ESSAY: Love, Justice & the Kingdom: A Christian Social Ethic

I wrote this essay many years ago.  Some of my views related to Christian involvement in the political realm have changed a bit. But it’s still worth a read.  -JB

INTRODUCTION

From the beginning, the question of how Christians should relate to the rest of society has continually been raised and reevaluated.  In retrospect, it is apparent that the church has never achieved unanimous agreement over the issue of Christian social responsibility.  History documents many movements toward a position of noninvolvement or even absolute separation from society.[1] At the same time, Christians also have a rich heritage of active social involvement.[2] Still others along the way have tried to acrobatically tread the high ground somewhere between these two valleys.  Regardless of which view one ultimately holds, any biblically sound basis for Christian social responsibility must start with the example found in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.

Which part of Jesus’ life and teachings do we turn to in order to find such a model?  Do we simply turn immediately to his most famous treatise on ethics—the Sermon on the Mount?  Or perhaps the answer is not necessarily to be found in what he said, but rather in what he did.  If this is so, might we just examine his interactions with various social groups and formulate a position based on that?   I propose that we center our attention on what was clearly the driving force behind both Jesus’ words and actions—namely, the gospel of the kingdom of God. A fuller understanding of the essence of the kingdom will provide the basis we are seeking for a position on Christian social responsibility.

The ensuing study seeks to show that at the heart of Jesus’ message of the kingdom lies the dual administration of both God’s love and justice.  If Christians of the twenty-first century are to be more effective stewards of the ministry of the kingdom, which is by essence a reflection of the character and will of God, then a proper understanding of love and justice is the crucial starting point.

ESSAY: The Church as God’s New Language

Scot McKnight at Jesus Creed is in the middle of a provocative discussion on the fuller message of the “Kingdom Gospel” found by reading the Bible as Story over and against the more popular, privatized gospel boiled down to a few abstract propositional truths pertaining to individual salvation.  McKnight pushes us to a larger, more corporate view of the gospel as the creation of a new community of redeemed peoples united in Christ and sent out into the world to be the corporate manifestation of the Kingdom of God on earth.  The discussion reminded me of an essay I wrote years ago on the “The Church as God’s New Language” based on the ecclesiological writings of Stanley Hauerwas.  If you have a moment, grab a cold drink or cup of coffee and settle in for a longer, more scholarly essay from the Daily Illumination seminary archives.

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The Church as God’s New Language

Stanley Hauerwas and an Ecclesiology of Embodied Story

by Jeremy Berg (2005)

“Your very lives are a letter that anyone can read by just looking at you.”

(2 Corinthians 3:2 MSG)

*NOTE: Unfortunately footnotes did not transfer to this blog post.  Most unreferenced block quotes are from Hauerwas’ various works. My apologies.

 

Introduction & Thesis

Stanley Hauerwas, reflecting on the birth of the church and its purpose, claims that “at Pentecost God created a new language, but it was a language that is more than words.”  It is a community shaped and formed by the memory of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

    The following essay explores this image of the church as God’s new language in and for the world. I will explore aspects of Hauerwas’ ecclesiology more fully and examine them in light of the ecclesial teachings of the apostles and early church fathers.  I will argue that the church gradually shifted away from embodying God’s message to the world to a community who instead possessed a particular message for the world.  In other words, the church as an embodied sacrament began with an incarnational model and as soon became an institution administering the sacraments with a more confessional and proclamational model.  

Issues relevant to ministry and spiritual formation that arise in this study include (1) the question of what type of evangelistic approach should the church have in today’s post-Christian world and (2) the issue of whether Christian ethics should focus more on right acting (behavior) or right being (character).   Let us begin by exploring in Hauerwas’ ecclesiological contributions.