Christian Ethics and the Church

Philip Turner

Description

This book introduces Christian ethics from a theological perspective. Philip Turner, widely recognized as a leading expert in the field, explores the intersection of moral theology and ecclesiology, arguing that the focus of Christian ethics should not be personal holiness or social reform but the common life of the church. A theology of moral thought and practice must take its cues from the notion that human beings, upon salvation, are redeemed and called into a life oriented around the community of the church. This book distills a senior scholar's life work and will be valued by students of Christian ethics, theology, and ecclesiology.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Christian theology

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 29 septembre 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781441223203
• Langue: English

Extrait

© 2015 by Philip Turner
Published by Baker Academic
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www . bakeracademic . com
Ebook edition created 2015
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4412-2320-3
Scripture quotations are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
It will be the task of our generation, not to “seek great things,” but to save and promote our souls out of the chaos, and to realize that it is the only thing we can carry as a “prize” from the burning building. . . . We shall have to keep our lives rather than shape them, to hope rather than plan, to hold out rather than march forward. . . . It will not be difficult for us to renounce privileges, recognizing the justice of history.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Grant, O merciful God, that your Church, being gathered together in unity by your Holy Spirit, may show forth your power among all peoples, to the glory of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Book of Common Prayer
Contents
Cover i
Title Page iii
Copyright Page iv
Epigraph v
Preface ix
Introduction xiv
Part 1 The Focus of Christian Ethics: Three Accounts 1
1. John Cassian’s Ethic of Individual Sanctification 3
2. Walter Rauschenbusch’s Ethic of Social Redemption 19
3. John Howard Yoder’s Ethic of Communal Witness 38
Part 2 A Prismatic Case: The Epistle to the Ephesians 59
4. The Goal and Basis of Life Together in Christ: A Reading of the Epistle to the Ephesians (Part One) 61
5. The Character of Life Together in Christ: A Reading of the Epistle to the Ephesians (Part Two) 77
Part 3 Possible Exceptions 105
6. Possible Exceptions: The Self 107
7. Possible Exceptions: Society 125
Part 4 The Shape of an Ecclesial Ethic 151
8. The Goal, Basis, and Character of an Ecclesial Ethic 153
9. The Ecclesial Setting of a Devout and Holy Life 176
10. An Ecclesial View of Life in Civil Society 198
11. An Ecclesial View of Life within Political Society (Part One) 218
12. An Ecclesial View of Life within Political Society (Part Two) 245
Afterword 267
Bibliography 270
Scripture Index 277
Author Index 283
Subject Index 285
Back Cover 290
Preface
This book has taken shape over the last decade, but its origin lies even further back in time. From 1961 to 1971 I served as a missionary of the Episcopal Church assigned to the Church of Uganda. During that time I spent a year in the bush learning to speak one of the twenty-eight languages found within Uganda’s borders. I taught for several years in a Church of Uganda seminary located in a little village near the capital, Kampala. I took a year out to study social anthropology at Oxford University and returned to teach in the Department of Religious Studies at Makerere University. During this decade, I worked closely with the African leadership that came into office with Uganda’s independence. In particular, I came to know Archbishop Janani Luwum, who was killed by Idi Amin. My many conversations with him and my experience of the life of the Church of Uganda led me to change my view of the calling of the church and the nature of its relation to society.
In my case the change was marked. A seminary professor of mine once said of me, “Where you come from [in my case Virginia], being an Episcopalian is something that happens in certain families.” His observation was on the mark. I was born into a family whose members had been Episcopalian since colonial times. I went to an Episcopal school, and the Episcopal Church financed my graduate education.
The church into which I was born and in which I grew up prided itself on its cultural position, its influence, and its openness to new learning. It understood its mission as being the religious and moral tutor of an educated and Christian society. The school I attended taught my fellow students and me that our privilege carried with it a responsibility to serve society and live an exemplary life. The Episcopal Church was part of a far wider coalition of liberal Protestant churches that saw their mission in much the same way. They were to encourage tolerance and justice in society and provide its religious foundation.
