Relational Ethics

After reading a summary of the recent Barna Group survey on Americans and our "Biblical" morality, one of the things that struck me about it was the rather clumsy understanding of what does and does not constitute a Christian ethical framework.

What was presented in the study was the old tension between deontological and consequentialist ethics...to which you would justifiably say...what? Quoi? Basically, what that means is that morality tends to be understood in two separate ways.

"Deontological" ethics are ethics that appeal to or are founded in an absolute truth. Measured against that standard, things are either right, or they ain't. "Consequentialist" ethics are entirely contextual, and are classically and clumsily articulated as "the end justifies the means."

The Barna report implies that a fundamentalist "Biblical" morality was absolutist. It is, of course, but in such a way that doesn't really reflect the Bible.

The challenge for each of these approaches is that neither framework captures the foundation of Christian morality. Are we absolutists? Sure. It's very difficult to believe in God and not have a sense that morality transcends our immediate context. But the nature of that absolute belief...at least as Jesus taught it...is a bit different than the way it gets typically presented.

What Christian faith is not is a belief that a certain set of rules or laws have absolute authority. This has been the failure of both the hierarchical absolutism of Catholicism before the reformation and the literalist "Biblical" absolutism of Protestant fundamentalism. Christian faith is, instead, focused on an absolute that defines and governs both church and scripture. That absolute is the assertion that God is love. God's love is the heart of Torah, is made manifest in Jesus, and continues to articulate itself through the presence of God's own spirit working in the hearts of those who are willing to receive it.

If we accept this understanding of God as the absolute that governs our ethics, an interesting thing happens. Love is an absolute, but it is an absolute that can only be articulated contextually. If we are absolutely committed to loving our neighbor, then the way that love expresses itself must take the other...their needs, their context, their identity, their self...into account. If it doesn't, then it cannot be described as love.

The relational ethic that lies at the foundation of Torah, Prophets, Gospels, and Epistles explicitly spans that gap between the absolute and the infinite array of contexts and perspectives into which we have to apply it.

Beloved Spear Bible Puzzler #276

If you declare that Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior, and are completely convinced in your heart that Jesus has saved you, are you automatically saved?

Answering this question in the affirmative is a core axiom of the modern evangelical movement. Embracing who Jesus is, having a personal conviction that He is your Savior, and making a public proclamation of your conviction that Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior are what is required for your salvation. There's certainly no lack of scriptural support for this position. Two examples (although there are others):

Romans 10:8-9 But what does it say? "The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart" (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

1 Corinthians 12:3 Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says "Let Jesus be cursed!" and no one can say "Jesus is Lord" except by the Holy Spirit.

The challenge, though, is that strict adherence to this axiom means that we're sharing heaven with some rather interesting souls. Tomas de Torquemada, for instance, most certainly proclaimed Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior, and without question believed in his heart that God raised Him from the dead. He passes the Romans 10:9 standard with flying colors, and also did a tremendous amount of outreach and evangelism. In fact, I think he was the first to use everyone's favorite praise-team shout-out, "I want y'all to be on fire for Jesus."

That we have a strong personal response to Christ is essential, but that something is heartfelt doesn't mean it's real. A few "balancing" scriptures:

Matthew 7:21-23 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?' Then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.'

James 2:14-18 14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, "Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill," and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? 17 So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. 18 But someone will say, "You have faith and I have works." Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith.

So...is salvation utterly reliant on our personal conviction?