Jesus and guns

I have finished editing my notes on Christian ethics and will self-publish in the next day or so. I did add a section on gun control to the article on "There are exceptional circumstances where force is permissible."

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The question of gun control has become a fairly serious discussion in recent years. The United States has in its Constitution the right “to bear arms.” This right presumably was put in the Constitution remembering that the country was founded in a rebellion against its ruling authorities, with individuals taking up arms against its government.

It seems strange that some aspects of this topic would be significant enough for Christians to merit inclusion in a book on Christian ethics, but it seems appropriate. On the one hand, the Bible has no prohibition about owning weapons. Israel went to war. Peter has a sword of some kind with him in the Garden of Gethsemane, presumably not only for utility but also for protection (John 18:10).

However, after Peter cuts off the ear of the high priest’s servant, Jesus gives the more basic Christian attitude toward violence: “Put your sword back into its sheath” (John 18:11). In this article, we have argued that the use of force can be justified in some rare circumstances. But it is the exception. The fundamental bias of Jesus is toward peace, and we have no reason to think that Jesus himself carried a sword.

Jesus’ default instruction was to “turn the other cheek” (Matt. 5:39). The more fundamental orientation of the New Testament is to show the power of God in your unjust suffering (e.g., 1 Pet. 3:9): “Do not repay evil for evil or abuse for abuse, but, on the contrary, repay with a blessing.” Paul says the same: “Never avenge yourselves but leave room for the wrath of God” (Rom. 12:19).

This teaching is hard, and many American Christians implicitly reject it. Our culture has a cult of freedom and rights, and the church sometimes cannot tell where its faith ends and its Americanism begins. Bonhoeffer would be appalled at the way one moment of allowing for violence against Hitler under the most extreme of circumstances has now made him a hero for a fundamental attitude of violence by many in the American church. [1] The fundamental attitude of the New Testament in relation to these things is one of peace. “If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all” (Rom. 12:18). Paul did not mean peace at the end of a gun.

In general, it seems permissible to defend yourself, but the use of violence is not the fundamental bias of the Christian. Violence begets violence. Peace begets peace. In the light of the New Testament, which seems to fit Jesus’ bias better: let us have more and more guns or let us have fewer and fewer? If you answered “more,” you are probably not reading the New Testament with a clear head. In the decade after the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban was allowed to sunset in 2004, mass shootings more than tripled. No objective reading of Jesus will likely conclude that the Christian way is “more and more guns.”

Is there not a happy medium between all or nothing? As we will continue to explore later, the Christian ideal for a country would be a place that maximally “loves its neighbor as itself.” If we were to put this idea into secular philosophical terms, “What structure of government brings about the greatest good for the greatest number without violating the fundamental health of any minority in the process?” In philosophical terms, this approach is a mixture of utilitarianism (greatest good for greatest number) and something called universal ethical egoism (maximal benefit for every individual). Because love of neighbor is one of the chief ways in which we love God, such a structure also loves God in the process.

We can thus see an intersection between Christian values and secular values in the question of what approach brings about the greatest good for the majority of people without hurting some segment of the population. Obviously less violence for more people is an easy answer. Further, an unlimited and unregulated freedom to have weapons is arguably neither in the best interests of the majority nor does it hurt the health of some minority. None of the rights in the US Bill of Rights is absolute. They all balance against each other.

As a side note, during this phase of history, God is not yet forcing the world to serve him. In other words, loving God does not mean forcing the rest of the country to follow Christian rules. God allows other religions to exist. During the days of Israel, he allowed other nations to exist, and during the days of the New Testament there was no political entity that was a theocracy, a country supposedly ruled directly by God. In practice, theocracies end up being rule by religious leaders who are the ones who relay to the people what God supposedly thinks.

What is the New Testament view of rights? We should note that Paul clearly subordinates his individual rights to the benefit of others. As someone working for the benefit of the Corinthian church, he had a biblical right to their material support. They had an obligation to support him, Paul says. Nevertheless, “we have no made use of this right… rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ” (1 Cor. 9:12).

He advises the same to the Corinthians, some of them clearly felt the freedom to eat meat that had been sacrificed to another god, perhaps even at a pagan temple. Paul urges them that the way of Christ is not a way of insisting on my freedoms. “‘All things are permitted,’ but not all things are beneficial… Do not seek your own advantage but the other” (1 Cor. 10:23-24). Even if your conscience is clear, Paul says, sacrifice your own freedom for the benefit of the person whose conscience is not clear (1 Cor. 10:28-29).

There are of course limits here. Sometimes the faith of the other person is not in danger because of my freedom. They’re just going to get ticked off. Paul does not say, “Don’t wear a wedding ring because you’re going to offend someone who doesn’t wear one.” Nevertheless, even here, the Christian does not have a bias for giving offense. The Christian bias is for peace, even when the other party seems to be acting unreasonably.

The law is complicated. Laws often have unintended consequences. Let me merely do my best to suggest what I think Jesus would do in relation to gun control. Let us assume that Jesus did not tell Peter to get rid of his sword. Let us therefore allow that there is nothing intrinsically unbiblical about a Christian owning weapons. There is nothing unbiblical about hunting. There seems to be allowance for self-defense.

However, something seems a little off with a thirst for human-killing weapons. We are not talking about the military. We are talking about individuals who stockpile weapons. I cannot say it is prohibited. It simply does not obviously fit the spirit of the New Testament.

Would Jesus have supported an assault weapons ban? Would Jesus have supported some regulations on who can own a gun? Would Jesus have supported background checks to get a weapon? Perhaps Jesus would have said, “Let Caesar do what Caesar wants.” Nevertheless, it is hard to see where Jesus would not have said “yes” to the values behind these questions. This is the value of preserving life. Among his own followers, he would have surely supported limitations, with abstinence from weapons likely preferred when feasible.

When the groups we are part of get into ideological fights, it is sometimes hard to get our heads straight. We are in streams of culture, including Christian culture. We get pushed along. Sometimes we are like that frog in the kettle that does not realize he is being boiled until it is too late. In the early 2000s, I used to joke that the reason some in my family supported the NRA was because they were against abortion. In other words, because they are against abortion, they are Republican. Republicans tend to be aligned with the NRA. Therefore, by the transitive property of equality, they support the NRA because they are against abortion.

This sequence of thought is of course illogical, and it probably is not as funny today as it was twenty years ago. Many Christians have been boiled in the kettle of the pro-gun movement to where, even after so many school shootings, there is still a strong resistance to even basic regulations on weapons. You hear comments like, “Guns do not kill people. People kill people.” This is a distraction. Would you hand a young man some pornography and say, “Remember, son, it’s your choice whether you look at this or not.”

I offer these thoughts as a plea for the church to remember who it is. God has not called us to violence, but to peace. The goal of this section is to remind us of our fundamental principles and values. Legislation is almost always complicated with nuances, exceptions, and unintended consequences. But let us be confident on our fundamental values as believers. Jesus is the Prince of Peace!

[1] It seems to me that this is the fundamental (mistaken) attitude in general of Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2010). It seems doubtful that Bonhoeffer himself would approve of Metaxas’ general take.

The social structures of society can be more or less loving.

Filling another gap in my write-up on Christian ethics (I'm at about 225 pages). I should have it ready to publish by the end of the weekend. Feedback welcome.

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Is it possible for the structures of society to be set up—formally or informally—in such a way that certain groups of people are benefited while others are disadvantaged? It is hard to see how the answer is not an unequivocal yes. When slaves were not allowed to vote or move or own property or even stay with their own families, they were clearly disadvantaged by the structures of society. The same could be said of women, who were not allowed to vote in the United States until 1920. In these cases, the structures of society were “less loving” toward slaves and women than they are now toward African Americans and women.

In the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, there were initially some promising developments for former slaves. In the 1870s, more than a dozen African American men were elected to Congress. But after the debacle of the 1877 election, government soldiers left the South, and southern society quickly found ways to unofficially re-enslave the “freed” slaves. [1] In most of these states, it would be over 100 years before a black representative was elected again. 

