Ethics In The Church Today
Ephesians 1:22-23 - And He put all things under His feet and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
2 Corinthians 5:17-21 - Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Galatians 5:24 - And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires
THE MORAL CHARACTER OF THE CHURCH
The goal of ethics is to develop a body of moral standards on which the church can draw so that it can successfully respond to the many moral challenges it faces in all societies.
Moral character development should be seen as primary importance both for the development of any church which reflects God's values.
How one interprets the Bible is the critical question in Christian ethics.
This is not always easy and it can stir up a lot of controversy and debate. Ethics is both a matter of character and conduct.
Christian ethics are centered in Jesus and His teaching that God is the center of all things. The earth belongs to God and all that is in it and there are consequences for going against God's values.
Many questions arise such as which parts of Scripture relating to Christian ethics should be applied to the present-day church and how much of it is relevant in today’s society and church setting.
There are also traditional and cultural dilemmas that also need careful consideration.
It seems obvious that the boundary conditions would be expressed throughout Scripture.
The major covenants in Scripture (Old and New) should continue to constitute the plans and purposes of God for mankind and for His church.
Principles, ethics, and morals are easily extracted from Scripture. The teachings of Jesus as well as those of the early apostles give detailed descriptions of the values God expects the 21st century church to apply.
We live in a fallen abnormal world. God's purposes for all of us are built on the foundation of our being in right relationship with Him.
Since the majority of people are not reconciled to God and since even those who are reconciled to Him still have fallen natures, there is a fundamental difficulty in ensuring that all of His values are realized in human society at the present time.
This fact has great implications for the area of values in Christian ethics. Much guidance is clearly available in the New Testament as far as the role of the church is concerned and the church should apply and pursue those objectives.
The church is Christ's witness so that people from every ethnic group in the world will come back to the right relationship with God through Him and His work on the cross. The New Testament gives priority to witness over social, traditional, religious, and cultural ideas.
It takes saved and Spirit-filled believers to evangelize society. The New Testament has relatively little or nothing to say about changing the secular institutions of its day. The church today should not focus on bettering secular institutions. Jesus did not spend much time on the political order of His day. His goal was to give society a picture of God’s Kingdom and His way of doing things.
Paul placed a high priority on God's values. The situation has not changed today. To focus first on the betterment of secular society is to violate not only the example of the New Testament church, but also its theology.
The New Testament must be the church’s guide on how to pursue God's values. The New Testament’s emphasis on grace is crucial. God's people have discovered the grace of God and they are to proclaim that grace to non-Christians.
Today God does not call non-Christians to keep His Law but calls them first to come to know Him personally. This is why we see the New Testament Christians refusing to impose Christian ethics on non-Christians
One problem for all Christian ethical approaches is how to apply the Biblical ethics to a society that is a few thousand years removed the Biblical period.
The Biblical material could be regarded as irrelevant or obsolete.
Studying church history could be a good guide on how to approach change in society. The Christian leader should apply the Gospel to the present-day situation and rely on the Holy Spirit for wisdom.
The church has truth and a sure word in troubled and changing times.
For example, anyone can come to Jesus by the power of the Gospel.
That can never change even though society changes. The only way to be born again is by the provision made at the cross of Christ Jesus. The Gospel alone has the power to transform lives and to transfer a sinner from the power of darkness into the Kingdom of Christ which empowers people of every generation to overcome the weaknesses of the flesh.
The Word of God reveals a church that is uncompromising and militant when confronting error and philosophies. The church must insist on the Biblical mandate of separation from professing Christians who endorse unethical and sinful lifestyles.
The church must be careful not to adopt the customs of the world. What it tolerates today, its children will practice tomorrow.
Sadly, churches are becoming more interested in numbers than genuine conversions. The church is in danger of ceasing to make holiness and truth the motivation for its existence. There is more emphasis on the social aspects of church life than holiness. Many churches today seem reluctant to confront sin publically and unambiguously as they fear that the church seats will become empty. When Christians separate themselves from the church, they leave themselves open to false truths and values.
Jesus summarized the core of Christian ethics as loving God, love of self, and loving others. To implement these ethics effectively and successfully requires a church community living a true Christian life. The local church helps to teach believers what Christ's ethics are and how to apply them.
CHRISTIAN ETHICS AND CULTURE
Acts 10:34-35 - Then Peter opened his mouth and said: “In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality. “But in every nation whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him”.
The community should not be a threat to any church, but an opportunity. The church must be relevant to the community that it serves.
It should be remembered that the Gospel should not be identified with any particular group or culture.
Different cultures have different norms of acceptable behavior as do different religious traditions, social classes, and age groups.
The word “culture” is synonymous with civilization and people groups and each has its culture, whether primitive or advanced.
Human culture relates to rules governing any human group, the organizational framework of the group in terms of how it conducts itself, and what basic beliefs are adopted. Religions are always to be fundamental with culture. It is mostly rooted in a concern for values.
Although it seems that it is God’s will for men to live together in civilized societies, it does not necessarily mean that any particular cultural group is as God would have it.
A culture, even if it has a long duration, can be modified if impacted by a new ideology. This is what makes both advance and decline in civilizations possible.
The Christian faith must come to terms with culture. The Bible is the record of man’s effort to transform culture under the impact of God-given spiritual insights.
The Bible is the bearer of universal and timeless truth. Yet at every point it must be read in reference to the culture within which it is immersed, so that its temporal elements may be seen in their true perspective.
It has often been thought that by focusing attention to God and eternal life, Jesus tended to nullify human culture. Many believe that the Pharisees and Sadducees were justified in their attacks on Jesus because He endangered Jewish culture at its foundations.
