Ethics as Worship - A Review

The very first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism asks, “What is the chief end of man?”

The simple, but profound answer is, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.”

In other words, the chief end of humankind is to worship God and delight in his goodness. But “to glorify God” or to worship means more than singing songs at the appointed time each week or having a daily quiet time. Rather, as Scripture makes clear, “Whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” (Col 3:17)

The sum of the life of the Christian should be to give God glory by living rightly unto him. This brings us to the place of ethics in the Christian life. Ethics is about worship—it’s about living rightly on earth according to God’s design and pointing others to his truth in righteousness.

Mark Liederbach and Evan Lenow bring the concept of worship through moral living to the forefront in their recent book, Ethics as Worship: The Pursuit of Moral Discipleship. The volume, which is a hefty tome of about 750 pages, presents the authors’ particular focus on the nature of ethics as well as providing much of the standard fare for an introductory ethics text.

This volume has some similarities to other ethics texts in that is explores particular ethical questions (especially those that are cultural pinch points) after surveying alternative approaches to ethics. This is a book that reflects significant research, taking into account the major voices in ethics in the past few decades, along with relevant technical data on questions like reproductive ethics. The arguments within the book are well-thought out, as they have been honed over combined decades of teaching by both authors.

The premise of ethics as worship is so basic that it seems obvious when it is introduced. As the authors explain, “Ethics is about God. It is about maximally adoring him and rendering to him all that he is due from all that he has made. And it is about our doing so both individually and corporately.” (xxi)

While this approach to ethics seems like it would go without saying, it is less often said in ethics texts (even those by orthodox, Christian authors) than is warranted. And, even among those purporting to do Christian ethics, there is often a failure to make God’s character and value the summum bonum.

Ethics as worship means that the Christian worldview is the beginning of the moral quest. The foundation of the Christian worldview is properly Scripture, which anchors the method and content in the reveal Word of God. But a purely “scriptural” ethic can lead to casuistry. After all, Scripture does not say that we cannot use cocaine or tell us precisely what to do about global warming. An alternative, which includes various forms of philosophical ethics attempts to get at truth apart from Scripture and then looks for passages that can illustrate. Still other forms of so-called Christian ethics are more like weather gauges that check the cultural climate and decide write and wrong to try to maintain respectability. Viewing ethics as worship puts God at the center, with Scripture as the foundation, and delight in God and holiness as primary signs of success.

Ethics as Worship is a thoroughly theological volume with a reformed outlook. Liederbach and Lenow see the call to worship beginning in the garden of Eden. Building on the somewhat esoteric work of John Sailhamer, they call for a retranslation of Genesis 2:15 as a call for humanity to “worship God and obey his commands” in paradise before the fall. This is a debatable claim, which has little support in common translations, but whether or not their translation option is correct, there is no question that obedience and worship were central to human purpose before sin came into the world. One need not to agree with this emphasis to see the value in the approach Lenow and Liederbach follow. After the fall, the priority of worship and obedience remained, but it was frustrated by the effects of sin. The authors continue to explore how worship is essential through the remaining phases of the universe: fall, redemption, and restoration.

This is a volume that adds to the field of ethics, especially among evangelicals, by effectively summarizing much of the literature of the field and offering a new emphasis for the moral task. It is not wholly foreign, but the emphasis being on worship rather than righteousness—the process of decision rather than the personal outcome—is refreshing and helpful in many ways.

Ethics as Worship could be used at the college or seminary level. It would be a useful pastoral reference, with up-to-date data on very important cultural debates. Thankfully, the authors tend to focus less on edge cases and so-called dilemmas than providing sound principles that can guide faithful moral decisions. There are several good ethics texts on the market, but this is another worthy one that deserves attention, adoption, and utilization.

Ethics as Worship: The Pursuit of Moral Discipleship

By Mark Daniel Liederbach, Evan Lenow

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NOTE: I was provided a gratis copy of this volume from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

SBC Politics, the Sexual Abuse Investigation, and Waiver of Attorney-Client Privilege

In June of 2021, nearly 15,000 messengers from Southern Baptist Churches from around the country voted overwhelmingly to commission an independent, 3rd party investigation into the handling of sexual abuse allegations by the Southern Baptist Executive Committee officers for the period of 2000 to the present.

It should be clear that the investigation was not into accusations of abuse by the SBC’s Executive Committee officers, but that members of the Executive Committee had handled accusations about local churches poorly and in some cases potentially bullied or manipulated those who claim to have been abused in a local church.

One particular accusation in the past few years turned into a lawsuit against the SBC with a former LifeWay (an SBC entity) employee who made a public accusation of abuse that was misrepresented as a consensual affair. The fallout of that misrepresentation was public abuse (with names hurled that should be unthinkable for confessing Christians) leading to her resignation from LifeWay. The misrepresentation was compounded by an unwillingness to correct the misrepresentation in the SBC-controlled newspaper long after the misrepresentation was identified, which contributed to the abuse hurled at the woman. After a change in leadership, the report was corrected and an apology issued, but a great deal of financial, emotional, and spiritual damage had already been done.

This case, a Houston Chronicle article detailing over 700 cases of sexual abuse in SBC churches over a period of 20 years, along with evidence of serial abuse by individuals who had bounced from local church to local church, often as paid staff, raised concerns that the SBC was doing too little to curb abuse. All of this came at a time when sexual harassment and abuse were a particular public concern in society, but there is little question that concern about abuse is more than a secular movement being imported into religious clothing. These sins should not be tolerated among Christians! (1 Cor 5:1–2)

The Polity Issue

Given the loose association between churches affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, there has been resistance to many movements of reform on the basis of our polity and local church autonomy. It is true that some actions are not possible for the SBC. However, as Keith Whitfield has argued:

“We’ve hidden behind false fronts and convenient excuses. Appeals to the autonomy of Southern Baptist churches have derailed various proposals, like creating a Southern Baptist offenders' registry. While our polity may render some proposals nearly impossible to carry out, the appeal to autonomy doesn't justify inaction. Rather, we must use our autonomy to covenant with one another, “to stir one another to love and good deeds” (Heb. 10:31). Our family of churches must find a meaningful and culture-shaping mechanism that leads us to commit to best practices as we strive to prevent abuse in our churches and entities.”

There is little doubt that many critics of the SBC will be dissatisfied with the efforts to curb abuse within the association of churches. This is largely because they misunderstand the nature of the SBC. However, the fact that the demands of some critics cannot be satisfied should not prevent the organization from taking what steps are appropriate within our context. After all, if the SBC can disfellowship a church for ordaining a female pastor or affirming ungodly forms of sexual practice, then the SBC can disfellowship churches for failing to deal with gross sin in their midst. There are likely additional steps that can be taken to prevent or, at least, minimize serial sexual abuse that can be facilitated at the national level without violating basic Baptist polity.

A Turning Point

The June 2021 meeting of the SBC seemed to be a turning point toward addressing concerns over sex abuse in our churches, given the overwhelming vote by the messengers, who are the sole members of the SBC and its entities.