In the aftermath of World War II, the GI bill allowed white soldiers returning to buy houses and start a profitable economic path to middle-class prosperity. However, the same black soldiers returning from war often found themselves “redlined.” Redlining was the practice of declaring areas of cities where African Americans lived as risky for banks to give loans. Meanwhile, blacks were not usually welcomed in other areas of the city. From 1945-1959, African Americans received less than 2% of all federal loans. [2]

The 1960s saw a number of landmark laws passed, attempting to change these “structural injustices.” The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended the Jim Crow era with its segregation of blacks into different theaters, accommodations, and schools. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 made illegal all the underhanded obstacles that whites had created to keep blacks from voting—things like literacy tests and poll taxes, not to mention harassment and other economic reprisals. The Fair Housing Act of 1968 made practices like redlining illegal.

Although the Wesleyan Methodist Church was founded as an abolitionist movement, the Wesleyan Church largely did not participate in the civil rights movement. At best, its churches were silent. At worst, they looked down on “troublemakers” and “law-breakers” like Martin Luther King Jr. The evangelical church in the United States gets no credit for these developments that very much fit the spirit of Christ to set the captive free (cf. Luke 4:18). Indeed, the movement toward desegregation in the mid-1900s resulted in a dramatic surge in white Christians attending private Christian schools.

What are the principles on which Christians should agree, especially those in the Wesleyan-Arminian tradition. First, it should be clear from the previous paragraphs that the structures of society, both formal and informal, can be unjust and unloving. Christians should delight when laws are passed such as those mentioned in the 1960s. We have been focusing on issues of race, but the same kinds of issues have historically existed in relation to women and others as well. It is fallen human nature.

[textbox: The Origins of Race

The concept of race as we understand it today was not always obvious. The slaves taken from Africa did not view themselves as “black.” They distinguished themselves by tribe: Mbundu, Yoruba, Igbo, etc. Similarly, the slave traders did not initially think of themselves as “white.” They were Portuguese, Spanish, English, and such.

The concept of “white” and “black” thus came into existence as a result of the slave trade. Even here, the precise connotations developed over time. The slaves that were first brought to America in the 1600s did not have to be lifelong slaves. Till the time of Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676, black slaves had much in common with white indentured servants. Thereafter, slavery almost inevitably became the life-long identity of the black person.

Similarly, not everyone with light skin was initially considered white. Irish and Italian immigrants were not immediately considered to be white when waves of them immigrated. This is why we say that race is “socially constructed.” Our skin color is simply a continuous scale of how much melanin is in our skin. Prejudice against new groups coming to the States is as old as the second group to arrive. Indeed, prejudice against “the other group” is as old as humanity.]

While the Wesleyan position on homosexual acts and LGBTQ lifestyles is clear morally, secondly, we clearly do not support the harassment or oppression of any group, especially in the name of Christ. Whether it actually happens or not, the sentiment of the Declaration of Independence is noble when it claims that “All men [and women] are created equal.” Scripture binds us to love our neighbor and our enemy. No one else is left.

Therefore, the use of Scripture or theology to harm or oppress others is fake Christianity. Any use of the gospel to hide hate or mistreatment is a false gospel. It is the Devil masquerading as an angel of light (2 Cor. 11:14). Just as we abhor the fact of pastors who belonged to the KKK, we abhor using Christ as a pretense to hate gay or transgender individuals. Just as we abhor the fact that church people might attend church and then go to enjoy a public lynching, [3] we abhor any attempt to hide behind Christ to keep LGBTQ individuals from employment or access to the normal opportunities of secular life.

Racism and prejudice are good at hiding behind impressive-sounding argument. The one giving such arguments sounds smart and likely indignant at the “real wrongs.” They think they are the ones fighting for truth and justice. We saw the same pattern after the killing of George Floyd in 2020. After an initial sense of outrage, the machine of rationalization and white supremacy took over. Indeed, in the end, the quest for racial justice probably lost ground. The real injustice, the real evil, the predictable backlash says, is “CRT,” “critical race theory.” [4] How dare someone suggest that whites are racist or that whites are somehow privileged in society? 

It is distraction. And so the initial injustice is forgotten in a sea of pretend righteousness, with the white church on the front lines. In the end, someone put it well at that time. "If you want to know what you would have done during the Civil Rights era, you are doing it now."

The concept of equity is a third principle. Equal opportunity is a great concept, but it is only as helpful as it is truly available. You can tell me I am free to get a job, but if I do not have a ride, I do not really have the same opportunity as someone with a car. The concept of equity is the notion that truly equal opportunity may involve more empowerment for some than for others. The application of the idea can be complicated to be sure. Sometimes we create more problems trying to fix something than were there in the first place. But the goal remains.

This was a fundamental principle of Jesus’ earthly ministry. “Those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick” (e.g., Luke 5:31). Women in Jesus’ day were not full members of society. Jesus elevated them. The “poor” of Jesus’ day were not just those who could not feed or support themselves, they were individuals displaced from where they were supposed to be in society. Those with skin diseases were on the margins of society. Jesus gave them re-entry. And the same went for the demon-possessed—their problems went beyond the spiritual.

We cannot make everyone the same. Redistribute the wealth and, ten years later, natural giftedness will likely redistribute it again to some extent even given equal opportunity. We are talking about getting everyone to a baseline and removing obstacles left by inequitable structures.

Yes, “correlation is not causation.” Unevenness in numbers and statistics is only the beginning of the conversation. What are the actual causes? Where in the “system” is the actual injustice? Some issues may be so baked into our culture that it will take more than one generation to work them out.

Yet it is not the spirit of Christ to give up. Social inequity and injustice may seem like hopeless causes, yet God so loved the world. In the well-known story of starfish washed up on the shore after a storm, we may not be able to save all the starfish, but we can save one, then two, then three. And I do not mean to suggest that the “we” here are the whites saving the blacks, for that in itself is a racism of superiority, a condescending “helping those poor people” mentality. We are in this game together. We save each other together. We will fail often but, perhaps, we will succeed some.

We dare not wait for Jesus to come fix it. That is truly burying our talent in the sand. “Now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2).

[1] In 1933, my mother’s father spent a summer in Virginia pastoring a rural church. My mother remembered the lights of prisoners building a highway at night in the distance. A little research showed this was a “chain gang,” a group of African American prisoners. The Jim Crow south after reconstruction made it possible to arrest black men for everything from unemployment to just hanging out in the wrong place, “vagrancy laws.” Then the state rented them out to former slave owners, a clever way of re-enslaving them by other means. Over time, these practices have created a tendency for white culture to see black men as dangerous and likely criminals.

[2] And it is not like these sorts of "structures" only existed in the South, even if they were much more extreme in the Deep South. After the "Great Migration" of the early-1900s, blacks were more or less "ghettoed" into certain parts of northern cities. You can still see the wall in Detroit built in 1941 to separate incoming whites from existing blacks. That the black parts of town became slums was virtually a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[3] In the notorious lynching of Sam Hose in Georgia in 1899, some 2000 “Christians” went to church, then traveled to the lynching site, many by special train from Atlanta. There Hose had his ears cut off and his body mutilated by knife. His body was doused in gasoline and set on fire. Spectators took pieces of bone and flesh as souvenirs.

[4] In my mind, there are extreme elements to some critical race theory, which itself is not monolithic. That is not the point. The point is that the outrage at CRT is mostly a smoke screen, a distraction to get us off topic.

God values the creation, and we should steward it.

1. At the end of Genesis 1, when God has set the world in order, he sees all that he has done and pronounces it "good" (Gen. 1:31). It is no longer "formless and empty" (1:2). Everything is working the way it is supposed to work. [1] 

Part of that goodness is the place of humanity in that order. Humanity is to be fruitful and multiply (Gen. 1:28). Humans are to "subdue" it and "rule over" it. After Adam and Eve are placed in the Garden of Eden, they are to "serve" it and "keep" it (Gen. 2:15). [2] One gets the sense that humanity is the crown of God's creation, and with great power comes great responsibility. 

