Why I am not a good ethicist

For one reason or another, I receive essays on ethics for perusal. The day before yesterday, my e-mail program announced, with a ding, the odd arrival of an old article from the Boston Review, written by a man who claims Orthodoxy now as his “faith tradition,” having been drawn out of Roman Catholicism about a decade ago.

There is much to commend in the article. Its complaints about racism and consumerism won nods from my stiff neck. It faithfully affirmed Fr. Alexander Schmemann’s definition of secularism (i.e., reducing religion to a particular “department” of life). It discussed the reality of the Eucharist as the Body and Blood of Christ, and how we Christians are transformed by that singular transformation.

But the nods soon faded into sighs. The obligatory “I personally think that abortion is appalling” vote was cast, but it was quickly conditioned by an acceptance of the doctrines of privacy and individual freedom. There was the old saw about the abortion rate increasing during Reagan’s years, but decreasing during Clinton’s (I’m not sure what point is being made here).

There was that equally tiring saw about how there just isn’t any political party to suit the Orthodox taste:

I am troubled that there is no political home for my consistent ethic of life, but I also take comfort in the knowledge that electoral politics is not all there is to politics. If Chesterton’s idea of an America with the soul of a church has any validity, I believe it lies in our tradition of voluntary activity, through which faith can mobilize people to participate in the long and difficult grassroots struggle to transform our communities into a more just and peaceful society.

Well, yes, I have looked for a party for a long time, and there is just no Eagle and Child to be found in Pittsburgh. And who can argue against the need for voluntarism? Everyone, and not just Christian voices, knows that we should do more for the poor, the powerless, and all of Creation. Yes, yes, yes, by all means, we should attend to the “liturgy between the liturgies,” we should attend to the altars of the suffering poor on the streets outside the Temple.

That will never change. “The poor you will always have with you.” We should build houses in New Orleans, serve the soup lines in our boweries, and clear up the mess in Greenfield, Kansas. We should take care of addicts, protect children, feed the hungry on the other side of the world and the working poor in our town, and preserve families.

No one doubts this. I certainly don’t. But what sets me apart from most of my ethicist brethren (and sistren) is that I also do not doubt that the poor we will always have with us. We will never end poverty, or war, or injustice. We wait for the Messiah, and work whilst it remains day, for the night is coming, and the harvest is great.

I believe, coming out of my “faith tradition” as I do, that the main reason why we feed the hungry here is not to acclimate them to the world, but to help lead them into the next.

Yes, and I’m sure we should probably do more about justice, but I am not nearly as confident about the particularities of political struggles and social justice as are my professional colleagues in ethics. I am confused when hierarchs like +Archbishop Iakovos (of thrice-blessed memory) are applauded when they walk with Martin Luther King, but other hierarchs are denigrated, with those sherry-and-canape academic harrumphs, when they are seen slumming with the National Right to Life March.

I am quite sure about the pro-life movement as an appropriate movement for Christian political involvement, as it is a clear moment of ecclesial prophecy. In all of its phases – anti-eugenics, anti-abortion, pro-decent provision for the fatherless and single-mothers, and anti-euthanasia (or, more accurately, anti-“geriatricide”) – the Orthodox ethic is clear.

I’m not sure that such clarity is achieved in other, more radically chic, political endeavors. For example, I do not think that the politics of homosexual liberation has any place in an Orthodox prophetic witness. Neither do I think that the gender politics of inclusive language or female ordination have anything to do with justice, in the Christian sense (perhaps it has something to do with other senses).

The problem here is a tension that emerges not from what Albert Raboteau said in his rather fine article, but from what he didn’t say. And here, I should mention that I’m picking on Raboteau mainly because of the esteem I’ve felt for him since his old interview with Franky Schaeffer in the Christian Activist (that erstwhile, occasional magazine whose publication schedule was a Messianic secret). Raboteau said, in his Boston Review piece, that he was drawn to Orthodoxy because of deeply-felt affinities between his African experience of "joyful sorrow," and the same experience in the Apostolic Church of the ancient East.

Yes, yes, and yes. I agree with all my heart. But what I disagree with here is that Raboteau failed to proclaim the substance, the salient point of the Orthodox ethic and the prophetic witness of the Kingdom of God:

We do not protest injustice (in the Marxist manner).

We do protest wickedness and sin.

We are against slavery and abortion not primarily because they are oppressive acts of socio-economic bondage and tyranny against the powerless. We oppose these bad things (and many others) mainly because they are unclean works of the devil … because they are evil and demonic, not because they deprive the meek of material goods.

We do not primarily affirm social justice.

