Studies in Old Testament Ethics. T&T Clark, 2001; Ver-hey, A. The Great Reversal: Ethics and the New Testament. Eerdmans, 1984; Wenham, G. “The Gap between Law and Ethics in the Bible.” JJS 48 (1997): 17—29; idem. Story as Torah: Reading the Old Testament Ethically. OTS. T&T Clark, 2000; Wilson, R. “Approaches to Old Testament Ethics.” Pages 62—74 in Canon, Theology, and Old Testament Interpretation: Essays in Honor of Brevard S. Childs, ed. G. Tucker, D. Petersen, and R. Wilson. Fortress, 1988; idem. “Sources and Methods in the Study of Ancient Israelite Ethics.” Semeia 66 (1994): 55—63; Wright, C. An Eye for an Eye: The Place of Old Testament Ethics Today. InterVarsity, 1983; idem. Old Testament Ethics for the People of God. InterVarsity, 2004.
Induced abortion (as opposed to spontaneous abortion, or miscarriage) is the deliberate termination of a pregnancy through the destruction and/or removal of the embryo or fetus.
Because recent discussion of abortion, even in the church, has almost universally considered it a political issue addressed within the framework of rights, the first task of Christian ethics is to make the question a truly theological and ecclesial one (Bauerschmidt; Hauerwas), reframing it within the fundamental scriptural framework of covenant faithfulness, or discipleship. How should being a baptized community of faith, hope, and love in Christ shape the way Christians approach abortion?
Recent theological approaches to abortion are parallel to the three traditional theological perspectives on war, though they are major areas on a spectrum, not precisely fixed points. (1) The position that sometimes designates itself “pro-life” or “right-to-life” is similar to the pacifist position, arguing that abortion is (perhaps with rare exceptions) unethical. Unlike pacifism, however, this position sometimes depends on asserting the innocence of the embryo/fetus. (2) The “justifiable abortion” position, existing in various forms (e.g., Steffen), resembles the just-war tradition: abortion is tragic but justified in certain circumstances. The criteria can relate to the status of the fetus/embryo (e.g., deformity, nonviability, threat to the woman’s health) or to the situation of the pregnant woman (e.g., forced pregnancy; economic, emotional, or physical distress). Unlike just-war theory, the just-abortion argument usually recognizes the satisfaction of one criterion as sufficient rather than requiring the satisfaction of multiple criteria. (3) A third position—“pro-choice,” “procreative choice,” or “abortion rights” (e.g., Harrison)—is similar to the holy-war tradition in seeing the agent as sacred and capable of making a free, responsible decision without providing formal justification.
One cause of these various views is Scripture’s apparent silence on the issue. This can lead to certain erroneous or misguided claims: that abortion was unknown in antiquity; that Scripture should have no role in the abortion debate; that Jews and Christians cannot formulate a robust position on the issue; or that Scripture’s silence necessarily implies divine neutrality or approval, and that the faith community should follow suit.
The silence also leads people to look for texts to support their position. Abortion opponents often quote “choose life” (Deut. 30:19). They also appeal to texts about God’s creation and call in the womb (Ps. 139:13-14a; Isa. 44:1-2; Jer. 1:5) and about fetal activity (Luke 1:41, 44) to argue that Scripture considers the embryo/fetus to be God’s direct creation and indeed a human being. Those who disagree respond that, biblically, the embryo/fetus is akin to property that can be damaged (Exod. 21:22-23), and that human life does not begin until the first breath (Gen. 2:7). Each side accuses the other of prooftexting.
Some interpreters, recognizing the impasse created by appeals to such texts, have looked to broader scriptural themes for an implicit position on abortion or a framework for considering it. Abortion opponents have argued that scriptural themes such as creation as divine gift, the summons to welcome children, and the vision of shalom (part of a “consistent ethic of life”) validate their position. Supporters of abortion/ choice have argued for the voluntary and relational character of covenants in the Bible and stressed divine grace and forgiveness for poor decisions. They have also appealed to stewardship of creation and to choice (“choose life”), the former accenting human responsibility, the latter human freedom and liberation.
Critics of stewardship as justification for abortion have argued, however, that biblical stewardship does not include the deliberate destruction of creation, especially of human, or even potentially human, life. And critics of human freedom as justification for abortion point out that scriptural freedom is not absolute, that what is chosen is crucial. Moreover, they contend, liberation in Scripture is freedom from false deities, ideologies, and values, and freedom for joyful, bonded, covenantal service to God and others.
One significant aspect of the discussion is the witness of early Judaism (e.g., Sibylline Oracles, Philo, Josephus) and early Christianity against abortion, despite its absence from the Scriptures that have come down to us. (Rabbinic literature would permit abortion to save the woman’s life.) Certain scriptural images and themes, including some noted above, shaped the symbolic world of Jews and then Christians; opposition to abortion, exposure, and infanticide became an ethical boundary marker for both groups in their pagan cultures. In explaining the biblical summons to love of neighbor, both Did. 2.2 and Barn. 19.5 (ca. 95-135) say, “Thou shalt not murder a child by abortion.” Subsequent Christian writers echo the prohibition and treat the unborn as “the object of God’s care” (Athenagoras, Plea 35) (see Bonner; Gorman, Abortion).
This historical witness demonstrates that Scripture can have a key role in the abortion debate even if exegesis alone, still less prooftexting, is insufficient. A hermeneutic is needed that recognizes the difficulty of the issue, expresses pastoral sensitivity, and preserves the basic requirements of covenant faithfulness. Recent work on metathemes in the Bible’s moral vision, individual and corporate baptismal identity, virtue ethics, narrative, and analogy may provide a way forward.
Richard Hays suggests that the NT’s central themes of cross, community, and new creation compel us to reframe abortion so that a problem pregnancy is not merely about an individual’s decision. Rather, it is an occasion for the church to act together in generous, Christlike, sacrificial love to embrace the pregnant woman and her child in utero with spiritual and tangible support. Believers constitute one body (1 Cor. 12)—indeed, a family—and are called to bear one another’s burdens (Rom. 12:5; Gal. 6:2). Such a view does not, however, eliminate personal responsibility, for the believer’s body is not his or her own but God’s, the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19-20). It is the locus and means of self-giving love for God and others (Rom. 6; 12:1-2).