Humanity is created in the image of God (Gen. 1:27). That both makes humanity valuable and perhaps suggests that humanity in some respects is God's representative on earth. After the Flood, God makes a covenant with his whole creation (Gen. 9:10). He has destroyed the earth, but he will not flood the earth again. 

"The earth is the LORD's and all that is in it... he has founded it on the seas and established it on the rivers" (Ps. 24:1-2). "Heaven and the heaven of heavens belong to the LORD your God" (Deut. 10:14). "The heavens are telling the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims his handiwork" (Ps. 19:1). Humanity may be the pinnacle of the creation, but God clearly glories in the rest of his handiwork as well.

The Law had provisions for the land. Every seventh year the land was to lay fallow to have a chance to recuperate from non-stop farming (Lev. 25:3-4). Just as humanity needs regular rest, so the land does as well. Jesus tells the crowds that God observes even the death of a sparrow (Matt. 10:29). It would appear that God not only loves humanity but the rest of his creation as well!

The holiness codes not only held that a person could become unclean and defiled. Humans could defile the land as well (Num. 35:33-34). A murderer defiled the land with the blood that was shed. The only way to purify the land was the death of the murderer.

The preceding verses give us a certain sense of God's attitude toward his creation. He likes it. He cares about it. Deuteronomy 25:4 looks out for the ox that is plowing the land. The farmer should not muzzle it but allow it to eat as payment for its labor.

A sense of respect for God's creation seems in order. We are thankful for the chickens that give us eggs. We are thankful for the cattle that give us meat.[3] Evangelicals are emphatic about the value of human life from conception. Yet the embryos of humans and those of other animals look quite similar at the earliest stages of development. If we are really pro-life, it would seem consistent to be good stewards of the other life God has created on the planet as well.

2. In the Parable of the Talents, one of the servants is chastised for not growing what the master had given him (25:14-30). The import of the parable is often taken to suggest that God expects us to use and grow the gifts he has given us. With regard to God's creation, we can bless the land and sky that God has given us. We can take care of it, and we can also curse it.

The placement of the parable in both Matthew 25:14-30 and Luke 19:12-27 suggests that these parables were deeply subversive. While they can easily be read in a hyper-capitalistic way, the proximity of Matthew's parable to the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats and the fact that Luke's parable is next to the story of Zacchaeus suggests a subversive meaning. In such a context, "making interest" on one's money becomes a metaphor for using it to help others in need. It is thus a fitting metaphor also for stewarding the creation that God has given us as we think about the lives of our "neighbors" at home and around the world.

God gave us streams from which to drink. God gave us plants to grow for food and animals to kill for meat. Ecology speaks of ecosystems, systems of life where each component of the system works together in harmony. The plants convert sunlight into energy that herbivores eat. They take carbon dioxide from the air and convert it to oxygen. We eat the herbivores and breathe in oxygen. We exhale carbon dioxide and the system repeats itself. It is healthy. It is natural. This is the way God has created the world.

Humanity has advanced industrially and technologically more in the last two hundred years than in all of history before. As of the writing of this article, the population of the world has surpassed 8 billion, far beyond any world population in the past. We are capable of consuming more forest than ever before if we let ourselves. There is plenty of demand to remove nature to build houses, businesses, and industry. There's nothing wrong with building or selling. However, as stewards of God's planet, we should also be mindful of the potential cost to God's creation and others. 

God endorses our growth and advancement. He made us to advance and excel. Otherwise, he would not have given humanity the charge to subdue the earth. On the other hand, God does not endorse selfishness or destructive hedonism. It is thus both biblical and Christ-like for us to open-mindedly consider the impact our advancement might have on others. This is part of loving our neighbor as ourselves. 

It is also a human tendency to sacrifice the benefit of our future for the needs and pleasures of the present. We eat recklessly because it tastes good even though we know we will likely pay for it in the future. We spend the money we have now rather than saving it for the future. The courses of action it takes to "look out" for the environment cut into corporate profit and personal convenience. It is no surprise that it is an uphill battle to get much done in these areas until a crisis emerges.

3. We should be wary of our own susceptibility to manipulation by those with power and resources. It took decades to pass legislation in relation to lead paint and lead gas. The book, Deceit and Denial is a meticulous presentation of how the lead industry managed to successfully oppose legislation against the use of lead, either throwing doubt on the certainty of certain harmful effects or blaming the incompetency of parents in slums for not watching their children closely enough. [4] I remember even as a boy in 1978 a tone of mocking in my family toward how the Carter administration was annoyingly ending leaded gas in lieu of the more expensive unleaded. 

The same narrative played itself out in relation to the tobacco industry. [5] The same narrative has arguably played out in relation to the gun lobby. The same narrative seems to be playing out in relation to climate change. With money or inconvenience at stake, with resistance to being told what to do, data is ignored or obfuscated. Lobbying forces manipulate the public into mocking those trying to work for the public good. "Going to try to regulate the farts coming from cows? Ha. Ha."

Small concessions are made as necessary. "Well, maybe the planet is warming, but there's no proof it is caused by human activity." Blame is diverted. "The problem is not the paint, it is the Negro and Puerto Rican parents who aren't watching what their children put in their mouths." "The problem is the lack of self-discipline on the part of the smokers." "The problem is not guns but the hearts of the people shooting them." Years, sometimes decades later, either crisis or the openness of a new generation breaks through. We wonder how it wasn't seen before because it seems so obvious now.

These sequences of events are repeated over and over again. It is amazing that we do not see the pattern... over and over again.

4. Poorer communities and countries see the impact of pollution sooner and more clearly than the comfortable. A 2016 study found that race is the biggest indicator in the US of whether you live near toxic waste. [6] Similarly, while most CO2 emissions come from the affluent global north, the regions most vulnerable to the effects of global warming are in the global south. Island states whose land is disappearing from rising water levels do not dispute the impact of climate change on the earth, nor do the African nations facing crisis levels of drought.

The love of our neighbor in the southern hemisphere puts an obligation on Christians to listen with an open mind and heart. The fact that this is God's creation calls us to listen with an open mind and heart as good stewards. It is the love of those in Flint, Michigan, whose water was allowed to become so polluted, that calls us to sacrifice a little today for the benefit to others later. We may find that we are also benefiting ourselves, like the rules that keep us from withdrawing from our retirement accounts before a certain age. We could sure use that money now, but it is even better for us to have it later.

Jesus almost scorned the "healthy" and focused instead on those on the margins--the poor, the sick, the demon-possessed. He focused on the lost sheep of Israel. Concern for God's creation translates to concern for those on the margins of the world today, for they are the ones that most suffer from the throwaway society of those of us who find everything convenient. 

5. We can debate the details. In this article, I have gone beyond principles to some specifics that seem relatively uncontested today. Except that they are contested. If we are interested in truth, we must allow for claims to be contested. Hopefully, there can be broad agreement on the principles. It is fully Christian to care for God's world. If we know our actions are harming others--or even potentially harming others--that is a concern for a Christian. 

As a Christian, people are important. The accrual of greater profit is not. Profit is not evil. The pursuit of profit to the detriment of others is. Paul indicts the Corinthians for putting the pursuit of their own freedom over concern for the faith of others (e.g., 1 Cor. 8:13). "Take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak." (8:9). 

The technological advances of the world are a tribute to the intellectual gifts God has given the world. We can even blow up the world with nuclear bombs. With the great power God has given us comes great responsibility as stewards. God has not called us to selfishness, but to love our neighbor.

[1] John Walton has argued that, in context, the pronouncement of the creation as good likely had more to do with how it was functioning than its moral quality. In The Lost World of Genesis 1 (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2009), 148-150.

[2] I am indebted in much of what follows to the benefit of sitting into several presentations by Brian Webb at Houghton University on Scripture and the Environment.

[3] It is interesting that the Genesis narrative gives the impression that humans did not even eat meat before the Flood (9:3).

[4] Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner, Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution (Berkeley: University of California, 2003).