We affirm, instead, holiness and spiritual peace through Jesus Christ, and in His Communion.

Oddly enough, in Raboteau’s article, and in the essays of most Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and even conservative Protestant ethicists, there is very little mention of the word “sin.” There is just as patent an aversion to the word “holiness.”

It may be that there has been a decline of the frequency of these horrid old-fashioned and patriarchal terms concurrent with the decline of the place of metaphysics in the intellectual agora. With the loss of divinity as an acceptable referent in polite conversation, the only terms that can be pronounced are jaundiced words like “ethics,” or, my favorite, “faith tradition.”

There is a common push toward the recovery of a “patristic worldview” in the Orthodox and Roman realms, and even in the Protestant constellation. There is, in this worldview (a term probably too hard for the Fathers to understand), an affirmation of a sacramental or liturgical lifestyle, even an “eschatological ethos.” Under these rubrics, it seems that old-fashioned words like “sin” and “evil” have been modified into more progressive meanings (like “oppressive,” or “insensitive,” or “patriarchal,” or “colonial”).

Pastors and parishes receive, in annual or semi-annual batches of snail-mail and e-mail, the voluminous statements and study guides from official ethics committees (the publication of study guides, videos, and "resources" exist as rationale for next year's budgetary allocation: "See? We put out thousands of pages on modern concerns? How could they get along without us?"). As the cluster headache fog of mystification descends on the native intelligences of the rank and file, the last clear ethical thought goes something like this: "Why is it that the more these committees work, the more I'm confused, and the more old-fashioned sinners are left off the hook?"

It is hard to defeat the notion, held in the back of many lay minds, that central administration commissions do a lot of cultural accommodation in the obfuscating language of bureacrateze (or is that "bureaucratish"? -- you know what I mean: that special melange of rhetoric and vocabulary that enables corporations and commissions to defer responsibility, edit reality, and manage re-education).

The odd thing, here, is that those very Fathers who are the source of things "patristic" were quite firm (and offensive) in their use of words like “sinful” and “wicked.” St. John Chrysostom, as is well known, railed against the rich and their failure to give to the poor, but he also railed against their failure to attend Divine Liturgy regularly. He protested against the Empress, to be sure, but his protest was against her rather self-serving silver statue, not against her wars.

His social protest and the sum of his ethics – like that of all the Fathers – were aimed against wickedness, and he and they urged Christians to attain holiness and piety.

A real, Orthodox ethic might agree with an article like that of Professor Raboteau (and with the articles of many other salon Orthodox writers, Yannaras amongst them). Yes, the environment should be cared for. Yes, the hungry should be fed and the poor sheltered. Yes, racial prejudice should be suppressed. Yes, hurricanes, tsunamis and tornadoes should be responded to with great generosity.

But you could read this sort of thing from anywhere. Tony Campolo and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops say the same thing – that your sense of social justice and politics should be informed by your Sunday morning identity.

But an Orthodox ethic shouldn't even be called an “ethic.” “Ethics,” by itself, has to do with a false dichotomy between action and knowledge, existence and essence. It has been aberrantly set in contraposition to theology. A better word here is “prophecy,” and such a term is far truer to Scripture and Tradition. There were no committees on ethics or social issues in the Patristic era.

But there was prophecy.

There was no such thing as "worldview" (Dilthey notwithstanding).

The Fathers just said "world."

So an Orthodox prophetic witness would protest all the usual things that Raboteau and other Orthodox ethicists protest. But it would also rail against gambling, usury, excessive profiteering. It would not shy from denouncing the trendy agenda of legitimizing homosexuality, imposing egalitarianism, and deconstructing tradition. It would do more warning against celebrity-worship, pornography and unchastity than organizing boycotts of SUVs, rare woods and fur. It would complain trenchantly about church absenteeism, and the failure of Christian parents to lock the world out of their homes. It would condemn the pride that is inherent in slander and gossip. It would also excoriate the anti-clericalism and anti-hierarchalism that are rife today.

Never once, in my entire ethicistical career, have I ever heard mentioned, in committee sessions in Harrisburg, DC and NYC, the base problems of swearing and church absenteeism. And yet, these two problems in particular are mentioned frequently in the Gospels and the Epistles, in contrast to the complete silence on social issues more amenable to modern sensibilities. "Swearing" (not to be confused with vulgarity) is of enormous "ethical" concern in the Sermon on the Mount and the Epistle of St. James. It is of little concern today.

And finally, an Orthodox prophecy would correctly identify the reason why all these things are happening. It would correctly identify, too, just where we are eschatologically – and not simply limit this identification to that commonplace (and quite protestant) simplification of “inaugurated eschatology,” the “now-and-not-yet.”

