Tag Archives: Christian ethics

Progressive Christian Ethics—An Exercise in Duplicity?

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In my recent studies of progressive Christian thinkers, many of which I have published on this blog, I keep running into a paradox in their ethical reasoning, specifically in their arguments for full acceptance of LGBTQ+ identities and lifestyles and their justifications of abortion and sexual activity outside of marriage. On the one hand, they argue like strict legalists, focusing on the precise meanings of words and sentences, and on the other hand they dismiss or reinterpret the Bible’s moral commands by means of general principles.

Progressive Legalism

As examples of the legalist mentality, we saw the Dean of Yale Divinity School argue in effect that because the Bible does not say in many words, “You shall not kill your unborn baby,” we can assume that we are permitted to do so. See my July 7, 2022 essay “A Wizard Ought to Know Better.”

https://ifaqtheology.com/2022/07/07/a-wizard-ought-to-know-better/

 Also, Karen Keen*, Robert K. Gnuse*, David Caden*, and David P. Gushee* argue that the Bible permits loving, non-coercive, same-sex sexual relationships among equals.** A significant component of their argument contends that since the Bible never specifically condemns such relationships, the texts that mention same-sex sexual activity (Romans 1:26-27, 1 Cor. 6:9-11, and others) should not be used in moral arguments to condemn loving gay relationships. Freed from scriptural condemnations, we can look for other ways to justify same-sex sexual relationships as good and right—gathered from science, psychology, sociology, or evolutionary biology.

Progressive theologians fuss over words like clever lawyers looking for loopholes they can exploit. In my reading of their works, I do not get the impression that their fussiness about the letter of the law arises from a desire to obey God’s commands to the letter. Some other desire seems to be at work.

Progressive Liberalism

On the other hand, when explicit biblical instructions and the consensus of the 2000-year Christian tradition stands irrefutably against them, they abandon the “letter” for the “spirit” of the law. They appeal to general principles to overturn the specific moral teaching of the Bible and tradition. We should, they say, always do the loving thing, the just, merciful, compassionate thing. We should not cause harm. And if following the Bible’s and the tradition’s moral teaching does not seem loving and compassionate, we must reinterpret or reject it. In this way, progressive Christians set aside explicit biblical teaching and the consensus of the ecumenical church when it does not seem to them loving, just, merciful, compassionate…or progressive.

General Principles Are Not Enough

But a moment’s thought reveals that general principles alone cannot guide us in specific situations. How do the principles of justice, peace, mercy, and love, apart from specific commands and a tradition of examples, doctrine, and narratives, give us concrete guidance in particular situations? They cannot do so. What is justice? What does it mean to cause harm to someone? Is making them feel uncomfortable causing harm? How do I love my neighbor? What are compassion and mercy?

Every observer of modern culture knows that many of our contemporaries, having cut themselves loose from the biblical and ecclesiastical tradition, use these words as empty vessels into which to pour their own wishes, desires, and preferences. Do you love someone when you validate their desires and feelings, when you care only for their subjective sense of well-being? Or, does loving someone mean to will and seek the best for them? From where, then, do we learn what is good, better, and best for human beings? Progressive Christians clearly look to progressive culture for guidance.

But progressive Christianity is not the real thing. It is a fake. Taking up the real Christian life involves learning the true nature of love, justice, mercy, compassion, and all other virtues from the Bible’s commands, narratives, doctrines, and examples. It involves listening to the wisdom of the tradition and joining with the whole church in seeking to obey God’s will. We cannot do this if we claim the right to sit in judgment over every specific command in view of empty general principles.

*To read these reviews, copy and paste these names into the search box on the top right of this page.

**Karen Keen, Scripture, Ethics, and the Possibility of Same-Sex Relationships 

Robert K. Gnuse,“Seven Gay Texts: Biblical Passages Used to Condemn Homosexuality” (Biblical Theology Bulletin 45. 2: 68-87).

 David A. Kaden, Christianity in Blue

David P. Gushee, After Evangelicalism: The Path to a New Christianity

A New Christianity? A Post-Evangelical Progressive Vision (Part 1)

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In the previous two posts I reviewed a book by a far-left representative of progressive Christianity, namely David A. Kaden, Christianity in Blue. Today I will begin a review of David P. Gushee, After Evangelicalism: The Path to a New Christianity (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2020; pp. 225). A Baptist, a “self-identified progressive evangelical” (p. 5) and a professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University (Macon, Georgia), Gushee advocates a position much closer to traditional and biblical Christianity than does Kaden. As the book’s title proclaims, Gushee rejects evangelicalism and proposes a “New Christianity,” which he calls “post-evangelicalism.” This “new Christianity” is animated by a spirit of “Christian humanism.”

The book divides into three parts and nine chapters. Part one deals with the question of the sources of authority for theology and ethics. Part two deals with three central theological topics, God, Jesus, and the church. Part three explores the topic of ethics. I will briefly summarize each chapter and for the most part save my critical assessment until we have the entire argument before us.

Part One: Authorities: Listening and Learning

1. Evangelicalism: Cutting Loose from an Invented Community

According to Gushee, modern evangelicalism “was invented through a historical retrieval and rebranding move undertaken by an ambitious group of reformers within the US Protestant fundamentalist community of the 1940s” (p. 15). Evangelicalism, according to Gushee, “was never more than fundamentalism with lipstick on” (p. 27). From the beginning, the evangelical movement set its sights on recapturing American culture from political and theological progressives. By the 1970s, an “identity fusion” (p. 24) between white evangelicals and the Republican Party had been accomplished. However for a minority of moderate to left-leaning evangelicals, the overwhelming support of evangelicals (81%) for Donald Trump in the 2016 election “became a bridge too far” (p. 25). The evangelicalism of today is white, Republican, fundamentalist, sexist, homophobic, and racist. Evangelicalism revealed its true colors in 2016 and thus provoked a “massive exodus” (p. 28) that continues today.