Getting the independent investigation underway has proved difficult for the Executive Committee because of concerns over legal and financial exposure due to the investigation. One contentious aspect of that motion as approved by the messengers was the request that the Executive Committee waive attorney-client privilege for the investigation.

Waiving attorney-client privilege is, indeed, a big step. On the one hand, it provides unimpeded access to documents that may be legally damning, but which could have been kept out of the public eye because they were protected by the confidential relationship between an attorney and her client. There is legal and financial risk to waiving this privilege, which may include the Executive Committee’s insurance company refusing to pay out on settlements related to cases whose evidence is exposed by this waiver. Additionally, evidence may become publicly available (as through the investigator’s report) that would have otherwise have been hidden to litigants or prosecutors. If there has been wrongdoing, it may well be exposed and bring penalty that could have been prevented by non-disclosure.

On the other hand, waiving attorney-client privilege exposes issues to the light of day that would otherwise be left to fester and left unaddressed. It would leave the investigators without all the information needed to bring problems to light, uncover weaknesses in practices, which could lead to greater liability down the line. It would diminish the trustworthiness of the final, public report, because the world would be left wondering what secrets remained hidden behind the veil.

Contributing to the need to waive attorney-client privilege on this issue, the long-time general counsel for the SBC Executive Committee has been in the midst of many of the controversies within the SBC. He has, for example, been part of a plot to misappropriate money from one SBC seminary and has been subsequently banned by judicial order from serving non-profits within the state of Texas or any Southern Baptist entity. The same individual has been deeply involved with another major figure within SBC life who was eventually terminated for mishandling his stewardship of an SBC entity along with public accusations related to covering up abuse. Some of these accusations have not been corroborated, but the risk that communications related to the issue would be kept confidential due to one of the key individual’s role for the Executive Committee made this selective waiver of attorney-client privilege essential to having a transparent, independent investigation. Given that the same individual testified as a character witness for a convicted abuser using his SBC official title, and also called the concerns over abuse a “satanic plot,” there is a reasonable basis for assuming his correspondence may be important to the investigation into handling of sexual abuse.

The Will of the Messengers

In June of 2021, the messengers voted to have the Executive Committee waive attorney–client privilege and form a separate (not approved or appointed by the Executive Committee) task force of Southern Baptists, who would hire a firm to conduct the third-party investigation. This vote was a rare move for the Southern Baptist messengers. Unlike resolutions, which do not have normative force, the motion from the floor was a directive to the members elected to the Southern Baptist’s Executive Committee.

(For those unfamiliar with the polity, the Southern Baptist Convention exists for two days each year from the first gavel to the last gavel of the annual meeting. It is comprised of “messengers” who are sent by their local congregations to vote on issues raised at the meeting. The Executive Committee exists to oversee the budget of the Cooperative Program, improve cooperation between SBC entities, and make arrangements for the annual meeting. The Executive Committee is comprised of people nominated by the Committee on Committees and elected by the messengers of the convention.)

The expectation of many of the messengers was that at the first Executive Committee meeting after the SBC, which is normally conducted in September (~100 days after the SBC), they would vote to waive attorney-client privilege, approve the funds for the investigation, and empower the Task Force (appointed by the President of the SBC, elected by the messengers at the SBC, who is also a voting member of the Executive Committee) to do the investigation.

Many onlookers were disappointed when the Executive Committee failed to waive attorney-client privilege and approve the third-party investigation as directed, when they met in Nashville on the 21st of September. Although the Sex Abuse Task Force had been named, had identified a reputable group to do the investigation (whom the Executive Committee had tried to hire to do a private investigation without a public report prior to the annual meeting of the SBC), and had the contract prepared for approval, the investigation was stalled. A significant faction within the SBC had worked with some leaders within the Executive Committee to argue against waiving attorney-client privilege, which threatened to put the brakes on the contract and the investigative process.

Though the full reasons for the issue may never be known, much of the information the members of the Executive Committee needed to make their decision was not presented until shortly before the meeting, with insufficient time to review it. Additionally, members of the staff of the Executive Committee had contracted with legal firms to attempt to convince the Executive Committee members not to fulfill the direction of the messengers of the Southern Baptist Convention by refusing to waive attorney-client privilege. However, a motion was made and approved to meet again in seven days to discuss it again.

At the second meeting, on September 14, the motion to waive attorney-client privilege was again defeated. Another motion was made to allow another 7 days to negotiate. The key to the negotiation for the Executive Committee was maintaining control of the investigation, having veto power over the material made available to the investigation, and the ability to control the content of the final report.

The Real Risks of Waiving Attorney-Client Privilege

There are some significant risks associated with waiving attorney-client privilege, especially from a purely financial and legal angle. If the investigation uncovers illegal behavior by members of the Executive Committee in communications that were made regarding legal advice between those EC members and their attorney, then that information would be admissible as evidence in court. Legal advice and surrounding conversations involving an attorney acting in his or her legal capacity can generally be hidden behind attorney-client privilege. The individuals responsible would lose that protection with this waiver. Additionally, in civil lawsuits, potentially compromising communications would no longer be protected legally.

Compounding this legal and financial risk, institutions typically carry robust liability insurance policies to protect them from lawsuits. Waiving attorney-client privilege for a case can become grounds for the insurance company refusing to pay out for damages awarded, because the insured institution failed to defend against lawsuit with full vigor.

The biggest risks here are that the SBC Executive Committee could be open to lawsuits that, if the evidence supports, they will have pay for out of pocket. The current budget does not support those sorts of expenditures and it might bankrupt the Executive Committee or cause funds to be diverted from the Cooperative Program (i.e., away from actual missions and ministry) to keep the Executive Committee afloat.

We should note that these risks are conditional upon (a) there being evidence of wrongdoing, (b) victims of wrongdoing bringing civil suits, and (c) the insurance company electing not to cover the damages. Our best hope—and the one I really want to be true—is that there is no evidence of wrongdoing beyond what has already been settled.

Advantages of Waiving Attorney-Client Privilege

A 2019 Houston Chronicle article about widespread, serial abuse within SBC-affiliated church changed the perception of the SBC inside and out. Since that issue was revealed, I have had people who were otherwise unconcerned about Baptists (or Christianity) make the connection between the SBC and abuse when they found out my connections to the SBC. There have concerns raised by laypeople within local churches (mine included) about why we should remain affiliated with the SBC based on the perception that abuse is widespread and pervasive.

Until we begin to take steps that are appropriate within our context and polity to curb sexual abuse, we will never be able to shake the accusations. The fact is that the abuse happened, we have not taken action to mitigate it, and no complaints about political motivations of #metoo, social justice, or polity will ever change that. Failing to take action makes the offensiveness of being an SBC church something other than the gospel. It sets up barriers to evangelism. Especially outside of the Bible Belt, it makes ministering as an SBC-affiliated congregation more challenging.

