Christian Ethics

Ethics are popular. It is assumed that we have a great need for ethical decision-making in many places today. We hear in media advertisements for real estate agents that before they are allowed to go to work, they are required to take courses in ethics. Many medical colleges have added coursework related to bio-ethical decision-making as a part of their curriculum. Law schools teach ethics. What was once the purview of the seminary or divinity school is now the commonplace focus of those in business, journalism, and science. Ethics is “in” and though it is a subscribed focus, no doubt created in the vacuum of many obvious areas of “ethical need,” it remains to be seen if such curriculum additions have any capacity at all to guide moral decision-making.

My personal view would be appreciative of all efforts to derive some increased awareness within our culture for ethical choices. What I question is the capacity of a secular approach to the problem in the first place. Without a basis for defining our ethical decisions, we do poorly to attempt a pragmatic shot-in-the-dark approach that stretches to find “the lowest common denominator” as our point of beginning or that haphazardly defines the ethical norm based on the average of opposite opinions. Casting about for answers in a moral conundrum is an effort of futility.

My suggestion would be to return to the discussion of ethics with a clearly purposeful aim. If our ethics is to achieve something more than a quick profit for the powers that be, then it will require of us attention to other matters entirely. Our primary attention, in my personal view would be to consider the basis of Christ-centered decision-making. The call of Jesus to a relationship of faith is also a call to obedience to God and service to mankind in transformative and beneficial ways. “Good works” that characterize the actions of those who follow Christ are an outgrowth of that relationship. Efforts to achieve good works apart from the moral foundation of Christian relationship often fail for lack of comprehension. Faith is the will to act in trust toward God’s command and calling. Faith invites us to redemptive work and the highest pursuits of aims and goals that bring blessing to others.

Is it wrong to seek ethical behaviors in our cultural relationships—not at all, but trusting the capacity of our values to be derived from the views of those who share no foundation for making those choices, is to invite disappointment. Am I suggesting that only Christians can make ethical decisions? – No. Neither would I suggest that those who call themselves Christians always make good ethical decisions. The nature of human sinfulness is apparent in many contexts, even those that publically associate themselves as Christian. The ultimate test will be…do our choices please God? Do we act in accord with His will? Do we comprehend the values of Christ that call us boldly to love our God…and our neighbor…and our enemy? Such ethics as these redefine life and community. The kind of love Jesus taught transforms the world. Daily, we make choices with Him or not, and we seem too often to find ourselves suffering the consequences of our abandoning the way of His truth.

Christian ethics may be to some a step “too far” on the landscape of ethics education, but as I see it, a step in any other direction is a step away--away from what we all are searching so desperately to see and to experience.