2. Scripture: From Inerrancy to the Church’s Book

According to Gushee, evangelicalism’s union with right-wing politics is not the only thing driving the mass exodus. Its fundamentalist view of the Bible as “inerrant” creates huge intellectual, theological, and ethical problems for many people. Leaving aside the history and detailed description of the doctrine of inerrancy, the bottom line is that evangelicals accept the Bible as the Word of God, true in everything it asserts in matters of faith and morality. Gushee raises six objections to the evangelical/fundamentalist view of the Bible. (1) The Bible is obviously a human product, and “any human product is subject to human limits and various kinds of error” (p. 31). But Gushee does not for this reason reject the Bible as of no use to the church. In place of the doctrine of inerrancy, he proposes a theory of “limited inspiration” wherein “some scriptural texts consistently demonstrate that they are inspired by God because they prove so useful in Christian experience for drawing people to Jesus and his way” (p. 32; emphasis original). These “inspired” texts serve as a “canon within a canon” (p. 33). Jesus’s teaching that we are to love God and our neighbor serves as the criterion for what is canonical. (2) The Bible is a collection of ancient documents, written in three different languages and set in cultures vastly different from ours. Our attempts to interpret the Bible are beset by many exegetical obscurities and translation problems. Understanding the Bible is not as simple as “God said it, I believe it, that settles it” (p. 35). (3) The “Bible does not interpret itself” (p. 35). Human beings do the interpreting. Because human interpreters are “flawed, limited, and self-interested,” a post-evangelical approach “will emphasize a communal process of interpreting Scripture, which occurs in an ongoing conversation between individual Christians, clergy, scholars, and the historic church, with the help of God’s Spirit” (pp. 36-37).

(4) The Bible is the church’s book. These texts became “sacred” to the church “because they were believed to bear witness to Jesus and to help people find salvation through him” (p. 37; emphasis original). Gushee proposes an alternative way to understand the Bible as sacred Scripture to replace inerrancy: “That way is to recognize that the Bible is and always has been the church’s book” (p. 38). What does it mean to read the Bible as “the church’s book”? The next point sheds some light on this question. (5) According to Gushee, Christians can learn much from the Jewish way of reading the Bible. At least some Jews read the Hebrew Bible as “a dialogue between God and God’s people” (p. 39) rather than a one-way communication. Christians have a responsibility, claims Gushee, “to read texts in ways that bless rather than harm human beings” (p. 40). Gushee quotes Elie Wiesel with approval: “If even the most authoritative teaching, the most sacred text, leads to dehumanization, to humiliation, to harm, then we must reject it” (p. 40).

(6) Finally, the doctrines of the inerrancy and all-sufficiency of Scripture distracts us from seeking God’s voice in other places: “These include tradition, science, reason, experience, intuition, community, and relationships” (p. 41). Gushee continues: “The power of a narrow evangelical biblicism must be broken, but you can’t replace something with nothing. We need to open ourselves to other ways of discerning truth” (p. 41).

3. Resources: Hearing God’s Voice Beyond Scripture

It seems to be a defining characteristic of “progressive” Christianity of whatever stripe that it seeks insight into God’s character and will from sources in addition to Scripture. Moreover, progressives are willing to judge and correct Scripture’s teachings about God and morality in view of these other sources. In this chapter Gushee outlines “a new approach to listening for God’s voice and discerning God’s will” in sources other than the Bible (p. 45). He proposes three sources in addition to Scripture to which we should listen for guidance. (1) The first is internal to the church, its tradition, and communal life. Gushee does not advocate treating tradition as an authority to which we must submit our own judgment. He recommends that post-evangelicals “not bow before tradition, or dismiss it with a sneer, but to understand its shaping role in creating Christianity as we know it” (p. 50). That is to say, post-evangelicals need to develop a historical awareness of the forces determining their doctrinal and moral biases and the biases of others. Only then will they be able to listen seriously to the second and third sources. (2) The second set of supplementary sources for discerning God’s will are “reason, experience, intuition, relationships, and community” (p. 51), all of which are located and grounded in natural human capacities. Reason detects and rejects logical and factual contradictions even if those contradictions are found in the Bible. Gushee gives as an example the contradiction between the biblical assertions that God is love and the biblical command to the invading Israelites to wipe out the inhabitants of Canaan. Experience also teaches what is good and bad, healthy and harmful, humanizing and dehumanizing, and what God’s will is and what is not. According to Gushee, the experience of LGBTQ+ people is a source of knowledge of God’s will and must not be denied on the basis of Bible texts and their traditional interpretation. (3) The arts and sciences can also serve as sources for hearing God’s voice. Post-evangelicals must take the conclusions of the sciences with respect to climate change, homosexuality, and other areas of scientific discovery seriously.

The Progressive View of Authority: A Preliminary Assessment

As will become even more obvious in the next chapters, the views that set progressive Christianity apart from traditional/biblical Christianity cannot be derived from the Bible. From where, then, do they come? In part one, Gushee makes it clear that progressive Christianity looks to reason and experience to justify its proposed changes to biblical/traditional Christianity. Hence the church’s traditional teaching that the Bible alone is the ultimate norm of Christian faith and morals must be rejected. To defend their progressive views, progressives reinterpret,* correct, reject, or even condemn the teaching of Scripture. God’s “voice” in personal experience, political movements, culture, and psychology in certain cases trumps Scripture. Apparently the “progress” of progressive Christianity depends on a constant flow of new divine revelations. It should not escape notice that these new revelations track almost perfectly, albeit a few months behind, with advances in secular culture and politics.

*To interpret means to explain an obscure text in other words and concepts clearer to the listener. The goal of interpretation is to unite the mind of the listener with the original meaning of the text along with its full implications and applications. To reinterpret usually means not merely to challenge older, established interpretations but to read an alien meaning into the text with as much plausibility as one can create. It is to hijack the accrued authority of a text and place it in service of a meaning more acceptable to the interpreter. Many reinterpretations involve distortion, deception, and downright lies.

Next Time: We will examine part two, “Theology: Believing and Belonging” wherein Gushee proposes progressive views of Jesus, God, and the Church.

The Bible and Christian Ethics (Part Three)

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Before we can make further progress in our series on “The Bible and Christian Ethics,” we need to distinguish among three concepts: the universal moral law, ethics, and a way of life.

Distinctions

Universal Moral Law

In the previous essays I spoke of a universal moral law as the set of the basic moral rules known everywhere, at all times, and by all people through reason and conscience. The Bible demands that we live according to these rules, but it does not claim that they are grounded or known exclusively through its commands.

Ethics

Ethics is a rational discipline of reflection on morality—on the grounds, justification, ways of knowing, extent, and application of morality. Every society articulates moral rules, but not every society produces a rational account of those rules. Christian ethics is a theological discipline that reflects rationally on the Christian way of life for the Christian community. This series is an exercise in Christian ethics.

A Way of Life

A way of life is a comprehensive set of rules, often unarticulated, for living in a particular community. It incorporates the universal moral law but includes much more. It embraces also the traditional wisdom and customs learned by communal experience and a vision of human living inspired by its views on human nature and destiny—all of which are set within its understanding of the divine. A community may be called to a way of life more demanding—but usually not less—than the universal moral law instructs. Christianity is a way of life that incorporates everything right and good taught by reason, conscience, and experience into the vision of God and humanity revealed in Jesus Christ.

