Take an issue, any issue
facing your church's neighborhood and community. Homelessness?
Unemployment? Undocumented workers? Unsupervised children after
school?
How do you approach the
problem? How do you decide a course of action? What factors into your
decision-making process and implementation?
Is it one individual with an
idea? Is a bureaucratic process that takes months or more to get
approvals and funding? Is it a small group fueled by passion then
desperate pleas for help when the passion is exhausted? Is it a
combination of the above?
Many times our faith
communities take a problem and don't know what to do about it. We
have homeless individuals and others going hungry in the area around
our church. What should be do about it? Should we do anything?
Maybe we should just give
money to established charities already working with these
individuals? They already have the resources and processes set up. If
we take a utilitarian approach, maybe we give so much money to these
charities that we can no longer pay for ministries that only serve
our congregation.
Maybe we ask our members to
give generously to these charities, or directly to the individuals
effected to create more financial equality. Another option if we
believe “justice is fairness” is to lobby political officials and
organizations to drastically change tax laws and provide greater
assistance to those suffering severe poverty. Following John Rawls'
ethical approach we might support large scale efforts to improve the
situation of those who are least fortune in society, even if it means
taking some from those at the top.1
Maybe our community values
the virtues of generosity, love, justice, and compassion. If so, we
may choose to donate space in our building for a soup kitchen and
support other groups offering assistance to those in need around us.
We could try and teach those we served the importance of specific
virtues, such as temperance and hope, and moral law for themselves.
Maybe we see ourselves in a
community with those outside our church walls and seek to be in
conversation with them. The homeless and hungry have placed a call on
our lives which we must respond to, for we are the answer to the
problem, if only we take responsibility. The answer we give to this
call is constantly changing as we interact with individuals. We start
a soup kitchen that feeds 150 people once a week. We respond by
opening for a second day a week. Individuals are in need of warm
coats for the winter. We respond by collecting and distributing
winter clothing. Neibuhr's ethics of responsibility then calls us to
be part of an ongoing dialogue with those who experience injustice.
Sometimes it is so easy for
faith communities to become overwhelmed by the places of need and the
questions that require a response. As a result, so many times we are
silent. People of faith ask so many questions: Does God support the
death penalty? What about homosexuality? Am I supposed to do
something about the situation in Darfur? And we do a disservice when
we do not give them a framework to evaluate these questions for
themselves.
It is the service we do
within our communities that teach those who are watching how to
wrestle with the ethical questions they are struggling with. Do we
ignore the people sleeping in the woods beside our church or do we
reach out to them and show them where they can get help? Do we take
care of the children in our midst or do we shush them and send them
away? Do we welcome with open arms the people who walk in Sunday
morning and don't look like us or do we change pews and look at them
with disgust? It is these seemingly small things that model an
ethical approach.
Our goal should be to model scripture, build on experience (personal
and historical), and reason out effective methods given the
particulars. For me, Jesus' life and teachings provide much insight
into what an appropriate Christian response to the world should be.
We should care for the least among us. We should not judge others. We
should see as our neighbor the ones society tells us to hate. And we
should love. Love with a fierceness that breaks through boundaries
and makes the impossible possible. And with that love, we enter into
dialogues that prioritize the stories and experiences of the
disadvantaged and oppressed. We try and fail and try again to find
ways to make the world a more just place. One person, one story, one
community at a time.
1
Karen Lebacqz, “A Contract Response: John Rawls,” Six
Theories of Justice
(Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1986), 37.