Related to the communal and familial images is the overarching biblical motif of care for the needy (e.g., Matt. 25), including the widow and the orphan (Ps. 82:3-4; Jas. 1:27). The call to protect and provide for the vulnerable may be applied, by analogy, to the situation of both the woman and the developing child. Thus, a text that numerous ethicists (e.g., Bauerschmidt; O’Donovan; Hays) have seen as significant for the church’s response to abortion is the parable of the good Samaritan. The attempt to identify the status of the other (“Who is my neighbor?”) may imply that the inquirer desires to define certain others in such a way that they are incapable of placing a moral demand on the inquirer. Jesus transforms the question about the identity of the neighbor into a summons to actually be a neighbor. Analogously, the contemporary question of the personhood (“neighbor-hood”) of the embryo/fetus should perhaps be reconstituted first of all as a question about the meaning of being a neighbor to the other(s) in need, both those already born and those not yet born. Furthermore, the parable suggests that when the question of identity or status is transformed, the summons to “go and do likewise” requires Jesus’ disciples to be engaged in creative and potentially costly forms of community and ministry, and thus to recognize the neighbor by being a neighbor.
The result is an ethic of cruciform hospitality practiced by those baptized into the master story of Christ (Bauerschmidt; Hays; Stallsworth). Although this approach may not resolve every difficult case, it suggests that the relationship between Scripture and abortion is fundamentally about what kind of community of faith, hope, and love is needed for women and children, seen and unseen, to be welcomed into that community and into the world.
See also Adoption; Birth Control; Body; Children; Family Planning; Infanticide; Procreation; Sanctity of Human Life
Bibliography
Bauerschmidt, F. “Being Baptized: Bodies and Abortion.” Pages 250—62 in The Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics, ed. S. Hauerwas and S. Wells. Blackwell, 2004; Bonner, G. “Abortion and Early Christian Thought.” Pages 93—122 in Abortion and the Sanctity of Human Life, ed. J. Channer. Paternoster, 1985; Channer, J., ed. Abortion and the Sanctity of Human Life. Paternoster, 1985; Gorman, M. Abortion and the Early Church. Wipf & Stock, 1998; idem, “Scripture, History, and Authority in a Christian View of Abortion: A Response to Paul Simmons.” ChrBio 2 (1996): 83—96; Gorman, M., and A. Brooks. Holy Abortion? A Theological Critique of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. Wipf & Stock, 2003; Harrison, B. Our Right to Choose: Toward a New Ethic of Abortion. Beacon Press, 1983; Hauerwas, S. “Abortion: Why the Arguments Fail.” Pages 295—318 in Abortion: A Reader, ed. L. Steffen. Pilgrim Press, 1996; Hays, R. The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, and New Creation; A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics. HarperSanFrancisco, 1996, 444—61; John Paul II. The Gospel of Life. Random House, 1995; Johnston, G. Abortion from the Religious and Moral Perspective: An Annotated Bibliography. Prager, 2003; O’Donovan, O. “Again: Who Is a Person?” Pages 125—37 in Abortion and the Sanctity of Human Life, ed. J. Channer. Paternoster, 1985; Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. “Prayerfully Pro-Choice: Resources for Worship.” http://www.rcrc .org/pdf/Prayerfully.pdf; Schlossberg, T., and E. Achtemeier.
Not My Own: Abortion and the Marks of the Church. Eerdmans, 1995; Simmons, P. “Biblical Authority and the Not-So Strange Silence of Scripture.” ChrBio 2 (1996): 66-82; Stallsworth, P., ed. The Church and Abortion. Abingdon, 1993; Steffen, L. Life/Choice: The Theory of Just Abortion. Wipf & Stock, 2000.
Michael J. Gorman
Absolutes, Moral See Moral Absolutes Abstinence See Alcohol; Gluttony; Sexual Ethics
Abuse involves misuse, corruption, deceit, condemnation, vilification, violence, and excessive harm against one’s self, another person, or another’s relationships; it causes emotional battering, producing shame and disgrace. Abuse, a form of misbegotten anguish, engages the unauthentic self via unjust, immoral, despicable, reprehensible acts. Antithetical to beauty, truth, peace, and justice, abuse devastates, often allegedly for a higher good, such as ecclesial, national, or personal aggrandizement.
Abuse occurs in the OT in the context of family and national violence amid quests for leadership, liberation, and land acquisition. The Hebrew term alal can mean “to abuse, act severely, harshly, ruthlessly; to make a fool or mockery of; to exploit, manipulate, dishonor, insult, defile, harm, or negatively have power over; to cause pain and/ or shame.” Sometimes God deals harshly with humanity—for example, the Egyptians (Exod. 10:2). A case of human abuse involves a Levite who gives his secondary wife/concubine to depraved men who gang-rape her (Judg. 19:25). With premeditation, he betrays and dismembers her and then sends her body parts throughout Israel, where violence invokes anarchy.
With similar sentiments, sexual abuse, often a hidden sin, involves aggression and hatred, objectifies and desecrates persons’ mental, emotional, and bodily integrity, and robs them of their selfhood, victimizing them. See the incidents of Shechem’s rape of Dinah (Gen. 34), Amnon’s forced incest with Tamar (2 Sam. 13), and David’s manipulation of Bathsheba (2 Sam. 11).
Wounded and denied an honorable death by his armor bearer, Saul commits suicide by falling on his own sword to prevent his Philistine enemies from abusing him (1 Sam. 31:4). Balaam’s donkey makes a fool of him (Num. 22:29), and Jeremiah is mocked and ridiculed as a result of his prophecy against Judah and Jerusalem (Jer. 20:7-18). When King Zedekiah fears that Judeans will abuse him, Jeremiah counters that his obedience to God’s voice will keep him safe (Jer. 38:19-20). Habakkuk laments God’s silence as he cries out for help in the face of violence (Hab. 1:2-3).
