My first post for 2024 reported on the death of my colleague and friend, Bishop Richard Wallace. I learned about his death en route to another funeral, on Saturday 6 January, for one of our priests in Timaru, Heather Robertson. For her funeral she chose as one of the readings Ephesians 4:25-5:1 (here stretched out to include 5:2) - a favourite passage for her life and ministry:
So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbours, for we are members of one another.
Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil.
Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labour and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy.
Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.
And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption.
Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.
Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
In my reflection through this past week or two on this passage, I have seen in it not only a set of rubrics for each of us to live by - to be Christians whose lives approximate ever more closely to God's own character - the God we meet in Jesus Christ - but also a vision for the society God wants on earth. (One of my favourite commentaries on Ephesians is John Stott's in the Bible Speaks Today series: aptly and provocatively titled, God's New Society.)
What does this "new society" look like, with reference to this passage (clearly Ephesians has a few more things to say than what we find here)?
At one level it is a crime free society: no theft, no lying/perjury/libels/slanders, no violence/assaults/murders (i.e. if anger is controlled, so will violence). But this vision is more than a set of (in the language of these days) "right wing talking points." This is a vision for people relating to one another in healthy and lifegiving ways: speaking truthfully, constraining anger, acting kindly and mercifully, consistently motivated by God's own attitudes and actions towards to be godly (God-like) people.
At the heart of this new society is a clear understanding that it is God's new society because it is created out of God's creating and redeeming relationship with us:
"be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you."
In case we are not clear about this sense of both model and motivation for God's new society, Paul restates the above instruction:
"Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God."
In this restatement Paul reminds us that we are "beloved children" of God, and that the way of Christ is the way of love, "live in love" with that love being of the kind which Christ has demonstrated to us through death on the cross for us: "as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God."
On the one hand, we have an inspiring vision in this passage for a "new" society which is distinct from societies surrounding Ephesus then and from societies in which most of us live now.
On the other hand, for this society to become a reality, the underlying premise of Paul's appeals is that such society is not imposed by rule of law or rule of gun but by embrace of motivated people eager to live a life pleasing to God (5:10; cf. 4:1). The motivation comes from understanding how much God loves us and how costly that love was for God in Christ dying on the cross for us.
There is quite a challenge here for various strands of Christianity around the world at present which seem eager to impose social transformation on un-Christ-motivated people via use of political power.
Nevertheless, what Christians have in a passage such as Ephesians 4:25 - 5:2 is a vision for the way society ought to be (whether we can achieve it or not this side of glory). One reflection of the past few weeks is that has been how far removed from this vision - of a kind, gentle, forgiving, peacefull society - are alternative visions in our world.
In the midst of immense pressures in sections of Western societies for a ceasefire in Gaza (including from many Christians), there seems to be very little attention to the vision Hamas has for a "free Palestine" - a vision of death and destruction to Jews, and of Islamist control of Palestinian society. Is this vision one which Christians can sqaure with Ephesians 4:25-5:2?
In the midst of immense support in sections of Western societies for Israel's right to self-defence, there seems to be very little attention to the vision the right wing parties of Israel (critical to the Netenyahu government remaining in power) have for vanquishing Palestinians from the West Bank - a vision at odds with Ephesians 4:25-5:2.
Even my own support for the so-called "two state" solution - a nation of Israel and a nation of Palestine, living side by side, at peace with one another - is fraught in the light of the Ephesian passage: could there be such a solution if there is no forgiveness, one for another, Palestinian for Israeli and Israeli for Palestinian? And where would such forgiveness come from if there is no understanding of God's forgiveness for all through the "fragrant offering and sacrifice to God" which Christ made on our behalf?
Absolutely, the question can be asked much closer to home than the Middle East, how are things in Aotearoa New Zealand, in the light of this Ephesian passage?
I will take up that question next week!
9 comments:
"Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labour and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy."
Does the Green Party have a policy on this?
Like a lot of other people (I suspect), I struggle to understand the tergiversations of the secular left today. The sight of them in Parliament decked out in wrongly-worn Palestinian keffiyehs and their inability to condemn Hamas were a parade example to me of the captivity of secular leftism to tribalism. Even worse to see Maori folk caught up in this bizarre game of the world's Oldest Hatred recrudescing . But if Christianity has vanished from Maoris as much as from other New Zealanders, we shouldn't be surprised. Maoridom needs a new Te Wiremu!
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
Thanks for this post +Peter, and for the links added to your last one about Bishop Richard Wallace. Peace ~Liz
Well, she's gone now, and even (or especially) legally trained atheists have to struggle with the meaning and origin of morality - particularly difficult for the socialist atheist who thinks (along with Protagoras) that '(wo)man is the measure of all things'. Once again the prescient C. S. Lewis tackled this question in the appendix on 'the Tao' to 'The Abolition of Man', arguing for the universal recognition of Natural Law (however inadequately sinful human cultures, like post-Christian New Zealand, may diffract it). St Thomas Aquinas said that Natural Law is human beings' participation in God's Eternal Law - and Natural Law will never go away, however much Marxists try to deconstruct it. (And I think Anglicans should learn about it too, because it's there in Richard Hooker.)
There are four points the Christian can draw from this sad little blip on the landscape and can apply to New Zealand life.
1. The Moral Law is real, and it comes from the Eternal Law of God and is written on our hearts (Romans 2.15).
2. If 'human rights' really exist and are not just a human construct ('Nonsense on stilts' as the atheist utilitarian Jeremy Bentham called them), then they exist from the Eternal Law of God (Nigel Biggar of Oxford has written a wonderfully perceptive book on this, 'What's Wrong With Rights?').