It would say that the root problem of Orthodox Christians is their failure to pray as Jesus taught -- sacramentally and ascetically. It would say that the root problem of the world is its refusal to protect and listen to the Apostolic and Orthodox Church.

And it would say that the reason why the world is warming is because of the usury of corporate dragons like Smaug, not because of all the poor people who have to gas up their cars to get to their McJobs.

It would say, too, that the Islamization of Europe calls not for a Crusade, but for repentance … and this for the simple reason that any prophet, like Amos, would have no trouble recognizing the new Islamic Jihad for what it really is: another incarnation of the Assyrians, a harbinger and agent of Dies Irae.

This is what prophecy would probably say. And it goes without saying that this is not what Raboteau and all the respective denominational social and moral issues committees would ever say.

They wouldn't say it because they are ethicists.

And that is the problem of the age, my friends: ethics and prophecy do not mix. And I'm afraid they can't.

Comments

[Steve Hayes]

I am reminded of a meeting I attended a long time ago, when I was an Anglican. I was asked by the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town (then Bill Burnett) to be one of four Anglican representatives to a consultation called by the South African Council of Churches to evaluate the World Council of Churches "Programme to combat racism" after ten years.

After one session of high-flown academic gobbledegook one guy from Swaziland stood up and asked why we were using all these big words, when what we were talking about could be summed up in one small word -- sin.

All the sophisticated academics at the meeting sniggered at the naivety of this country hick, and Desmond Tutu, who was chairing the meeting, rebuked them, saying, "We are supposed to be meeting as Christians, and if we are ashamed of our Christian vocabulary then we have nothing to say to the world as Christians and we might as well pack up and go home now."

[Terry Hebert]

Thank you, Father, for your blessing.

Orthodox thinking continues to astound this recent convert. Perhaps, I lived in the Protestant world so long that protesting, rather than repenting, always seems the answer.

If Islamic Jihadists are like the Assyrians, then we should expect captivity, right? Repentance would identify those who survive captivity and reap the produce of the land.

To continue the allegory, would not judgment come regardless of repentance? God must purge "the land," right? Would you agree that repentance wouldn't preserve the status quo?

I'm agreeing that repentance is the order for the day, but I'm wondering if we should change the expectation that I'm sensing. Are we expecting repentance to beat back the hordes?

May I suggest Habbakuk for a helpful allegory here? Nothing could stop the Chaldean advance, yet repentance was the order of the day--as here.

Can we liken this to the fall of Rome? Will we see or have we seen--as Christians did then--pagans blaming Christians for the nation's woes? You reminded us of Christopher Hitchens, whom I heard on the radio yesterday debating Dennis Prager, who is Jewish and a theist. Hitchens blames all religions for the human problems in the world.

I support your prophetic call for repentance. May I add that we should repent with no worldly expectation or presumption from God? Shouldn't we look for our deliverance in the Holy Spirit's work to prepare us as witnesses and martyrs for the faith?

Does this sound Orthodox to you? Did I think through this according to the Orthodox Way and according to the Patristic Tradition? I thought I would stretch my newly forming Orthodox mind.

Thanks for thinking with me.

[Scholarios-Gennadius]

Dear Fr. Jonathan:

I enjoyed your article and agree with you wholeheartedly regarding the toothless use of words such as "ethics" by implied responsible clergy and self-styled moral academics portrayed in your article. I support your call for us to name actions and behaviors for what they really are, and to place them the direct light of the Gospel. Pro-life is no life when in the next breath one supports state mandated "murder" for those very same "poor" who will always be with us. At least until we have executed enough of them to no longer worry about the poor.

God Bless your honesty,

Scholarios-Gennadius

[Sean]

Bravo!

[Rich]

I'm always troubled when Orthodox talk politics using the language and categories of the surrounding culture. But I know it's an easy trap to fall into as I fall into it occasionally myself. Thanks for the reminder.

Your comments about the new Islamic Jihad stirred up a few questions in my brain box though. Is there a historian out there who knows about the spiritual temperament of the Eastern (half of the) Roman Empire before its fall? Or early 20th century Russia before the Revolution? And if this prophetic interpretation of history holds up in NT times, what does that say about Islamo-Fascism being used to judge non-Orthodox Europe and America?

