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Dialogues@RU is published
annually
by the
Writing Program at
Rutgers, The State
University of New Jersey
Volume 4
Fall 2005
Ethical Christianity: A Reformation of the Protestant Church - Page 3
By Jeffrey C. Moon
His parables and maxims were better understood as radical extensions of past Judaic beliefs rather than as completely new ideas (Harris 60). Because Jesus' teachings, and any historical document from 50-90 CE, was composed for an audience different from contemporary readers, interpretation of the gospels was necessary (Harris 78). Consequently, to review the Christian beliefs, texts, and practices of days gone by for the purpose of making them meaningful in today's world would be to act like Jesus, and therefore wholly Christian. Understanding Ethical Christianity involves a historical hallmark of Protestant thinking ¾ a church ideology that guides its function and services based on the Bible together with contemporary knowledge and reasoning (Harris 21). Biblical hermeneutics constitutes the knowledge of current times that would affect the Protestant church. In following the tradition of Protestant Christianity, Ethical Christianity respects the validity and merit of factual historical findings concerning biblical events. With hermeneutical knowledge pervading churches, Protestant church services will be supported by twenty-first century modernity.
Jesus' ethical teachings reverberate through the Christian church and are expressed in a church's social engagement. Christianity's "best function in society is [in] its attempts to correct social wrong and provide meaning and support for life's journey" (Russel 4). These ethical actions are extensions of Jesus' teachings and effects of stressing ethical action. Ethics are moral philosophy, whose product is a set of principles of right conduct that direct a person's behavior. As Old Testament scholar and Oxford University professor of religion John Barton argues, "Ethics, as commonly understood, whose relation to the principal subject-matter of the biblical corpus and major aims of Christianity, is sometimes tangential and often only implicit" (25). This is why the foremost amendment to current Christianity begins with a change of priorities. Today's church services should shift the emphasis on songs, ritual, and prayer for forgiveness through belief in Jesus' death to teaching Christian wisdom and motivating ethical living.
So what constitutes Christian ethics? Since "ethics cannot be 'Christian' if they are not in some sense 'biblical'" (Barton 25), they will mostly come from the New Testament. Paul's letters are wonderful wells to tap concerning Christian morals, but the New Testament revolves around Jesus, so it is with him that the foundation of Ethical Christianity must be laid. However, composing a system of Jesus-based ethics is a difficult task. As Michael Ruse, a biblical scholar of the University of Guleph in Ontario , Canada , suggests,
In the preaching of Jesus we do not find an articulated moral system for ongoing societies ¾ not even for those of yesterday, let alone for the technology-fueled mega-groups within which we live today. It fell to Jesus' followers to develop and build an ethical system for societies that are going to persist and that are facing ongoing points of moral conflict, within and without. (290)
Paul was the first to undertake the process of creating Christian ethics (Harris 152). He stressed the love commandment and offered counsel to the new and growing Christian communities of biblical times. Paul's words have inspired Christians for two thousand years because his claims are insightful, articulate, and undoubtedly Christian, but if he were a contemporary author, he would be viewed as conservative for more than just his salvation concepts. Ruse observes that "[a]ccording to a strict Pauline Christianity, slavery as a social custom is accepted; the subordinate status of women is stressed; the immorality of homosexual activity is reaffirmed" (290). John Shelby Spong, a recently-retired Bishop of the Episcopal Church, believes the Protestant Church will inevitably experience a drastic change from its present conservative faith. Bishop Spong suggests that Paul's conservatism has no place when he champions actions that in some way limit others (77). Jesus preached the infinite value of every individual in his parables of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10) and Lost Sheep (Luke 15).