3. None of us is a good as we imagine ourselves to be - what the Reformed theologians call 'the noetic effect of sin' (Romans 2.19-24) - and the Law holds an uncomfortable mirror before our eyes.
4. Everyone needs a Saviour - and there is One!
This is the old-new message that the Church must proclaim in every age.
Pax et bonum,
William Greenhalgh
William that’s a classic piece of Christian piety you have laid out - is it any wonder why the faith is falling away when one reads ill considered statements about people such as yours? Fortunately, It is no longer acceptable to simply assert your moral beliefs; you have to provide reasons for them, and those reasons now need to be grounded in rational arguments and empirical evidence or else they will likely be ignored or rejected.
Aaron
Aaron,
1.What is "ill considered" in what I said? Please point out the illness and what I have failed to consider. I have read or watched about seven comments by secular or atheist persons, and all of them think the theft of expensive clothes by a person on a high income (and a national lawmaker) is reprehensible. None of them has a transcendent understanding of reality (or if they do, it hasn't been articulated) but they all perceive that some "law" (from somewhere) has been broken.
What the Christian does is to explain where the law actually comes from (from the divine law expressed in the Ten Commandments, not from Benthamite or other utilitarian schemes). The Christian understands that all just laws come ultimately from God and every sin is not just an offence against our neighbour but against Almighty God, from whom wd daily ask forgiveness.
2.Where are the "simple assertions without reasons"? In my four points I referenced the New Testament (Romans 1-2, St Paul's arguments for Natural Law), C. S. Lewis ('The Abolition of Man'), Professor Nigel Biggar of Christ Church Oxford, and, implicitly but evident to students of moral philosophy, St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II (Discourse on Law) and Immanuel Kant (Religion Within the Limits of Mere Reason). Anyone who knows these texts will recognise that I was referencing them, and there you will find plenty of "rational arguments and empirical evidence". I encourage you to read these works if you don't know them. Remember that a blog post is not the same as an essay.
3. You may have a rather generous estimate of the reasoning powers of the average New Zealander. In a country where few read books and the majority tick "None' in the Religion box in the census, don't be surprised if the Great Purpose of Existence stops at owning your own holiday crib and free access to Netflix. Or maybe to designer dresses.
In short, if there is no judgment or life after death (the question Plato discourses on in the conclusions to "Socrates'Apology" and "The Death of Socrates"), the only commandment that counts is the Eleventh: "Thou shalt not be found out." But first disable the CCTV.
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
How do we as individuals "grieve the Holy Spirit of God"? ~does that mean by failing in any of these things (and not being repentant)? And in the sense of the church in society, do individual churches grieve the Spirit when they fail to live up to these things?
A further thought: I've belatedly remembered the messages to the 7 churches in early Revelation.. "I know thy works".
William, I take it “she” is the cats mother - her name is Golriz is it not? The ‘ill’ is directed toward your implied notion that non believers / agnostics and ‘lefties’are morally inferior. You’ve never made a mistake in your life, perfect I bet? Yes, the stealing was reprehensible but there is a bit of a back story, yes? Some of the worst ethics I have ever witnessed have come from Christians and senior Church members, how could this be?
If any religion, really provided the only conceivable objective basis for morality, it should be impossible to posit a nontheistic objective basis for morality. But it is not impossible; it is actually rather easy.
Hello, Anonymous:
With Peter's agreement, I am happy to engage, provided:
1. you use a name. I assume you are Aaron?
2. you refrain from ad hominem remarks. ("I didn't come here to be insulted!" "So where do you usually go for that?" - Groucho Marx)
Are non-believers / agnostics and 'lefties' "morally inferior"? Inferior to what or whom? And in what way? You are asking whether the gospel makes an actual difference to our lives, and I suppose there are empirical ways of testing this. Remember that the plural of anecdote is not data. 'One swallow does not make a summer' (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics). If practising Christians had the same level of drunkenness, fornication and theft as the rest of the population, I would question if they actually understood Christianity. What did you think of Fanni Willis's 'prayer to God' in Big Bethel Church?
As for 'back stories', I find it difficult to equate significant mental trauma with premeditated theft of luxury goods. Real mental trauma and distress (clinical depression) manifests itself in reclusiveness, suicidal ideation, excessive drinking and other forms of self-harm. But I leave that to the psychiatrists, and the experts on Tiktok.
My own impression is that atheists of the left tend to be 'holier than thou', with a strong presumption of their own higher virtue and intelligence. Maybe their atheist cousins on the right have the same level of self-blindness. 'Humankind cannot bear very much reality' (T.S. Eliot, 'Burnt Norton'). Lefties tend toward self-glorification, while righties toward cynicism, each fault being a souring of the Left vs. Right visions in politics (optimistic positivism vs. tragic realism).
My own religion requires me to confess every Sunday (every day, in fact) that I am a sinner in need of God's forgiveness. Your reminder to me of my imperfections is gratefully received.
As for the nontheistic objective basis for morality which you think is 'rather easy to find', where is it actually? You can't find it in utilitarianism, which is a terrible and incoherent mush of ideas as a basic ethical theory, so it must lie in deontology - but where exactly? The ex-pietist Kant's claim that the deontic moral law is 'just there' never convinced most people, and I think he recognised that when he wrote 'Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone'. No, deontology is correct when it is based on the Divine Command, as Elizabeth Anscombe showed in her 1958 paper, 'Modern Moral Philosophy'. All of this goes back ultimately to St Thomas Aquinas's discourse on law in Summa Theologiae II.90-108 on the four kinds of law (eternal, natural, divine and human).
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
Hello Anonymous
I let your initial comment through without your name.
I won't do that again - please supply at least your first name.
Thank you
Peter.
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