The Christian Way of Life

Each traditional community embodies the basic universal moral rules in its own distinct way, given its unique history and identity and beliefs. The ancient Israelites, as I said in previous essays, incorporated the universal moral law into their laws but embodied it in distinct ways and augmented it in view of their beliefs about God and their unique calling to be the holy people of a holy God.

Christianity incorporates within its way of life the universal moral law as mediated by the Old Testament law along with the wisdom embodied therein. In continuity with ancient Israel the church understands itself to be God’s special people, called to live in a way consistent with the character, identity, and expectations of Israel’s God. As Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” And referring to Leviticus, Peter urges believers living among pagans, “But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do;for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy” (1 Peter 1:15-16).

But Christianity does not merely continue the Old Testament way of life unchanged. It reorients everything with a view to Jesus Christ—his teaching about his Father, the kingdom of God, the life of peace, love of enemies, purity of heart, and suffering for righteousness sake. The apostolic teaching points to Jesus’s humility, obedience, and self-giving, especially as exemplified in the cross, as the model for all Christians to follow (Phil. 2:5-11; 1 Peter 2:21). This new Christ-centered way of life places the universal moral law and traditional wisdom about what is good for human beings within a new order, but it does not delegitimize them.

Christians are expected to be good people by universal moral standards. Christianity calls on all members of the Christian community not only to avoid criminality and behavior reprehensible to everyone but also to the highest ideals of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and all the other pagan moralists as a minimum standard. Christians must not lie, steal, murder, commit adultery, or dishonor their parents. They must also rise above the common vices tolerated by the world. They do not curse, use profanity, gossip, or slander. They are not greedy but content, not arrogant but humble, not selfish but generous. They do not envy, get angry easily, act rudely, or boast (1 Cor 13:4). They are just, honest, kind, and faithful in all their human relationships. They control their passions: they are not gluttons, drunks, quarrelers, pornographers, fornicators, adulterers, or greedy. They love their wives and husbands, and they take care of their children. They exemplify the full spectrum of inner virtues: courage, prudence, humility, patience, faith, joy, peace, and love. Above all, they love God with their whole being and seek him in everything they do.

The Way Forward

I have argued that the Christian way of life set out in the New Testament is a combination of the universal moral law known by conscience and reason, traditional knowledge of a good and wise life learned though communal experience, and the Old Testament’s vision of a holy people in service to a holy God—all placed in relation to the definitive revelation of God and human destiny in Jesus Christ. Everything in the Christian way serves the end of transforming us into the image of Christ and achieving for us the destiny he pioneered, eternal life in likeness and union with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The New Testament’s inclusion of the universal moral law, traditional wisdom, and the Old Testament’s vision of the holy people as a part of the Christian way of life validates their force for the Christian life. Each component of the package is important and possesses its own weight. Many mistakes made in current debates among Christian ethicists result from neglecting this fact. In the next essays I will address the proper role of the Bible in discussions of moral issues where reason, conscience, and traditional wisdom have something to say. Specifically, I want to return to the issues of same-sex relationships and transgender issues and apply to those disputes the view of the Christian way of life I have developed in the previous two essays.

The Bible and Christian Ethics (Part Two)

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Previously…

In the previous essay I argued that it is a mistake to treat the Bible as if it were the only basis for belief in a divine reality or for the concept of God. The Bible itself presupposes that people outside its sphere of influence believe in a divine reality and share some beliefs about the nature of the divine with those of the Bible. The Christian doctrine of God is shaped by the history of Israel’s experience of God as documented in the Old Testament and even more by God’s revelation in Jesus Christ. If we do not acknowledge that belief in God’s existence and some beliefs about the divine nature can be properly founded on reason, nature, human experience, and other sources available apart from the revelation contained in the Bible, we deprive ourselves of the common ground on which we can share the distinctly Christian understanding of God with outsiders and we exclude the help that reason, nature, and human experience can give in forming our concept of God.

Universal Moral Law

The Universal Influence of Moral Law

In this essay I want to show why it is important for Christian ethics to acknowledge that the Bible is not the only basis for moral beliefs. Just as human beings have a tendency to believe in a divine reality and hold certain beliefs about the nature of the divine, human beings also have a tendency to believe that some acts are good and some are bad, some right and some wrong, and some just and some unjust. The people of Israel, Egypt, and all other ancient nations believed it was wrong to dishonor one’s parents, commit adultery, steal, covet, murder, and bear false witness long before God gave the Ten Commandments at Sinai. These laws and all the others given in Exodus and Leviticus have parallels in the nations and cultures of the ancient world. The covenant and the laws promulgated at Sinai were given to constitute Israel as a nation, not to reveal hither to unknown moral rules. All cultures have rules that govern marriage, proper sexual relationships, personal injury, property rights, family relationships, and myriads of other human interactions as well as penalties for infractions. The boundaries that define what is permitted and the nature of the penalties differ from culture to culture and age to age but the presence of moral rules and mechanisms for their enforcement remains constant.

Even without going into great detail about the history of moral codes and ethical and legal systems, two things are clear. First, human beings everywhere and always know that some acts are good and some bad and some are right and some are wrong.* Second, people do not live up to the moral ideals they acknowledge. The existence of laws proves the first point and the necessity of penalties demonstrates the second.

The Source of Moral Knowledge

What is the source of this universal moral knowledge? Clearly, it must be founded in something universal in human beings, given with human nature, derived from human experience, or some combination of the two. Some have argued that knowledge of the universal moral law has been implanted in human nature as conscience (the Stoics and Immanuel Kant). Others speak of human nature as possessing an inner urge that seeks what is truly good for its perfection, so that through individual and collective experience people discover what is good* (Aristotle and Alasdair MacIntyre). In my view both are important factors in moral experience. For what distinguishes moral action from other types of goal-seeking behavior is a sense of obligation. But it does not seem right that obligatory moral action should be completely disassociated from what is good for human beings.

What Does the Bible Add?