The first step in addressing an issue is figuring out the extent of the issue. But we have to be willing to really explore. Waiving Attorney-Client Privilege and publishing a public report are important steps in determining the nature of the problem. “Ripping the Band-Aid off” is painful, but likely the best way to move beyond the issue.

We may also find evidence of ungodly behavior among some leaders in the SBC which, if not illegal, is disqualifying from leadership. In any large organization there will always be shenanigans and insider trading, but there is already public evidence of behavior that does not belong in an organization devoted to getting the good news of the gospel to the nations. This investigation may help reveal that problem, as well, as it relates to the handling of sexual abuse.

Another advantage of having an open investigation with clear access to privileged communications is that it will functionally close the door on spurious lawsuits. If an independent, respected firm has full access to all pertinent records are determines the bounds of the issue (if any exists), then other accusations and lawsuits that may not be defensible will be much harder for accuser to pursue. If we expose some wrong doing, but the process and the final report remain behind a veil, then people who may feel wronged (and may have been wronged, if not by the SBC Executive Committee) but who do not actually have standing (because, perhaps, they had never contacted anyone) would have opportunity to sue the SBC and the SBC would have to defend afresh each individual suit. The open investigation provides both a present vulnerability (if any wrong doing is discovered) and a future defense (we’ve ruled out evidence of certain claims). So, while it may make present lawsuits more damaging, it may reduce risks from future ones.

Finally, we need to remember the reason the SBC exists. It’s not to be a self-sustaining club of Baptists, kept sacred in perpetuity and handed down to future generations. The SBC is a funding mechanism for cooperative ministry—education, disaster relief, political engagement, international missions, and church planting. As such, if the SBC ceases to live up to its calling as a Christian organization, it’s time to disband and find another better way. I believe we will come through this, but it’s always good to remember that if the SBC does not exist after this, then God will raise up another means of getting the gospel to the nations. The SBC can be effective, but it is not essential to God’s mission.

The Waiver

As one of the thousands of messengers that affirmed the call for an open, independent investigation, including the directive to the Executive Committee to waive attorney-client privilege, I am grateful that on October 5th the Executive Committee voted to do so. The margin of the vote was narrower than it should have been, but it is a step in the right direction.

A note of caution is in order here, though. Obviously, I am in favor of having waived attorney-client privilege. There are some members of the Executive Committee who voted no, but did so because they honestly believed it was their duty to do so. There are risks associated with the waiver. The EC members are tasked with protecting the interests of the Southern Baptist Convention and the Executive Committee of the SBC in particular. There are good reasons for having voted no, though I believe the reasons to vote yes outweigh them. I fear that some supporters of the waiver will harass well-meaning, conscience-bound individuals for doing what they believed to be right. That should not be.

We will see how the investigation plays out. It is a sad thing that the investigation is necessary, but, in my view, it is a good thing that both the process and the final product will shine light in some dark places and help the SBC move forward into the future with better practices or reallocate resources to do the mission God has called all Christians to more effectively.

Removing the Stain of Racism from the Southern Baptist Convention - A Review

When people get nostalgic for their childhood, they are usually remembering a time when things seemed simpler. That does not mean life was actually less complex, typically just that they were shielded from some of the twists, confusions, and injustices in the world.

My life was simpler before I knew about the powerful impact racism has had in our nation. Even in my early years in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) I was unaware of the racism that is at the very root of our denomination’s founding. I did not recognize that the racial homogeneity of my church was not simply a function of different preferences in music, but often because my denomination had not done enough to remove the stain of racism.

I previously attend a church that is dually affiliated with the SBC and the National Baptist Convention (NBC). The SBC is the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S. and is slowly becoming more racially diverse. The NBC is the largest predominantly African-American denomination in the U.S. My church has historically been predominantly African-American, but is becoming more diverse as we reflect more closely the demographics of our surrounding community. This is, in part, because my former pastor has made significant efforts toward encouraging racial reconciliation.

Being involved in a truly multi-racial congregation has caused me to develop a new perspective on race relations and racism. Hearing some of our oldest members tell stories, I can no longer argue that the Civil Rights struggles were “a long time ago” and ignore the legacy of racism in our nation. Listening to conversations around me, I can never again claim I don’t know that systemic biases exist.

A few months ago, my pastor asked me to teach church history to the congregation on Wednesday evenings. In four sessions, I skimmed the surface of the major themes of our Christian past. I spent more time talking about African-American church history in part because of my context and in part because I needed to learn more about it. One of the most painful parts of teaching that lesson was tracing through this history of race relations within the SBC; clearly, we’ve made progress, but it is also apparent we have much more to do.

Removing the Stain of Racism from the Southern Baptist Convention is a volume that tells the story of the SBC’s past, provides a theological basis for moving beyond it, and makes practical recommendations for future progress. This is a necessary next step in a conversation that the SBC has been having, but which needs to continue in earnest.

This volume is an outstanding resource for Southern Baptists and others to learn about racial reconciliation. The volume opens with a collection of SBC resolutions about race, which show the convention has been talking about race—sometimes using the right language—but making insufficient progress toward healing longstanding division. In the first chapter, Albert Mohler recounts the historic origins of the Southern Baptist Convention, which were grounded in the misguided beliefs of slave owners that they could participate in race-based chattel slavery and still be effective missionaries for Christ.

Chapter two is an essay by Matthew Hall, which follows the ongoing participation of some Southern Baptists in racist rhetoric and sometimes political activity. As much as we might wish otherwise, there were many “good Baptists” who argued for Jim Crow laws. The third chapter, by Jarvis Williams, provides a biblical argument for racial reconciliation.

The next six chapters outline suggestions from theologians, pastors, and editors at our denominational publishing house for removing the stain of racism from the Southern Baptist Convention. The body of the book ends with a summary of the state of racial reconciliation within the SBC: we have made progress, but have a long way yet to go. Dwight McKissic and Danny Akin offer epilogues explaining further why the stain of racism remains in the SBC. In a postscript, Vaughn Walker commends readers to continue the work and offers encouragement that the stain of racism can be removed from the SBC.

Although published by the academic arm of B&H, this volume is accessible to the average reader. The writers and editors worked together to create a book that can inform a wide swath of members of SBC churches. More importantly, the contributors to this volume constructed a compelling testimony that (a) racism still exists in our society and our organizations, and (b) there is something we can do about it.

The uniting metaphor of this volume is “removing the stain.” In the preface, the editors explain what that means and their definition is important. To some advocates in racial politics, the stain of racism is like the blood stains on Lady Macbeth’s hands: invisible to living eyes, but indelible to the psyche. The only solution for some is for organizations once complicit in racism to self-destruct. This volume offers a greater hope, recognizing that just as people are redeemable through the gospel, so are organizations.

The metaphor is apt because it also reflects the significant and often time-consuming effort required to remove a stain. Many of us have invested a great deal of time in stain treatments and washing garments by hand to save something treasured from a permanently embedded stain. Rarely are significant stains eradicated in the first attempt, but must be scrubbed repeatedly as by degrees the offending pigment is removed. That is the sort of effort required to continue the work of racial reconciliation in the SBC.