In the NT, the Gospels reach their climax with Jesus’ suffering and death prior to his resurrection appearances. In the book of Acts, Stephen, J ames, Peter, Paul, Silas, and others suffer abuse at the hands of the authorities (Acts 7:54-60; 12:1-5; 16:19-24). Elsewhere, Paul documents the abuse he endured as an apostle, which he interprets as a form of identification with the suffering of Christ (e.g., 2 Cor. 11:23-33). At the same time, he castigates the Corinthians for putting up with someone who “makes slaves of you, or preys upon you, or takes advantage of you, or puts on airs, or gives you a slap in the face” (2 Cor. 11:20). Here, the focus is less on the abuser (i.e., Christians from outside the Corinthian church who have come into it and exercised leadership contrary to Paul’s ministry) and more on the Corinthians’ apparent tolerance of this sort of exploitation. The author of 1 Peter addresses Christians whose lives are marked by slander and oppression from nonbelievers, and he urges them to follow the example of Jesus by not returning abuse for abuse (e.g., 1 Pet. 2:23; 3:9).
Cognizant of the Ten Commandments, with their call to honor God and respect the person and property of others, in concert with Jesus’ admonition to love God and our neighbors as ourselves, Christian ethics calls us to respect appropriate boundaries, to do no harm, and not to give credence to abuse by keeping silent in the face of it.
See also Child Abuse; Cruelty; Incest; Killing; Oppression; Sexual Abuse; Spousal Abuse; Violence
Bibliography
Fewell, D. “Judges.” Pages 73-83 in Women’s Bible Commentary, ed. C. Newsom and S. Ringe. Exp. ed. Westminster John Knox, 1998; Fortune, M. Sexual Violence: The Sin Revisited. Pilgrim Press, 2005; Kirk-Duggan, C. Misbegotten Anguish: A Theology and Ethics of Violence. Chalice, 2001; idem. Violence and Theology. HorTh. Abingdon, 2006.
Cheryl Kirk-Duggan
Moral responsibility is often spoken of in terms of accountability. Financial transactions and their consequences are recorded in account ledgers and other financial documents, and people use the logic and language of such accounting to think and talk about moral obligations and interactions and their consequences. This is true in both formal and everyday moral reasoning, as well as in scriptural moral discourse. For example, the letter to the Colossians speaks of a “record”: “God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses, erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross” (Col. 2:13b-14).
The record being cleared is a handwritten certificate of indebtedness or an account sheet (chei-rographon). The concept of moral debt and credit is implied: just as debits and credits are recorded in an actual ledger and accrue incrementally, so individual moral transactions—actions and failures to act—contribute to character and moral standing in incremental fashion. Moreover, just as a debtor has a responsibility to repay the creditor and, if the debt is not paid, must answer to an auditor or judge, so those who are guilty of “trespass” (paraptoma, “lapse”) must answer to legitimate moral authorities. Thus, moral accountability combines concepts of moral transactions and accumulated consequences with the reporting function of accounting, giving an account or an explanation.
Accountability and Oversight In the NT, the authority that household managers have over household accounts and affairs is often used to conceptualize both human moral responsibility and the ultimate authority—the right and responsibility—that God has to judge human behavior overall. This kind of oversight includes care and concern as well as the maintenance of household honor. Relationships in the household mirror and lay a foundation for order in the larger social structures of the state and in the church, the new household of God. Leaders in the churches are accountable for the consequences of their teaching (Matt. 23; Luke 20:47; Jas. 3:1). Human rulers are delegated by God to hold the community to moral norms, and rulers in turn are ultimately accountable to God (1 Pet. 2:13-17). Thus, accountability has social-political and ecclesial dimensions and is not confined to the personal and individual sphere. A structure of legitimate moral authority is implied; moral accounting implies moral authority.
Accountability and Moral Agency In Scripture, ultimate accountability is sometimes spoken of in terms of a scroll or record book, but the canonical authors use several versions of the moral books. In the OT, the “Book of Life” lists the righteous (Pss. 1:1-3; 7:9; 11:7; 34:12; 37:17, 29; 55:22; 75:10; 92:12-14; 140:13). The Lord says to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me I will blot out of my book” (Exod. 32:33; cf. Pss. 9:5; 69:28). In the NT, Philippians and Revelation also refer to a “Book of Life” holding the names of those slated for eternal life; erasure of one’s name signifies loss of belonging or of citizenship in God’s kingdom (Phil. 4:3; Rev. 3:5; 13:8; 17:8; 20:15; 21:27). In the Revelation to John, account books figure in the picture of final judgment: “The dead were judged according to their works, as recorded in the books” (Rev. 20:12; cf. Dan. 7:10).
In 1 Peter, yet another variation occurs; the accountable subject is a group of people, “the family of God” (4:17). This picture coheres with an OT theme that assumes group or communal responsibility (Exod. 32:9-10; Deut. 9:13-14). For contemporary readers steeped in cultures of expressive individualism, this can challenge assumptions about the scope of moral agency. Is membership in a large category—the righteous— nevertheless dependent on individual behavior? Some passages clearly speak of individual agency and a level of responsibility that includes scrutiny of each deed (1 Pet. 1:17). In other contexts, the emphasis is less on individual deeds and more on overall character or disposition over a lifetime, on the quality of faithfulness. In Rom. 4:3, Paul notes that “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned [logizomai] to him as righteousness” (one meaning of logizomai is “to keep records of commercial accounts”).
Final Accounting and Judgment
Strict accountability entails judgment (Exod. 32:33-34); the guilty are punished and the righteous rewarded. But there is throughout Scripture an alternative theme, in which the nurturing and gracious God provides mercy and pardon (e.g., Mic. 7:18-19), especially when there is repentance (e.g., Ezek. 18:23, 27-28, 32; 33:14-16). Thus, David writes, “Blessed are those whose sin the Lord does not count against them” (Ps. 32:2b TNIV; [cf. Ps. 103:10-12; Isa. 43:25; Jer. 50:20; Ezek. 20:44; Rom. 4:7-8; 2 Cor. 5:19; Rev. 14:5]).
