of God's will, the first and second commandments, emphasizes one of the higher expressions of social ethics to be found in the Old Testament, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" (Leviticus 19:18). He equalized this commandment with the "first" commandment, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all they heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, and with all thy strength." The two are readily held together when we understand the meaning of love as opening one's life to what God is doing in the neighbor, friend, or enemy; we don't close anyone out! It is in this sense of openness to God's activity and will for all peoples that we live by the commandment to love the neighbor as one loves himself or herself. This immediately involves us in social ethics.
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With Dr. Brown I am calling us to the engagement of ethical practices in family life and sexual morality, community life and the place of worship, the work ethic and stewardship, discipleship and integrity, education and ideals, social order and political accountability, and finally evangelism and justice / peace concerns. The interfacing of the personal and the social is inescapable in each of these areas. We are in no way lone individualists in society but are a part of the social order in which we live as lights to the world, as salt to the earth.
It has been a mistake when we have let the negations of evangelism on the part of liberals in turn drive conservatives to champion a narrow evangelism that neglects the social areas of life and leave it to those engaged in social services to serve without any reference to the gospel. As Carl F.H. Henry has said, "Christianity is always personal but it is never private." Another has said, "We never grow spiritually at the expense of our brother; we only grow spiritually as we take the brother along."
Signs of the Kingdom
In Dr. Brown's fine paper, the concluding section points out the mutual degeneration of society and of Christianity. However, we must reach for something more than a call of obedience to law, even the "law of Christ." From a Christological hermeneutic, the redemptive work of God reflected in the "signs of the Kingdom" manifest in the redeemed community, focuses for us the dynamic of transforming grace. The will of God is actualized only by fellowship with the risen Christ. Jesus himself calls us from law to grace, not only as saving acceptance but as "saved" actions. This moves us from doctrine to practice, to which Dr. Brown calls us as evangelicals.
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From my perspective, with Christ as the foundation for ethics, we must achieve a more consistent balance than do those whose "right to life" emphasis is more for the unborn than for the born, i.e. the neighbor across national lines; or than those who see abortion on demand as an ultimate evil but who do not speak to the nuclear threat as a moral evil. We cannot deal with social ethics and avoid serious discussion of justice, human rights peace, freedom and compassion ministries to those who are poor in this world. Christians who are leaders in the political or social areas have the unique opportunity to influence systems to take Christian insights seriously as they influence policy and practice for the well-being of society.
Theological Premises
There are several theological positions which we must recognize as shaping our different convictions on issues:
1. Christology is central for ethics. Not only do we affirm our faith that Jesus Christ is very Son of God and son of man, we also identify with him in our lives. In his redemption we relate ethics to Christology in the same way in which we relate salvation to Christology. That is, we are saved in relation to Jesus and we behave in relation to Jesus.
2. Incarnation is God's affirmation that humanness and sinfulness are not synonymous. Jesus Christ could be truly human without being sinful. Therefore, it follows that in the new birth, in regeneration, God is recreating the truly or ideally human as he recreates us in the image of Christ.
3. Christian ethics is primarily for the redeemed community. The evangelical church speaks much about our "fallenness," our
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sinfulness being a fact which each honest person knows very well. But fallenness is our condition, not our confession! In Christ we are redeemed, that is, liberated from the dominance of sin even while it exists in our lives. Our affirmation is that we are reconciled, brought into right relationship with God "in Christ."
4. Evangelism is a confrontational, life-enriching faith expressed amidst social pluralism. As Dr. Brown says, pluralism is being made into another "ism" like secularism or materialism. However, we can respect the rights of persons to hold any one of many positions in our society and then engage them in a new level of evangelistic dialogue. As our lives express the quality and power of our new life in Christ, we enrich the world around us, elevating their perception and standards by interaction with the higher ethic of the Christian community. A lack of ethical integrity on the part of Christians not only fails God in his expectations of his disciples but fails God in failing to impact the world for a better society.
5. Kingdom values surely involve positive service. As a redeemed community we are a presence of the Kingdom, i.e., a rule of God in society. Seeking first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness (Matthew 6::33) is not a privatistic faith. Paul writes that "God has translated us from the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of his dear Son" (Colossians 1:13), and this is a present reality. While we live in the world we are not of the world; we are members of the Kingdom of God.
6. Loving one's neighbor is socially constructive. Such love is not easy; it may be quite costly, but it is lasting in its qualitative enrichment. Agapé love, unconditional yet "tough" love, combines personal and social ethics in attitudes and actions of care,
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correction, and compassion. This neighbor-love stands in direct contradiction to Western individualism.
7. Evangelical faith, shaped by a Biblical Realism, expresses the higher social ethic. Western society, idealizing the ethic of utilitarianism (the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people) must be confronted by the Christian ethic of the will of God for the greater righteousness of all people.
There is no way in which evangelism can be reduced to a privatistic act of commitment, for commitment to Christ engages each disciple in the will of God. On the other hand, there is no way in which the biblical ethic of love for one's neighbor is fulfilled by deeds of kindness alone without sharing the most important thing in life, life in Christ.
Being Christian in the Socio-Political Orders
Our approach to the social and political orders is not one of manipulation, coercion, nor of attempts to control these orders. Rather, we share in the quality of the gospel, respecting the voluntary responses of faith. This approach calls us to respect the freedoms of those who think other than we do about God, be they Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Animist, or atheist. In our respect for the freedom of others we in turn strengthen possibilities for our own freedom as we call those in authority to seek the freedom and equity of all alike.
The evangelistic approach is to make faith an option for others. It is not trying to control social or political orders but is instead holding them accountable to live up to the highest level of ethics represented in their community of the governed. Being a Christian presence in society, the church is to make that society
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aware of the relevance of the ethics of Christ, of the Sermon on the Mount, and to call people to take this with utmost seriousness. In so doing, persons will become aware of their own sinfulness and their need of Christ himself and many will be converted. Others who don't experience conversion will still be enriched by their interaction with the Christian ideal; and consequently the social order will be enriched by the people of God serving as "salt to the earth."
Conclusion
Holiness and love are propagated by example, not merely by propositions. Since the Christian life is lived in the social context, it is impossible for one to walk with Christ and not make decisions and perform actions informed by and expressing an intelligent faith. It is unavoidable that Christians deal with issues such as justice, racism, violence, family, education, abortion, alcoholism, drugs, labor and management, compassion for the poor, the right use of power, freedom, peace, art, health, and human rights.
As "God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son..." so we are to love the world, to seek in every way possible to extend his love into society.