A Repository of Wisdom

What, then, does the Bible add to general moral knowledge acquired through conscience and experience to constitute a distinctly Christian way of life? First, for cultures influenced by Christianity, the Bible functions as the most significant repository of this general moral knowledge and wisdom. Every new generation must be taught the traditions, customs, morals, and wisdom received from the foregoing generations. No one is born wise or can gain sufficient knowledge of what is good, right, and wise from their untutored private experience. Irrational emotions must be disciplined and destructive desires need to be enlightened. Viewed in this light the moral laws of the Bible are not all that different from the proverbs and wise sayings found in the Old Testament book of Proverbs or the wisdom traditions of other nations. As a repository of moral wisdom, the Bible’s authority is no greater than the wisdom embedded in the laws and wise sayings themselves. It is important not to dismiss—as we modern people are inclined to do—this type of authority as of no significance, because it derives from the collective consciences and experiences of many generations and has been tested in the lives of millions of individuals.

The Laws of a Nation

Second, it is vital to understand that the Old Testament law also served as a moral, civil, criminal, and religious regime for the ancient nation of Israel. It would not be true to say that the Old Testament makes no distinctions among these four areas, but compared to modern secular societies the boundaries are a bit blurrier. The most obvious difference between the laws of ancient Israel and those of modern secular states is that religious infractions—worshiping idols, witchcraft, or working on the Sabbath, for examples—are punishable by the state. With regard to criminal law, every nation must decide and continually evaluate which actions are so detrimental to the peace, order, and general welfare of the nation that they must be criminalized. This judgment must take into account all known factors that can affect the welfare of the nation. Though there is some overlap, the factors considered by ancient peoples to be vital to the common good differ dramatically from those so considered by modern secular states. No state, however, attempted to criminalize every immoral and irreligious act. The Old Testament considers adultery and same-sex intercourse to be seriously detrimental to the general welfare and punished them with heavy penalties whereas modern secular societies have decriminalized these acts, albeit only recently. The measures by which the two societies measure the harmful effects of these and other immoral acts differ markedly.

Are the Laws of an Ancient Nation Still Relevant?

Of what relevance are the Old Testament civil, criminal, and religious laws for Christian ethics? Old Testament civil and criminal laws are of no direct relevance to Christianity because the church is not a nation, state, or empire. The Old Testament’s religious laws were given to the ancient Jewish people and cannot guide Christians in their religious practice. The New Testament makes clear that Christianity includes gentiles and Jews in a new covenant based on faith. The laws about sacrifice, ritual purity and separation from gentiles, circumcision, Sabbath, and other religious matters no longer apply.

But what about the Old Testament’s moral laws? Are they useful in constructing Christian ethics? In answering this question we need to remember first that many if not all the Old Testament’s moral laws merely republish moral laws universally found among human beings. Hence their authority derives not from their sheer presence in the Old Testament but from their universal acknowledgment as right and good. In so far as the Old Testament is authoritative in its own right—because it is included in the Christian canon—its affirmation of these universal moral laws may be viewed as a confirmation of their validity. But Christian ethics must not indiscriminately appeal to Old Testament moral law as authoritative. Christianity is based on the new covenant. The Laws of Moses—moral as well as civil, criminal, and religious—are the rules that define faithfulness to old covenant that God made with the people of Israel and them alone. Hence no law of any category in the Old Testament possesses universal and abiding force simply because it is commanded.

Next Time

As we shall see in future essays, Christian ethics incorporates the universal moral law into its vision of the Christian life. And in a way similar to the Old Testament, the New Testament adds to these universal moral laws its unique rules and principles guided by the vision of human nature and destiny revealed in Jesus Christ.

*For a detailed treatment of the concepts of “the good” and “the right,” see my essays from July 9 & 12, 2021.

The Bible and Christian Ethics (Part One)

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In my recent eleven-part review of Karen Keen, Scripture, Ethics, and the Possibility of Same-Sex Relationships, many of points of disagreement focused on the different ways Keen and I understand how the Bible should be interpreted and applied to the issue of same-sex relationships. The root of our disagreement on this particular issue of interpretation and application lies in part in disagreements about how Scripture may be used properly in theology and ethics in general.

With this essay, I will begin a short series addressing the issue of the proper use of Scripture in Christian ethics. I plan to deal with such questions as the following: Is the Bible the exclusive source for our knowledge of good and bad, right and wrong, moral and immoral? Does the Bible teach morality by means of specific commands, narratives, or general principles? Are the Bible’s moral commands right because it commands them or does it command them because they are right? Does the Bible permit whatever behaviors it does not explicitly exclude? How does the moral teaching of the Old Testament relate to the moral teaching of the New Testament? In what sense is the Bible an authority for moral teaching? What part does tradition play in interpretation? How do insights from modern psychology or science or culture relate to biblical morality?

However before we can address these important questions effectively, I believe we need to set the issue in its broadest context and develop a method for dealing with it in a systematic way. Let us, then, address a more fundamental question first: What is the proper use of the Bible in constructing our understanding of God? The answer we give to this question will illuminate our path toward answering the question about the proper use of the Bible in Christian ethics.

The Bible and the Doctrine of God

To deepening our understanding of God, we need to answer three questions: (1) Is there a God? That is, is there any sort divine reality? (2) What is God? What are the qualities or attributes that belong to the concept of God? (3) Who is God? What is the divine character and identity, and what are God’s attitudes toward human beings and his expectations of them?

These three questions are interrelated. The answer you give to one will somewhat determine the answers you give to the others. Nevertheless, there is an order from general to specific, so that those who disagree in their answers to (2) and (3) may agree on (1). And there can be a large area of agreement about the divine qualities (2) without agreement about the divine identity and character (3).

It should be obvious that the Bible is not the exclusive source for belief in God. People believed in God, gods, or some divine reality before and apart from the biblical history. The Bible itself presupposes and many times acknowledges this. Let’s consider the Bible’s relevance to each of these questions.

Is There a God?

Human beings have a tendency to believe in a divine reality, based in part on the existence, qualities, and impressive powers of nature. The Bible never tries to prove that there is a divine reality. Nor does it contest the legitimacy or basis of other nations’ belief in a divine reality. The debate focused on two other issues, the nature and the identity of the divine reality. In view of this fact, it would be a mistake for us to base our belief in a divine reality exclusively on the Bible and argue that people who believe in God on other grounds are mistaken! Of course, the witness of the Bible contributes to our belief in a divine reality, but it is not the only grounds for belief. If God delivered Israel from Egyptian slavery and raised Jesus from the dead, God indeed exists! But belief in God’s deliverance of Israel and Jesus’s resurrection are themselves contested, and it is easier to believe in the Exodus and the resurrection if you already believe in God.

What is God?

