Engaging Ethically in a Strange New World

A View from Down Under

Michael Bräutigam, Gillian Asquith

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781532688058
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

Christians in Australia are facing serious ethical issues. Contentious topics, such as same-sex marriage, the assisted-dying bill, gender fluidity, and attempts to censor Jesus-talk in the schoolyard, present serious challenges and require us to think more deeply about how we are to live in a strange new world. This volume presents papers from the 2018 Paradosis Conference at Melbourne School of Theology and brings together a number of voices to explore doctrinal foundations and their practical outworkings in the fields of biblical studies, systematic and practical theology, Islamic studies, and medical ethics. Contributors examine questions of contemporary interest as they pertain to both the Christian community itself and to Christian engagement with wider society. Part 1 comprises papers examining ethics in the Old Testament wisdom books, decision-making according to an early church model, the theological history of ethics, and the pastoral implications of Jonathan Edwards's reflections on beauty. Part 2 investigates the ramifications for Christian social ethics of the paradox of Jesus's stringent moral commands and his inclusive lifestyle, Islam's approach to homosexuality, virtue ethics as an alternative narrative within the "assisted-dying" debate, and the role of docility as a virtue in teaching, pastoral theology, and mission.

Part I

Engaging Ethically within Christian Community

1

Ethics in the Old Testament Wisdom Books

Andrew Brown

Everyone in Australia knows the song “Waltzing Matilda.” Some, in moments of mild nationalistic madness, have even suggested that it become Australia’s national anthem. (Anyone conscious of the typical attitude of our political leaders to fringe benefits would not voluntarily install a song celebrating sheep rustling as the national song.) “Waltzing Matilda” narrates events that take place around a billabong, but not everyone knows what a billabong is. In other countries a billabong may be called an “oxbow lake”; it is a cut off meander beside a river’s course, left isolated when a looping river bend is cut through at the base. Wisdom literature can be a kind of billabong where our primary approach to teaching the Bible, especially the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, is along biblical-theological lines. Since biblical theology favors the tracing out of redemptive history, biblical genres that are historical, such as Samuel through to Kings, or historically embedded, such as torah within the Pentateuchal narrative, or even historically locatable, such as some content from the prophetic books, may seem more important than wisdom and poetic books.

There is great value in a biblical-theological approach to teaching the Bible, but those of us who value the NT principle that “all Scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching”1 may feel compelled to return to the OT wisdom tradition to retrieve its particular ethical and theological resources. We turn our attention to the canonical wisdom books, Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes,2 to examine their contribution to biblical teaching on ethics. Given the general lack of interest of these books in much of the historical and covenantal heritage of Israel, we need to find another basis for the theological relevance and ethical authority of these books if they are to form a meaningful part of the Christian biblical corpus. I intend here first to outline the way in which covenant forms the theological basis for ethics in the OT outside the wisdom books, then propose a four-part scheme of the inbuilt “orders” of creation to explicate worldview assumptions that underlie both wisdom and non-wisdom OT books to differing degrees, before exploring the creation underpinnings of ethics in the wisdom books, and finally touching on some of the particularities of these individual books’ ethical contributions.

The Covenant Path to Ethics

To establish a contrast with the ethics of wisdom, let us first consider two key theological bases for ethics in the rest of the OT canon outside of the wisdom books. These twin bases find their fundamental grounding in the nature and being of God but yield ethical implications for life via different routes. Both paths presume election; God (Yahweh) has invited, almost compelled, Israel to join him in the bonds of covenant, and her ethical responsibilities issue from this relational status.

The first theological base is grounded in the character or nature of God. We might illustrate this using what is probably the most defining verse of the book of Leviticus: “I am the Lord, who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy” (Lev 11:45).3 Clearly the choosing and saving work of Yahweh is a precondition for this call to holiness. While we read of other nations being held accountable for unethical behavior, even where that behavior was not directed against Israel or Judah (Amos 2:1–3; Hab 2:6–17), we do not, to my knowledge, read where the Lord calls them to be holy as he is. This is a covenant-based demand, yet it is not grounded directly in the obligation of God’s people to obey their Lord’s commands. It is a call to communal conformity to the character of God for the sake of genuine fellowship with him. “Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so?” (Amos 3:3). How can Israel experience any kind of proximity to a holy God unless she becomes holy?

Admittedly the kind of holiness envisaged in a book like Leviticus is a sacral or ceremonial holiness that appears somewhat alien to a secular, Western reader today. It is for the maintenance of this holiness that someone defiled by contact with a corpse, for instance, must retreat “outside the camp” (Num 5:1–4).4 Yet there is a powerful ethical model here whose application outlasts the end of a sacral and sacrificial system of worship. It is the ethical imperative for the people of God to become increasingly like God, that the children might increasingly resemble the divine parent. This is the much-discussed and partly implicit ethical norm of imitatio Dei, the imitation of God; its rationale is “the life of God models the moral life.”5 It naturally extends beyond sacral purity to moral and ethical life, as is clear in the context of the famous statement of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt 5:48).6 We can see, too, how the morality obliged by imitation of God might naturally extend well beyond the ethical requirements of just treatment of our fellow humans to issues of private conduct, attitude, motivations, values, and loyalties. Who we are within our hearts and within our homes falls within the parameters of holiness before God.

The second theological base for ethical behavior is found in the mandates of God as the master of the covenant and the covenant people. Exodus 19 famously describes Israel on the threshold of the formalization of the covenant relationship with Yahweh. He issues his challenge to them:

You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possess...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Contributors
• Abbreviations
• Editorial
• Part I: Engaging Ethically within Christian Community
• Part II: Engaging Ethically with Wider Society