Christian Morality

An Interdisciplinary Framework for Thinking about Contemporary Moral Issues

Sutton, Schmidly

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781498204774
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Should society care about Christian morality? Are Christians out of touch with complex moral decision-making? Christian Morality: An Interdisciplinary Framework for Thinking about Contemporary Moral Issues provides readers with a framework for identifying and applying Christian moral principles to divisive issues. First, readers learn of the theological and philosophical foundations of Christian ethics. Two additional chapters explain how personal and social factors influence our capacity to think critically and Christianly about morality. Second, readers will learn about forming Christian moral judgments by seeing how different thinkers address six contemporary moral issues: abortion, same-sex relationships, equal treatment of men and women in the workplace, sex education, and racial bias in incarceration polices.

part one

Interdisciplinary Foundations of Christian Morality

1

An Introduction to the Foundations of Christian Morality

Geoffrey W. Sutton and Brandon Schmidly

On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God. Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue leader said to the people, “There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.” The Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?”

Luke 13:10–16 (NIV)

Chapter Overview

Who would think that healing somebody would be a bad thing? On the surface, Luke’s report indicates Jesus broke a rule about honoring the Sabbath—one of the Ten Commandments. But Jesus used moral reasoning to show how his action was similar to an exception granted by his accusers. In this book, we will attempt to show how Christians can identify or formulate biblical principles of morality.

In response to questions, the apostle Paul provided moral guidance to the first-century churches. Thoughtful Christians continue to seek godly wisdom when confronting contemporary moral situations. The actions they take can affect their own lives and those they love. But Christian leaders can influence the lives of millions when their moral perspectives become the basis for a nation’s laws. In this volume, we have assembled a team of contributors to accomplish two primary purposes. In part 1, our authors will offer perspectives on forming an integrated Christian foundation for morality as they draw upon biblical principles and research within their disciplines. In part 2, our authors will demonstrate how to think christianly about contemporary moral matters. Essentially, part 1 provides the bases for Christian moral frameworks and part 2 shows the reader how a Christian moral framework may be applied to moral dilemmas likely to engage Christian communities now and in the next several years.

What is Christian Morality?

Before discussing the concept of Christian morality, we want to offer you a working understanding of morality. The subject matter of morality is a normative property. Something is normative if it deals with ideals (norms), and normativity is often expressed with shoulds or oughts. Morality deals with the normative properties of rightness and wrongness.1 When someone says morality, they may be discussing any number of things related to these properties. They may be discussing the nature of the property, the actions that have that property, the types of people who act according to those properties, or theories, systems, and rules for guiding people according to those properties.

The terms morality and ethics are often used interchangeably when discussing these properties. Some scholars insist on a strict distinction between ethics and morality. But common usage of the terms does not follow any particular distinction. In fact, some contemporary ethics texts explicitly and implicitly use the terms interchangeably.2 In certain contexts, one term can be more common than the other. For instance, in the context of a discipline of study it is common to hear, “She’s studying ethics.” It would be strange, though not meaningless, to hear, “She’s studying morality.” In this volume, we are not concerned with settling a debate over word choice. We desire to produce a clear and easily understandable work on Christian morality. When reading the Bible, it is more common to see the word immorality rather than unethical. Therefore, we chose to use the words moral or morality to refer to right and wrong conduct. We encourage our authors to employ common usage as best they can. When some version of ethics is more common, we will use it, and the same is true for moral. However, when either term is common, we prefer moral.

What, then, is Christian morality? In Western cultures, the professions publish codes of ethics that they expect their members to honor. As such, you might hear someone talk about business ethics. It so happens that many of the rules of conduct are part of a religion. A theologian or philosopher might write about Christian ethics and refer to broad principles. Many Christians, regardless of profession, look to the Bible as the primary authority regarding matters of right or wrong, we chose to use the phrase Christian morality to identify principles about right and wrong conduct that have some basis in Scripture, or are implied by commitments to Scripture.

Who Should Read this Book?

1. Students

All of our authors are educators. Most of us have taught students in universities and seminaries. It is natural for us to want to write a book to benefit students. Our aim has been to write primarily for upper-division undergraduate students, graduate students, and seminary students. We hope you will gain some assistance in forming a foundation for Christian morality and learn ways Christians think about contemporary moral issues. We expect this book will be useful in courses on philosophy, religion, and the behavioral sciences. We hope this will be of equal value to those who identify as Christian as well as to those from other faith traditions or none at all. We anticipate that Christian students will benefit from a better understanding of how their faith might address moral issues. We hope that students who do not identify as Christian will benefit from understanding how thoughtful Christians approach moral matters.

2. Clergy

We wish to engage vocational clergy in the process of forming moral frameworks within their religious traditions and in collaboration with expertise in the behavioral sciences. To this end we have included clergy and Christian scholars among our authors. By including a primary focus on graduate students and seminarians, we hope this book will provide you with a useful review of moral principles as well as new information from the sciences that will broaden your thinking about moral issues beyond the expertise you have gained in your primary discipline.

3. Educated Lay Readers

We anticipate that educated lay readers will find this volume of interest because we have included authors from different academic and career backgrounds who offer multiple perspectives on the moral challenges many Christians face in daily life. We hope you will find that part 1 prepares you to think multidimensionally about the social issues that cause us to ask, “What should we do?” And we hope you find several practical ideas in part 2 that speak to your present situation and prepare you to think morally about situations that might arise in the next several years. Christians from diverse professions interact with others at work and in their communities. They support political agendas and donate to charitable organizations. Each act has the potential to advance or detract from a moral stance.

What Will You Find in Part 1?

Chapter 2: Philosophical Foundations of Christian Morality by Brandon Schmidly, Professor of Philosophy at Evangel University.

Brandon Schmidly sets a foundation for Christian morality by providing the philosophical context for discussions of...

Table of contents

• Series Preface
• Contributors
• Acknowledgemts
• Part One: Interdisciplinary Foundations of Christian Morality
• Part Two: How Christians Analyze and Respond to Contemporary Moral Issues
• Appendix: Other Morality Topics