What are God’s attributes? What does it mean to be divine? Again, the very fact that people before and apart from the influence of the Bible believed in a divine reality shows that they had some sort of concept of the divine. In every case, the divine is of a higher order of being than human beings and the rest of nature: the divine is the creative, knowing, immortal power behind and above nature. The areas of theological belief contested between ancient Israel and other peoples were the unity, universal lordship, and exclusive divinity of God in opposition to the many nature gods of the nations. Also, there is within Greek philosophy a line of reasoning that leads to the one most perfect and eternal reality. The thought of Plato and Aristotle and many of their successors tends in this direction.

Hence it would be a mistake to base our understanding of the divine attributes exclusively on the Bible and deny that outsiders possess any true beliefs about the divine nature. For the Bible itself does not deny but assumes that those outside the Bible’s influence have some truth in their concept of God (see Acts 17). The Bible contributes significantly to our understanding of the divine nature: there is only one God, the creator and lord of all. Especially significant is the New Testament’s inclusion of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit within God’s life as the eternal Trinity and its redefinition of God’s power and wisdom in view of the cross and resurrection of Jesus. These differences redefine but do not cancel the pre-Christian view of divine power and wisdom.

Who is God?

What is the divine character and identity, and what are God’s attitudes toward and expectations for human beings? The biblical answer to this question diverges more from the answers given by other ancient religions than its answer to the first two questions. Nevertheless, many ancient peoples believed that their god was good and just—at least to them. The majority of Greek philosophers argued that the divine nature is purely good and above anger and jealously. For the most part the pagan gods’ identities were determined by their connections to nature and its powers and cycles.

In the Old Testament, God is identified as “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” He bears the Name YHWH (the LORD). He chose Israel, delivered her from Egypt and its gods, and made the covenant with her. He is faithful to his covenant promises and exhibits loving kindness and mercy. He is holy and righteous in all he does. In the New Testament, Jesus Christ becomes the place where we look to see the divine character and identity and to know God’s attitudes toward and expectations for human beings. This center then reorients all our acts of religion toward God.

Conclusion

The uniqueness of the Christian doctrine of God does not lie in its affirmation of a divine reality or in its assertion that God is the powerful, wise, eternal, and immortal Creator. Its uniqueness rests in its distinct appropriation of the Jewish understanding of the divine identity developed in the history of God’s dealings with the people of God as witnessed in the Old Testament. Specifically, Christianity directs our attention to the words, deeds, faithfulness, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ as the source of our deepest knowledge of God’s character and attitude toward human beings, his expectations of us and the destiny he has planned for us. Beliefs about God derived from other sources, though not rejected as false, are transformed by their new relationship to Jesus Christ.

In future essays I plan to apply a method to the issue of the Bible and Christian ethics similar to the one I used in this essay.

Did Jesus Really Interpret the Bible Like This? A Review Essay (Part Six)

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This post continues my review of Karen Keen, Scripture, Ethics, and the Possibility of Same-Sex Relationships. Today we focus on chapter 5, “What is Ethical? Interpreting the Bible Like Jesus.” In this chapter, Keen puts the finishing touches on her theory of biblical interpretation. She devotes the rest of the book to its application.

How Does the Bible Teach Morality?

Virtue Matters

In addressing the question of how the Bible teaches morality Keen mentions commands, examples, symbolic worlds, and virtues. Virtue seems to be Keen’s all-encompassing category. “Virtues,” she explains, “are about who a person is, whereas rules address what a person does.” Biblical virtues are culturally transcendent whereas laws and rules are culturally relative. Loving God and your neighbor are always right. In commenting on Jesus’s statement, “But now as for what is inside you—be generous to the poor, and everything will be clean for you” (Luke 11:41), Keen draws the following principle:

Jesus indicates that if we act out of virtue, the outcome is always the will of God…When the virtue of selfless love fills a person’s heart, all actions that flow from that are pure and are pleasing to God.

Applying the above principle to same-sex relationships, Keen argues,

If sin is defined as something that violates the fruit of the Spirit, how are loving, monogamous same-sex relationships sinful? These partnerships are fully capable of exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit. If Jesus says that all the law can be summed up in love, then don’t these relationships meet this requirement?

Interpretation within the Bible

Keen finds the argument from virtue “compelling” but realizes that some in her target audience may need more convincing. To provide that extra push she attempts to demonstrate that the biblical authors themselves employ the very interpretive strategy she has been advocating. She examines three instances of such internal rereading of the Bible: Deuteronomy 15:12-18 covers the same situation as does Exodus 21:2-11 but softens the law, making it more humane. The gospel of Matthew (19:9) makes an exception to Jesus’s strict teaching on divorce as recorded in Mark 10:11-12, and Paul adds another ground for divorce in 1 Corinthians 7:12-15. In reply to the Pharisees’ accusation that Jesus and his disciples were breaking the Sabbath law by stripping grain from the heads of wheat and eating it, Jesus cites David’s breaking the law by eating the holy bread of the sanctuary because of his hunger (Mark 2: 23-28; Matt 12:3-4). Jesus concludes, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). Keen infers from Jesus’s teaching on the Sabbath that “God’s ordinances are always on behalf of people and not for the arbitrary appeasement of God’s sensibilities.” If the author of Deuteronomy, Jesus, and Paul were correct to read the Bible this way, surely we are permitted to do so. Hence we are not only free but are obligated to apply biblical laws “with attention to human need and suffering.”

Helpful Distinction or Universal Principle?

In this chapter, Keen continues to build her case begun in the previous chapter for the clear distinction between the Bible’s specific instructions, which are culturally relative, and the universal moral principles that those instructions attempt to embody. This time she appeals to the category of virtue. Virtues are habitual attitudes that guide moral behavior in specific circumstances. Biblical virtues are universal principles that apply everywhere and always. In contrast, the moral quality of behaviors depends on how well they embody the universal virtues in specific contexts. Keen offers Jesus’s teaching about the purpose of the Sabbath and Matthew’s and Paul’s adaptation of Jesus’s teaching on divorce as biblical examples of the distinction between universal principles and their contextual application.

Undoubtedly, Jesus and Paul did distinguish between principle and application and between virtue and act. No one I know denies this distinction. But Keen’s case depends on transforming the admitted distinction into a dichotomy and incorporating it into an interpretative framework that allows no exceptions. For admitting the possibility of exceptions would weaken Keen’s case for the biblical legitimacy of same-sex relationships because it would plunge her into endless debates about which specific biblical instructions are transcultural and which are not. She would need to develop interpretative criteria for deciding this question also. The process of interpretation would never end.

