As We Go Forward…

          If evangelicals are truly a “people of the book”, then divine revelation has to be central to any kind of ethics that uses the word “evangelical” as an adjective.  To put my cards on the table, I believe Christians are God’s covenant people in a way that affirms high continuity with God’s promise to Abraham to have a people for Himself (taking into account the progress of revelation), which means that I see in Scripture a consistent divine intent that God’s people receive and respond to revelation (hearers and doers of the Word).  None of this means the task of ethics is simple; many books have been written with various approaches proposing or modeling how one traces the trajectory from divine revelation to ethical decision making. It is a challenging task because of a range of questions, including those related to bridging contexts and determining not only the proper interpretation of texts but also the relevance of texts to our contemporary setting.  Though this particular issue itself is sufficient as a topic, I want to direct our attention to two other issues that I think are indicative of challenges in the present and future.  

            First, though evangelicals clearly have concerns about ethics, there remains an ongoing bifurcation between ethics and the domains of biblical interpretation and systematic theology.  While it might seem obvious that ethics flows from our interpretation of the bible and the ongoing task of systematics, there is a disconnect that one can see on display in seminary curricula.  I make no claim to have surveyed every seminary, but what is evident in the layout of many M. Div. curricula is that there are a sequence of courses in biblical interpretation and systematic theology and then a single course in ethics that is a requirement but almost seems like it is in a world separate from the bible and theology.  No one has to take my word on this alone; I invite all readers to survey seminary curricula to see what’s out there.  In the ongoing discussions of the future of seminaries, perhaps one area of improvement could be to better integrate ethics into classes that mainly focus on exegetical and doctrinal concerns.  I know all professors have to make choices about what to include and exclude in the limited number of class hours allotted, but I think weaving ethics into the curriculum will yield leaders (particularly pastors) better able to bring Christian beliefs to the terrain of everyday life.

            Second (and last), there is the big question of “who decides what counts as important ethical issues?”  Ever since my time in seminary, I have found it interesting to observe what has been included or not included in the ethics texts produced by evangelicals and others.  It makes sense that some texts will address issues that emerge from the contemporary context (e.g. bioethical issues continue to raise questions, not just matters such as cloning but more radical issues such as transhumanism) and that some perennial concerns will appear (e.g. divorce, war, etc.), yet I found it very interesting and also disturbing that few texts addressed racism as an ethical issue (there are some evangelicals that have included this, but they are not the majority).  Racism is only one glaring example, but it leads me to ask with Miguel De La Torre in the book Ethics From the Margins: Who gets to frame the ethical conversation?  Who gets to say what counts and what gets “airplay”?  I ask this not to swing the pendulum in one direction and completely change the conversation, but to expand the conversation and to challenge us to consider what ethical challenges face those whose voices are either muted or ignored.  In some cases this means considering how “perennial” issues have dimensions that are magnified in the lives of those off our radar and in other cases it means surveying the metaphorical ethical landscape to see if those on the margins are asking ethical questions that we have ignored or haven’t recognized.  Perhaps we can frame the question this way: how do we do a better job of recognizing the ethical concerns in front of us, especially when the ethical questions are raised by those who are not in power or those who tend to be invisible to us?  There is a great opportunity here for evangelicals to lead the way, but we have to recognize the ways we are myopic in vision and captive to tendencies that enable us to disregard those on the margins.