[5] Allan M. Brandt, The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product that Defined America (Philadelphia: Basic, 2009).

[6] From 1996 to 2020, the CDC and NIH were stymied from using their funds to research gun violence.

[7] Paul Mohai et al. "Which came first, people or pollution? Assessing the disparate siting and post-siting demographic change hypotheses of environmental injustice," Environmental Research Letters (2015).

Wesleyan Reflections on Christian Theology (entire series)

Introduction to Christian Theology
1. What is Christian theology?
2. Start with the faith you have.
3. All truth is God's truth.
4. God has revealed himself in nature.
5. God reveals himself in events apart from nature.
6. There is a spectrum of Christian thinking on many issues.

Part I: God and Creation
The Doctrine of God (theology proper)
1. God didn't need to create. (God's self-sufficiency)
2. God isn't literally a guy.
3. God has the power to do anything. (God's omnipotence)
4. God is present in all places and all times. (God's omnipresence)
5. God knows every possible thing to know.
6. God knows every actual thing to know. (God's omniscience)
7. God can do whatever he wants. (God's sovereignty)
8. God loves everything he has created. (God is love)
9. God's justice fits within the context of his love. (God is just)
10. To say God is holy is to say God is God. (God is holy)
11. There is only one God, but God is three persons. (God is a Trinity)

The Doctrine of Creation (cosmology)
1. God created everything that exists out of nothing.
2. Everything God created was good.
3. God is in control of everything that happens.
4. There are good and evil spiritual beings at work in the world.
5. Human beings were created in the image of God.
6. God intended us to live forever.
7. All humanity is of equal value to God.

The Doctrine of Sin (hamartiology)
1. Evil is a matter of choice, intention, and desire.
2. God created the possibility of evil choices.
3. Suffering in itself is not evil.
4. The current bent of humanity is toward evil.
5. All have sinned.
6. There is such a thing as corporate and structural sin.

Part II: Christ and Salvation
The Doctrine of Christ (Christology)
1. Christ has been the Son of God from eternity past.
2. Jesus is "God with us," God's Word become flesh.
3. Jesus on earth was a prophet of the kingdom of God.
4. In his death, Jesus became the priest of all humanity and creation.
5. In his resurrection, Jesus became the king of all humanity and creation.

The Doctrine of Atonement 
1. God chose Christ's death as the means to reconcile the world to himself.
2. In his death, Jesus showed us the love of God.
3. In his death, Jesus satisfied the order of things.
4. In his death, Jesus took humanity's place.
5. In his death, Jesus defeated the power of death.

The Doctrine of Salvation (soteriology)
1. Jesus saves.
2. Saving us is part of God's plan.
3. God was reaching out for us long before we knew it.
4. God used Israel to prepare the way for Christ.
5. God justifies us in response to our repentance and faith.
6. God fills us with his Holy Spirit as a seal of ownership.
7. God adopts us as his children: we are born to new life.
8. The power of the Spirit breaks the power of Sin.
9. The dead in Christ will rise.
10. Christ will come again to save his people and judge the world.
11. God will restore the world and we will enjoy him forever.

Part III: The Holy Spirit and the Church
The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit (pneumatology)
1. The Holy Spirit is a distinct person, but one in substance with the Father and Son.
2. The Holy Spirit enacts the will of the Father and Son in the world.
3. The Spirit sanctifies the Church.
4. The Spirit sanctifies the believer.

The Doctrine of the Church (ecclesiology)
1. In Christ, the Spirit creates the Church.
2. The true Church is an "invisible" church.
3. The invisible Church meets in visible churches.
4. The Church is one body, although it has many members.
5. There is no one, correct form of church governance.
6. There are likely elements to church governance.
7. The Church is in the world, but not of the world.
8. The Church has worship as its central and most important task.
9. The Church participates in God's mission to the world.
10. The Church disciples and nurtures God's people.

Christian Sacraments
1. A sacrament is a divinely appointed means of grace.
2. Baptism is a sacrament of inclusion into the people of God.
3. Christians have varying perspectives on baptism.
4. Communion is a sacrament of re-empowerment.
5. Christians vary some in their perspectives on communion.
6. The Scriptures are a sacrament of God's transformation.
7. Christians vary somewhat in their conceptions of Scripture.
8. The Bible is inspired, infallible, and inerrant.
9. God uses all sorts of instruments of grace to transform his people.

Part IV: Christian Ethics
1. The Christian ethic is, at its base, a virtue ethic.
2. The foundational value of a Christian ethic is love.

I-II, IV.
3. We must not let any other thing take God's place in our life.

(for III, see IX below)

V.
4. God calls us to respect authority in honor of his authority.
5. God calls us to respect our governments.
6. God calls us to respect our parents and spouses.

VI.
7. Thou shalt not murder.
8. War should only be conducted under extreme circumstances.
9. Capital punishment should be reserved for extreme circumstances, if used at all.
10. Force against an offender can sometimes be justified.
11. There is a time to die, although we should not play God with human life.
12. God values life in the womb, and we should preserve it.

VII.
13. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
14. Divorce is usually hostile to God's fundamental values.
15. God's ideal is an equal partnership in marriage.
16. Sex should be kept within a marriage relationship.
17. The Bible prohibits homosexual sex and several other types of sex act.

VIII.
18. Thou shalt not steal.
19. The Bible views hoarding wealth as a sin against God and neighbor.
20. The economic structures of society can be more or less loving.

IX.
21. Thou shalt not bear false witness or swear falsely in court. (includes III)
22. Truthtelling is almost always the loving thing to do.

X.
23. Thou shalt not covet.

Disputed Issues
24. We must work out our salvation with fear and trembling.
25. Many issues are a matter of individual or corporate conscience.

ET25: Many issues are a matter of individual or corporate conscience.

This is the final ethics and theology entry in a series called theology in bullet points that I began on March 7, 2014. I will post one more overall table of contents and be done. The first unit in this series had to do with God and Creation (book here), and the second unit was on Christology and Atonement.

We are now in the third and final unit: The Holy Spirit and the Church. The first set of posts in this final unit was on the Holy Spirit. The second set was on the Church. The third set was on sacraments. This final section is on Christian ethics.
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Many issues are a matter of individual or corporate conscience.

1. "In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity." [1] So goes the slogan. Most would readily agree with what it is saying.

If something is essential, then all Christians must affirm and practice it. That is the definition of an essential. There are probably some today who do not see much of anything as essential. But Christianity has no identity if there is nothing about it that is "it." To deny any essentials is to stand outside of Christianity in any meaningful sense.

Most would agree that love must pervade our relationships with each other. Perhaps there would be someone who does not agree, but they must argue with Jesus, Paul, James, and John to explain their new revelation. This theme seems too pervasive in the New Testament and church history to fight successfully.

The difficulty with this slogan, for most Christians, is not what it says. The difficulty is in distinguishing between what is essential and what is non-essential.

2. Christians disagreed on things even in the New Testament church. Some Christians believed non-Jews needed to convert fully to Judaism to be saved. Peter and James disagreed, although they were probably sympathetic. [2] Paul disagreed with James on eating meat offered to idols and how Jew and Gentile might eat together. James had a "stay away from the tainted meat at all costs" approach, and would only allow table fellowship under certain circumstances. Paul had a "don't ask" approach, and rejected all but sexual purity concerns about eating together.

So we often disagree on many things today as well, and Christians have repeatedly disagreed with each other throughout the centuries. The Novatians disagreed with the mainstream church on the forgiveness of priests who had caved in during persecution and split to form their own community. The Coptics disagreed over calling Nestorius a heretic for seeing Christ as roughly two persons.

In 1054, the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Church ostensibly split over the question of whether the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son or just the Father. The Roman Catholic Church kicked Martin Luther out for his positions on purgatory, Scripture, and justification by faith. Luther and Zwingli could not unite as Protestants because of differing views of communion.

And ever since, Protestantism has split into tens of thousands of little groups with differing beliefs. Paul Tillich called it the "Protestant Principle." Because each individual is expected to form their beliefs on the basis of Scripture alone, you inevitably get almost as many different beliefs as you do individual Christians. This creates a dynamic where we should expect churches and denominations to split regularly because they disagree over what the Bible says.

