Hi 0TH,
This is probably more of a reply than you were looking for, and for that I apologize, but your post does actually illustrate some popular misconceptions that it might be valuable to deal with in detail. I’m way behind schedule today, so I hope you won’t mind if I use a few more quotes than I normally would.
Originally posted by 0thehero And yet "Christian ethics" (whatever the hell that means) have been largely en vogue now more than ever in this country
Actually, that isn’t really the case at all. Let me try to explain why. First let’s start by defining what is meant by Christian ethics, here I’m going to be smashing a lot of distinctions flat and not discussing the various subdivisions in ethics (descriptive, normative, etc.) For the sake of argument I’ll use J. Douma’s definition from his
Responsible Conduct: Principles of Christian Ethics:
“Christian ethics is reflection upon moral conduct in light of the perspective offered us in Holy Scripture”.
Because the source of these ethics is the teaching of scripture (and largely the moral law – Ten Commandments and the further light shed on these commandments in the New Testament), these ethics are largely fixed and unchanging, and while interpretation may be necessary to fit them to particular circumstances, murder and theft will always be wrong and never right because they are contrary to God’s commandments. Thus Christian ethics are distinguished from Utilitarian ethics in that the ends
never justify the means and also profoundly different from what are commonly called
morals:
Historically there has been a profound difference between the concepts of morals and ethics. The word morals, coming from the Latin mores, means “manners” or “customs” and describes the behavioral patterns of people. The morality of a given group is simply what they do. If most of the people in the group are engaged in bank robbing, then that society has a morality of bank robbing.
The word ethics, on the other hand, comes from the Greek ethos meaning “foundation” or “root” and has to do with the philosophical basis for morality. It encompasses the reasons why certain behavioral patterns are better than others.
Ethics is concerned with what ought to be done, while morality is concerned with what is in fact going on. To put it another way, ethics is “ought-ness” and morals is “is-ness.”
The Christian perspective holds that people are required to do what they ought to do, and what they ought to do is determined by God. If, however, we deny the possibility and foundation of ethics and are left only with morals, then it is every person for himself or herself. Fyodor Dostoyevsky said it this way: “If there is no God, everything is permitted.” (RC Sproul, Before the Face of God)
Now amongst Americans only around 35% of Americans believe in absolute standards of morality according to polling done by the Barna group, and even fewer have what could be called a biblical world and life view. As an Evangelical pastor, I can tell you that the norm in the church these days is for Christians to essentially mimic the views of the pop-culture with only a thin Christian veneer placed over them. Consistent Christian theology and ethics has become very rare and the faith and practice of evangelicals is in many senses at its lowest ebb since the reformation. In most ways, Christians follow the culture in its desire for “stronger morals” but are often practically antinomian in their own practice.
Additionally while it may be your
perception that there is more Christianity in the USA than ever before, that perception actually comes from two misleading components. Firstly, evangelical Christians fought and lost the “culture war” between fundamentalism and modernism in both the public square and the mainline denominations in the early 20th century. Following those defeats they largely retreated from the political sphere opting for a policy of separation. However in the 1980s Evangelical Christians, alarmed at what they perceived to be the social decay of the country began to re-enter US politics starting up organizations like
the Christian Coalition. Naturally this re-entry was not pleasing to the left-wing (despite the fact that the mainline churches had been supporting liberal politics for decades) and generated considerable animosity, even amongst fiscal conservatives and a raging battle has ensued. The perception that they weren’t there before and suddenly “appeared” is false and misleading; they existed, but hadn’t had much of political voice since the 1920s which was a situation that the political left no doubt wishes had continued. Secondly, the divide between secular Americans and evangelical Christians has never been wider than at present, many Americans particularly in the cities and the suburban or urban North East have little or no contact with evangelicals, they are people you see on TV but not in your actual circle of friends and acquaintances. I, for instance, managed to grow up (first in the UK and then in NJ) and complete high school without ever meeting a genuine evangelical or hearing the gospel. Evangelicals also tend to form their own ghettos and sub-cultures which only increases the divide. Therefore when secular humanists see evangelicals involved in politics, there is a perception that a non-mainstream alien invasion is occurring because you are normal, and these people clearly aren’t. The idea that what they believe was actually once the norm in America never occurs to many people - we are simply unaware of how much the West has changed in the last 100 years.
The drift in modern evangelicalism however, is increasingly towards compromise across the board. Americans as a rule want to fit in, and Evangelical Americans want to be liked and accepted by the world as well. In order to do so however, massive compromises are necessary, and if you are familiar with groups like Barna or magazines like Christianity Today, or if you have visited one of the Mega-Churches that could easily be mistaken for a shopping mall you’ll find those compromises are proceeding at warp speed. Rather than being a distinctly different sphere from the culture, the church is actually becoming more and more worldly every day. Far from being able to “win the culture war” many of us in the church spend much of our time trying to stop the church from sliding into the culture.
- SEAGOON