The formal apology for the racist origins of the SBC, affirmed as a resolution in 1995 is important. Electing Fred Luter as the first African-American president of the SBC in 2012 is significant. The resolution opposing the flying of the Confederate battle flag in 2016 takes another step forward. These are important efforts in removing the stain of racism, but they are not enough.

Removing the Stain of Racism reminds readers, with voices from both African-Americans and whites, that though the SBC has made great progress, there is a lot of work to be done. The memory of the racism in the SBC will never be erased, but the stain of racism can be removed. The challenge for the white majority of the SBC is not to attempt to declare victory on our stain-removal efforts too soon. As many have experienced, once you throw the stained garment into the dryer, the stain is often made permanent. We still have scrubbing to do.

Racial reconciliation takes work. While we may remember a time in our denomination’s history when efforts toward removing the stain of racism were not at the forefront, those days only seemed simpler because we were unaware of the problem. Talking about race and racial reconciliation is hard, not least because of the extreme rhetoric on the right and the left of us. The gospel demands we work toward racial reconciliation—no matter how nostalgic we are for simpler days, the work before us cannot be ignored.

NOTE: This article was previously published at B&H Academic Blog, which has since been archived due to a change in communications strategy. I have moved and am no longer a member of the same church that was referenced in this article, but I have left the references from the 2017 publication date.

Population Control and the Moral Order of the Created Order

In a previous post I worked through some of the worldview of Edgar Chasteen, a one-time Southern Baptist professor of Sociology who advocated for compulsory birth control. Along the way he put some spectacularly anti-human ideas on display, including advocacy of abortion, regret over medical advances reaching the developing world. He also advocated for an individualistic morality including a sexual ethic redefined around the therapeutic. In short, he got a lot of stuff wrong.

However, in his book, The Case for Compulsory Birth Control, there is a paragraph of that shows he recognizes there may be light behind the clouds. It’s a moment when it seems he realizes the horror his worldview is capable of. He writes:

“The control of population size is of the utmost urgency, but we must understand that control is only a means to an end––that end being survival, both of humanity and humanness. I say this because some of those currently recommending population control measures have obviously forgotten it. Their proposals read like a catalogue of horrors. While they might preserve life, they would destroy the reasons for living. To survive, we would have to abandon most of the virtues and values which sustain us.” (192)

The man affirms the legalization and promotion of the killing of children in the womb through elective abortion, so it isn’t like this gives him a crown to toss at Christ’s throne, but it is telling that he recognizes that there must be a point to morality, a purpose toward which ethical action is aligned.

For Chasteen that end is humanness and survival of the species, which is a fairly low bar. But he recognizes that certain actions would take away that humanness.

And yet, Chasteen’s ethics allow no basis for preserving humanity or humanness. He summarizes his metaethics by this statement: “An action is moral only when prompted or hindered by what is right as defined by the individual conscience.” There is, therefore, no reason for survival of the species or a nebulous notion like “humanness” to be retained based on his summary of ethics; it’s all about what each individual feels is important.

Chasteen’s argument plays out in much the way C. S. Lewis describes in The Abolition of Man. Lewis writes,

“The Innovator attacks traditional values (the Tao) in defense of what he at first supposes to be (in some special sense) ‘rational’ or ‘biological’ values. But as we have seen, all the values which he uses in attacking the Tao, and even claims to be substituting for it, are themselves derived from the Tao.” (41)

Those trying to change morality often do so by declaring one “big idea” of utmost importance:

“The Innovator may place economic value first. To get people fed and clothed is the great end, and in pursuit of it[,] scruples about justice and good faith may be set aside. The Tao of course agrees with him about the importance of getting the people fed and clothed. Unless the Innovator were himself using the Tao he could never have learned of such a duty.” (42)

In the case of Chasteen, the “big idea” is survival of humanity, but justice toward the unborn and good faith toward particular humanity is less important than that end. And yet, the end is derived from outside his system of ethics. There is no basis from within Chasteen’s individualistic, subjectivist morality for concern about the preservation of humanity.

Lewis demonstrates what this looks like in his novel, That Hideous Strength. One of the leading villains argues:

“Existence is its own justification. The tendency to developmental change which we call Evolution is justified by the fact that it is a general characteristic of biological entities. The present establishment of contact between the highest biological entities and the Macrobes [i.e., supernatural beings] is justified by the fact that it is occurring, and it ought to be increased because an increase is taking place.” (295)

Furthermore, Filostrato (a villainous character) asserts:

“In us organic life has produced Mind. It has done its work. After that we want no more of it. We do not want the world any longer furred over with organic life, like what you call the blue mould––all sprouting and budding and breeding and decaying. We must get rid of it. By little and little, of course. Slowly we learn how. Learn how to make our brains live with less and less body: learn to build our bodies directly with chemicals, no longer have to stuff them full of dead brutes and weeds. Learn how to reproduce ourselves without copulation.” (173)

And, then:

“Nature herself begins to throw away the anachronism. When she has thrown it away, then real civilization becomes possible. You would understand if you were peasants. Who would try to work with stallions and bulls? No, no; we want geldings and oxen. There will never be peace and order and discipline so long as there is sex. When man has thrown it away, then he will become finally governable.” (173)

It may not be necessary to throw away sex itself, as long as sex can through technical means make the natural purpose of sexual intercourse unavailable or punishable. That was the goal of the Population Control movement, it is the goal of parts of the environmental movement, and it is a dangerous goal to have shaping moral decisions.

The Christian Mind of C. S. Lewis: Essays in Honor of Michael Travers

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Chasteen did not attain the degree of rejection of the Tao that Lewis’ character did in That Hideous Strength, but he is well along the path, based on his 1971 book. More significantly, society is well along the pathway to the abolition of humanity, and we ourselves can easily be carried along with it if we don’t watch our step.

There are reasons why sexual ethics has become the primary fulcrum of our society and that there is increasing pressure to reduce human population. There is implicit within those arguments a denial of God’s goodness and the moral order of the created order. But the goodness of sex and humanity cannot be established apart from the moral order of the created order, thus the movement is parasitic and transitory. We need to recognize it, remain free from the errors of its thinking, and communicate a better way to our friends, family and neighbors through the gospel of Christ.

A Look at One Case for Population Control

In the deep, dark corners of the Southern Baptist Convention’s theological past is a sociologist who taught at a Missouri State Convention affiliated college, wrote for the Christian Life Commission (the precursor to the ERLC), and advocated for abortion, forced sterilization, and legal penalties for exceeding an approved number of children. Since that point, his college disassociated from their denomination and Chasteen went on to form a non-profit organization dedicated to affirming the equal validity of all religions. Just how Baptist or even Christian Chasteen is or ever was is up for debate. There is little in his 1971 book or his various websites that can connects him to anything like Christian orthodoxy.

