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Philosophy: Ethics Start‑class Mid‑importance

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update!

Christian ethics did not die out with Aquinas or Bonhoeffer. Can we maybe include some sections on influential modern Christian ethicists? Stanley Hauerwas of Sam wells for example. We really just need to broaden the scope of this article.Dirtbike spaceman (talk) 22:43, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Change title to "History of Christian Ethics"

This is an excellent article, but it seems to outline the history of Christian ethical thought, rather than predominate or modern ethical teaching. If there is no objection in the next few days, I will make this change. Quantumelfmage (talk) 22:49, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Unacceptable Article on "Christian Ethics," Biased and Unsubstantiated

One of the serious weaknesses of this article on Christian ethics is the complete absence of anything but a tendentious treatment of Catholic ethics in Western Europe. Nothing is said about the Orthodox tradition of moral thought and practice. Nothing is said about the lively developments in Latin America, Africa, or Asia, where some of the most important developments in Christian ethics have occurred.

It is appalling that people might come to this article to learn about Christian ethics, only to be given the impression that it is nothing but a minor wrinkle in the ancient Catholic Church, updated by Scholasticism and its heirs. Oh, that, and a minor off-shoot of some obscure and unimportant thing called Protestant ethics.

His treatment of Catholic ethics, which he assumes IS Christian Ethics is biased with the enthusiasm of the partisan: Augustine and Aquinas have established the truth for all time, he implies. But, assuming the author is Roman Catholic, has there been nothing of note out of the Catholic Church regarding ethics since the 16th Century? The Social Teachings of the Catholic Church, a multi-volume work of great breadth and historical value is completely absent. All the Papal Encyclicals on social issues of the last 150 years, are they irrelevant? The profound revolution of Catholic ethics originating in Vatican 2? Absent. Liberation Theology, Humanum Vitae, economic life between socialism and capitalism? the Arms Race? Immigration? Not a word. Yet the Vatican and Catholic ethicists have had a lot to say about them.

Another weakness is the lack of awareness of modern ethics outside of the churches and how they have affected the development of Christian Ethics. How can you have a serious discussion of Christian Ethics without any reference to philosophical currents after the 13th Century? The absence of any mention of Machiavelli, Hobbes, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Marx, continental phenomenology or Anglo-American analytic and process philosophies, let alone what is going on in the Law, renders this article worse than useless. It misleads. How can we understand even the moral thought of the previous pope John Paul 2 without understanding both Marxist and Phenomenolgical moral philosophies that are part of his intellectual background?

I realize that you can't include everything in an article. Choices have to be made and we rely on other articles to which we may link to complete the picture, but the parochialism and ignorance of the barest outline of issues beyond a fleeting glance at the Bible, Augustine and Aquinas makes this article unacceptable.Comsources (talk) 20:57, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Section on Protestant Ethics is Polemical and Ill-informed.

The section on Protestant ethics is not up to scholarly standards. It is too vague and has claims that are unsupportable. For example, it is simply historically wrong that for Protestant ethics all authority resides with the solitary individual and his or her private interpretation of the Bible. That judgment is a polemical caricature of Protestant thought. It sounds like a bad memory from Catholic School in the 1950s. "With the rejection of the Church's teaching authority" is a polemical, biased statement. Is there only one Church "teaching authority?" Protestants would find that view parochial, at best.

"Protestant ethics" has to do with three great streams of Protestant ecclesiastical and theological development out of the 16th Century European Reformation: Lutheran, Reformed, and Anabaptist. Add to those three continental European streams the Anglican stream out of the United Kingdom, containing within itself both "Protestant" and "Catholic forms." And still further, out of Anglicanism the Wesleyan Churches develop in the UK and the US.

