Third Millennium Church

Authentic Christian Ethics

As we found in the last article, the ethics of the current church is based upon lies, hypocrisy, and interpreting the bible to support a preconceived set of beliefs. This has led to a church where those who are false are lifted up as examples to those who are honest about their faults and mistakes. This must end. It is the opposite of what Jesus envisioned for his people. It is a world in which Judas is the hero and Peter hangs himself.

In order to correct these errors, we must carefully choose the character of our new ethics. We want our ethics to be based on authenticity and grace. To be authentic is to be exactly who you are all the time. The authentic person does not lie about her lifestyle, her actions, or her beliefs. A biblical example of an authentic person is Peter, who, though he was often loud and abrasive, was at least always real. Peter was no player. Authenticity is important to ethics, because our model is not "try to be perfect and crucify those who aren't" but rather "try not to fuck up and offer grace to those who do". If a person makes a mistake, it is authenticity that allows her friends and family who love her to see the mistake, so that they can help her avoid it in the future. All of this is done within the web of relationships that make up the church. There is no need for a Pastor here.

Grace is the wonderful gift upon which all of Christianity should be based. It is the core of Jesus' message. Jesus would not serve well as a deacon at most Evangelical churches. He is continually hanging out with prostitutes, forgiving adulterers, hell, even thieves. Jesus was a disgrace to the concept that God demands perfection and the Church exists to enforce perfection in its members. Grace is about letting someone get away with doing wrong without punishment. It is what Jesus gives us; it is what we must give others.

Certainly there are some times in which the actions of a person are so egregious that we must punish them in some way. This is the job of the courts. Murder, rape, theft, assault, and such are the purview of society to punish. In our normal lives (apparently unless you are me, see previous article) we should never have to deal with a murderer. These are the "Essentials", things which are so harmful to other people that the society takes a stand against them. Most western democracies handle these just fine. The church doesn't need to become involved, except perhaps in reaching out to those in prison with comfort. Atheists know that murder is wrong, so there's no real need to try to make a case for it. Jesus said, love your neighbor as yourself, and these are cases in which the damage to our neighbor is severe.

But most of the ways in which we fail are not prosecutable, and this is the area we call the non-essentials. Here we might think of the seven deadly sins: pride, greed, envy, anger, lust, gluttony, and sloth. These are the areas in which we fail in life, but they are not so hurtful to others that we need to put people in prison. Further, they are quite vague. What is gluttony to one person is not gluttony to another. This is why there can be no hard and fast rule concerning the non-essentials, as there can be with murder. These are the sins that often appear in our lives, and the ones that can do the most damage to our souls.

Our new ethics is relational and situational. A behavior is wrong for us when it damages other people. This is based on Jesus' great commandment to love God and our neighbor as ourselves. Any action we take that hurts other people is a sin. Furthermore, as authentic people we have made choices about our lives. Any action that violates these personal ethics is a sin. For example, perhaps I have an alchoholic father and so have chosen not to drink alchohol. This is my personal choice. If I drink having made that choice, it is a sin for me. It violated a standard I set for myself. This is not to say, however, that other people can set such a personal standard for me. We want to help people be true to who they have chosen to be. These sins do not occur in a vacuum, but in the give and take of who we are becoming. Something may be a sin for us at one time in our lives and not at a later time. Hopefully we will grow, and our choices for ourselves will become better.

We no longer have Jesus walking among us, and we do not want a Priest over us, so how can we find grace and forgiveness when we sin? We all live within the web of relationships that we share. The job of the new church is to ensure that among these relationships we have some that are close enough and safe enough that we can confess our sins in their confines. In other words, you need someone you can talk to when you make a mistake.

The other person needs to determine whether your mistake is a symptom of a deeper problem or just a stupid mistake. They must take into account your past, the context of the sin, and the consequences. If there are any kind of spiritual "elders" in the new church, they would be people whom one can consult to help determine this. This is all done within the context of a relationship based upon love and mutual respect, which is what all church relationships should be. This is not to be another power trip.

Bringing others into the situation might be necessary for a serious problem, what people often call an "intervention". Normally, however, you and your friend can usually work this out. The key is what Jesus said to every sinner he met, "Go, your sins are forgiven, and sin no more." This is grace in action. The sinner has been authentic and honest in confessing a sin to a friend, and the friend has offered grace and forgiveness. Of course, it is God who forgives, but he does it through the instrument of our relationships.

Two things can stop the flow here. First, a person can be inauthentic, often because they have serious emotional problems. If someone lies about their behavior, then no one can help them. There is nothing we can do about this. If a Christian chooses to lie about her life, she will probably fool us all. That is why we do not exalt "perfection", since it takes away one of the benefits of lying about our lives. We cannot change another person, so as long as she continues lying, there is no way we can help her. It's sad, but not everyone opened up and was honest with Jesus when he was here.

Second, a person who hears a confession can use it as a power trip by trying to control someone. Jesus did not try to control people. He let many people walk away from him without hearing the truth. This is another reason authenticity is so important. If I sin and confess it to someone, I know I'll receive forgiveness and grace. As an authentic person, I'll let others know about my sin (not in a broadcast or anything, but naturally, as it comes up). Since there is no "secret" there is nothing the person who first heard my confession can use to control me. Still, how that person handles my sin might determine whether I go to her in the future.

The job of the new church, therefore, is to foster an environment in which these relationships can flourish. We can teach each other how to be authentic, non-judgmental, and loving. We can learn the areas in which we might make a mistake, and how to judge whether a given sin is a sign of something more serious, or just a stupid choice. The church as a group of believers can also keep an eye on the process to ensure that no one is manipulated or controlled. Likewise, the church can encourage authenticity as a lifestyle.