That is my background, but I lived outside of the United States for a decade—from 1961 to 1971. I missed the 1960s in America, but I observed my country from afar, and I came to realize that the world in which I had been raised was passing away. More importantly, I came to realize that the churches in the United States were being pushed to the social margins in a manner similar to the way in which the churches in Europe in an earlier period had lost their dominant social position. I came to believe that the churches in the United States were addressing their changed circumstances in exactly the wrong way. They were expending enormous energies to maintain their social position, and in so doing they failed to realize the extent to which their previous attachment to social position and cultural relevance had actually compromised their integrity. I came to believe that the most immediate calling of the churches is to form a culture in which Christ is taking form rather than to transform a culture.
These perceptions came about in part because I was immersed in the life of a church that was as different from mine as night is different from day. To be sure, the Church of Uganda was not without its own social ambitions. It had been the church of the colonial power that made Uganda a protectorate. The Church Missionary Society, whose successes were not unrelated to the British Raj, had evangelized it. The Church of Uganda had benefited from a close association not only with the ruling colonial power but also with Uganda’s ruling class. It is not surprising that, following the lead of the Church of England, it somewhat pretentiously took the name “the Church of Uganda.”
That said, it was not the lay and clerical leadership that supplied the dynamism of the Church of Uganda. The East African Revival supplied the energy. Its members stressed the importance of sudden and dramatic conversion, and they placed great emphasis on the marked changes in “lifestyle” that were to accompany conversion. They also stressed the necessity of public witness on the part of every Christian. They required participation in “fellowship meetings,” at which sins were publically confessed, backsliders challenged, and people in doubt counseled.
The ways of this church were strange to me—even a little off-putting. Personal testimony was frowned upon within Episcopal circles, and what appeared to me a harsh moralism frequently surfaced within the attitudes and actions of “the brethren” (as they termed themselves). Nevertheless, I could not get away from the fact that the common life of the Church of Uganda lay far closer to that of the church of the New Testament than did that of the Episcopal Church (and for that matter most of the other churches in the United States). Over time I was compelled to ask if I did not have something of great importance to learn from this church—something about the calling of the church and the character of its common life that was missing in the churches I knew about in North America.
The reason for my change of mind and heart can best be explained by recounting an experience I had one Friday afternoon in 1962. On that day, I attended the “fellowship meeting” held by the brethren who worked for or lived near the tea estate on which I was living. On that day, a young couple asked the members of the fellowship to help them with what appeared to them to be an irresolvable conflict between their newly found faith and the advice they were getting from the husband’s fellow employees at Texaco (where he had recently been employed). His new employment meant that he would have to move from the countryside into the city of Kampala. There, he had been told, he would need to take out an insurance policy on his property because of the rampant thievery present in the city. He was also told that he would need to procure a watchdog that was willing to attack because the thieves were violent and often killed their victims.
These two suggestions seemed contrary to the couple’s newfound belief and way of life. Had not Jesus commanded his disciples to take no thought for the morrow, and had he not told them, when attacked, to turn the other cheek? It seemed to them that an insurance policy hardly presented the world with people who took no thought for the morrow, and a watchdog hardly seemed a way of turning the other cheek. They wondered if their newfound faith allowed for them to take this new and quite lucrative job. They asked the fellowship for advice that might set their conscience at rest.
As might be expected, the discussion of these issues among the brethren soon surfaced a “pro-watchdog party” and an “anti-watchdog party.” Similar divisions appeared when it came to buying insurance. After a lengthy discussion, the elders told the rest of us to pray while they withdrew to seek the Lord’s will. About a half an hour later, they returned and rendered their judgment. That judgment literally stunned me. They said that the couple could take out an insurance policy because, should they be robbed, they would no longer be living among the people who would take care of them. On the other hand, they should