Living Theology
in the Metropolitan Chicago Synod
Evangelical Lutheran Church
In America
Vol. 7 No. 1
Summer 2002
By Frank C. Senn
Doing Justice or
Moral Formation?
One of the enjoyable aspects
of being on the Let’s Talk Editorial
Council is that we talk theology. Our
round table discussions lead to the formulation of topics for issues of Let’s Talk. We hope we aren’t talking only to ourselves but that we are
engaging you, the leaders of the Metropolitan Chicago Synod, in our theological
discussions in these pages.
At a recent meeting of the
Editorial Council I lapsed into mid-afternoon reverie while the discussion went
on about several “justice issues” being dealt with in our Synod. Something snapped me out of it and I blurted
out, “When did we move from having social ministry committees to having justice
teams in our synods and congregations?”
That question seems to have
aroused the interest of the Editorial Council. In this issue of Let’s Talk the history of that
transition is told and arguments in favor of the change are given. But I’m not convinced. I’m not convinced that “Do justice” goes
along with “Preach Christ” and “Make Disciples” in our Synod’s Mission
Statement. I don’t even know why we
need a mission statement beyond the Great Commission.
I don’t believe that doing
justice goes along in a continuum with preaching Christ and making disciples.
Belonging to Christ means being initiated into and witnessing to a new creation
with a new way of being even in this world, while doing justice means making
things work in the old creation. It’s
what the political use of the law is all about, but not the gospel.
To be sure, Christians live
in the temporal realm as well as in the eschatological reality of the new
creation. We live “in, but not of the
world.” We need to assume
responsibility for the life of this world as well as the life of the world to
come. But we exercise worldly responsibilities
by being under those orders of creation that are responsible for the life of
this world: the family and the state.
It is the vocation of the laity to be involved in family life and the
deliberations of the state. It is the
special competence of the laity. The
church has an altogether different role to play than these worldly orders. It’s role is to preach Christ, make
disciples, and (we should add, to fill out the Great Commission) baptize in the
trinitarian Name and teach the precepts of Jesus. It is the particular vocation of the clergy to exercise the
ministry of word and sacrament.
The teaching or catechesis
that the church practices aims to form persons brought to faith by the Holy Spirit
and baptized in the trinitarian Name into the new obedience to Christ. If you want to see the moral imperatives of
living the new life in Christ look at any Catechism from “The Way of Life and
the Way of Death” in the Didache to
the Explanations of the Ten Commandments in Luther’s Small Catechism to the moral teachings in the new Catechism of the Catholic Church. These teachings aim to form the moral life
of Christians.
Ethics is taught in Lutheran
seminaries, not moral theology. So it’s
no wonder that we gravitate toward justice issues rather than moral
formation. The difference is subtle,
but I think ethics aims to establish principles of the good and to establish
strategies for bringing about what is good.
Morality aims to form good persons.
To be sure, the moral life
formed by the teachings of Jesus has a bearing on the Christian’s life in
society. But Jesus’ teaching means
going beyond “doing justice.” It entails
a consideration of the Christian moral response to this-worldly situations.
Doing justice means ensuring
fairness. For example, the
administration of capital punishment in Illinois was considered unjust because
it was unfairly practiced. Illinois citizens,
beginning with our current Governor, were right to say, “We cannot have any
more executions in this state—at least not until we get the system working
right.” Some might justly argue
that it is not possible to have a fair system, given the basic inequities in
our society, so capital punishment should be abolished as a form of
justice. Remember that justice requires
punishment for crimes and the death penalty has been one form of justice. Christians in society might vote to abolish
the death penalty. But Christians still
worship before an object of execution on which was hung a man unjustly
sentenced to death and they proclaim it as the world’s greatest good. The cross
also exemplifies Jesus’ teaching about giving up one’s life for another. Life
before the cross forms a life of self-sacrifice.
This last statement reminds
us of the fact that doing justice for women with unwanted or hazardous
pregnancies means (according to the U. S. Supreme Court) making abortion
available as an option for all who want it.
But Christian moral teaching holds that life is holy because it belongs
to God. Human beings have no authority to take away human life. The Christian mother might very well risk
sacrificing her life for the life of the child in a risky pregnancy or be
willing to raise the child produced by an unwanted act of violence. Some Christians, like Stanley Hauerwas,
contend that this moral precept must be extended even to personal self-defense
against aggressors; the Christian simply does not kill.