Account as Story, Testimony
Sometimes accountability takes the form of testimony, of telling one’s story to the judge. Thus, in Isa. 43:25-26, God calls the people to account: “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more. Review the past for me, let us argue the matter together; state the case for your innocence” (TNIV). The author of 1 Peter warns of a time when the unfaithful “will have to give an accounting to him who stands ready to judge the living and the dead” (4:5). Jesus portrays a scene of legal accountability and testimony gathering in the parable of the sheep and the goats, where behavior and dispositions toward the needy (or “the least of these brothers and sisters of mine”) are linked to core character and ultimate destiny (Matt. 25:31-46).
Conclusion: Accountability and Justification Accountability signifies that human behavior counts. It matters what people do to and for one another. Both individual and social well-being are at stake. People have moral obligations as individuals and in groups, including churches and nations, and there are consequences for failure to meet those obligations. Certain punishment is pictured as the natural consequence of moral debt (Exod. 32:34; Isa. 13:11; Jer. 21:14; 1 Pet. 2:14), yet the ultimate judge is God the Father, who “cares for you,” and “will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish” anxious Christians (1 Pet. 5:7, 10). The overall goal of judgment and punishment, of warnings about final accountability, seems to be corrective nurturing toward authentic goodness and wholeness of character, in both individuals and groups. The reality and seriousness of moral accountability are linked to the gravity and costliness of the gift of grace, of redemption (Eph. 2:3-10; Col. 2:13-14).
See also Collective Responsibility; Debt; Moral Agency; Responsibility
Bonnie Howe
The author of the Acts of the Apostles is unknown to us, but is likely the same person who wrote the Gospel of Luke. Although the tradition has identified the author as Luke, Paul’s sometime companion (see, e.g., Phlm. 24), that proposal offers us little help in actually interpreting the narrative. Thus, the promise of the Spirit spans both volumes, but Paul in Acts is not coordinated with Paul’s letters. God’s kingdom is less prominent in Acts than in Luke; nonetheless, the risen Jesus, Philip, Barnabas, and Paul proclaim God’s kingdom. Thus, believing communities are aspects of God’s rule, so that in the following approaches ethics is not merely individual but communal.
(1) In Acts law identifies deficient behavior (2:23; 7:53; 13:39), enhances reputations (5:34), demonstrates piety (21:20, 24; 22:12), affects relationships between Judeans and gentiles (10:28), but does not prescribe praxis. One exception is the Jerusalem decree for gentiles to abstain from sexual immorality (15:29; 21:25).
(2) Acts advocates values that imply praxis. Magic (13:6-11; 19:19), divination (16:16), and idolatry (14:15; 17:16-31) are renounced; their counterpart is belief. Substantial importance falls on the use of possessions. Lying to God by defrauding the community in regard to possessions has drastic consequences (5:1-10). Trying to buy God’s gifts is reprehensible (8:19-20). Holding everything in common and distributing according to need reflect how the community is related to God (2:44-45). Giving alms receives positive evaluations (10:4, 31; 24:17), although, for some interpreters, giving alms stands in tension with distributing according to need. The latter expresses parity, whereas benefactors and beggars perpetuate “paternalistic humanitarianism.”
(3) Characters such as Peter, Paul, Lydia, Dorcas, Stephen, and Cornelius play such positive roles that many interpreters make them models of praxis. Some translations of 20:35 imply that Paul makes himself an “example.” But Paul’s statement is expressed using a Greek verb (no noun corresponds to “example”) more adequately rendered “teaching by indication”: “that by such work we must support the weak.” Models serve as analogies for readers, but analogies break down when pushed toward their limits (e.g., raising the dead). Further, the characters themselves reflect the origin of what they do in God (3:12, 16). Still, readers can identify with characters in their deficiencies (Peter’s reluctance to go to Cornelius [10:20, 28]) and can envision models of God in relation to humanity. If analogies are used to envision roles of ministry, a quotation from Joel clarifies that the first preachers included both women and men (2:11, 17-18).
(4) Acts construes a world centered on God, who is manifest in unusual phenomena: resurrection appearances, the coming of the Spirit with aural and visual analogies, speaking in tongues, divine plans for events and history. Praxis is repeatedly determined by interpreting Scripture or special revelation from the Spirit. God is strongly characterized as a God of power (1:7-8; 2:11) who changes relationships among people. Prominent among these is the surpassing of ethnic limits: “In every nation anyone who fears [God] and does what is right is acceptable to him” (10:35).
(5) Because Acts depicts the emerging identity of a new group, it is especially suitable for demonstrating the convergence of philosophical, feminist, and sociological theories concerning identity as a source for ethics. All three disciplines emphasize the relational character of identity. Identity emerges in community, changes by social patterns, and is sustained in relationships of solidarity.
Pentecost is a case in point (chap. 2). Here it is possible to see how identity, as it is embedded in social identity, is a source for praxis. If a group number is small, a substantial factor of power is needed for social identity. The conferring of the Holy Spirit is described as the reception of such power (1:8). Moreover, when the Holy Spirit comes (2:1-4), then according to thematic development from Luke 11:13 through Luke 24:49, the group assumes identity as God’s children who receive the promise of the Spirit from their divine parent. The essential component of the unfolding identity is their relationship with God.
An ethical consequence of this identity might, at first glance, be called “distributive justice.” But distribution according to need differs from conventional distributive justice (2:44-45). Distributive justice presumes normal institutional structures. The early Jerusalem community establishes its self as an alternative to existing structures. No consideration is given to how important specific functions are for the common good, as alleged when executives are compensated out of proportion to employees. Conventionally, lower classes work for the benefit of higher classes; Acts reverses the exchange. People at higher levels sell their possessions for redistribution to people at lower levels. This is no longer distributive justice but “differential justice.”