The thesis of Chasteen’s book is “that unless we act now to legislate a limit of two children per family, we have little hope of solving the other problems that beset us.” (vii) That problem Chasteen describe as an insidious disease: “The cancer of runaway population growth has eaten away both heart and soul of the body politic. We are on the verge of anarchy with only our will to survive and our determination to act staying our fall.” (33)

For Chasteen, every problem was driven by overpopulation. He writes, “If, as a nation and as individuals, we can summon the intelligence and the courage to bring population growth under control, we will find ourselves still faced with problems of race relations, crime, alienation, apathy, environmental degradation, and so forth, but with one big difference. The problems will then be capable of solution, whereas now they are not.” (33)

Chasteen echoes Paul Ehrlich’s popular book, The Population Bomb, in his concern for the growing number of individuals on the planet. His book, The Case for Compulsory Birth Control, was written while the Rockefeller commission was composing their report, which was commission and subsequently rejected by Nixon. Like Chasteen, the Rockefeller commission affirmed eugenic policies, widespread birth control funded by the government, and the expansion of access to abortion. Unlike Chasteen, the Rockefeller Commission only advocated for voluntary sterilization.

The entire tenor of Chasteen’s book is anti-human. He expresses concerns that “Death rates in the industrializing nations began to drop while birth rates remained at their previously high levels.” (25) Which leads to complaints that Americans shared medical technology with developing nations with a false sense of compassion and without permission.

Argues Chasteen:

“America has shared its medicines with the world, thinking that by doing so it was saving millions of people from early death, and so it was. . . . [However,] we were operating on a foundation of mistaken morality which made keeping people alive and end in itself. We inoculated, immunized and sprayed, and we felt good about our actions. . . . Motivated by benevolent ignorance of social forces and human desires, America played unintentional havoc with the destinies of nations and peoples. . . . In some parts of the world death rates were cut in half in only a decade, and sometimes without the consent or knowledge of the governments affected.” (26–27)

There is more, but it does not get much better.

At the root of Chasteen’s ethics is an individualistic, subjectivistic presumption: “An action is moral only when prompted or hindered by what is right as defined by the individual conscience.” (187)

In light of that naked assertion, Chasteen argues, “What this means is that a new rationale for sexual responsibility and exclusiveness is needed.” (187)

Chasteen demonstrates a full-throated adoption of the sexual revolution:

“Contraceptive technology has made it possible to separate sexual intercourse from conception, making it possible (and necessary) for us to rethink the philosophy of sex worked out before contraception. A very simple formula can be stated:

coitus – contraception = procreation

coitus + contraception = expression” (184)

He celebrates the individualism and autonomy of human sexuality because sex became disassociated from procreation, so that a woman on chemical birth control “can express her sexuality as she expresses her opinion––because of the meaning it has for her as an individual.” (184) He makes a similar argument for males who have had vasectomies.

Chasteen makes clear what contraception has done for sexual ethics in contemporary society:

“Contraception makes it possible to view sex as voluntary, interpersonal behavior rather than a necessary act of survival. Sex becomes a special method of communication between male and female. Sex thus loses its exclusively biological meaning and becomes more social. Like all social relationships, sex can be made constructive or destructive, depending upon the attitude and behavior of those involved. Sex can become a dialogue between two people in which comes to understand and appreciate the other. It can be an expression of the mutual dependence to human existence. Sex can be an enriching and compassionate human encounter or simply another opportunity for exploitation, satisfying a biological urge but destroying humanity socially and spiritually. It’s up to us.” (189)

There are a lot of strands to unwind in Chasteen’s writing on the subject, but he makes explicit the arguments that are assumed in our culture regarding the purpose of sex. The autonomous self is the champion of Chasteen’s moral vision, with no reference to the Christian faith, historical or otherwise. It is the individual alone who determines what is right. (A belief that undermines Chasteen’s plea that his perspective is the correct one, but whatever.)

Several lessons can be gleaned from reading books like Chasteen’s, The Case for Compulsory Birth Control.

1.       There were good reasons for the Conservative Resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention. Chasteen advocates for multiple anti-Christian positions that are untenable with anyone remotely committed with the content of Scripture. The convention had to rid itself of the cancer of those like Chasteen to survive as a gospel-focused entity.

2.       The population control movement, which is now growing because of concerns over climate change, has its roots in a dark movement that has to find a way to mourn the decrease in suffering due to premature death. It has not, as far as I can tell, found a way to do so, it has simply tended to skip over the assumption that it would be better if the superfluous people didn’t survive past their age of usefulness.

3.       Beware people who see one big social problem as the key to all other problems. A big idea like overpopulation, systemic racism, or climate change can be used as a way to blind listeners to the moral evil being proposed on one front for the perceived good result on another. Society is complicated. Solving climate change won’t fix poverty. Eliminating systemic racism won’t reduce our carbon footprint. Limiting population growth will not eliminate crime. It is impossible to attain a good society through persistent evil.

Eschatological Discipleship - A Review

Trevin Wax is one of the most incisive cultural commentators in the evangelical community. He has a talent for moving past pearl clutching about trends in pop culture by asking foundational questions about the ideas that animate to moral activity in entertainment and society. His 2018 book, Eschatological Discipleship is an overt presentation of the theological analysis that is evident in the background of Wax’s popular books and blogs.

Eschatology is the oft neglected and frequently abused topic in Christian systematic theologies. As Wax notes, discussions of the end times in seminary courses tend to be stuck on the end of the course syllabus and often are the first to get axed when discussions of soteriology and ecclesiology run long at the beginning of the semester. More often, the term eschatology is understood to mean endless debate about the nature and timing of the rapture, the intrigue of the mark of the beast, and various theories on the millennium.

This book gets beyond the most common pitfalls of eschatological debate to focus on the core issue of eschatology as it is woven throughout Scripture. In particular, Wax emphasizes the idea of eschatology as a source for telos; it is the theological topic that provides the best evidence for the meaning of life. In other words, eschatology is not primarily about charts and timing, but about providing a lodestar of eternal purpose to navigate life in ever-changing times.

In Eschatological Discipleship: Leading Christians to Understand their Historical and Cultural Context, Wax does something few treatments of the topic do: he offers an analysis of the eschatologies of worldviews that compete with Christianity. His analysis of the eschatology of the Enlightenment, the Sexual Revolution, and Consumerism are unique in their revelation of the unspoken, but evident meaning encoded in those rival systems of meaning. This book provides a framework for discussing the often-obscured theologies of those movements.

Wax begins the book with a chapter defining the term eschatological discipleship. He argues, “eschatological discipleship is spiritual formation that seeks to instill wisdom regarding the contemporary setting in which Christians find themselves (in contrast to rival conceptions of time and progress) and that calls for contextualized obedience as a demonstration of the Christian belief that the biblical account of the world’s past, present, and future is true.” (p. 41) This definition makes clear Wax’s aim, which is to present a theological argument that unquestionably leads to obedience.

In three chapters, Wax presents a biblical theology of eschatological discipleship, beginning with the Old Testament, then focusing on the Gospels and Acts, and concluding with a survey of the topic in Paul’s letters. It becomes evident through this survey that all of Scripture encourages Christians to ask, “What time is it?”, so they can understand their culture and how they should live in their particular context to the glory of God.