Complicating the picture further is the development-- first in the United States and the United Kingdom and spreading rapidly to Europe and around the world-- of "Evangelical" or "Conservative-Evangelical ethics" (distinct from Lutheran, which is also called "evangelical"). Arising out of Anabaptist and Reformed traditions, "Evangelical ethics" moved from being an ethic of personal conduct rooted in an idea of holiness (separateness from the sinful world) and moral purity to addressing some of the social concerns of the 20th and 21st Centuries. Early forms of what is today called "Evangelical ethics," however, had already opposed slavery, promoted women's rights, and even supported the newly emerging labor movement1. Some mention might be made of perhaps the fastest growing Christian phenomenon: "Pentecostalism," or spirit movements, as well as syncretistic movements (esp. in China and Africa). Whether "Pentecostalism", spirit and syncretist movements can be properly considered "Protestant" is an open question since they tend not to refer to the 16th Century Reformation as part of their identities, and may as easily have Roman Catholic immediate backgrounds as Protestant. That stream should perhaps have a section of its own.

All of these streams-- Lutheran, Reformed, Anabaptist, Anglican, Wesleyan and Evangelical-- spread around the world and developed new ecclesiastical and theological forms in response to the concrete specificities of their location (culture, religion, colonialism, liberation movements, ethnic conflict, dictatorship, poverty, et.al). And for all their differences, one stream from another, there were tributaries that tended to connect even rival theological traditions, especially on issues of practical and public life, notably German Lutheran Pietism and its influence on British Reformed and Anabaptist thinkers and later on the emergence of Evangelicalism in Scandinavia and the United States. It is in their continuing development of ethical thought and practice that the transplanted Protestant traditions through their many denominations have shown their greatest creativity and deepest motive for ending ecclesiastical divisions.

In the twentieth century, especially in the post-World War 2 period, those great Protestant streams, began to seriously encounter one another in dialogue, debate, and collaboration. The emergence of what Paul Abrecht of the World Council of Churches in the 1960s called "Ecumenical Social Ethics" was itself a product of that Protestant convergence. Ecumenical Social Ethics is a form of "Protestant Ethics" that working collaboratively across denominational and confessional lines attempts to address the global issues of war, social and economic justice between and within nations, the environment, and human and civil rights. While much of the development of this new ethical debate occurred in and through the World Council of Churches, especially its section on "Church and Society" headed for most of its history by Paul Abrecht, there were many other venues, as well: national, state, and regional councils of churches, universities, and theological seminaries. During this post-war period Protestant theological seminaries began to create teaching positions and graduate programs in the new academic discipline of "Christian Ethics."

The giants of this period who shaped the self-understanding and agenda of many, if not most of the major seminary ethics programs in North America were the brothers H. Richard Niebuhr (Yale University, New Haven, CT) and Reinhold Niebuhr (Union Theological Seminary, NY, NY) Both the Niebuhrs were engaged in the growing ecumenical movement, both domestically in the US National Council of Churches, and internationally in the World Council of Churches. In fact, it was Reinhold Niebuhr who recommended that Paul Abrecht, one of his graduate students, himself a Baptist pastor and economist, take the post of the newly developing WCC program on "Christian Action." Thus, Protestant Ethics as taught in the mainline seminaries was almost from the beginning connected to the international ecumenical dialogue of ethics, understood at the time as promoting the "Responsible Society." The development of the academic discipline "Christian Ethics," which mostly meant "Protestant Ethics" in the mainline theological schools, was primarily ecumenical, social, and international, as many of its professors were students of H. Richard and Reinhold. What was important, from an historical point of view, was that this new form of Protestant ethics --in seminaries, ecumenical organizations, and denominational programs-- took shape under the press of world events, themselves understood as sources of normative inquiry and deliberation and not strictly out of the traditional bases within the theological traditions themselves.

It must also be added that the new ecumenical ethical debate that began to develop in the World Council of Churches, as well as the many national and regional councils of churches, was not a strictly Protestant enterprise. While the Roman Catholic Church had some institutional official involvement after Vatican 2-- but ended by Pope John Paul 2-- with the WCC's developing discussion of social ethics, the Catholic involvement was limited. It's contribution to the ecumenical discussion (at least after the pulling back of Catholic participation in joint Catholic-Protestant programs) was primarily through informal contacts of Catholic moral theologians with their Protestant counterparts in university religion departments and various venues of ethical discussion such as the Society of Christian Ethics and through journal publications in ethics around the world.