This struggle to co-ordinate Christian faith with culture is not temporary but has lasted through twenty centuries of Christian history.
The message of Jesus has vital relevance. It requires that culture be challenged at some points, encouraged at others, and transformed at many.
Jesus’ supreme concern was with people because He cared about their life on earth as well as in heaven.
Cultures are of many types and some have much and others little concern for the individual person. Yet every culture is a human, social, and spiritual thing in which the values precious to the persons embracing it are exalted.
Those cultures which approximate the view of Jesus as to the worth of every person are considered good.
Jesus called His followers to faith, hope, and love. These are very important foundations for the stabilization or the progress of any culture.
With faith in God, people can endure dark days, even the jeopardy of their nation or personal martyrdom knowing that all is not lost and their cause is not in vain.
With hope for the future not tied in to the progress of mankind but in the confidence that time and eternity are in the hands of God, remarkable staying power is generated even in the midst of what appears to be social retrogression.
Jesus called His followers to challenge evil and to transform the world. Cultures, even with all their values, need to be challenged and transformed through the influence of Jesus. As new evils emerge, these too must be challenged with wisdom and patience. Christians in many matters must act with others outside the Christian fellowship. This is vital to the preservation and growth of right social attitudes.
In modern societies, science, technology, and education, attempts are made to contradict and nullify the need to embrace the Christian faith and the need to rely on Jesus for surviving everyday issues in life. This is especially true in developed nations.
What it does is simply to shed new light upon the world created by God and upon the orderly processes by which God works within His world. The Christian faith is affronted when science grows arrogant and tries to eliminate or belittle God. It is on a collision course with the Christian faith when it claims its methods and its knowledge are the only methods and knowledge to be trusted.
These are serious rivals of the Christian faith in modern cultures. This culture may be kind, generous, and law-abiding, but it is not Christian culture and it can launch a formidable attack on Christian ethics and culture. This is true in spite of the fact that the products of applied science have been instruments of great good in physical healing, improvement of living conditions, and social services of many types, in which the Christian believes that it is the will of God for persons to be helped.
It must also be remembered that modern technology has made it possible for the Gospel to be taken to billions of people worldwide either in audio or visual format.
The arts are part of the human culture which has also influenced the church especially in the area of music, poetry, and song. Other areas which are also under consideration and has affected the outcomes of modern church ethics, is the dress code which has caused controversy in many church groups especially in the western culture.
Another area of great concern to the present-day church is the educational system. Many countries, although regarding themselves as Christian, forbid prayer or reference to the Bible in school gatherings.
The curricula applied to the school systems in many instances contradict the teachings of the Bible such as, for example, creation and the virgin birth of Jesus.
This leaves the Christian community with a great dilemma as it interferes with the ethical mentoring of children brought up in a Christian home. That is why many parents are opting to send their children to Christian schools in order to maintain a consistent ethical standard that does not contradict their belief system.
The right to teach the Bible as history and as literature must be upheld and where this is not possible, other alternatives must be considered.
This is not always possible when children finish high school and enter an institution of higher learning, such as a university or college.
Students should keep in touch with the church during their college years. Moral standards rest on basic beliefs and the moral standards prevalent in the culture of the future will rest on those formed during the college years.
CHURCH ETHICS AND RACE
1 Corinthians 12:13 - For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit.
Race and color has always been controversial and unfortunately the church has at times been complicit in creating racial division and offense.
In the modern 21st century church, many church congregations are made up of single race groups. Segregation within the church community is the most telling evidence of the depth of the problem and this separateness is widespread. Just by entering any church one can discover it.
This is not always intentional and it is quite normal if the church is positioned in an area which consists of one particular race group.
A church should be a place that represents the racial makeup of the community it serves or at least it should not be making a concerted effort to include some race groups and exclude others.
Many church leaders are afraid that if other race groups join their church, others will feel uncomfortable and leave. So many people will confess that they have no racial prejudices but will not attend a function or church that is multiracial.
The willingness to accept everyone as equal and to embrace fellow Christians as brothers and sisters in Christ is a fundamental moral and ethical value embedded in the Christian faith. A non-discriminatory attitude and all-embracing vision should be one of the ethical and moral goals of any church organization
There are virtually no more laws that prevent all race groups to meet together. However, segregation is still practiced and when one observes this phenomenon in churches today, it is a great cause for concern.
Responsible church leaders should make the eradication of this a priority and reach out to church leaders of all races in their cities and beyond in order to foster trust and friendship. When this networking is pursued, the result will be manifest in the local church.
One way to grow a multicultural church is to use members of all race groups in leadership functions such as board members, music, finance, etc. This level of trust communicates the correct attitudes to everyone in the church. Promotion should be based on holiness, faithfulness, and skill and definitely not on racial preference.
The equality of all persons before God was basic to the outlook of Jesus. The parable of the Good Samaritan is the most dramatic challenge to racial exclusiveness and it appears again and again in Jesus’ own service to human need regardless of racial or national backgrounds.
Racial prejudice is a pervasive human phenomenon. Yet clearly it is not inborn. Children of all colors will play together when permitted to do so with full friendliness.
It is when frightened parents erect prohibitions that the seeds of prejudice are planted. These in most cases are planted early and grow luxuriously.
By the time of adolescence, unless positive steps are taken to counteract it, segregation will emerge as a dominant pattern. So powerful are the drives toward conformity in high school and college years that it is not uncommon to find an intense and irrational cruelty toward those of other races.
On the other hand, young people are more apt than their elders to break through the patterns of racial discrimination if there are Christian influences upon their thinking. Where segregation is removed in practice, its justification in principle rapidly subsides. Racism imperils the peace of the world.