The duty and responsibility
of governments to defend their citizens is another matter, but it is a duty
that falls within the order of the old creation, not the new. But here’s a good illustration of the
difference between justice and morality.
There can be a just war; that doesn’t mean that war is moral from the
perspective of the new life in Christ.
Christian morality is always
a matter of going beyond justice because justice is not always desirable. The whole human race lives under God’s just
sentence of condemnation for the rebellion of sin. But we appeal to God by the cross of Christ, the Son of God, who
suffered unjustly, for mercy, for clemency, and it is given for the sake of his
Son. God does not do justice with
regard to human sin; he forgives it.
Nor is it by an act of justice that we forgive those who sin against us;
often they don’t deserve to be forgiven.
But we forgive as an act of mercy that comes from being morally formed
in the teachings of Jesus.
Even in dealing with the
homeless in our society we go beyond justice when we provide food, clothing,
and shelter, as well as programs aimed at helping the homeless not to be
homeless by providing drug or alcohol rehabilitation and job counseling and
placement. I work in the midst of the
homeless. The Evanston homeless shelter
(Hilda’s Place, the only shelter in a north suburb, operated by Connections for
the Homeless) is across the street from my office. Our congregation contributes
to the Hospitality Center for the Homeless (which was first hosted in our
church) and helps to staff one of the soup kitchens sponsored by the Evanston
Ecumenical Action Council. There are
many reasons for homelessness. Many
people are on the streets because of mental illness, alcohol or drug addiction,
family disagreements, or habit. Justice
might argue that many of the homeless should be institutionalized. But a generation ago justice argued in favor
of emptying the institutions. Views of
justice change. No matter. We feed the hungry, cloth the naked, and
shelter the homeless because we are taught by Jesus to do so. Moreover, those
of us who visit the Hospitality Center or work the soup kitchens know that some
of the same people return again and again, even after they have been
“rehabilitated.” Yet we continue to
feed them. Sometimes we provide for
their needs out of our own pockets, even though justice might say to those who
keep returning: “Enough is enough.
You’re taking unfair advantage of my good will.” But Christians go beyond justice. Ministry to the homeless for Christians is
not a justice issue, it is social ministry.
We respond to the needs of the least of Christ’s brothers and sisters
because of Christian moral formation, especially the cultivation of charity.
Charity—being
gracious to the poor—is a much maligned idea today. Justice-oriented Christians hold that instead of just giving to
the poor and homeless, we ought to change the social conditions that produce
the poor and homeless. It sounds
sensible, except that it is naive. One
must also change whatever it is in human beings that keeps them on the
streets. But while people are working
earnestly on these two intractable realities—trying to transform a fallen world
and trying to transform sinful human beings—we must continue the charitable
practices of social ministry because Jesus’ parable of the sheep and the goats
(Matthew 25) leaves no choice.
One of the other matters
being dealt with by our Synod Justice Team is homosexuality. It may be that some attention must be given
to ensuring the just treatment of gays in society. They may require equal protection under the law and equal
opportunities in society, or at least a confidence that existing laws will be
fairly enforced. But dealing with gays
in the church is another issue. In the
church it is not a matter of doing justice but of morally forming congregations
to accept all people as sinners for whom Christ died and morally forming gays,
along with other Christians, to live lives of chastity.
The biblically-rooted and
ecumenically-held Christian moral teaching of faithfulness in marriage and
chastity in singleness is regarded, even by some Christians, as foreign to our
basic animal instincts and therefore in need of revision. But the basis of human sexuality is that
human beings are created in the image of God—male and female. It is our godlike qualities rather than our
animal characteristics that need to be cultivated.
I don’t see any of this as
belonging to justice concerns. It is a
matter of moral formation in obedience to the teachings of Jesus. As for the so-called gay agenda before this
Church, that must be a matter of theology, not of justice, simply because
biblically-rooted, ecumenically-held Christian doctrines of creation, of
sexuality, and marriage are being called into question. Why do we not have a Synod Theology Team to
lead discussions on these and other issues that are properly theological
issues?
Well, that’s the way I see
it.
Frank C. Senn