But applying her no-exceptions interpretative method consistently would create even worse difficulties for her case. We could accept no biblical command at face value. The Christian ethicist would be required to explain how each and every biblical rule can be justified on the basis of general principles. Objections, alternative interpretations, disputes, and accusations of rationalization or callousness are sure to multiply.

Next: I will devote the next essay to criticism of the interpretative method Keen developed in chapters 4 and 5.

An Analytical and Critical Review of Karen Keen, Scripture, Ethics, and the Possibility of Same-Sex Relationships (Part One).

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Today’s essay is the fourteenth installment in my series on the contemporary moral crisis. I have decided that the best way to address “the elephant in the room” or should I say “the elephant in the church house” (same-sex relationships) is by reviewing a book that argues for the Christian legitimacy of loving, covenantal same-sex relationships. I have chosen to do a multipart analytical and critical review of Karen Keen, Scripture, Ethics, and the Possibility of Same-Sex Relationships (Eerdmans, 2018). Why this subject, and why this book?

Why this Subject and Why Now?

Until recently the subject of same-sex relationships and related issues of gender—indeed the whole list of LGBTQ+ identities—has been for evangelical and other conservative Christians a matter of the “culture wars.” Bible-believing Christians, evangelicals, and other conservative believers were united in defending traditional views of sex and marriage against liberal (or “progressive”) Christians and secular progressives. Conservatives viewed liberal Christians’ openness to same-sex relationships as a by-product of their prior rejection of the Bible as the definitive authority for doctrine and morals. Secular progressives, of course, do not acknowledge the Bible as an authority for anything. They appeal to a completely different source of moral guidance: science, culture, and personal experience.

However, within the past five years a significant number of pastors, professors, authors, and church members who claim to be evangelical, bible-believing, and orthodox have spoken out in favor of the church accepting same-sex relationships on the same or a similar basis as that on which it accepts traditional marriage. I am not speaking here only of something far away and limited to books by authors I do not know. I am speaking also about pastors, professors, and church members I know personally. I do not see how any church or parachurch institution can avoid this internal discussion for much longer. We are past the point of “the calm before the storm.” The storm is upon us. And it will not end until it exhausts its energy.

Why this Book?

Why Karen Keen’s book? Though clearly an intelligent and well-educated person—among other degrees, she holds Master of Theology from Duke Divinity School and has done work toward a PhD in Judaism and Christianity in Antiquity at Marquette University—Keen is not an elite biblical scholar, historian, or theologian. She is the founder and director of the Redwood Center for Spiritual Care & Education. Her book is short and written in a popular style. Why not, instead, review the most scholarly and detailed book advocating the thesis I want to examine? My reasons are simple: Books written in an academic style make arguments based on knowledge of ancient languages and cultures. They construct elaborate arguments from secular and church history and from psychology, sociology, and biology. Because the average person cannot assess the soundness of such elite arguments they are tempted to trust whichever expert that makes the case for the conclusion they prefer on quite different grounds.

I consider the brevity and popular style of the book to be an advantage in speaking to the audience I want to reach. In fact, Keen and I are writing to the same audience, Christian believers who view the Bible as the final authority for faith, religious practice, and morals. She argues in a clear and simple way that can be understood and evaluated by lay Christians based on their knowledge of English translations of the Bible, common sense principles of interpretation, and moral reasoning open to all. And yet, Keen has read widely in elite biblical, historical, and theological works, incorporating this information into her book. Hence I am confident that by analyzing and critiquing her work—though it is simple and popular—I am also evaluating the most persuasive arguments of elite scholars.

Keen’s Essential Argument

During the course of this series I will unfold the book’s full argument step by step with its supporting evidence and rebuttals of opposing arguments. But its core argument can be stated in a short series of assertions followed by a conclusion. Assertions one through three are principles of biblical interpretation, assertions four and five are derived from the experience of gay and lesbian people, and the conclusion follows from the combination of assertions one through five.

1. The Bible’s positive moral teachings, including the creation mandates concerning male and female in Genesis 1 and 2, provide a vision of justice, goodness, and peace, and they are intended to promote a just, good, and flourishing world. (Interpretive Principle)

2. The Bible’s moral prohibitions and limitations, including its rules for sexual behavior, are intended to forbid things that cause harm to human beings, human community, and the rest of creation and to prevent heartache and destruction from disrupting human flourishing. (Interpretive Principle)

3. To interpret and apply the Bible’s positive and negative moral teachings in keeping with their intended purposes we must deliberate about whether or not applying a specific biblical rule to a particular situation prevents harm and promotes justice, goodness, and human flourishing. Interpretations and applications that cause harm and inhibit human flourishing must be rejected. (Interpretive Principle)

4. Gay and lesbian people do not choose to be gay or lesbian, and the overwhelming majority cannot change their orientation. (Derived from Experience)

5. A large majority of gay and lesbian people do not have the gift of celibacy and find such a state lonely and deeply painful. (Derived from Experience)

Therefore:

6. Because loving, committed same-sex relationships embody justice, goodness, and human flourishing (#1), do not cause harm to the people in the relationship or the human community (#2), and unwanted celibacy causes great harm and unhappiness to gay and lesbian people (#4 and #5), faithful deliberation and application (#3) must conclude that the Bible allows and even blesses covenanted same-sex relationships.

Looking ahead, I ask readers to be patient. My semester has begun and the work load at school is heavy. I cannot post as often as I have during my summer break. It may take a while to work through the book. Because I consider this topic highly important to the future of the church I plan to move slowly and methodically through Keen’s argument, considering carefully every significant factual claim, logical move, and conclusion. Also I intend to describe her argument fairly, acknowledging its strengths even as I point out its weaknesses. Nothing is gained by misrepresentation, dramatization, or appeal to prejudice. I wish to write in a way that were Karen Keen to read my review she would acknowledge that I have represented her arguments accurately and (at least) tried to evaluate them fairly.

The Good, the Right, and the Bible

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In the previous essays we learned that human beings discover what is good for them through reason and experience. Each new generation must be taught the knowledge of the good acquired and tested by billions of individuals over thousands of years. The knowledge of what is good for us is communal and traditional. It should be obvious to any thoughtful person that no individual can acquire this knowledge from private experience alone.

The contemporary moral crisis was in part precipitated by modern culture’s abandonment of the notion that human beings acquire experiential knowledge of the good as a community and transmit it through tradition. In place of the notion of universal human nature and the goods necessary for its health, modern culture adopted a romantic notion of the good as a feeling of well-being and an individualist view of how we come to know the good. Not only do many people today reject the ideas of human nature, moral law, and the good and right as discovered and defined in tradition, to their ears these ideas sound completely foreign and incomprehensible.

