Path: christian Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian From: hedrick@cs.rutgers.edu Subject: Deeds and rules in Christian ethics Approved: christian@dumas.rutgers.edu A number of people have been upset by Louie's posting on sexual ethics. At least some of it is because of an impression that Louie meant to say "everything goes". In fact what he was explicitly attacking was a particularly legalistic approach towards sexual ethics, the sort of thing that leads kids to spend their time considering exactly "how far they can go" without violating the letter of the law. I can see where people got the impression that Louie was suggesting the opposite extreme, though I'm not sure he really was. As many of you probably know, there was a movement some time ago called "situation ethics". It was interpreted as saying that Christians shouldn't have rules. They should simply go into situations determined to act in the most loving manner. The view was buttressed with all sorts of examples of difficult situations where adultery and other supposedly illicit actions might turn out to be the best thing one could do. It's been too many years, so I don't recall the details, but at least some of the situations involved things like Nazi prison camps where people had only a few choices, all of them bad. I think this position was fairly soundly rejected by Christians, even fairly "liberal" ones like me. One problem is that it leaves no room for commitments. If you don't have a basic rule that says you abide by your commmitments, then there are a number of relationships built on trust that you simply can't have. More generally, rules are useful as protection against being overcome by the heat of the moment. There are ethical judgements that depend upon long-run consequences. If we make decisions on a moment-by-moment basis, we going to tend not to take these into account. Two books that I recommend in this area are Paul Ramsey's "Deeds and Rules in Christian Ethics" and Sisela Bok's "Lying". Ramsey's book explores the importance of rules in allowing trust and long-term relationships. Bok's provides a detailed example of a careful ethical treatment of a difficult issue. Bok is a philosopher, who got involved in the ethical implications of lying in areas such as medicine. I won't summarize all of her discussion. The point is that lying often appears to be helpful in saving embarassment, etc. The problems only become apparent when you look at the long-run consequences. It slowly becomes apparent that lies that appear at first glance to be protecting people often end up preventing them from having control over their lives. Thus I see several reasons it is useful to have ethical rules or guidelines: They establish a structure that people can rely on, and allow them to build long-term, trusting relationships, and they help protect us against seeing only immediate implications of actions. As many of you know, my general approach to ethics tends to be anti-legalist. I do not believe that Christians are bound by the Law, nor do I believe in treating Jesus' or Paul's teaching as a new Law. I do believe that ultimately, a Christian's actions must be based on love for God and our neighbor. However I also believe that it is unfair to put people in the position of having to determine what is most loving "on the fly", without any analysis, and without the benefit of guidelines that might protect them from the heat of the moment. Careful ethical analysis will look at Biblical teachings on the subject, what can be determined about the context of those teachings, the experience of Christians over the centuries, and whatever we can determine about long-term consequences of actions. The result will not be a Law that can never be violated. There are always extreme situations involving lunatics holding a gun on you, etc. (Bok points out that there are situations where lying is defensible. But typically they involve clear threats to life or other important values. She considers lying fairly close to force, and would limit it to similar situations.) In the worst case, we may find ourselves in a situation where all of our alternatives are bad, and we can only try to choose the one whose consequences look the best. The result of Christian ethics will be guidelines that most of us will be able to stay within most of the time, and an understanding of the religious values and long-term dangers involved, so that if we do have to trade off two bad possibilities, we'll have a reasonable idea of what we are getting into. The ill-fated Presbyterian report on human sexuality is an interesting example. I agree with its overall approach. The problem however is that it seems somewhat too free to abandon traditional ethics without doing the analysis necessary to be sure that we have an appropriate replacement. They do give a couple of examples of responsible analysis. Their treatment of sexual relationships between pastors and parishoners was detailed, and took careful account of the dangers involved. Incidentally, the conclusions were relatively conservative. For a report that generally seems to be removing rules, this section established a few. This is in great contrast to the section on pre-marital intercourse. The watchword there is "responsible" sex. The question is not whether someone is married or not, but whether their sexual actions are responsible. Now I think I agree with this in principle. But if we are going to take this sort of position, we owe it to our people to be very careful in examining the possible consequences, including the implications for our experience of sex as a symbol for God's involvement with us. We should be prepared to suggest guidelines and provide appropriate warnings. It is not enough to wave the word "responsible" around. I do not claim that I have an answer. Like Mike Bushell's posting, I recognize that we are in a different situation than 1st Cent. Christians, and that we may come to different conclusions in some areas. But I would like to see someone look at the consequences of pre-marital sexual practices (and not just intercourse) carefully, consider the fact that for Christians sexual relationships have religious implications, and help us understand what guidelines may be necessary. I do agree with Louie that whatever guidelines we come up with ought not to encourage Christians to play sexual "brinksmanship". I understand David Wagner's concern that Louie was proposing a straw man. Seeing how far you can go without violating the letter of the law is surely not a Christian way of doing things. Yet I think the way sexual ethics is presented does at times result in this sort of thing. Path: christian Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian From: gilham@csl.sri.com (Fred Gilham) Subject: Re: Pre-marital sex Organization: Computer Science Lab, SRI International, Menlo Park, CA. Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu Hedrick@cs.rutgers.edu writes: ---------------------------------------- ...This is in great contrast to the section on pre-marital intercourse. The watchword there is "responsible" sex. The question is not whether someone is married or not, but whether their sexual actions are responsible. Now I think I agree with this in principle. But if we are going to take this sort of position, we owe it to our people to be very careful in examining the possible consequences, including the implications for our experience of sex as a symbol for God's involvement with us. We should be prepared to suggest guidelines and provide appropriate warnings. It is not enough to wave the word "responsible" around. I do not claim that I have an answer. Like Mike Bushell's posting, I recognize that we are in a different situation than 1st Cent. Christians, and that we may come to different conclusions in some areas. But I would like to see someone look at the consequences of pre-marital sexual practices (and not just intercourse) carefully, consider the fact that for Christians sexual relationships have religious implications, and help us understand what guidelines may be necessary. ... ---------------------------------------- The common thread that seems to run through what Chuck Hedrick and Mike Bushell say is that our carefully considered moral judgements hold more validity than certain statements in the bible (``Flee fornication,'' for example). While it's true that we need to interpret the bible in the light of our current situation, we still have to come to grips with the issue of whether we are ultimately going to sit in judgement on it, or it on us. In the light of the way our society is obsessed with sex, I kind of doubt that we have the objectivity to make accurate judgements in this area. I'm concerned that we can mask an unwillingness to live up to the level Jesus wants of us by simply saying that he didn't really mean for us to try. I don't know what `responsible sex' means, unless it means sex within the context of a lifelong commitment. From what I read Jesus having said about it, that seems to be his point of view as well. The fact that at some times this is more difficult than others doesn't change this. When Jesus says, ``It was not so from the beginning,'' he says that, regardless of what people do, there's something that God calls us to that's better than that. Jesus didn't come to deliver us into moral autonomy. Humanity already has that as a result of a certain episode involving a serpent and a fruit. Instead, as Romans puts it, ``God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the just requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.'' By the Spirit we become free enough that things like love and self-control become possible. Love allows us to enter into life-long commitments and self-control allows us to keep them. It seems to me that there's a difference between saying, ``Go and sin no more,'' and ``That's not a sin.'' The first is forgiveness and liberation. The second is hanging christmas decorations in someone's jail cell. I can't help feeling that talking about responsible sex outside of marriage is simply another instance of the `church' trying to become accepted by society by baptizing its practices. Isn't this an instance of what Jesus meant when he talked about salt losing its saltiness? -- -Fred Gilham gilham@csl.sri.com [I can't speak for Mike. My own view is that we are committed to making ethical decisions based on Scripture. The question is how to apply it. This means that any arguments involving sexual standards would not be entirely ones of practical effect. They would also have to connect any proposed new ethical policies with Biblical standards. I intended to say this when I spoke of considering both practical effects and the religious implications of proposed changes. There are examples of Christian judgements that have changed. E.g. the Bible clearly prohibited taking of interest. Most early Christians believed it prohibited members of the military and tax collectors being Christian. It was widely believed by many Christians that the Bible endorsed the institution of slavery. We have reversed these judgements. Most people now regard that the significance of interest and taxation in our current economic system is different enough that the prohibition against interest and the NT's negative judgements on tax collectors no longer apply. "usury" is now interpreted as meaning excessive interest. No one even considers that NT comments about tax collectors might apply to employees of the IRS. I know of two major arguments that are typically made for changing standards. One is that there are enough changes in social context that acts no longer have the same meaning. This is the case with usury and tax collectors. Another form of argument is that there are things in the Bible that are advice given for a specific circumstance. This is most typically used with some of Paul's letters, though of course in a more general sense it applies to many of the OT rules, which are specific to a covenant that doesn't apply to us. Since "fornication" is a fairly vague term to begin with (it refers to illicit sexual acts in a fairly general way), I can imagine the church rethinking what ought to be considered fornication, just as it has defined what is considered "usury". I haven't seen any analysis that convinces me that such a redefinition is appropriate. But there have been enough changes in the social context surrounding marriage that I'm at least willing to listen. Discussions like this always elict lots of responses saying that all we have to do is to take the Bible "literally". The problem is that people's "literal" reading of the Bible is colored by a whole set of implicit judgements. If you really want to read the Bible literally, you regard IRS employees as sinners, you refuse to take oaths in court, etc. But people read through these passages and never even think of these things. However they read the word "fornication", and it is immediately obvious to them that the Bible is prohibiting pre-marital intercourse. Thus people's "literal" reading seems strangely selective. My argument is that the concept of literal interpretation is self-delusion. It's an attempt to pretend that we aren't making judgements. It's better to admit that we make judgements about how to apply Scripture, and to do so self-consciously and intelligently. This does not mean that we decide to ignore Scripture. I do not ever suggest doing that. Rather I think the issue is deciding how to apply Scripture: are there specific rules that we can properly apply to the situation or do we have to work things out based on more general principles? A full treatment involves looking at all of the evidence, including how Jesus or Paul handled specific situations, and the range of principles that might apply. I know many Christians don't like this suggestion. But the alternative seems to be to accept what your parents taught you, and imagine that it's a "literal" reading of Scripture. --clh]