(6) Acts is often considered an accommodation to the Roman Empire. But new sensitivity to how empire is experienced raises awareness of how the believing community is an alternative to empire. Acts reflects how imperial power filters down through governors, client kings, and elite collaborators. Noticing the collaboration of the people and the intersection of government and religion in the case of Herod Agrippa I in 12:20-23 sharpens awareness of how virtually everyone (regrettably) collaborates with oppressive systems. Even opponents recognize that Paul and Silas, by proclaiming another king, Jesus, act against the emperor (17:7). When Paul’s Roman citizenship protects him from being flogged, it demonstrates inequality in Rome’s judicial system (22:24-25). When Paul speaks to Felix about justice and self-control (24:25), Felix’s fear shows that Paul expounds not abstract virtues but criteria for imperial agents. Felix’s desire for a bribe in 24:26 confirms the need. Finally, Paul’s appeal to the emperor in 25:11 is not an expression of confidence in the notorious Nero, but is a way out of the collaboration between ruling Judean elites and Festus (25:9-12).
See also Almsgiving; Authority and Power; Colonialism and Postcolonialism; Divination and Magic; Ethnic Identity, Ethnicity; Holy Spirit; Kingdom of God; Koinonia; Luke; Women, Status of
Bibliography
Fowl, S., and L. Jones. Reading in Communion: Scripture and Ethics in Christian Life. Eerdmans, 1991; Hays, R. The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, and New Creation; A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics. HarperSanFrancisco, 1996; Johnson, L. The Literary Function of Possessions in Luke-Acts. SBLDS 39. Scholars Press, 1977; Matera, F. New Testament Ethics: The Legacies of Jesus and Paul. Westminster John Knox, 1996; Phillips, T., ed. Acts and Ethics. NTM 9. Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2005.
Robert L. Brawley
The Greek version of Daniel contains the “Prayer of Azariah” (a communal lament/confession) and the “Song of the Three Jews” (a benediction) between 3:23 and 3:24, as well as the “Story of Susanna” (a detective story) and the “Story of Bel and the Dragon” (a parody on idolatry) at the end (chaps. 13 and 14 in most editions). The additions reflect in various ways the tensions between the two great attributes of God in the Bible: justice and mercy.
In his prayer made in the fiery furnace, Azariah addresses God directly (“O Lord, God of our ancestors”) and acknowledges the justice of God in allowing Israel to be defeated and exiled at the hands of the Babylonians in the sixth century BCE. He goes on to appeal to the mercy of God and reminds God of his promises to Abraham. He suggests that “a contrite heart and a humble spirit” may now serve as an acceptable sacrifice and issue in Azariah’s own (and Israel’s) deliverance.
In their long benediction in the fiery furnace, Azariah and his companions, Hananiah and Mishael, first bless directly (“Blessed are you”) the God of Israel and of all creation. Then they invite all creation to join in their praise (“Bless the Lord”), including what is in the heavens (vv. 36-41), what comes down from the heavens (vv. 42-51), what lives on earth (vv. 52-59), and various classes of humans (vv. 60-66). They end by blessing God for their own deliverance. The song is an eloquent statement in praise of God’s mercy, and its invitation to all creation to join the chorus of praise has positive implications for ecological ethics.
The Susanna story combines sex, religion, and death. Two “dirty old men” (who are elders and judges in the Jewish community in Babylon) happen to see the beautiful, God-fearing Susanna bathing, and they lust after her. When she refuses their advances, they accuse her of adultery with “a young man.” She is saved from execution only when God stirs in Daniel “a holy spirit,” and he finds a way to prove the accusation false by separating the two men and showing that their testimony is contradictory. As a result, they (rather than Susanna) are condemned to death. The Susanna story illustrates the justice of God, the power of trust in God, and God’s use of Daniel’s wisdom. It has also initiated a long artistic tradition of erotic portrayals of the naked Susanna.
In the episode about Bel and the Dragon, Daniel engages in contests about who the living God is. Playing detective again, he exposes the folly of idolatry and affirms the sovereignty of the God of Israel, who has mercy on those who love and trust him in the midst of their sufferings. The Additions to Daniel are part of Catholic and Orthodox Christian Bibles.
See also Daniel; Deuterocanonical/Apocryphal Books; Idolatry; Justice; Mercy
Bibliography
Clanton, D. The Good, the Bold, and the Beautiful: The Story of Susanna and Its Renaissance Interpretations. LHBOTS 430. T&T Clark, 2006; Collins, J. Daniel. Her-meneia. Fortress, 1993; Harrington, D. Invitation to the Apocrypha. Eerdmans, 1999, 109—21.
Daniel J. Harrington
The Hebrew text of Esther presents theological and ethical problems. Not only is there no explicit mention of God, but it is also silent about circumcision, Sabbath observance, and food laws, which were major identifying markers in Diaspora Judaism. Moreover, Esther becomes part of the Persian royal harem and eventually enters a mixed marriage with the gentile king. These problems may partly explain why no fragments of it were discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The Greek version of Esther turns the theology implicit in the Hebrew text into an explicit theology by introducing God into the main narrative (2:20; 4:8; 6:13). It also contains six additional sections that Jerome gathered into an appendix and placed at the end of the book. These additions heighten the role of God and prayer, give greater prominence to Esther and her motivation, and ameliorate some of the ethical problems.
Additions A (Mordecai’s dream) and F (its interpretation) place the crisis facing the Jews in a cosmic context and state the basic theme of the Greek version, “These things have come from God” (10:4). Also included are full texts of what purport to be the royal decree ordering the extermination of all Jews (addition B) and its cancellation (addition E). Addition A is early evidence for charges leveled by anti-Semites against Jews throughout the ages (“perversely following a strange manner of life and laws”), while addition E recognizes that Jews are “governed by most righteous laws” and are “children of the living God.”