As to what constitutes a sin, that is for the community to decide. Everyone just makes the bible say what they want it to say anyway. Apart from the Essentials that we've already mentioned, ethics will vary from group to group. Yes, there is the danger that a group of Christians might decide to allow behaviors that we ourselves would not condone. But that happens now anyway. There are Evangelical churches steeped in envy, pride, and hatred. We cannot control what other people do, we can only offer to guide. As far as Jesus was concerned there were only two rules: love God and love your neighbor as yourself. God can handle his people screwing up. The greater danger is that the new church will become just a different set of rules. I won't let that happen.

It may become apparent that such a web of relationships does not need a building, and budgets, and a pastor. And you'd be right. The dismantling of the current church's grip on power and control over its people is the next topic for discussion.

Why We Need a New Ethics

The ethics of the Evangelical church has failed to provide Christians with a consistent and considered way to live a good life. There are three main problems with the way that Evangelical ethics are structured, each of which is the application of a certain type of falsehood. We think that because current church ethics are based upon these lies, they direct people into leading lives that are more damaged than many lives lived outside of the church. These lies both cause damage to people and cause them to damage other people.

The first lie is that Evangelical ethics are biblical, that is, they are derived solely from a plain reading of the bible. "I just do what the bible says" is the way the average congregant might put it. As we saw in the discussion of why we need a new hermeneutics, the plain reading of the bible results in multiple contradictions, especially in the area of ethics. As a quick example, Psalm 139 is supposed to teach that souls are created at conception, and thus abortion is murder. However, Psalm 137, using the same "plain reading", teaches that God rejoices when his people smash the heads of their enemy's babies against a wall. One Psalm is considered a metaphor and one is considered actual fact. Why? Because Evangelicals already want abortion to be a sin for other reasons, and so search the bible looking for any evidence they can cobble together to make it so. In the same way, they've already decided that infanticide is a sin, so even wherever the bible encourages it, it must be "metaphorical" in some way. Clearly, the bible when taken "plainly" is contradictory. Why is it good to smash some babies heads but not others?

The first lie is that Evangelical ethics is biblical, when really it is an existing package of beliefs that are then corroborated by sifting through the bible looking for passages that can be interpreted to support them. Places where the bible is contradictory are explained away, usually using arguments about provenance and language to make it seem like the interpreters know what they are talking about. Since most people in church don't know Greek or Hebrew nor the principles of exegesis, it's pretty easy to snow them. The result? Whatever the powers that be want to be sins turn out to be sins in the bible! Isn't that amazing? Whatever sins they prefer to participate in are equally easily justified. Want to drink alcohol? No problem, we can make it OK in moderation. Want to not drink alcohol? No problem, we can use the same texts to make it a sin.

The second lie is that a person's salvation is by grace alone. Most Evangelical churches make a big point of the free gift of salvation, untainted by the "works righteousness" of other branches of Christianity. However, Evangelical churches are just as invested in works righteousness as any other sect of Christianity. The others are at least honest about it. It is true that the initial offer of salvation made by many pastors and churches is free, but then the peer pressure begins. You're not going to listen to secular music, are you? You're not going to keep going out at night drinking, are you? You're not going to keep smoking, are you?

If this were in the context of a loving community that honestly valued and cared for one another, it might be seen as just helping someone along the path to Christ. But for many the imposition of so many rules quickly becomes a hammer meant to beat the person down into conformity. Many Christians will say that a person can be a Christian and be different from them, but they don't really mean it. If they meant it, they would accept different forms of Christianity. Instead, most Christians believe down deep that their sect is right and everyone else is wrong and that the "true believers" think the same way that they do. And, as we saw with the first lie, even though they claim they are just "doing what the bible says" they really aren't. They are doing what they want to do, making up ethics that suits their purposes, and justifying them by interpreting the bible to fit their behavior.

The third lie is caused by the second. Because it doesn't take long to realize that if you want to stick around in a church and serve in any meaningful capacity, you have to buy into the party line. Or at least appear like you do. What matters isn't what you really think about drinking alcohol or abortion or Christian rock music, what matters is what the church thinks you believe. It's clear in many churches that you either fall in line or leave, and many people don't want to leave. So the Evangelical church teaches people to be fake. I know many examples of this: the bishop of a church that thinks alcohol is a sin who liked to drink brandy, the teacher of college-age at a church who liked to get high and sleep around, the female minister who had an affair with the wife of the pastor and then tried to kill him (honest to God). How do these people keep their jobs? Well, of course no one in the church knows that the teacher likes to smoke pot. She just got very good at lying. No one knows that the bishop likes to drink; he only does it in private and never mentions it. I only know because of someone who worked in the hotel that he used to stay in for conferences that provided complimentary brandy. His was always gone the next morning.

These three lies have combined to create an Evangelical church which is ethically rotten, hypocritical, and morally wicked. Honest people are strung up for admitting sins, while the liars continue to gain power and prestige. Anyone who honestly questions why the church holds a certain position is a tool of the Devil, but anyone who buys the party line in public, but does as she pleases in private is one of the elect. It's all backwards and it's all wrong.

Jesus had dealings with people who were like our present-day Evangelicals. They were called the Pharisees and he said the only mean and hateful things he ever said to anyone to them. Jesus' problem with them was that although they directed people into their fold, they drew them further from God than they were before. Does that sound familiar? A church that draws people in the name of God and then turns them into mean, narrow, bigoted, hateful, vengeful parodies of what it is to be the people of God.

And what did Jesus say to them? "If you were blind your sins would be forgiven you. But because you say 'I see', your sin remains."

The ethics of the church needs to be completely overhauled. The way that we can do that and avoid the pitfalls of the current church is the subject of another article.