Christian Ethics
A letter to the newspaper caught my eye. In it the writer
was quite adamant that there was a difference between what he called “the
world” and “Christian ethics”. As far as I could understand, he was saying
there was such a wide gulf between what was commonly known as ‘Christian’
morals, and the sort of morals which everyone else lived by. He did not want
his society, the mass of unbelievers of which he was a part, to be engulfed by
the horror of Christian ethics. He saw this as a nightmarish spectre, a sort of ‘death by religion’.
It is true that there are some stereotypes of Christianity,
either foul or fair, which history has preserved, and which seem, to the
uncritical observer, caricatures of the “faith once delivered”. The worst of
course is the cult leader, who raves on about his ‘cause’ and mingles theology
with insanity. Thankfully there are not many people about like this, otherwise the world would be a lot more dangerous.
Coming down the scale we arrive at the over-enthusiastic
Christians who ignore common sense and make themselves into anti-social
nuisances. They distribute tracts to the detriment of the city’s appearance,
they hound people with dynamic arguments, and they intrude their beliefs into
every conversation. For them there is nothing more important than ‘the cause’
and the harder they strive to win souls, the less inclined people are to
listen. They combine ignorance with tactlessness, and are sometimes terribly
arrogant as well.
Further down the scale we come to people who, in the past,
have given Christianity a certain ‘image’, such as the Quakers, or Pilgrim fathers, or the well-spoke Victorian Christians who lived a
life of perfect modesty and prudence – so we are led to believe. Or perhaps the
drum-pounding Salvation Army recruit, or the suffragette, or the Temperance
Alliance leader shouting about alcohol as if it was
the very elixir of Hell. They all have rather well-defined images, but they
seem quite unrelated to today’s ‘modern’ world. Despite this they are often
admired by even the hardened atheist. These people have an image which also
often evokes a longing for the ‘good old days’ when black was black and white
was white. The days of Dickens, and steam engines, and rural
harmony.
But through all these different versions or models of
Christianity there runs the same theme – a solid moral backbone. Even the
raving cult leader has it. He is fanatical about honesty and personal
integrity. He is ready to die for truth. The Salvation Army has it – obviously.
The Victorian Christian is so upright she blushes at the sight of an ankle.
And this is exactly where the non-Christian stumbles,
because there is a fairly general assumption that Christians have a monopoly on
all the best morals, while the world is wicked and immoral, and utterly
consumed in darkness. But is this really so?
Let us look at the list of virtues in Galatians chapter 6.
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness,
goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Other translations use other words, like
kindness, and self-control and faithfulness.
Do Christians have a monopoly over these virtues? Hardly. Just a single visit to the city by bus will
demonstrate that all these virtues are operating freely in all of society all
the time.
If you are fortunate, you will see the driver wait patiently
at the stop until a late customer catches up, and you will see him
considerately lift the poor woman’s heavy bag to her seat, and then someone
will give up their seat so she may sit down. Later on you will see someone pick
up and give back her purse, which she accidentally dropped. When you leave the
bus you will see people holding hands, obviously in love, and a child will
shout with happiness as his mother buys him a wonderful toy. In the shops you
will see people waiting patiently in line, a man with a parrot gently tickling
its breast, an old man walking very slowly across the street while a line of
cars waits and the drivers smile at him, and further down the street you see a
shopkeeper giving more than required to a customer who has very little money.
After a couple of hours you head home again, content in the
knowledge that you have seen people showing love, being joyful, enjoying peace
in the midst of noise and business, patiently waiting, being gentle, showing
goodness, working faithfully, not answering back, obeying meekly, showing
respect, and many of the people you saw were very self-controlled. The strange
thing is, you saw not one Christian in all this crowd,
or perhaps you did, but how would you ever know the difference, since all the
people you passed were practicing the same morals.
Obviously Christian ethics are not a specific domain of the
Christian.
But perhaps, someone may counter, Christian ethics are
common to the Western world because Christianity has had such an influence over
the last few hundred years. The Reformation in
Pre-Reformation England was still influenced by the church,
in this case mainly the Roman church, so we shall have to go back to Roman
times, because the Romans were very pagan, having many gods and goddesses to
worship and thank and pray to. Let us look at about 55 BC, when
“The population is exceedingly large and the cattle very
numerous. Tin is found inland and small quantities of iron near the coast.
There is timber of every kind, except beech. Most of the tribes of the interior
do not grow corn, but live on milk and meat and wear skins. All the Britons dye
their bodies with woad, which makes them a blue colour, and this gives them a terrifying appearance in
battle”.