Morality and the Bible

Not surprisingly, then, when Christians appeal to the Bible to determine what is good and right they are met with incredulity and hostility from the dominant culture. Appealing to the Bible strikes modern people as strange for two reasons. First, the Bible preserves a view of the good learned by the Jewish and Christian communities over many thousands of years and passed on in a tradition. Since our contemporaries do not acknowledge that communal experience and tradition are the only ways individual human beings can learn about the good, they reject appeals to the Bible as a moral authority. They would reject the authority of any other community and tradition for the same reason.

Second, Christians do not just appeal to the long-term experience of a community. They also equate the view of the good presented in the Bible with divinely revealed moral law. The rules and laws of the Bible present themselves not only as human discoveries of what is good for human beings but also as divine commands. The natural consequence of not adhering to the good is enduring something bad. But the consequence of disobeying a divine command is divine punishment.

Perhaps this second aspect of the Christian message is the primary reason for the hostility of the ascendant culture. It is one thing to warn people of the negative consequences of their actions. It is another to invoke divine disapproval and threat of punishment in addition to the natural consequences of the bad act. The first warning may cause people to smile at our naiveté, but the second will be taken as an insult and will evoke anger.

But it is not just outsiders who experience difficulty reconciling the good with the right and comprehending the relationship between learning about the good in communal experience and learning about it from a divine command. Believers, too, are often disturbed by the thought that God punishes bad behavior with pain in addition to the act’s natural consequences. Perhaps they are troubled even more by the thought that God might command something unrelated to any obvious good and punish transgressors even when negative consequences from the act itself are wholly absent. The moral crisis touches the church more than we would like to admit.

God and Morality

Why might a divinely commanded moral law may be needed above and beyond humanly discovered good? I am assuming for the moment that we at least understand the reasonableness of looking to the moral tradition contained in the Bible for instruction about the good. I admit that those totally sold out to the romantic view that the good is whatever gives us a pleasant feeling will not grant this assumption. I will address their rejection in due time. For now, I want to address those who are at least open to the idea that it is wise for an individual to accept the moral authority of a long-continuous community and tradition above private experience or abstract theories. But why divine commands?

In view of the human tendency to degenerate into sensuality and violence, we can see the value of divine guidance and inspirations to help lawgivers, prophets, and religious and moral reformers formulate rules that guide a community toward what is truly good. This is certainly how the Bible sees it. After the fall in Genesis, chapter 3, humanity keeps on its downward moral trajectory until there is only one good human being, Noah. From the biblical point of view, the customs of the peoples surrounding Israel are evil and inhumane. The laws given by God through Moses, however, are good and wise (See Psalm 119).

Admittedly, most of the moral laws in the Bible could have been learned from communal experience and they are similar to the highest moral aspirations of nations other than ancient Israel. However human beings are inclined to follow their immediate desires rather than reason and experienced-based wisdom. And this inclination can even poison the moral traditions of whole cultures, for example, Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18 and 19). Hence, from the biblical perspective, God’s decision to educate his people about the truly good by giving laws is a gracious act.

A Christian Morality?

What does viewing biblical morality as divinely commanded add to the moral authority of the Bible considered as a deposit of wisdom from a long-continuous community? The previous section began to address these questions. As I suggested there human beings tend toward sensuality and violence as individuals and as civilizations. And, although it is possible to learn much about what is good for human beings from experience, most people are more interested in immediate pleasure than the truly good. Hence the moral traditions of whole cultures can become polluted and self-destructive or so marginalized that they have little impact on the mass of individuals. The Bible assumes that human civilization has become so corrupt that divine intervention is necessary. The story of the Old Testament includes divinely commissioned lawgivers and prophets sent to a degenerate culture to reveal what is good.

There is also another reason Christian teachers invoke divine commands. Human experience is limited to life in this world. Experience can teach much about what promotes human happiness and flourishing in this life. But belief that God is creator of this world sets human life into a larger context, beyond the range of what can be learned by ordinary experience. If our sole end is living long and well in this life, then good is whatever helps us achieve this goal. But if God created human beings for a greater end, then good is whatever helps us achieve that end.

If we have a God-intended end beyond living long and well in this body, only God can tell us what it is and how to achieve it. We cannot learn this good from individual or collective experience. It should not be surprising, then, that Christians view the moral rules Christians live by as divine commands. This view makes perfect sense, because in Christianity the humanly chosen goal of living long and well is subordinated to the divinely chosen end of eternal life with God. This shift changes everything. Life in the body as a whole is now directed beyond itself. Living long and well in this life alone is no longer the end that determines what is good. We need God’s help both to know and to do the truly good. Those who believe that Jesus is the risen Lord will gladly receive his and his apostles’ instructions about how to live in view of the true end of human life revealed in him.

There are two big reasons the moral life to which the New Testament calls us seems strange and oppressive to our age: (1) even experienced-based moral rules, which focus only on living well and long in this body, sound strange and oppressive to many people. Never in any society has the majority been virtuous, even by Aristotle’s standards! (2) Unless one wholeheartedly embraces the Christian vision of the God-intended end of human life, living here and now in faith for that unseen end appears extremely foolish.

Introducing a New Series: The Christian Moral Vision and the Ironies of “Progressive” Culture

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The Heart of Progressive Culture

After thinking for months about social justice and critical race theory in relation to biblical Christianity, the church, and parachurch institutions, my mind has turned again to the deep moral crisis that has engulfed our culture, especially the culture of the USA. My intuition is this: The center and driving force of the ascendant culture that dominates higher education, many state and local governments, most of the media, nearly all the big cities, popular culture, and entertainment is a moral vacuum that has been eating away for centuries at the moral foundation that guided Western civilization for sixteen hundred years. Despite its utopian rhetoric to the contrary, the ascendant culture offers no alternative moral vision to replace the one it is destroying. Its central moral principle is wholly negative: we must remove all limits and destroy all oppressors and oppressive structures. Supposedly, once all oppressive structures are removed, the authentic human self—hitherto suppressed—will be free to find complete happiness in expressing itself in uninhibited external activity.

The Secret

However as I will argue in this series, a principle that defines all limits as oppressive will also destroy the self, efface the distinction between good and evil, right and wrong, wisdom and folly, reason and impulse, and being and nothing. The secret of the ascendant culture—supposedly progressive and enlightened but actually primitive and dark—is nihilism, the universal critical principle, the enemy of all being. In principle it negates God, creation, nature, moral law, community, and every other objective structure that it thinks constricts the self from becoming whatever the imagination envisions and desires. The arbitrary human will to power over itself and all being is its god. This god can create nothing, but it can destroy everything.