Addition C contains two lengthy prayers by Mordecai and Esther that serve to embed the story more firmly into the wider story of God and Israel. Mordecai appeals to God as ruler of the universe and the God of Abraham to spare Israel from destruction, thus linking the story to Israel’s previous scriptural traditions. Esther prays to “the Lord God of Israel” for eloquence before the king. She claims to “hate the splendor of the wicked and to abhor the bed of the uncircumcised and of any alien.” She swears that she has avoided the (unclean) food and drink served at the king’s table. Whatever unseemly behavior she has undertaken has been done in the service of the greater good of rescuing her people from certain annihilation. Saving Israel overrides behaviors that might appear immoral to some. The emotional and psychological struggle that Esther undergoes is neatly captured in addition C when she enters the king’s court unannounced and with God’s help wins a favorable hearing and averts her people’s crisis. Although the Greek version of Esther does not solve all the book’s theological and ethical problems, it most likely was intended to make the story less morally offensive in some circles. The Greek version is part of Catholic and Orthodox Christian Bibles.
See also Anti-Semitism; Deuterocanonical/Apocryphal Books; Esther; Exile; Feminist Ethics
Bibliography
De Troyer, K. Rewriting the Sacred Text. TCrS 4. Society of Biblical Literature, 2003; Harrington, D. Invitation to the Apocrypha. Eerdmans, 1999, 44—54; Kahana, H. Esther: Juxtaposition of the Septuagint Translation with the Hebrew Text. CBET 30. Peeters, 2005.
Daniel J. Harrington
In a tradition whose Scriptures speak repeatedly and favorably of adoption and whose founder was, in one or more senses, adopted, one would expect a perspective and practice of caring for abandoned and orphaned children by grafting them into families. That has been the case for the Christian tradition.
About 2 to 4 percent of families in the United States include an adopted child, and about one
million children in the United States live with adoptive parents. At any given time in the United States alone, somewhere between 200,000 and 500,000 singles or couples are looking to adopt, and some 100,000 nonrelative adoptions take place each year, about half from out of the foster care system and about 20,000 from overseas.
The adoption of a child has enriched the lives of families of various faith traditions, but adopting children is a complex and multilayered phenomenon that raises a number of ethical issues. Motivations for adoption vary widely, from “saving” children, to expanding the faith, to recognizing children’s “right to be adopted,” to addressing the problem of infertility.
Adoption in Scripture
The first chapter of Genesis includes the divine mandate to the newly created humans to be fruitful and multiply (Gen. 1:28), a command repeated to Noah and his family as they set foot on dry land again after the flood (Gen. 9:1). Barrenness functions as the driving motif in many Hebrew narratives: Sarah and Abraham (Gen. 11:30; 16:1), the women of the house of Abimelech (Gen. 20:18), Rebekah (Gen. 25:21), Rachel (Gen. 29:31; 30:1), the wife of Manoah (Judg. 13:2), and Hannah (1 Sam. 1:2, 5-6). Rachel’s plaintive plea to Jacob represents the anguish that many infertile couples still experience: “Give me children, or I shall die!” (Gen. 30:1).
Although there is no legal prescription regarding adoption in Hebrew law, we find several stories in the OT that involve adoption-like practices. Joseph becomes a foster parent to Jacob’s sons Ephraim and Manasseh (Gen. 48:5). Hadad and the sister of Queen Tahpenes give birth to a son, Genubath, who becomes one of Pharaoh’s children (1 Kgs. 11:20). Mordecai adopts Esther as his own daughter after her parents die (Esth. 2:7, 15). Most prominent among these adoptees is Moses, whose mother leaves him in a basket among the reeds to protect him from Pharaoh (Exod. 2:110). In a broader sense, the OT suggests that God adopts Israel (e.g., Jer. 3:19; 7:6-7).
Aside from these direct, familial, or metaphorical adoption references, the OT evidences a profound concern for widows and orphans, apparently including not only children whose parents are deceased but also those who are abandoned. In Exod. 22:22; Ps. 82:3; Isa. 1:17; and Hos. 14:3 we find the charge to the Hebrew people to exercise justice and mercy with widows and orphans, a prominent theme in other OT texts as well.
In the NT adoption becomes a central theological concept, particularly at the hands of the apostle Paul. Among Jesus’ recorded sayings is a strong motif of honoring the spiritual family over the natural family (e.g., Matt. 10:34-38; Luke 9:57-62; 14:26).
In Galatians Paul says that new followers of Jesus once were enslaved to false gods, but “God sent his Son . . . so that we might receive adoption as children” (Gal. 4:4-5). Belonging to Christ, Paul says, makes believers “Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise” (Gal. 3:29).
In Rom. 8:14-17 Paul argues that all those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God, who have received “a spirit of adoption.” Later in the same chapter, Paul describes what earlier appeared to be a present reality (adoption) as an eschatological hope; although children of God have the firstfruits of the Spirit, “we . . . groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies” (Rom. 8:23).
Ephesians 1:3-14 echoes many of the same adoption themes already mentioned in Paul’s epistles: believers are “destined . . . for adoption as [God’s] children through Jesus Christ” (v. 5), and they have “obtained an inheritance” through Christ (v. 11), being marked with the seal of the Holy Spirit as a “pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people” (v. 14).
Accentuating the theme of adoption even further in Christian Scripture are the descriptions of Jesus’ relationship with his human parents and with God, which can be understood in some senses as adoption. Scripture suggests that although Joseph has nothing to do with Jesus’ conception, he raises Jesus as his son, so much so that Matthew’s genealogy traces Jesus’ lineage through Joseph (Matt. 1:16).
Adoption Ethics
Appropriate contemporary Christian ethical thinking about adoption might begin with God’s call to care for orphans as well as with ethicist Timothy Jackson’s attention to the “right to be adopted” rather than potential parents’ rights to have or to adopt children.
As with birth parents, adoptive parents never know how their children will develop. In the spirit of the biblical tradition, being a parent means being open to welcoming strangers, whether they come to families by birth, the foster system, or adoption.
With the preponderance of adoptions from overseas, Western families have become particularly sensitive to their nations’ tragic histories of imperialism and colonialism, seeking to avoid replicating those behaviors in their adoption practices.