In order to operate mines, and work with timber, farm and
milk cows, build houses and so on, a certain amount of consideration,
self-control and honesty must be built into the population,
otherwise it would lapse into anarchy. It looks as if Christian ethics were
alive and well in pre-Roman as well as pre-Reformation times.
The point is, Christian ethics are neither
new or original, and they do not represent a sweeping revolution in
moral codes. There is hardly anything new or different at all about Christian
ethics. They have been around since Adam and Eve were created, and they are
common to every civilization and tribe which has ever lived. And, lest anyone
raises the question, the Ten Commandments were not the first appearance of a
moral code either, because long before Moses ascended
From Ancient Egyptian writings:
“I have not slain men”,
“Terrify not men or God will terrify thee”
“I have not brought misery upon my fellows. I have not made
the beginning of every day laborious in the sight of him who worked for me”
“I have not been grasping”
“Love thy wife studiously. Gladden her heart all thy life
long”
“I was a staff by my Father’s side . . . I went in and out
at his command”
From Ancient Norse writings:
“In hell (Nastrond) . . . I saw
murderers”
“Man is man’s delight”
From Ancient Hindu writings:
“He who is cruel and calumnious has the character of a cat”
“He who is asked for alms should always give”
“Your father is an image of the Lord of Creation, your
mother an image of the Earth. For him who fails to honour
them, every work of piety is in vain. This is the first duty”
“Children, old men, the poor, and the sick, should be
considered as the lords of the atmosphere”
From Ancient Babylonian writings:
“Slander not”
“Has he . . . driven an honest man from his family? Broken up
a well-cemented clan?”
“Speak kindness . .
. show good will”
“Has he insulted his older sister?”
“Has he despised Father and Mother?”
From Ancient Chinese writings:
“Never do to others what you would not like them to do to
you”
“He whose heart is in the smallest degree set upon goodness
will dislike no-one”
“When the people have multiplied, what next should be done
for them? The Master said, Enrich them. Jan Ch’iu
said, When one has enriched them, what next should be done for them? The aster
said, Instruct them”
“Surely proper behaviour to parents and elder brothers is
the trunk of goodness”
“If a ruler . . . compassed the salvation of the whole
state, surely you would call him Good? The Master said, It
would no longer be a matter of “Good”. He would without doubt be a Divine Sage”
“When proper respect towards the dead is shown at the end
and continued after they are far away, the moral force of a people has reached
its highest point”
From Ancient Roman writings:
“Nature urges that a man should wish human society to exist
and should wish to enter it”
“Men were brought into existence for the sake of men that
they might do one another good”
“What good man regards any misfortune as no concern of his?”
“I am a man; nothing human is alien to me”
“Part of us is claimed by our country, part of us by our
parents, part by our friends”
These and many more quotes could be added, from other
nations of the past, but the evidence is already clear that all these past
nations were already practising the basics of
Christian ethics long before Christianity ever appeared. It is therefore
nonsense to consider Christian moral behaviour as being any different from the
best moral behaviour of any other person. It also shows us that our neighbour,
for all his faults, and that shopkeeper we see every week, and the Prime
Minister and the children at the local school – all of them are moral to a
certain extent, and their morality is similar in many ways to the best morality
which the best Christian lives by.
But this is exactly what we should expect to find. Genesis
tells us that Mankind came straight from the creative word of God, therefore Mankind bears a likeness to the Creator. God
is pure and moral, therefore Mankind shows some of
this likeness, despite sin. Romans tells us that the Gentiles (the non-Jews who
do not have the aw of God to refer to) “show the work of the law written in
their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness . . .”(Rom.2:15)
Morals are built into the human race, and have been there since the first
humans, and thence to their children, and outwards into all the nations. (All
the nations in the world represent only one nation which has subdivided)
So, if all people display Christian ethics, what is so different
about Christians? The answer: They are the only people who have admitted that
they do not always live up to the moral standards which God requires. They have
come to the cross and admitted that they deserve to die for their sins. They
have accepted Jesus as their Saviour. And they alone
have decided to turn away from immorality for the sake of Jesus.
When it comes to moral or ethical differences between Christians
and unbelievers (I am sorry to say) there is sometimes very little difference,
in fact some Christians are put to shame by the moral uprightness of
unbelievers. But moral
uprightness is not the criterion by which people may gain heaven. If it were I
too would be a long way down the queue.
For the historical quotations in this article I am indebted
to C.S.Lewis’ book ‘The Abolition of Man’ pages 49-59.