[Postman]

Another point well taken, Eric. The prosecution of the Abu Ghraib crimes revealed one order, and the crimes themselves revealed another.
While I'm not so sanguine about such an interpretation, there have been those, within the Orthodox Church, who have said that the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople was exactly that: divine judgment.
My intent here is really not to spill the discussion out into Iraq or historic events like the falls of Constantinople and Kievan Rus (in my mind, the two greatest tragedies of Byzantine Christian history).
Neither is my intent to advance a pacifistic position, as our history is replete with figures like Sts. Boris and Gleb, but also St. Sergius of Radonezh, who blessed the spears of Prince Dmitri Donskoi before the Battle of Kulikovo.
I simply believe that the best (and perhaps sole) defense against the Islamic advance in Europe and in America is repentance and Orthodox faith. Clearly, the secularism of Hitchens, the materialism of Dawkins, and the modernism of mainline Christianity will do nothing but invite the crescent, and hasten its arrival.
It seems to me that the current wave of Islamization is judgment of the West today. I do not think this is always the case with Islam. But it is certainly the case with the current program of sharia law, and plans for dhimmitude. Perhaps there may come a day when St. Sergius will need to, once again, bless the spears.
Today, however, especially in Europe, what is needed is catechism, prayer and fasting. That may sound a tad doughty and daft, perhaps. But, after all, we're Christians, and we do not put our trust in mortal princes, don't we?
A Europe that goes to Church (not quasi-Church, either), and an America that believes the Apostolic Witness, instead of seeking enthusiasm, will become a Europe and an America that will give little succor to Islam.
Until that day, however, churches are turned into mosques, for the simple reason that the churches are empty, because the children are playing soccer, and the parents are doing brunch.

[Eric]

I'm curious. Do you regard the Islamic conquests that eventually consumed Byzantium as a judgement?

Also, Abu Ghraib has been many times magnified by the lens of the media. The actions of a few criminals were revealed to the public, investigated, and prosecuted. There is certainly something paradigmatic in this incident, and it speaks to the order with which Western societies deal with that sort of evil behavior.

[maximus daniel greeson]

Father Bless!
You have given my eyes a new paradigm in which to view the Islamicists. A prophetic paradigm! Thank God for your wisdom! I stumbled across this blog around the VT shootings and was very thankful for your words. God grant you many years!

[Postman]

Dear Caryl,
Your point about Abu Ghraib connoting the West as the Assyrians is well taken.
Nevertheless, I mean by "Assyrian" the Islamic jihad, and I utilize that term to defeat the notion that individual Muslims are our "enemies." If they are regarded as such, then Abu Ghraib would become a paradigm governing our interactions with them not only in Iraq, but also in Europe and here in America.
It is better to understand the Islamic crisis prophetically, as Amos did of Assyria, in recognizing that their increase on the world stage, and their invasion of the "immuno-deficient" West is more a result of judgment, than it is a mere product of cultures and socio-economic structures in conflict. This, I think, is the rather truncated argument of Christopher Hitchens and Niall Ferguson.
My argument calls not for guns, but, like Amos recommended, repentance.
Thanks for your (and everyone else's) thoughts.

[Caryl Johnston]

Dear Father-I love the way you bring out the incompatibility of ethics and holiness-this reminds me somewhat of Simone Weil's saying that it is not just a question between good and evil but between supernatural good and evil.
The only false note for me was the Muslim "jihad." Are they the Assyrians or is the West the Assyrians? The picture from Abu Ghraib prison of the prisoner leashed to a dog was a living reproduction of the torture practiced by the Assyrians - so many thousands of years ago. Are these ancient darknesses arising now because of the dechristianization of the soul of modern man?
It seems to me more accurate to say that Europe, spiritually weak, has had its "immune system" taken over, and the result is a foreign invasion.
I would be interested to hear your response to this.

[audrey]

This is an awesome post! I agree wholeheartedly. I don't keep up with politics much, but I have the same reaction as you against "ethics". I don't understand why Christians want to talk about "ethics" as if it's some sort of separate category with its own reasonings, apart from the right teaching and worship of the Orthodox Faith.

[Catherine K.]

It is a very good thing that you are not a good ethicist. It is that very difference that you laid out in this post that speaks to what first got my serious attention about Orthodoxy - what seems an age ago (in reality just a little under 8 years).

Very good post, Fr. thank you.

[Postman]

That's exactly what I thought. Thanks for the commendation.

[Coroebus]

I'm sorry I wasn't clearer, Father, but, yes, I intended a compliment. I've just recommended your post over here: http://fatherstephen.wordpress.com/2007/05/09/the-despair-of-unbelief/#comment-4193

[Postman]

Err, thanks, I think.

[Coroebus]

You are certainly a mediocre ethicist, Father. Thanks be to God!