Chapter Five presents the idea of eschatology within non-Christian thought, which leads the way into the helpful analysis of the next three chapters. In the sixth through eighth chapters of the book, Wax performs a critical analysis of the eschatology of the Enlightenment, the Sexual Revolution, and Consumerism, which all compete with Scripture to dominate the worldviews of Christians in our age. In the final chapter, Wax shows how his presentation of eschatological discipleship can enhance the practice of evangelical theology and equip every church member to better respond to the confused theologies around them.

Trevin Wax is one of the most gifted writers among evangelicals. This academic book is no exception. The prose is clear and the arguments careful. He manages to raise concern about the real problems within the dominant culture of the West without calling for withdrawal or reflexive combativeness. Eschatological Discipleship is a specimen of Christian scholarship in its most helpful form: theologically precise and readable.

Those who have read other books by Wax will likely see the connection between another of his recent books, This is Our Time: Everyday Myths in Light of the Gospel, and this volume. Eschatological Discipleship makes clear the theological framework that This is Our Time presents in a practical, popular format. The close connection between the two books offer an example for Christian scholars for how to translate scholarship for broad consumption and how to most efficiently steward their research by pitching their arguments to multiple audiences.

Eschatological Discipleship is a useful resource for pastors and scholars seeking to understand the contours of contemporary culture better. Theologically informed laity will likely find this book an accessible and informative volume, too. This is a book that will have enduring value for its analytical content and exemplary argumentation.

NOTE: This article was originally posted at the B&H Academic Blog, which has since been archived due to a change in strategy.

One Child - A Review

China’s one child policy offered promise of economic blessing, but has resulted in sociological disruption leading to economic problems, leaving trauma and tragedy in its wake. This is an example of a government trying to plan its way to prosperity.

In a 2012 book, One Child: The Story of China’s Most Radical Experiment, journalist Mei Fong explores the impacts of the technocratically-driven population policy instituted by China several decades ago.

One Child is an engaging book. Fong writes clearly, tells captivating stories, and systematically arranges the book in a way that makes it an enjoyable and informative read.

One of Fong’s main goals in writing One Child is to demonstrate that the infamous policy of Communist China is not the blessing that some have argued it to be. She writes,

“It took me a while to realize that, contrary to popular thinking, the one-child policy had very little to do with China’s double-digit economic growth of the past thirty years, and will actually be a drag for the next thirty.” (9)

Fong came to realize that people are both consumers and producers. Although she does not articulate the idea clearly in her book, it seems that she also recognizes that the economy is not a pie of a fixed size. That is, having more productive citizens does not mean that the same wealth must be distributed to more people more thinly. It means that more people will produce more wealth, which can be available to many people. The economy is not a zero-sum game.

The tragedy of the one-child policy is manifold. Fong notes that the policy has created a class of non-citizens in China who, because they were the extra child born over the limit, cannot be registered and cannot get health care, an education, or jobs. They are the hei haizi, “black children,” undocumented and ignored.

One of the more frightening aspects of the one-child policy has been the eugenic emphasis. Fong argues, “Chinese authorities were never shy about stating this aim of the one-child policy: fewer births, higher-quality births.” (28) The right people should be able to procreate to create the right sort of citizen. The result of such policies is always horrific abuse of human rights.

Fong tells the story of one factory worker pregnant with her second child. She believed she was qualified for an exemption, but the local officials disagreed. They demanded an exorbitant fine, which her family could not pay, and was subsequently forced to have an abortion. Fong writes,

“Feng, meanwhile, was made to sign an agreement she voluntarily consented to the abortion. On June 2, she was injected with a substance to kill the fetus. She later said, ‘I could feel the baby jumping around inside me all the time, but then she went still.’” (61)

Furthermore, “In some parts of the country, pregnant women without birth permits were marched off in handcuffs to undergo forced abortions.” (70) In the 1990’s, the policy expanded to punish behaviors that could be more or less linked to unsanctioned births, “Women were fined for living with a man out of wedlock; for not using contraception, even if it didn’t lead to pregnancy; or simply for not attending regular pregnancy checkups. In Jiangsu, women had to line up twice monthly for pregnancy tests and publicly pee in cups.” (73)

Contributing to this, there was “a wage incentive for birth-planning officials, which was tied to how many sterilizations and abortions they were able to achieve. . . . [According to one former official,] ‘Some girls were forced to get surgeries even though they weren’t pregnant at all.’” (75]

The enforced abortion regime is one of the most horrific aspects of the policy that Fong records. Interestingly, she herself is a proponent of abortion and considered terminating her first pregnancy, which later ended in miscarriage, which only makes the horror of her stories more apparent.

The sociological impacts of the one-child are also striking. Fong details how combining one-child policies with a culture that expects children to take care of their parents puts extreme pressure on children to get into lucrative careers so they and their spouse can support their own child plus up to four parents and, potentially, grandparents as well. The emotional burden on the child who fears failing a test and being forced into factory work is obvious.

China has also instituted minimum ages for marriage. A man cannot get married before he is 22 and a woman before 20. But if school is not complete and a career not established, then marriage will logically be delayed. Subsequently, the age of marriage goes up and the window of fertility shrinks. The result is increasing infertility, which is making it more difficult for some workers to conceive and bear even the quota of children they are allowed.

Fong’s book is a helpful exposé of the regime in China. It is a reminder that government tinkering in families and biology are often ill-fated, even when they have positive motives. It is also a reminder of the horror of abortion that underlies many zero population growth or other population control movements. These are consistently pitched as “voluntary,” but once the government steps in “volunteerism” often shifts to coercion. People should be careful what they wish for.

One Child: The Story of China's Most Radical Experiment

By Fong, Mei

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Are Ethics More Important than Theology?

Why do some Christians love theology more than people? After all, from an eternal perspective, people matter more than ideas. It does not matter what you believe as long as you are doing good things in the world. Some people who do not even believe in Jesus are better Jesus-followers than Christians—these people are the real Kingdom of God.

If you read progressive Christian blogs or follow left-leaning Christian pundits on social media, you will have likely heard some of the assertions in the previous paragraph. Some form of them is repeated often enough to be recognizable at a glance.

The basic claim of those who make these claims is that practical Christian ethics is the heart of Christianity, while Christian theology is mere speculation about things that are largely unknown and mostly unknowable. Ethics is reality; theology is speculation. Therefore, ethics is more important than theology.

As a Christian ethicist, I heartily affirm the importance of Christian ethics. However, faithful Christian ethics presupposes a foundation of orthodox Christian doctrine. An authentically Christian ethics is the superstructure on a foundation of an orthodox, biblical theology. We cannot do ethics apart from theology.

In her excellent essay “Creed or Chaos?” Dorothy L. Sayers argues,

It is worse than useless for Christians to talk about the importance of Christian morality unless they are prepared to take their stand upon the fundamentals of Christian theology.