Contemporary Christians also debate who should be able to adopt. Should it be only married, heterosexual couples, or should single people and same-sex couples be able to adopt as well? Should adoption be restricted to parents of the same racial identity?
Children fostered or adopted into Christian homes should be made conscious of the blessing and embrace of God and introduced to Jesus, who took children upon his knee and called upon adults to be as litle children, and to welcome them. Physically, politically, and economically embodying this graceful reality to all children in our midst is essential for those who represent the God manifested in Jesus. If God’s grace covers all God’s children across the world, in every faith and nation, then Christian believers’ treatment of their birth children as well as those of outsiders, strangers, and enemies—their young neighbors at the family gate—must reflect such grace.
See also Abortion; Birth Control; Childlessness; Children; Family; Foster Care; Orphans; Parenthood, Parenting
Bibliography
Bartlett, D. “Adoption in the Bible.” Pages 375-98 in The Child in the Bible, ed. M. Bunge, T. Fretheim, and B. Gaventa. Eerdmans, 2008; Clapp, R. Families at the Crossroads: Beyond Traditional and Modern Options. InterVarsity, 1993; Jackson, T., ed. The Morality of Adoption: Social-Psychological, Theological, and Legal Perspectives. Eerdmans, 2005. Melnyk, J. “When Israel Was a Child: Ancient Near Eastern Adoption Formulas and the Relationship between God and Israel.” Pages 245-59 in History and Interpretation: Essays in Honour of John H. Hayes, ed. M. Graham, W Brown, and J. Kuan. JSOTSup 173. JSOT Press, 1993; Miller, T. The Orphans of Byzantium: Child Welfare in the Christian Empire. Catholic University of America Press, 2003; Miller-McLemore, B. Let the Children Come: Reimagining Childhood from a Christian Perspective. Jossey-Bass, 2003; Pertman, A. Adoption Nation: How the Adoption Revolution Is Transforming America. Basic Books, 2000; Post, S. “Adoption Theologically Considered.” JRE 25 (1997): 149-68; Stevenson-Moessner, J. The Spirit of Adoption: At Home in God’s Family. Westminster John Knox, 2003; idem, “Womb-love: The Practice and Theology of Adoption.” ChrCent 118, no. 3 (Jan. 24, 2001): 10-13.
Keith Graber Miller
In the Bible, adultery is the act of sexual intercourse between a man and a woman who is either married or engaged to be married (“betrothed”) to another man. The gravity of the violation of marriage through sexual infidelity is shown by its proscription in the Ten Commandments (Exod. 20:14; Deut. 5:18) and its status within some biblical law traditions as a capital crime. Both the man and the woman caught in adultery are to be put to death (Lev. 20:10; Deut. 22:22 [by stoning]; cf. John 8:5).
The Bible does not explicitly explain the reasons for the gravity of adultery, but some inferences may be made. The Bible’s creation narrative portrays the fusion of the man and the woman into “one flesh” as a divinely created, joyful, and precious gift that addresses human loneliness (Gen. 2:18, 23-25). The joining of the man and woman also provides the crucible for the birth of children and the future of succeeding generations (Gen. 4:1; 5:1-32). In ancient Israel’s patrilineal society, in which the family line is traced through fathers and sons, it was important to ensure the identity of the father of every child. A negative consequence of adultery was that children born of an “illicit union” in the law of Deuteronomy were prohibited from admission into the worship assembly (Deut. 23:2).
A woman’s sexuality was considered to be under the guardianship of a male (husband, father, or other male relative). Thus, adultery by one man was understood primarily as a shameful offense against another man (the woman’s husband) and the honor of his extended family (Deut. 22:24). Some of the prophets also used adultery as a metaphor for covenant infidelity in the relationship of Israel and Israel’s God (Hos. 2-4). The exclusivity required in the worship of God (Exod. 20:3) mirrored the exclusivity of relationship required in human marriage, thereby associating adultery within the human community with theological concerns about the faithfulness of the community in its relationship to God (Jer. 2:20-24, 33-35; 3:1-9; 23:10, 14; Ezek. 18:6, 11, 15; 22:11; 33:26).
A gender-based double standard existed in sexual matters in ancient Israel. Sexual fidelity to one man was required of an individual woman, but a married man could have sexual relations with his own multiple wives (Gen. 29:15-30) or with his own multiple concubines (Gen. 16:1-4; 30:3-13; 2 Sam. 5:13; 16:20-22) without incurring the charge of adultery. The double standard is also apparent in some of the laws concerning charges of adultery that could be brought by husbands against their wives but not by wives against their husbands. In Num. 5:16-28 a ritual of ordeal is commanded for cases where a husband brings a charge of adultery against his wife but has no evidence to support it. The law in Deut. 22:13-21 describes a case in which a groom brings a charge against his bride that she is not a virgin. If the case is proved true, the bride is executed. The parents may save their daughter if they present a bloody
sheet from the marriage bed as evidence of their daughter’s virginity. No provision exists for the bride to bring a similar charge against the groom.
Other biblical traditions mitigate these male-biased texts by condemning men, and not only women, caught in adultery. The prophet Malachi condemns adultery by married males not because it is an affront to another male’s honor, but because the adulterer has been faithless to “the wife of your youth . . . though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. Did not one God make her?” (Mal. 2:14-15). The wisdom tradition likewise urges its male readers to be faithful and to rejoice in the “wife of your youth” and not to be enticed “by another woman” (Prov. 5:15-23). The prophet Hosea condemns “your daughters” who commit adultery, but then he commands that they not be punished, since their fathers also commit adultery and sleep with prostitutes (Hos. 4:13-14).
One of the Bible’s most notorious stories of marital infidelity is King David’s adultery with Bathsheba, the wife of one of David’s own soldiers, Uriah. Bathsheba became pregnant, and David tried to cover up his adultery by having Uriah killed in battle. The prophet Nathan condemned David for his affair with Bathsheba and for his killing of Uriah, indicating that the child born of their union would die as a consequence of his sin (1 Sam. 11-12). The narrative clearly condemns David but not Bathsheba; however, the death penalty is not imposed.