However, a significant voice in the development of international ecumenical social ethics was that of the Orthodox Churches. Eastern Orthodox Churches were involved with Protestant Churches from the beginning of the Ecumenical Movement at the turn of the 19th to the 20th Century. The Orthodox Churches helped to found and shape the World Council of Churches that was officially created in 1948. In fact, at the end of World War 2, the Orthodox Churches had millions of their adherents in Communist-controlled countries. For the most part, the Orthodox Churches in Communist-controlled countries were oppressed, attacked, marginalized, and sometimes compromised. This reality of ongoing oppression gave a dose of reality to what might have been simply academic debates among theologians and ethicists who were instrumental in the development of ecumenical social ethics. However, the Orthodox Churches have not always been pleased with the direction of the Protestant-dominated ecumenical social ethics. They began to voice their criticisms in the 1970's, charging that the WCC-led ecumenical social ethics was undermining its own Christian theological foundations and had become overly influenced by secular Western ideologies. This Orthodox criticism has created an interesting new ecumenical connection with an unlikely partner, for it was similar to the critiques raised by Conservative Evangelicals (discussed below), and has since yielded extraordinary dialogues and cooperation between the two on both ethical and ecclesiological issues.

Most often the results of Protestant moral deliberation in an ecumenical framework appeared not first or primarily in works of private scholarship, but in reports written for ecumenical working groups devoted to special topics. This "ecumenical study method" was developed by the Scottish Protestant missionary-theologian, J. H. Oldham, in response to the world crisis at the end of World War 1. Experts from around the world were asked to examine issues of moral and theological importance facing global humanity, write papers analyzing issues such as "nationalism" or "economic life" or "piracy on the high seas" and deliver them to an international ecumenical conference. The ecumenical conferences would use these individual studies as the basis for extensive dialogue and debate across national, ethnic, and religious-confessional lines as a means of hammering out statements to the churches and the world on matters of great moral urgency. The process originated by Oldham and developed and refined by Abrecht has continued to develop as it has tackled new issues of climate change, threats to the environment, human rights and tyranny, human trafficking, ethics in science and technology, immigration, global finance and many other concrete issues of global life.2

The preposterous statement of the writer of the section on Protestant Ethics that Protestant ethics is private and individualistic reveals the author's complete ignorance of Protestant ethical thought from its inception in the work of Martin Luther "Treatise on Good Works"(1520),"The Freedom of a Christian"(1520), "Address To the German Nobility" (1520), "An Ordinance of a Common Chest" (1523), and "To the Councilmen of All Cities in Germany" (1524) to the latest issue of "Sojourners Magazine". I use these two examples, almost 500 years apart, for two reasons: 1. because the author implies that Luther, on the one hand, and Evangelicals on the other, have no authority but private opinions about the Bible to guide them, and 2, to demonstrate that the dominant character of Protestant ethics is NOT individual good deeds or private individual interpretation of the Bible, but concern for the whole community and the responsibility of secular authorities to provide justice. I could just as easily have pointed to John Calvin and the Reformed Churches tradition and to the lengthy tradition of social ethical thought in Anglicanism, or to the Anabaptist movements whose ethical teachings, especially around issues of non-violence, pacifism, and non-cooperation with governmental power are central to their very identity. Not to mention the historic Black Churches in the United States shaped by slavery, oppression, and racism, themselves standing in the great streams of Anabaptist, Anglican, Wesleyan, and Holiness traditions.