Just this summer alone, I learned of a German Baptist group that split amicably over the use of the internet. This summer I also watched the United Methodist Church come very close to splitting over the question of ordaining practicing gay ministers.

3. Since Protestants have often claimed to settle all these disputes on the basis of the Bible, the evidence is quite definitive that this avenue has not worked very well at all. And it is easy to see why. There are three simple, very easy to understand reasons:

• Christians disagree on the meaning of individual verses because the same words can be taken in different ways. [3]
• It is possible to fit together the varied comments of the Bible in many different ways. Which verses are primary and "clear"? Which are secondary and "unclear"? How do they connect? [4]
• How do these words, which addressed numerous ancient audiences, play out in our contexts and situations, which are often different from theirs? [5]

The persistent ignorance of these dynamics leads Christian groups repeatedly and mindlessly to beat their chests about those who are or are not following the Bible. Yet they may be unaware of the traditions at work on their own understanding or the cultural dynamics that have led them to interpret and emphasize certain verses in certain ways. All of us as Christian readers are, at least to some extent, unaware of the way in which we read the Bible as a mirror for our own assumptions.

4. So what is essential? In a previous article, I discussed the difference between dogma, doctrine, and adiaphora. Dogma are those things that have been generally believed by Christians for the last 2000 years. Doctrines tend to be matters of specific denominations and church groups, points at which a Wesleyan might disagree with a Baptist. Adiaphora then refers to matters of individual conscience.

We can abstract three basic principles for "disputable issues" from Paul's treatment of meat sacrificed to idols in Romans 14. Mind you, James probably did not consider this a disputable issue, which is fundamental to our problem. Some think some issues are essential and others do not.

The three principles are:

• Let everyone be fully convinced before God in their own conscience (Rom. 14:5).
• Act toward others with love in a way that builds up their faith (Rom. 14:13).
• God knows the right answer, and an individual can be wrong about what they are convinced of (Rom. 14:22).

5. First, my conscience needs to be clear. Romans 14:23 gives us the best understanding of sin in the entire Bible. Sin is when I intentionally do something that conflicts with my complete commitment to God, a "willful transgression against a known law of God," as Wesley put it. [6] I need to act out of faith rather than trying to get away with something.

The problem here is that people can be wrongly convinced that their conscience is clear. Paul hints at this fact when he says, "Blessed are those who have no reason to condemn themselves because of what they approve" (Rom. 14:22). This is the third point. Sometimes there is a definite answer and the point under dispute is not really a disputable issue at all.

God knows. There is a human impulse to want to be able to know for sure now. We want to see the offender punished or kicked out of the church. We don't want someone to "pull the wool over our eyes." But God knows. God is not fooled. Some of us may need a little more faith that God will make sure the right thing is done.

Other individuals have a hyper-active conscience. They doubt everything and Romans 14:23 becomes a verse of terror: "Those who have doubts are condemned if they eat." This type of individual needs to know that Paul does not have passing thoughts in view here. Doubt in the New Testament is much more a matter of conflicting loyalty than passing thought.

6. So what is an essential? When there is a well-nigh universal understanding of Scripture on an issue, we are likely standing on an essential. Notice how I have worded the statement. Not some little group's understanding of the Bible, not my understanding of the Bible, not even the original meaning of the Bible, but an interpretation of the Bible that has shown staying power among God's people for the last two thousand years.

Can any of these be modified? As a Protestant, I would say that the Protestant Reformation suggests that the church can get off track. Always leave room for reformation based in reflection on Scripture.

Since we have a tendency to see things as essential that aren't, I would suggest practically that we treat as a disputable issue any issue where Christians of faith disagree. God will sort us out soon enough.

7. It is reasonable that Christians would form communities with "corporate convictions." That is to say, it makes perfect sense that Christians with the same perspective on a particular doctrine or issue should come together as a community. Those Christians that believe you should baptize a certain way are welcome to come together and baptize a certain way, being sure to love those who disagree with them. Those Christians who believe uninterpreted, unknown tongues are a blessing to practice in public worship are welcome to come together and practice uninterpreted tongues-speaking in public worship, being sure to love those who disagree with them. [7]

To think that all Christian churches should believe and worship exactly the same way--and then to think we can do it the New Testament way--simply reflects an ignorance of the nature of the Bible, the facts of church history, and the role of culture. This will never happen. It was not so even in the early church.

So it is fitting that there be churches and denominations who agree in their corporate conscience. Let them be fully convinced. Let them show love toward other groups and individuals. God knows the right answers.

8. Similarly, there will inevitably be matters of individual conscience. We used to call these items matters of personal conviction. You believe you can drink moderately. I believe I should abstain completely. You believe you can watch certain movies. I believe I should not. You have no problem celebrating Halloween. I do not.

Since we usually cannot know another person's true motives, Jesus tells us not to judge our fellow Christian on such matters (Matt. 7:1). God knows the heart. God knows who's right. Love is the essential of all essentials, taking precedence over ideas and specific actions.

As an individual Christian, it is my conscience that I must worry about most. Is my heart right with God? Can I truly do this in good conscience? Can I glorify God and Christ and do this? Am I simply saying my conscience is clear when, deep down, I know I am simply trying to justify something I shouldn't do?

And all of us must love those who disagree with us. We should "agree to disagree" far more often than we do. Most of the splits in history, arguably, have been as much about broken relationships as they have been differing ideas. We can love each other and disagree.

Paul is also concerned that one person's freedom not hurt another person's faith. Just because my conscience is clear doesn't mean I should exercise my rights or freedom. It's not about me, in the end. If my freedom hurts another person's faith, then I should not exercise it. We before me. I am third, after God and others.

9. God knows. Sometimes an issue isn't truly debatable. I can be fully convinced wrongly. Blessed is the person who does not condemn him or herself because they think their conscience is clear but it really is not.

Here endeth the series.

[1] The quote comes from Rupertus Meldenius in the 1600s.

[2] The wording of Galatians 2:3--Titus was not "compelled" or forced to be circumcised. The most natural way to take the expression is that James and Peter preferred for him to be circumcised.

[3] Here it is important to point out that even scholars regularly disagree on the meaning of individual verses. This is in part do to the fact that we lack sufficient evidence to know the meaning of many statements. That is, the meaning is regularly under-determined.

[4] So James does not end with a footnote that says, "For those of you reading Paul right now, here's how what I'm saying fits with him." And Romans does not come with a footnote that says, "For those of you reading James right now, here's how what I'm saying fits with him." Whether we like it or not, we are forced to connect these books together, outside of the biblical text.

[5] The impulse to say, "These words mean the same thing in all times in all places" demonstrates a lack of knowledge of how the meaning of words and actions is determined by the context in which those words and actions take place. Reading the Bible in context is a cross-cultural experience, like visiting Africa or China.

[6] You can find references to "sin properly so called" in Wesley's sermon, "The Scripture Way of Salvation" and you can find this definition of sin in a letter he wrote in 1772 to a Mrs. Elizabeth Bennis.

[7] Someone might say, "Uninterpreted tongues contradicts what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14." But who was Paul writing to? He was writing to a specific church at a specific time and place with a specific purpose. Could it not be that a group of Christians today--a different world in the sense that there are many, many different churches in any city that you might attend--might all feel edified by watching others speak in tongues even if they didn't know what they are saying? And, similarly, might it not be that it would be more edifying for some churches today not to have tongues spoken at all in worship, interpreted or not?

ET24: We must work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

This is the twenty-fourth post on Christian ethics in my ongoing series, theology in bullet points. The first unit in this series had to do with God and Creation (book here), and the second unit was on Christology and Atonement.