She goes on to explain that Christian morality without a doctrinal foundation quickly becomes humanism, which eventually fails to motivate right action.

Doctrine is the very heart of ethics. Unless you believe the right things, there is little hope that you will do the right things. If someone does not believe that humans have inherent value, they are unlikely seek to relieve their suffering or may justify doing harm while calling it good. Proper concern for the wellbeing of other humans is not self-generated; it arises from an anthropology that values people as made in the image of God. When anthropology fails, so does true compassion for other humans.

For example, movements that advocate for voluntary euthanasia are often couched in terms of individual autonomy and alleviation of suffering. Assisting in the suicide deaths of the old and the infirm is ethical if your anthropology presumes that humans have a right to self-determination and that human suffering is purposeless. A deep theological sentiment lies behind a pro-euthanasia ethic. Ethics springs from a foundation of those doctrines that are believed.

Jesus is clear about belief being the basis for human action. Luke records him explaining the relationship between the act of speech and the beliefs of the heart: “A good man produces good out of the good storeroom of his heart. An evil man produces evil out of the evil storeroom, for his mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart” (Luke 6:45, HCSB). Bad beliefs will lead to bad character, which will lead to bad actions.

Those who seek to affirm ethics over theology are wrong to diminish the importance of doctrine. However, a fairer critique could, at times, be that theologically sound Christians sometimes fail to live out the ethics that are demanded by their theology. Such was Carl F. H. Henry’s criticism of early evangelicalism.

The core theme of Henry’s brief volume The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism is that doctrinally orthodox evangelicals (i.e., those who held to the fundamentals of the faith) often fell into the trap of repudiating social ethics simply because social activism was associated with modernist, theologically liberal Christians. This led faithful and theologically sound Christians to reject just action to mitigate harms, though those actions would have occurred in ways that were consistent with and even demanded by a doctrine faithful to Scripture. Such failures, Henry argued, caused early evangelicals to have an uneasy conscience.

Henry’s indictment of his own theological tribe should come as no surprise, since Jesus’ words about the overflow of the heart are followed immediately by a sharp rebuke of those who have a proper faith, but fail to act on it (Luke 6:46-49). Or, in perhaps the most misunderstood verse in Scripture, James 2:14-17 reminds Christians that faith that does not lead to ethical application is dead.

The problem in these situations is not that people were concerned about right doctrine, but that they failed to act upon it. Perhaps they understood the theological propositions, but did not have a living faith to drive them to live the ethical implications of those doctrines. These critiques are reasonable. However, the assertion that doctrine is unimportant is untenable.

The assertion “ethics matters but doctrine does not” requires a presumption that theology is abstract while action is concrete. Nothing could be further from the truth. Ethics is abstract to the extent that even our good actions are tainted by sinful motivations and have unknown consequences. Theology—the study of God and his works—is concrete inasmuch as its object is known and knowable. Orthodox doctrines are not arbitrary constructions that satisfy the desire for completeness and intellectual attainment of theologians and exegetes. Most theology is done in the crucible of real-life concerns in an attempt to discern what is right and godly, which is the only possible foundation for a Christian ethics. Again, Sayers is helpful as she describes the formulation of doctrine:

Dogmas are not a set of arbitrary regulations invented a priori by a committee of theologians enjoying a bout of all-in dialectical wrestling. Most of them were hammered out under pressure of urgent practical necessity to provide an answer to heresy.

This is no less true about the doctrines that undergird human sexual ethics than it is about teachings that deal with Christology. The church has often had to specifically codify previously assumed or unconsidered doctrines in the face of innovative challenges that threaten to undermine the doctrinal core of Christianity. This does not represent a failure to love the people who hold faulty doctrine: it is a sign of faithfulness to the one who calls Christians to love people. Paul’s admonishment is to speak truth in love, not to reject truth in the name of love (cf. Eph. 4:15).

Christians would do well to live out their faith. They would also do well to ponder Jude’s words to the church, which include a call to contend for the faith—the sound doctrine—that was given to the saints because those who rejected those teachings led others to practice bad ethics (Jude 3-4). Christianity is not merely about right doctrine, but orthodoxy cannot be rejected without a grave cost to ethics.

NOTE: This article was previously posted at the B&H Academic Blog, which has since been archived due to a change in media strategy.

Reading the Times - A Review

Most local newspapers are dying. The little paper in my city has been reduced to high school sports, complaints about the nearby nuclear plant, classified ads, and the occasional social gossip. More and more newspapers are shifting to a model of reprinting what comes through on some subscription service. This has had the effect of trivializing the news, so that local stories about small-scale, but important deeds like a teen giving her father CPR or a child finding the foundation of an old historical building while exploring the back woods disappear. In their place we get news about a smaller and smaller set of less and less real people who happen to have a large following on social media, their own TV show, and might have moderate talent in some other area of life. We end up knowing more about a rich, beautiful, spoiled person whom we will never meet than we do about our neighbor down the block.

The media by which we take in the news of the day affects the trivialization of the world, though it does not mandate it. Many people get their news from social media, which means that it tends to be ideologically slanted toward opinions shared with one’s friends. Since one of the basic presuppositions of our society is that if you associate with someone you agree with them, a bubble of reality begins to form. And, since the art of disagreeing temperately on social media is difficult to learn, opposing ideas are often avoiding or ignored rather than engaged and questioned. Comments are either strongly affirming or attacking the opinion under consideration, because to say “yes, but” or “maybe this, yet not that” is a needle that few can thread from a keyboard.

But it is our behaviors that trivialize the news. We share articles with misleading headlines, sometimes without having read the body. We look for opinions that excoriate our outgroup. The algorithm feeds our human behavior and continues to provide the material for which we have developed a taste. And we must be clear that our taste has been developed through our own actions, or, at least, through our own failures to resist the tendency of the news medium to trivialize our view of the world.

What can we do about it?

Jeffrey Bilbro’s book, Reading the Times: A Literary and Theological Inquiry into the News, provides both an apt diagnosis of the problem and some particularly helpful steps toward alleviating it. The result is a succinct, clearly-written book that is accessible to the layperson.

Bilbro’s diagnosis is not particularly innovative. He is channeling the energy of Wendell Berry, Jacques Ellul, Neil Postman, and Thoreau in arguing that the way news is presented is not good for the human condition. In application, Bilbro’s solutions are much more reliant on Berry and Thoreau (whom Bilbro has written about previously) than the other two thinkers. In any case, innovation is not what is needed, but intelligibility and digestibility.

The core of the problem, as Bilbro presents it, is not necessarily the technology or the content of the news, but rather that too much of what we get that passes as news has very little to do with our lives, even though it is designed to rattle our cage. What we get angry or excited about often has little to do with what God is concerned about:

“Perhaps we need to conduct an emotional audit and consider which issues or news items cause us to become angry, outraged, or excited: Are we grieving over what grieves God and rejoicing over what brings him joy? Or have we become emotionally invested in trivia while growing apathetic about matters of real import?”