Assuming the moral and theological legitimacy of historical circumstances as sources of and starting points for Christian ethics has not been without severe criticism from more conservative Protestants,3 especially, but not limited to those from the Evangelical tradition. The argument against this new Protestant ethics ("Ecumenical Social Ethics") is that its moral deliberation and pronouncements are derived from secular and ideological interpretations of society and history rather than from properly theological sources within the Christian tradition, itself. This critique of the new turn in ecumenical protestant ethics argued that the proper sources for moral deliberation are instead found in the Bible or the historic Confessions and Creeds, and the tradition of their interpretation in ecclesiastical and theological history, or in the great stream of official teaching and papal encyclicals from the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church. This critique of the new ecumenical social ethics argued that the task of ethics is to take the theological-moral insight of faith and apply it to world problems, not try to generate ethics from the problems themselves. By the second decade of the 21st Century, however, this critique has lost many of its supporters in the Evangelical camp that had provided much of the opposition to ecumenical social ethics. It has been left primarily to fundamentalists-- both Protestant and Roman Catholics-- and right-wing movements that have allied themselves with fundamentalists, while important representatives of the Evangelical stream have taken their places in the Protestant ecumenical dialogue on ethics.4

Confronting such concerns ecumenically did not eliminate the distinctive theological commitments and foundations of the great Protestant traditions. Lutheran and Reformed ethicists still debated the "uses of the Law" in the formation of ethical judgments, but they often arrived at similar positions when it came to action in the world. For example, Lutheran, Anglican, and Reformed theologians disagreed about foundations, but all spoke out and worked against apartheid in South Africa, the nuclear arms race between the former Soviet Union and the United States and its European allies in NATO, world poverty, and social injustice.

The classic "Protestant" debates of the 16th Century, that this current article assumes, have not been simply set aside by ecumenical social ethics, but have been included, built upon, and transcended. In a way, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the only mention of post 16th Century Protestant thought and life, was at the beginning of this new ecumenical development. Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran, was influenced by Karl Barth, a Reformed theologian and developed an ethic that is not alien to either Lutheran or Reformed ethics, and is himself recognized as a saint in the Anglican calendar. And important Evangelical theologians and ethicists have been influenced by Bonhoeffer, as well.5

I would hope that an article on "Christian Ethics" would eschew the misinformed but subtle name-calling of the current article and include some of the richness of "Protestant Ethics" that I have highlighted here.

1. Donald Dayton, Discovering an Evangelical Heritage
2. J. Philip Wogaman, Christian Ethics: A Historical Introduction
3. , Who Speaks for the Church
4. e.g. Ron Sider, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger; Stephen C. Mott, A Christian Perspective on Political Thought; The Evangelical Environmental Network; Evangelicals for Social Action;
5. David P. Gushee, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Evangelical Moment in American Public Life
Comsources (talk) 20:58, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

References

This article badly needs inline citations to reliable sources. In some cases, it may actually be better to remove the unsourced material, as noted by others above. If you watch this article, please consider improving it—ideally by citing the material already in it. --Airborne84 (talk) 03:50, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Blackburn

I think giving such substantive credibility to Dr. Blackburns musings in a book of 130 pages called "Ethics; A very short intoduction" is problematic. Firstly, the criticisms seem quite patently unfair. In both sections labeling Jesus as "racist" the verse cited gives credence to the claim only if read out of context of the rest of the chapter (Jesus testing the womans faith and then granting her relief for her faith). Likewise the claims of Anderson in a "handbook on Athiesm" seem to me far more based on Athiest ethic and wanton misrepresentation of biblical verses than a valid criticism of Christian ethic. I think better sources should be selected for this section, as the ones there currently are rather petty and for the most part, intentionally deceptive. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.118.253.169 (talk) 02:11, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

The sources listed meet Misplaced Pages's requirement as reliable sources. As for the "unfair" part, Misplaced Pages represents verifiability, not necessarily "truth". I'd suggest that a better way to improve this article would be to provide references for the other sections, which feature nearly no secondary sources. --Airborne84 (talk) 13:35, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Criticism of Christianity itself based on Christian history

Bertrand Russell is not offering a criticism of Christian ethics per se, but rather a criticism of historical Christian behavior, it is a criticism of Christian history-- or to be more presice-- it is a criticism of Christianity itself based on Christian history.