We are now in the third and final unit: The Holy Spirit and the Church. The first set of posts in this final unit was on the Holy Spirit. The second set was on the Church. The third set was on sacraments. This final section is on Christian ethics.
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We must work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

1. Christian ethics are grounded on two key moral principles--the love of God and the love of others. These two principles are grounded in God's fundamental disposition toward his creation--God is love. We are therefore to follow his example and love both our neighbors and our enemies. We are to have a healthy sense of ourselves, since we are a reflection of God, created in the image of God.

The Ten Commandments arguably expand these two fundamental principles into other areas of life. If we love our neighbor, we will not steal her stuff, cheat with his spouse, or murder her. We will not falsely accuse him or lie in court so that she suffers consequences for something she did not do.

If we love God as God, we will recognize that we can allow nothing in our lives to conflict with his authority. We will honor him in everything we do. We will respect other authorities too as a reflection of his authority.

2. But these are very general principles. They do not cover all the specific situations in which you might find yourself. The best way to understand the oral traditions of the Pharisees is to see them as trying to specify how the Law might play itself out in almost every conceivable situation.

But it is impossible to anticipate every possible situation. Wisdom is being able to discern what to do in specific situations given the heart of God. But to try to anticipate and spell out everything beforehand is bound to lead to misfires and even actions that ultimately contradict the heart of God.

In the modern age, the rapid invention of new technologies and new situations that the world has never seen before has made the necessity for wisdom even more urgent. There was no such thing as cloning in biblical times. A person's life could not be preserved on a life support system. There was no weapon that could destroy the earth, nor were there inventions that could generate enough carbon dioxide to increase the temperature of the whole planet.

In short, the Bible does not answer all our specific ethical questions. Indeed, it is impossible that it or any "tradition of the elders" would. When the Pharisees pretended to determine how far you could walk on the Sabbath before you had worked, they were going beyond the Sabbath command. Scripture simply does not address this question.

Some Christians develop similar traditions and pretend that they are just listening to Scripture. A person once told me that, as a child, playing on a playground was my work on the Sabbath and that therefore the playground was closed for the Sabbath. Interesting application of Scripture. But Scripture itself says nothing about whether a child should play on the Sabbath. Nor does the Bible directly address the majority of specific ethical situations we will face in our lives.

3. Another factor is that the books of the Bible were first written to people who have been dead for two to three thousand years. The books say so themselves. 1 Corinthians says it was written to a group of people who lived at Corinth. Deuteronomy 6:4 says, "Hear, O Israel." Revelation was written to the churches of Asia Minor at the end of the first century.

To be sure, Scripture is for us even though it was not written to us. What we have done in this series on Christian ethics is to try to discern what the big principles of Scripture are and to re-present them in a way that helps us address the issues of our day. We are always on safest ground when we discern the big principles and the overall kingdom trajectory. Where is God taking history? Otherwise we run the risk of hearing the letter rather than the Spirit of Scripture.

Paul wrestled with this tendency toward the letter over the Spirit. "The letter kills," he said (2 Cor. 3:6). In ethics, "doing what they did" isn't always doing what they did. Why? Because the meaning of actions is a function of what those actions signify at a particular time and place. For a wife to cover her head today in the manner of 1 Corinthians 11 then is for her to do something that is meaningless in most twenty-first century contexts. A hair veil had a meaning in Paul's Corinth. But veiling one's head today would more suggest that you are a Muslim--not the same meaning!

It is when we focus on individual verses over the big principles that we are most likely to end up "killing" with the letter of Scripture or perhaps just being bizarre. On the level of individual verses, we are most likely to hit context-specific teaching in the Bible. It is on the level of individual verses that we often hit unclear instruction, because we lack sufficient information to fully determine what the verse was saying.

Opposition to women in ministry largely centers on the interpretation of a single verse, 1 Timothy 2:12. Yet this is a single verse surrounded with ambiguous teaching (2:15) in a book whose precise context is unclear. This is exactly the sort of situation where the letter kills. Rather than go with the kingdom principle of "in Christ there is not male and female" (Gal. 3:28) and rather than use wisdom in relation to our current context (where full equality of status between the sexes is important for mission), some groups think to follow the letter of a single verse and in the end both hinder the gospel and put obstacles in the way of the Holy Spirit.

4. Paul did give the Philippians a general principle for our situation that reaches across time to us today. He told the Philippians, "In my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling" (2:12). Paul could not be in Philippi to spell out every detail of their Christian life. And even Paul did not have all the answers, even if God inspired him to write a good portion of the New Testament. The Philippians would have to work out the rest together "with fear and trembling."

And the word "you" here is plural. We have to work out the details of our Christian journey as individuals as well, seeking God's guidance in prayer and reflection on the Scriptures. But we are on much safer ground when we work out the details of our pilgrimage together, in communities of faith.

True, communities of faith have believed and taught some bizarre things over the years. The "Pharisee principle," which wants to spell out for everyone in all situations exactly what they must do, is an ever present danger. Churches do best to stick to the big principles and leave the rest to individual conscience.

Nevertheless, there is wisdom in numbers. There is wisdom to be found in groups of Christians working through issues together. The Holy Spirit is in each one of us, but we are even more likely to hear the Holy Spirit in communities. We will get it wrong, which is why we should never mistake the decisions of denominations and local churches for the Church universal. Even more shocking is the fact that we will get it wrong sometimes when we are most ardently convinced that we are right. Grace must therefore permeate our ethical considerations.

5. It has often been suggested that John Wesley's method for working out a sense of God's will for his day involved a "quadrilateral" of sorts: Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. Scripture was clearly first for Wesley, as it must be for us. I hope our journey through Christian ethics has demonstrated "Scripture first" or prima scriptura. We have derived the big principles from Scripture.

What is tradition but the Church universal reflecting on Scripture through the eyes of the Holy Spirit? We do not have to reinvent the doctrinal and ethical wheels in each generation. The Spirit has already helped unpack the significance of Scripture among the "communion of saints." Jesus is the final Word. The New Testament gives authoritative witness to that final Word, unpacking his significance for the last days. Then God has used the Church, especially in its first centuries, to clarify some of the important details as well.

Experience and reason are simply the tools that re-contextualize the gospel for new contexts and situations. Experience reflects a knowledge of our own cultures and subcultures. Experience tells us how the principles play out at our moment of history. Experience might also include the wisdom of local bodies of Christ. My denomination, the elders of my local church, reflect a body of wisdom in relation to our time and place. They have a spiritual common sense that reflects Scripture in dialog with contemporary experience.

Reason is an aspect of the world God has created. We are forced to use it with every interpretation we make of the Bible. We are forced to use it in any decision we make. God is not irrational, although we might say he is supra-rational. Sometimes his understanding goes well beyond any reason we can make. But his reasonings make sense in the vast scheme of things.

6. So after we have studied Scripture and we understand the big principles, we must wrestle together to make it to the Day of Salvation, "working out our salvation with fear and trembling." We will often disagree, which is why we must show each other grace. But God will receive us if we are truly doing all to the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31), doing everything we do in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ (Col. 3:17).

Praise be to God, who walks with us and talks with us along life's narrow way!

ET25: Many issues are a matter of individual or corporate conscience.

ET23: Thou shalt not covet.

This is the twenty-third post on Christian ethics in my ongoing series, theology in bullet points. The first unit in this series had to do with God and Creation (book here), and the second unit was on Christology and Atonement.

We are now in the third and final unit: The Holy Spirit and the Church. The first set of posts in this final unit was on the Holy Spirit. The second set was on the Church. The third set was on sacraments. This final section is on Christian ethics.
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Thou shalt not covet.

1. The final commandment has a different character than all but perhaps the first commandment. Almost all the other commands directly address actions: making an idol, taking an oath falsely, violating the sabbath, dishonoring one's parents, killing, committing adultery, stealing, lying under oath.

By contrast, the tenth commandment addresses one's attitude and disposition toward other people. Do not stew or scheme in relation to your neighbor's property. Do not fantasize or plot in relation to his wife or his servants. The ancients were not introspective in the extreme way of post-Romantic Western culture. The tenth commandment was not about passing thoughts. It was about a disposition that, given the right circumstances, would lead to a violation of the other commandments.