I’ve written on this subject in previous essays, and I want to incorporate some of those thoughts into this series. On April 04, 2014 I began an eleven part series on “Faith and the Contemporary Moral Crisis.” I see no need to rewrite those essays. So, I will begin this new series by reblogging edited versions of the essays in that series. Interspersed with and following those essays I will post new material that expands on some theoretical points and addresses our new situation seven years later.

New Developments

There have been four developments in the intervening years that I found surprising, though in hindsight I can see that they were predictable seven years ago and indeed inevitable. (1) The racialization of all social interactions. In the last few years, the liberal ideals of a colorblind society and merit-based economic advancement have been rejected by the ascendant culture as manifestations of white privilege. (2) The mainstreaming of the intersectional notion of personal identity. Since proving that one is a victim of oppression has become a ticket to recognition by progressive culture, the more oppressed groups to which one belongs the higher one’s status in this culture.

(3) The exponential growth in the popular acceptance of the complete disjunction between biological sex and gender identity. Of course, acceptance of transgenderism and gender fluidity was preceded over the last 30 years by acceptance of LGBQ identities and inevitably will be succeeded by other gender identities and those that transcend other boundaries. Again, given the moral nihilism at the heart of modern culture this development is perfectly understandable. For in principle, progressive culture finds all limits oppressive, and there are many boundaries that have not yet been recognized as limits. And for progressive culture only the oppressed have the right to identify their oppressors. No one is allowed to argue with them.

(4) Most surprising and disheartening is the rapid acceptance of the three developments mentioned above by people who claim to be Christians, especially from younger generations. In the 1960s there was a movement within academic theology called “Christian Atheism.” What I am seeing now is a popular as well as an academic movement I call “Christian Nihilism.” These people and those tempted to join them are at the center of my target audience. I hope I can help them see what they are doing. Perhaps they will reconsider their path.

Once you recognize the nihilism at the heart of progressive culture, all becomes clear. And there is no escape from the iron logic of nihilism from within progressivism. For to escape it, you would need to limit it. And that cannot happen because progressivism admits no limiting principle! There is only one way out: we must reject nihilism completely and rediscover the Creator.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion—Christian Ideals or Golden Calves?

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Deceitful Words

Almost every day I have to endure listening to non- or even anti-Christian meanings being poured into traditional Christian words. Even worse, I hear words whose meanings are determined by non- or anti-Christian contexts proclaimed as the height of Christian orthodoxy, piety, and virtue. This experience is as painful to me as I imagine Moses’s experience was to him as he descended mountain having heard the very voice of God only to discover that Aaron and the Israelites had made a golden calf and were worshiping it as the God who brought them out of Egypt (Ex 32). Today we have a multitudes of “Israelites” and plenty of “Aarons” within Christian circles who are only too happy to assimilate Christianity to the pagan culture surrounding it. And playing word games is one way of disguising the substitution.

Some Contemporary Golden Calves

Traditional Words Are Given Alien Meanings

Some years ago I had to study the works of some very liberal theologians. One theologian, Langdon Gilkey (1919-2004), kept using the word “salvation” in an odd way. He kept saying that there is salvation in all religions. What did he mean? Did he mean that the adherents of all religions would achieve what the New Testament offers as liberation from sin, death, and the devil? Do all religions lead to the arms of Abraham, to resurrection of the dead, to union with the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to eternal life in fellowship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? However as I kept reading I realized that Gilkey meant something quite different. He meant that all the major religions humanize, elevate, and spiritualize their followers in this life. These religions provide meaning, purpose, and identity. They create community, human solidarity, and ethical guidance. And this is what Gilkey meant by “salvation.” Jesus saves, Buddha saves, and Mohammed saves. They all make people better and happier.

Later in my historical studies, I discovered that retaining a traditional Christian word while shifting its meaning has been the strategy of liberal Christian theology from its beginning in around 1800 until today. In the liberal dictionary,

“Resurrection” means not that God raised Jesus bodily from the dead and that Jesus reigns as lord but that Jesus’s influence lives on and exercises a powerful force in the world.

“Atonement” is not about God actually changing the world through the death and resurrection of Jesus but about the positive impact of the teaching and example of Jesus.

The “Holy Spirit” is not the powerful presence of God witnessing to Jesus Christ and transforming people into his image but for all practical purposes is identified with the progressive spirit of the times.

“Justice” in the Bible means individual behavior that measures up to the letter and the spirit of God’s just laws. Today it has come to mean “social justice,” which is an agenda for reordering society toward equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Words with Secular Meanings Declared Christian

As examples secular/pagan meanings being imported into Christian churches and such parachurch organizations as Christian colleges I will examine the pervasive call for diversity, equity, and inclusion—aka social justice—in all spheres of modern society. As someone who lives and works in higher education—today’s literal counterpart to the mythical Pandora’s Box—I hear this triad invoked at least three times a day as a self-evident moral ideal. In the modern university you can blaspheme the Holy Trinity of Christianity or burn the American flag with impunity but questioning the axiomatic nature of diversity, equity, and inclusion is to commit the unforgivable sin and become subject to cancellation or termination (of employment).

Hence I am constantly amazed when I hear Christian people invoke diversity, equity, and inclusion as Christian ethical imperatives. They do this uncritically and seemingly without awareness of the radical political context within which this triad gains its meaning. In its secular context the triad sets the agenda for the fundamental reordering of society at all levels through political coercion, accompanied with violence if needed. Equity is not identical to the traditional ideals of equality before the law and freedom of choice; it is a condition within which equal proportions of society’s goods are distributed among different communities of identity—especially communities determined by race and gender.  Diversity means that the membership of every institution in a society—business, club, school, etc.—reflects proportionally the diversity of identity groups in society at large. Inclusion refers to the intentional effort to include sufficient representatives from every identity group contained within society at large, especially from those groups whom society tends to oppress, overlook, or marginalize.

Clearly, achieving diversity, equity, and inclusion at all levels of society cannot be left to meritocratic and free market forces or freedom of choice or speech. The interplay of these forces has always led and will always lead to lack of diversity, inequity, and exclusion. Left to themselves historical prejudices, natural affinities and competition always produce insiders and outsiders, winners and losers, oppressors and oppressed. Hence the government must position itself as a counterweight to these forces in service to the ideals of equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Next Time: Are equity, diversity, and inclusion Christian Ideals? Hint: The answer is no.