How can we uphold a specifically Christian ethic in an ever more secular culture?

In last week’s note I touched upon the central and unavoidable claim inherent in Christianity to uniqueness – both in addressing the human condition and in the path to salvation it offers to all who are willing to receive it.

In contemporary culture, as though that was not enough to consider, we are faced with the further highly fraught dimension of the seemingly consequent claim to offer a specifically Christian approach to ethics. 

When we think about this it is very striking, however, that contemporary Christians are far more likely to display intense disagreement on ethical matters than on doctrine. Quite why this is the case probably says something significant about what we treat more seriously and, if so, that we are at some variance with most of Christian history through the course of which doctrine was felt to be of the foremost importance – to the point that wars and the entire Reformation were fought over it long after the even earlier theological schisms between East and West. 

But turning to the specific claim, that there is such a thing as a uniquely Christian approach to ethics is to consider a claim that is both compelling and contested. 

On the one hand, it is compelling because Christianity is not merely a collection of propositional belief claims, and still less is it a matter of merely pious sentiments or mere moral bromides. As we know very well in this parish, Christianity is a determinate way of seeing reality in light of God’s particular self-revelation in Christ and that claim upon us has real content in terms of how we live. The call to holiness of life made upon each of us implies strong practical specificity about what living that out should entail even if – sinful as we are – we know we will fail and the struggle will be life long and hard.

And with this importance comes almost inevitably the fact of contestation and dispute which we see so strongly in contemporary societies – especially, perhaps now, that they are apt to understand themselves as pluralist societies. This is widely felt to have the implication that such societies should be able to contain deep disagreement about ultimate questions (even though by no means uncontestable claims themselves). Hence, it is easy to see how some would go further and argue that any appeal to specifically Christian moral conviction is to be guilty of sectarianism, intolerance, or even some kind of illegitimate privilege. 

Looked at in terms of Christianity’s historic self understanding, however, the central question is not whether Christian ethics is distinct, but whether that distinctiveness can be articulated in a way that is morally serious and intellectually, yet also legitimate within what is presumed to be required for a pluralist polity to be sustainable.

I would answer to that a firm “yes,” but nonetheless if we are to be heard, we will need to tread carefully, for we must be true to Christianity’s internal moral logic and yet also engage effectively with such forms of public reasoning as are operative in our wider society – and that, we have to recognise, could entail being willing to challenge some of the assumptions made by others as to what that wider context can legitimately demand.

We should begin with the frank recognition that Christian ethics is uniquely Christian in its source, narrative, and end or telos. Our distinctive perspective springs from very particular doctrines of creation, incarnation and redemption, as well as our understanding of the Kingdom of God to come and its life eternal. Above even all this it is shaped by what was revealed by the person and teachings of Jesus Christ.

We understand ourselves to be living in a world of God’s creation within which human free will led to the Fall and our every day sins continue to leave us alienated from God in such a way that only the unique sacrifice of Jesus Christ (the only begotten Son of God) could redeem. Justified by Christ alone, we are nonetheless called to the lifelong task of sanctification and indeed the wider quest to build the Kingdom of God here and now insofar as we can in communities that live out what it means to love God and our neighbors as ourselves. 

Yet this uniqueness does not entail that Christian ethics must be unintelligible to those outside the church. There is a sense in which the legitimacy of our perspective, while ultimately rooted in what God wills and has revealed, can only be expected to be found hearing in public life insofar as we engage and are able to render our insights accessible to wider common deliberation.

The Christian ethic differs from secular moral systems insofar as it is grounded in revelation, but by virtue of the confidence we should have that what God wills is what is good for human fulfilment and flourishing, it is also right that we should be able to engage with those who do not believe in revelation and explicate our insights in ways that point to our shared concern for the good of all and what it is that this requires. Moreover, the concept of a world made good and redeemed poses questions that others can share in addressing when it comes to setting out what that entails for how we should live.

The Christian moral life does not begin with the moral atomism and the solipsistic isolated self, asking what values it happens merely to prefer. Rather, the whole notion of being created means we must begin as creatures, who are receiving life as a gift and responding in obedience to the claims that human flourishing can therefore make upon us. 

Human beings are to be best understood as created in the image of God, fallen into sin, and called to reconciliation and new life in Christ. This framework defines the meaning of ethics at its root in a particular way we are entitled to ask others to share. 

But it entails that moral action is not simply the maximization of individual preference or satisfaction, social utility, or even just individual flourishing as defined at a particular time by prevailing convention (which, after all, may withdraw in the next generation what it gives now). The Christian telos embraces a call to all to participate in a redeemed order whose standard is not the self but God’s holy and loving will for our ultimate flourishing. No matter the challenges in articulating the particularities which are clearly hard, this entails a project in which we can invite all to share. This remains true even though, as Christians, it is our special obligation in the quest for sanctification and the eternal life to come that is given to those who follow the risen Christ of our Easter rejoicing.