In the three introductory essays, I have sought to lay out some features of a biblical, Christ-centred theology - 'Faith is allegiance', 'Grace is costly' and 'Discipleship is cruciform' - that appear to me to be largely detached from and absent in much present, ethical discussion and debate over critical issues. This is problematic, for where discussion does not start by affirming the passion and preferences of God and the nature of discipleship fashioned by the heart of God, such is likely to lead to conclusions that predicate neither faithful discipleship nor a just and righteous witness to the Gospel. Discussion needs to be well grounded in a revelation of God in Christ, convictions and practices brought together in justice and righteousness, proving the healing and saving action of God’s holy love.
The relationship between church doctrine and ethical practices, in countries that hold to a legacy of 'Christendom’ culture, is not necessarily a happy one or helpful one, as we try and rectify this problem. Here, I am thinking primarily of ecclesial traditions shaped out of Western Europe, in both their Roman Catholic and Protestant expressions. Traditionally, Systematic Theology and its three sub-disciplines of Comparative Religion, Philosophy of Religion and Christian dogmatics, have been separated from the sphere of 'Practical Theology', with ethics as a sub-set of this appended, poor cousin. Such a separation of ethics from substantive theology has not encourage the development of a robust ethic, rooted in radical allegiance to the God of costly grace, who calls His children into cruciform discipleship, in the way of Jesus Christ.
This inherited deficiency has, certainly, been challenged and countered in many theological writings over the last half-century; but it seems to me that there has been far less change and progress at a popular level, worked out in local church. How has this detachment of the declared revelation of God’s character and purposefulness from practiced, ethical and moral behaviour happened? I would suggest at least two reasons that featuring in my own context. On the one hand, in the constructing of classic, Christian theology within Christendom churches from the time of the Emperor Constantine, we find an collusion and covenant of non-interference between church and State in matters of politics and social practice. Religious affiliation and social practices are, consequently, for many people, held apart. On the other hand, because of a popular form of evangelicalism that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century, when dispensationalist theories stressed that we live in a 'dispensation of grace' and not a ‘dispensation of works’, a message was projected that was strong on believing the right things and weak on everything else. Dispensational teaching could justify ignoring or, worse, repudiating both Jesus' and also Pauline ethical injunctions - and thereby ignoring, of course, most Old Testament teaching as well. All of this fosters extremes of either legalism or antinomian cultures in contemporary church.
I am persuaded that the ethical practices of Christians need to be better rooted in Christian doctrine that is both biblical and Christ-centred. Only then will we be properly equipped to face, in Christ's name, the moral and ethical challenges of our time. Faith lived out as allegiance to the Christ met with in the Biblical text; an appreciation that God’s grace at work in our lives will inevitably be costly to us, in personal terms, as people; an understanding that cruciform living is the default state of Christian being. Such a rigorous re-appraisal of what it means to bear the name, ‘Christian’, is a necessary starting point that combats and stands over against a consumerist, costless, romanticised version of Christian living, morality and ethics.
Parts 4 - 6 to follow.