2. There is of course a very strong similarity between what the tenth commandment does to the other commandments and Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 5, Jesus as it were addresses a view of the commandments that does not take the command not to covet into account.

It is not enough not to go through with a murder, he says in Matthew 5:21-26. You cannot covet the death of your neighbor or enemy. You cannot hate your neighbor such that, given the opportunity, you would do him or her harm.

It is not enough just not to go through with adultery, he says in Matthew 5:27-30. You cannot covet someone else's spouse. You cannot lust and fantasize after someone married to someone else such that, given the opportunity, you would have an affair with them.

Jesus extends this dynamic to the point of divorce. Coveting someone else's spouse can lead you to divorce your own spouse so that you can legally have sex with someone else. But this is simply legalized covetousness.

3. This movement toward the internalization of ethics is key to the New Testament and Christian ethics. Even among secular ethicists, it is recognized that one's motives and one's attitudes are the heart of morality. What we do is important, but our motivations for what we do are far more morally significant. Love of God and neighbor is the fundamental principle of Christian ethics.

It is also interesting that when Paul wished to show that it is impossible to keep the Law without the Holy Spirit, he chose to focus on the commandment not to covet (Rom. 7:7-8). [1] With regard to most of the other commandments, someone might say, "I have perfectly kept that command." I have never murdered anyone. I have never stolen from anyone. I have never slept with someone else's wife. I have never lied as a witness in court.

But Paul uses the command not to covet as his benchmark, a command that effectively internalizes the standard. I may be able not to murder someone but it will be very difficult without the Holy Spirit to love my enemy. I may be able not to have an affair but I need the help of the Holy Spirit to help me not to lust after other women.

The command not to covet is thus a crucial link between the Old and New Testament. It takes the other commandments out of the realm of the external and moves it into the realm of the heart.

Next Sunday: ET24: We must work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

[1] A fact pointed out by E. P. Sanders in Paul (1991).

ET22: Truthtelling is almost always the loving thing to do.

This is the twenty-second post on Christian ethics in my ongoing series, theology in bullet points. The first unit in this series had to do with God and Creation (book here), and the second unit was on Christology and Atonement.

We are now in the third and final unit: The Holy Spirit and the Church. The first set of posts in this final unit was on the Holy Spirit. The second set was on the Church. The third set was on sacraments. This final section is on Christian ethics.
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Truthtelling is almost always the loving thing to do.

1. The previous article focused on the original nature of the commands not to bear false witness or to take the LORD's name in vain. What then of lying and truthtelling in general?

There are more general statements about lying scattered here and there in the Bible. For example, Leviticus 19:11 briefly told the Israelites not to deal falsely or lie to one another. The idea of "dealing falsely" suggests that trustworthiness in the way neighbors interact with each other was probably in view. Proverbs 12:22 says, "Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are his delight." The context again suggests harmful deception: "Deceit is in the mind of those who plan evil" (Prov. 12:20).

In the New Testament, Satan is called the "father of lies" (John 8:44). Colossians 3:9 tells Christians, "Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices." Finally, Revelation 21:8 says that the final destiny of all liars will be "in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death."

2. So what is it about lying that receives such a negative verdict across the Bible? It is because lying is usually either harmful or selfish. In the Old Testament, to lie as a witness was potentially to cause an innocent person to die or suffer. When a person made an oath, he or she made it to assure someone else of something very important. Lying about such an oath, breaking trust, not only dishonored God (in whose name the oath was likely made) but meant that whatever serious action was taken on the basis of the oath would fail.

From a New Testament perspective, lying usually does not fit either with the love of God or of one's neighbor. It does not fit with love of one's neighbor because of the harmful dimension I mentioned above. Lying usually breaks trust, which is a fundamental human value. Trust frees us from worry. Trust means we do not have to expend our energies protecting ourselves or making alternative plans. Trust eliminates uncertainties.

But lies mean that we cannot trust. They mean that we must expend our energies being prepared for alternative situations. If we believe lies, then we may make choices that lead us to harm. We may damage other relationships because we have faulty information. We may buy goods or services that do not work. We may end up looking foolish or shamed.

A person who is known for lying is not trusted. We tend to ignore what they say or even actively assume that they are giving us skewed information. They hurt themselves because people do not fully enter into relationship with them because they cannot be trusted. They find themselves isolated and alone. When they need others to trust them, they are not trusted. [1]

A person whose word can be trusted is highly valued and honored. Even those who do not believe in Christ will usually respect an honest person.

3. There are various ways to lie, other than an "out and out lie." There is the half-truth, which is partially true but misleads in some key way. There is the "fib," which lies about some trivial matter. One can "act a lie," where one does not speak a lie but one's actions are intended to mislead. In general, any word or act that is intended to deceive or mislead is a form of lying.

By contrast, to unintentionally give misinformation is not a lie. Similarly, to truthfully state your intentions and then fail to reach them is not a lie. As with all ethics, the key is the intention. If one did not intend to lie and gave faulty information, one has not lied. If one intended to be there at 5pm and got stuck in traffic, one has not lied.

A person can also make promises lightly or be half-hearted with truthtelling. They may only half intend to do what they say. They say they will do something, but maybe they will and maybe they won't.

Jesus said to "Let your word be 'Yes, Yes' or 'No, No; anything more than this comes from the evil one" (Matt. 5:37). Being reliable in what you say is a core Christian value, and it is the loving thing to do. Even if a Christian lives in a culture where lying is considered somewhat acceptable, a Christian will stand out as different, as a person of truth.

4. Is there ever a circumstance where deception is the right thing to do? That is to say, is it ever right to lie? Most biblical commands are on the level of universal values, but with exceptions. Although the Bible strongly values truth-telling, there may be highly unusual circumstances where deception is appropriate.

The best known example is of course Rahab in Joshua, who lies to the people of Jericho to protect the Israelite spies. This example falls under the category of war and saving life. The Bible never condemns her lie. Rather, she is consistently affirmed throughout Scripture as a hero of faith. Her lie is never specifically affirmed, but it seems to be implicitly affirmed.

But notice that her lie served to protect life. Notice that her lie served to protect God's people. From one perspective, her lie was not loving toward the people of Jericho. But from another, her lie was loving toward the people of Israel in a time of war. When Corrie Ten Boom's family was hiding Jews, it would have been appropriate to lie to the Nazis because of the higher value of saving life.

Personal conscience and strong discernment, as well as culture may come into play with various situations. There are times when a person means another harm and giving them information can become a tool of harm. The full truth, in such circumstances, becomes harmful and unloving, in effect. The loving thing to do is to prevent such intenders of harm from getting information. Misleading may be the right thing to do.

The truth can be hurtful in trivial personal matters. A spouse can use truth as a weapon in such cases. Being less than forthright, on the other hand, can be the loving thing to do. "How do I look?"

There are times when someone has no business to certain information but you are faced with an outright question. To say, "None of your business" may in itself be an answer. Jesus' brothers tell him in John 7:3 to go to the Feast of Tabernacles. But it is none of their business. He tells them he is not going to the feast, and then goes up anyway secretly (John 7:8-10). [2]

It is probably a matter of conscience as to what one does in such situations. One would not be deceiving in an unloving or selfish way. The intention is not to harm. One might actually be deceiving to protect confidentiality or to protect an important process where information should not get out. Leaders often have to guard information carefully and the line between deception and controlling information can get blurry.

5. Some will always try to emphasize the exceptions to justify their actions. God is not fooled. God knows those whose hearts are disposed to be truthful and loving with the truth. And God knows those whose predisposition is to deceive or to justify lying for the wrong purposes.

Most lies serve selfish purposes. We lie to protect ourselves from guilt or consequences. We lie to make ourselves seem better than we are. We cheat on a test, which is a form of lying, so that our grade does not tell how little we really know. We hide our failures with lies. We hide our sins with lies. But God is not fooled.

Truthtelling is almost always the loving thing to do. There are exceptions when deception is the loving thing to do, but it is the exception. A person after God's own heart is a person of truth and clarity. By contrast, lying is usually either selfish or hateful, neither of which has any place in the kingdom of God.