While ethics concerns behavior, many things concern behavior; history also concerns behavior.

Ethics (also known as moral philosophy) involves recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior. Like all people, "Christians" have done things in history that do not necessarily match or even relate to Christianity's recommended concepts of right and wrong behavior. While I am sure that Bertrand Russell has said many things that are criticisms of Christian ethics, this is not one of them. Maybe you want to look for a different quote. 08:44, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

As far as the Bertrand Russell passage he was talking about Christian morals I don't think he used the word ethics in that particular work. But many writers specifically note that they do not differentiate between the two, such as Peter Singer in Practial Ethics.

I propose that, since we disagree, we enlist the advice of some other editors here. I suspect that, before coming to an agreement, we will have to agree on a definition of ethics. Thanks. --Airborne84 (talk) 15:00, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

We have other places here on Misplaced Pages to criticize Christian behavior and criticize Biblical ethics.

Now if you want to propose changing the article into one on Christian behavior, then I will point out it is too unwieldy a topic to make out of this, but I will not stop you from making such a formal proposal. 03:41, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Please don't move other editors comments on talk pages, as the original intended context may be lost. Thanks.

Although I already answered below, some of the points you make here are fair. Here is what I propose. I will look again at the sources to see if they are most clearly criticizing Christian Ethics, or Christianity itself, (or simply the Bible). If, as I remember, they are focused on Christian morals and ethics, I will clarify that in the article here. If the link the authors are making seems to point more to the other articles, I will move the relevant passages. Agreed?

It may take a couple of days to do this. --Airborne84 (talk) 17:44, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Since clarifing coments on on Christian morals and ethics would rewrite said parts of the article anyhow, I propose they should be just removed, and then we can add text back in in a few days once the text addresses the article topic. 12:39, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I suggest that the burden of proof is on someone suggesting that passages from a book called "Ethics" are not about Ethics. Again, I don't mind going into the book(s) and pulling out a sourced sentence or two that clearly establish the link. There is no need to delete the passages in the meantime for the reason I mentioned. --Airborne84 (talk) 20:05, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Criticism of Christianity itself based on the Old Testament

I reverted the edits you made. Perhaps you could point to the specific passages you disagree with. For example, did you object to the biblical passages because they are not apparently linked to Christian Ethics? If so, I can add sourced passages from the original works clarifying that the authors are talking about Christian Ethics when they use these passages. Perhaps that was not clear before. Just let me know. --Airborne84 (talk) 15:00, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Just because the authors you quote say they are-- or even if they really think they are-- discussing "Christian ethics" doesn't mean that they really are. The items are is only dealing with Biblical ethics and are off topic here. 03:41, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Please see Misplaced Pages's policy on verifiability, where it notes that Misplaced Pages represents verifiability, not truth. If the authors are reliable sources under Misplaced Pages's policies and they are talking about Christian ethics, the material can be captured here. --Airborne84 (talk) 17:35, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

We've done Bold and Revert, now it's time to Discuss. (See WP:BRD). Editor2020 (talk) 16:20, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Right. You did bold. I reverted. Then it's time to discuss. Carlaude, It's not WP:BRD-and-then-revert-again. That is not the best way to get results here.

Please undo your removal of properly sourced material that is related to this topic. Then, I will discuss IAW Misplaced Pages's policies. If you'd prefer not to, I'll ask an administrator to intervene until we can sort it out through discussion. Thanks.

Per verifiability of ethics... Airborne84 you have not verified anything yet. You have just said that you can post more from such sources in an effort to do so. 20:27, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Editor2020's

And Editor2020, I thought you would simply join in the discussion. Please read through the above and feel free to do so. --Airborne84 (talk) 20:01, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I think Editor2020's point is that you reverted his edits but made no comments as to why. We can not discuss things that are a mystry to us (your reasons). I think many or all of his edits are unrealted to the edits I made and your comments on them. 20:27, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

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