Bilbro recognizes that a big part of the problem is the way we read the news. As a result, the fix is to change ourselves and what we value. This is a book that is timely and well suited for those looking for an off-ramp from the highway of partisan politics, misanthropy, and emotional turmoil that often goes with the news.

After a brief introduction, in which Bilbro explains that his purpose is to help us understand how to use the news to love our neighbor better, the book is divided into three parts with three chapters each. Part One deals with attention, Part Two with time, and Part Three with community. The pattern of each part is to present the modern problem in the first chapter, put out a somewhat abstract better condition in the second chapter, and then provide some realistic practices that can help transition between the two. This pattern of problem, better vision, and help to get there makes this book a novel contribution.

Bilbro does not abstain from social media, nor does he recommend that for his readers, but he provides a means to put social media use in its place. He doesn’t recommend disconnecting from news media, but being more thoughtful of who we read, when, and how. The book presents a realistic vision of living in a world that demands our participation, but threatens us through our participation at the same time.

Much of Bilbro’s writing has had a localist bent. Like his hero, Wendell Berry, he has invested a great deal of thought in how to live in this place, right now. Modernity tends to flatten the world (a la Friedman) and create a tyranny of the eternal immediate present. Bilbro points to living better with an eternal viewpoint and a local scope, which is just the opposite of the way the news pushes us to have a global scope with an immediate viewpoint. This book won’t solve all of everyone’s problems, but it is another piece in a puzzle of dealing with the malaise of modernity.

In addition to being helpful and well-written, for those engaged in the study of modernity, this book ties a lot of pieces together. The footnotes are a roadmap to a wide range of resources for deeper study and consideration. They are also a trap for an individual’s book budget. I had to read the book again (a pleasure) before writing this review because I got sidetracked for several weeks following the leads that Bilbro laid out in his notes. Several mysterious packages showed up on the porch in the interim, which I had to explain to my wife, which was local news enough around here.

Buy the book because it is good and useful. Beware that it is going to make you stop, think, and probably even change the way you look at a few things.

Reading the Times: A Literary and Theological Inquiry into the News

By Bilbro, Jeffrey

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NOTE: I received an advanced reader copy from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

We Need to Recover Virtue

Until a few years ago there was a lot of talk among orthodox Christians about character. Public concern for character has eroded as political tides have shifted. But throughout the history of Christianity character—that is, embodied virtue—has been a consistent focus of discipleship.

The term virtue has been less commonly discussed among Protestants than among Roman Catholics. Due to the primary focus on Scripture, Protestants have leaned toward deontological ethics. Obedience to the duties outlined in Scripture have framed the way that many Protestant Christians discuss holiness. Among Roman Catholics there is a more robust tradition of virtue ethics and the pursuit of virtue, not least because of the work of Thomas Aquinas on the subject, though one finds similar language in Augustine and others.

One common objection to virtue talk among Protestants is that it enables a drift from Scripture. Situational ethics, for example, is a version of virtue ethics that emphasizes one virtue––that of love, ambiguously defined. Situation ethics can be used to justify violation of the clear requirements of Scripture in the name of virtue. Similarly, in versions of virtue ethics (like that espoused by Blanchard and O’Brien in An Introduction to Christian Environmentalism) adherents sometimes justify obvious disobedience to Scripture (as with acts of violence and property destruction) in the name of some other virtue. The vagueness of virtue language has made this approach to ethics and discipleship unpopular especially among conservative evangelicals.

The ambiguity of virtue language and the potential for drift is real, but the price of abandoning the pursuit of virtue is taking a significant toll on the public witness of conservative Christians. A duty-based ethics, absent the guardrails of virtuous character, can fall into self-justification and casuistry very quickly. In practice it often looks like finding proxy sinners to do the dirty work. We can promote an unscrupulous politician, even if we cannot ourselves engage in similar skullduggery. More concerning that voting for one of several bad options is cheering on the misdeeds of the dark hero, which is where the motives of our hearts are revealed.

There is room for a re-engagement in virtue thinking among evangelicals. Indeed, I believe it to be absolutely necessary. Pursuit of virtue must, of course, be filled with the content of Scripture, but we must go beyond proof-texts and seeking bare duties if holiness is going to become the signature quality of evangelicals.

If we are to pursue virtue, we will likely find help from the Roman Catholic tradition, because they have more consistently maintained a focus on virtue. Some instances of this are more helpful than others, but as with any theology, we should be prepared to chew the meat and spit the bones.

Romano Guardini’s book, Learning the Virtues That Lead You to God is a helpful place to begin. The title gives away the fact that Guardini sees virtues as a way of gaining merit that can increase the likelihood of salvation or reduce time in Purgatory, but setting those important considerations aside, there is deep value in studying the virtues as Guardini presents them.

After a brief preface, Guardini considers the nature of virtue, where he lays the groundwork of virtue from Greek philosophy (particularly Plato) and argues that the pursuit of virtue is an incremental work that believers should begin with the virtues that are most familiar to them. There are sixteen meditations that follow, each on a different virtue. These are not the classical virtues, but sixteen character traits including truthfulness, patience, justice, reverence, disinterestedness, kindness, gratitude, and others. As Guardini notes in his preface, “This interpretation shall be carried out in a very unsystematic way.” The book concludes with a brief meditation on justice before God, which attempts to bring unity to the previous chapters and encourages the pursuit of holistic virtue. The conclusion is the least satisfying chapter for someone in the Augustinian tradition, because it ends on a minor key of perpetual pursuit rather than comfort in Christ.

Learning the Virtues that Lead You to God is a book that deserves to be read slowly. While we might not agree with Guardini on the purpose of a pursuit of virtue, there is a great deal of wisdom in the pages.

In dealing with Justice, Guardini notes, “All criticism should begin with ourselves, and with the intention of improving things. Then we would soon see how much goes wrong because we do not permit the other person to be who he is and do not give him the room which he requires.”

While considering reverence, Guardini writes, “In the measure in which cultural evolution progressed, and a rational understanding and technical mastery of the world increased, the religious element receded. The concept of significance and value became predominant and awakened a respectful attitude in which there was still an echo of the old awe, that feeling of reverence of which we are speaking and by which a man of proper discernment still pays tribute to greatness.”

Writing about disinteredness: “The power of personality stems from the genuineness of life, the truth of thought, the pure will to work, and the sincerity of one’s disposition.”

Wrestling with courtesy, we read: “We must emphasize another point, something that has a direct effect on people’s dealings with each other; namely, the lack of time. Courtesy requires time. In order to exercise it, we must stop and wait; we must make a detour and we must be considerate and defer our own affairs. But all this takes time, and in our age of forced deadlines, of precisely functioning machinery, of the high costs of construction, and of fierce competition, the loss of time is something useless, irrational, erroneous, and even wicked.”

These few quotes help show the flavor of the chapters and demonstrate why this is a book that deserves to be read slowly and repeatedly. We need not agree with everything Guardini says, but there is value in hearing him say it and considering it carefully for application in our own lives.

Learning the Virtues: That Lead You to God

By Romano Guardini

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