Next Sunday: ET23: Thou shalt not covet.

[1] Thus the story of the boy who cried, "Wolf!"

[2] This story is only told in John and so may be told more in John's language than Jesus' own.

ET21: Thou shalt not bear false witness or swear falsely in court.

This is the twenty-first post on Christian ethics in my ongoing series, theology in bullet points. The first unit in this series had to do with God and Creation (book here), and the second unit was on Christology and Atonement.

We are now in the third and final unit: The Holy Spirit and the Church. The first set of posts in this final unit was on the Holy Spirit. The second set was on the Church. The third set was on sacraments. This final section is on Christian ethics.
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Thou shalt not bear false witness or swear falsely in court.

1. We are generally told as children that the ninth commandment is about not lying (Exod. 20:16; Deut. 5:20). We might paraphrase it as, "Thou shalt not lie" instead of "bear false witness."

But the commandment is worded interestingly if that is really what it was saying. If we take a quick look at this word witness, we find other statements in the Law such as the following:

• "If anyone kills another, the murderer shall be put to death on the evidence of witnesses; but no one shall be put to death on the testimony of a single witness" (Num. 35:30).
• "You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with the wicked to act as a malicious witness... when you bear witness in a lawsuit, you shall not side with the majority so as to pervert justice" (Exod. 23:1-2).
• "A single witness shall not suffice to convict a person of any crime or wrongdoing in connection with any offense that may be committed. Only on the evidence of two or three witnesses shall a charge be sustained" (Deut. 19:15).
• "If the witness is a false witness, having testified falsely against another, then you shall do to the false witness just as the false witness had meant to do to the other" (Deut. 19:18-19).

Notice that the highlighted phrases use the same words as the ninth command, suggesting that the ninth commandment was not primarily about lying in general, but about giving false testimony at a trial. Indeed, when we go back and look at the commandment, it speaks of false witness "against your neighbor," suggesting that the context the command has in mind is a trial.

2. There is an important point of self-reflection here. You might argue that we have many such interpretations of Scripture that we have learned, often at a very young age. When we speak of "the Bible," we often as much mean these traditions about what the Bible teaches as the real Bible, what it really meant. When confronted with what the Bible really taught or perhaps what it really meant in its original context, we are just as likely to keep with the meanings we learned as a child as with the real Bible.

Much Christian rhetoric and defense of the "Bible" is really nothing more than a defense of our own cultural traditions that we associate with the Bible. There are plenty who would fight for the Bible who have little interest in what it really teaches. We can get very angry indeed when someone "tampers" with our inherited "tradition of the elders." In the end, it is God who must stand at the center, the immortal, invisible, God only wise, from whom and through whom and for whom are all things. The Bible is a witness to God and his Christ, and a tool in the Master's hands.

3. There were no video cameras or DNA tests in the ancient world. The evidence of witnesses, as today, was considered of principal importance. It was thus essential that witnesses to a crime speak truthfully. You can see from Deuteronomy 19:18-19 above that false witness could result in you receiving the punishment you were seeking for the other. One witness also was not considered sufficient, but two or three were needed.

4. Another key element in such instances was an oath. Hebrews 6:16 expresses the importance of this common practice of swearing by a god that you were speaking the truth: "Human beings, of course, swear by someone greater than themselves, and an oath given as confirmation puts an end to all dispute." So a person might swear "by God" that they are telling the truth.

A vow is a particular kind of oath, one that looks to future action, and God's name was often invoked when speaking of future action. Jephthah takes such an oath in Judges 11, when he swears by Yahweh that he will sacrifice the first living thing that comes out of his house if he is victorious in battle (11:30-31). It turns out to be his daughter. So he gives her two months to mourn her untimely death and then he sacrifices her (11:39).

Again, while we are often told as children that the third commandment is about cussing--"Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD in vain"--it was originally about keeping one's vows and the truthfulness of one's oaths. If you swear by the LORD and invoke his name as a guarantee of your word, then you had better do what you say. Jesus summarizes this third command in this way: "you have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, 'You shall not swear falsely, but carry out the vows you have made to the Lord.'" (Matt. 5:33).

5. The next article will ask how the principles behind these practices might play out in relation to ordinary truthtelling. In the remainder of this one, we want to look at how these commandments might translate from "that time" to "this time."

With regard to bearing false witness, the Christian standard is truthfulness well beyond a legal context, as we will see in the next article. In that sense, the command to be truthful in court remains as much in force as it was in ancient Israel. When "sworn in" at a trial, a person is often asked to put their hand on a Bible and swear "to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God." We have here an artifact of the ancient practice, involving an oath.

On the other hand, Jesus in Matthew has given us a "fulfilled" perspective on oathkeeping in general. Jesus recounts the third commandment on not swearing falsely and then goes on to say, "But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let your word be 'Yes, Yes' or 'No, No'; anything more than this comes from the evil one" (Matt. 5:34-37).

In other words, if followers of Jesus are truthful in general, they will not need to invoke oaths to convince others of the truthfulness of their words. In Jesus' "fulfilled" interpretation of the Law (cf. Matt. 5:17), there is no need for the third commandment or oaths, because God's people would be known for their truthfulness.

6. So it should not be necessary for Christians to say, "I swear," in order to enhance a sense of truthfulness to what they are saying. And of course modern Western culture is not a particularly oath-taking culture either. That is to say, oaths are not a major feature of our thinking as they were in the ancient biblical context. To say, "I swear," does not have much force today at all. We are not more likely to trust someone if they say, "I swear on my mother's grave."

However, there are three aspects of this question that we should address before we finish this article. Jehovah's Witnesses do not take oaths because of Jesus' words not to swear at all. They thus cannot take an oath in court or take an oath of office or an oath for the military and so forth. A person with a sensitive conscience might thus find this a point of concern.

But Jesus is giving a general principle. He does not say, "make absolutely no exceptions to what I am saying here, even if it means you will have trouble in your social context." He is giving a principle--you should not need to swear because you are a truth-teller. Take the oath in the trial or as a citizen or for the military. You know you are honest enough that the oath is simply an unecessary ceremonial adornment for you. [1]

7. A second concern is for those who might make foolish vows. Are you expected to keep to the same standard as Jephthah? Here we should remember the world in which Jephthah lived, over three thousand years ago. Human sacrifice was practiced in the surrounding environment, and it almost seems as if he vows to commit human sacrifice.

In such cases we have to step back and get a sense of the character of God. Is the God revealed in Jesus Christ a legalistic rule maker? Or is he the father in the Parable of the Prodigal Son? Is he defined more by his love for us or his love of rules? In the end, God is more loving toward us than any human father or mother might be toward their children. Would you as a father or mother expect your child to keep a foolish vow, one they made in ignorance or immaturity? God is a more loving father than we are.

8. Finally, there is the matter of cussing. If there is a verse that relates to cussing, it is not the third commandment but Ephesians 5:4: "Entirely out of place is obscene, silly, and vulgar talk." The underlying dynamic here is that of not shaming Christ or his community by how one speaks. Rather, our way of speaking should gain honor for Christ and his community.

The specifics of what "proper speech" looks like will have much to do with your cultural context. No doubt much of the joking today might have been considered "silly" in other times and places. Similarly, the precise boundaries of the obscene do not stay the same from one context to the next.

So we come back to the intention and purity of one's heart and the honor/shame your words bring to Christ and his church. We are to be a good witness for Christ. If our casual words make people think less of Christ, our hearts should make us want to speak more carefully. If our words express hatred or lust, then we must pray for the Spirit to change our hearts and resolve to speak differently.

There will be some variation from culture to culture and from person to person. The bottom line with our words, as with all our actions, is that "whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him" (Col. 3:17).

Next week: ET22: Truthtelling is almost always the loving thing to do.

[1] Hebrews 6 and 10 also do not have a negative view toward oaths, which suggests that Jesus' statement is not an absolute prohibition without exceptions. Hebrews 6:17 speaks of God taking an oath in Psalm 110:4.