The most significant NT narrative involving adultery is Jesus’ rescue of a woman caught in adultery who was about to be stoned (John 7:538:11). When asked about the law of Moses concerning the stoning of adulterers, Jesus famously replied, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her” (John 8:7). In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus broadens the scope of the adultery commandment to include even the one “who looks at a woman with lust” (Matt. 5:27-30) and even those who are divorced and then remarry another person (Matt. 5:32; cf. 19:9; Mark 10:11-12; Luke 16:18; see also Rom. 7:3). Elsewhere adultery is included in NT lists of prohibited acts (Rom. 2:22; 13:9; 1 Cor. 6:9; Jas. 4:4). As in the OT prophets, the writers of the NT use adultery as a broad metaphor for unfaithfulness and deceit (Matt. 12:29; 16:4; Mark 8:38; 2 Pet. 2:14).
Thus, adultery is severely condemned in both Testaments. While some legal traditions impose a penalty of death, other biblical traditions offer a degree of forgiveness and mercy, even though severe consequences inevitably follow instances of marital infidelity. Jesus’ words broaden the scope of adultery to include all those who even lust for another, thereby placing a restraint on selfrighteous accusations against others without also rigorous self-examination of one’s own lapses of sexual purity and faithfulness.
See also Hosea; Lust; Marriage and Divorce; Sex and Sexuality; Sex Discrimination; Sexual Ethics; Ten Commandments; Women, Status of
Bibliography
Countryman, L. Dirt, Greed, and Sex: Sexual Ethics in the New Testament and Their Implications for Today. Fortress, 2007; Davidson, R. Flame of Yahweh: Sexuality in the Old Testament. Hendrickson, 2000; Kreitzer, L., and D. Rooke. Ciphers in the Sand: Interpretations of the Woman Taken in Adultery (John 7.53—8.11). BibSem 74. Sheffield Academic Press, 2000; Lipka, H. Sexual Transgression in the Hebrew Bible. hBm 7. Sheffield Phoenix, 2006; Mough-ton, S. Sexual and Marital Metaphors in Hosea, Jeremiah, Isaiah and Ezekiel. OThM. Oxford University Press, 2008.
Dennis T. Olson
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Affections are intelligent responses to the perception of value. Examples of specifically Christian affections include love for God and neighbor, joy over what God has done in Christ, grief over our sins, fear of offending the Lord, and gratitude for the gifts of life and salvation. Such affections are the necessary contents of the well-formed “heart”—the center of the human being.
Augustine and Aquinas, as well as Jonathan Edwards and John Wesley, saw affections as voluntary movements of the will, ascribable to God as well as to humans. This classic Christian psychology is distinguished from the views of the Stoics, who understood much of affectivity to be a function of mistaken judgments. Augustine and Aquinas saw the Stoics as being unable to distinguish between the virtuous “affections” and the vicious “passions.” For the Christian tradition, the proper object of the heart makes all the difference: affections are actions of the rational soul, focusing on God and neighbor, whereas passions are actions of the irrational soul, taking as their object the prideful self.
Today, the terms affections and passions have fallen out of common usage, often in favor of “emotion” language. This is problematic for understanding what Aquinas and Edwards meant, as our modern concept of “emotion” has blinded us to what the tradition saw as essential to “affections.”
As shown by Thomas Dixon, the “emotions” came into being as a distinct psychological category in the nineteenth century, replacing terms such as appetites, passions, sentiments, and affections. Along with this change in terminology came a change in conceptuality. The tendency to see emotions as independent mini-agents of their own started with David Hume and was reinforced by people such as Immanuel Kant and Arthur Schopenhauer, both of whom describe a tripartite model of the soul, where in addition to understanding and will, a third faculty of feeling (Gefuhl or Empfindung) was added. It is easy to see why modern thinkers, following such models, came to view our affective life as necessarily irrational and involuntary.
This is seen especially in Thomas Brown’s influential Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind, where his fundamental conceptual distinction was between “our intellectual states of mind and our emotions.” Ever after this, finding the intellectual component in affectivity—something inherent in the classical emphasis on the differing objects of passions and affections—is virtually impossible, as emotions and the intellect are ruled separate by definition. “Emotions” from this point onward, then, not only tended to replace “affections” and “passions,” but they came to be associated with positivist and reductionist theories, where they are seen as involuntary, noncognitive states.
This means that if we are to understand what people such as Augustine, Aquinas, Edwards, and Wesley meant by the “life of the heart,” the “affections,” and “heart religion,” we must bracket out what our modern world has invited us to believe about “emotions” and conceive of affective reality in a different way. Fortunately, several thinkers have begun this process. Philosophers such as Martha Nussbaum and Robert Roberts see emotions as intelligent responses to the perception of value, not just as nonreasoning movements or unthinking energies that simply push the person around. In short, these philosophers are now reconstruing “emotions” in a way entirely consistent with the Christian tradition’s view of the “affections,” allowing Christians to recover the classical discourse of the heart and its affections.
Setting “affections” in its classical context, we see why Jonathan Edwards could say that “true religion” consists, in large part, in having “religious affections.” Such affections, often described by the “fruit of the Spirit” (Gal. 5:22-24), are not mere involuntary, felt impulses, unexpectedly and irrationally popping into consciousness, nor are they, a la Friedrich Schleiermacher, some universally present feeling of absolute dependence. The religious affections are embodied recognitions of who God is and what God has done; they are patterned through the spiritual disciplines, informed by prayer, and shaped by Scripture and the sacraments. Although the felt awareness of these affections may come and go, the affections are most reliably shown not in episodes of feeling, available only through introspection, but in the overall shape of a life, something outwardly observable in community.
See also Emotion; Fruit of the Spirit; Galatians; Moral Formation; Passions; Practices; Sanctification; Wesleyan Ethics
Bibliography
Clapper, G. John Wesley on Religious Affections. Scarecrow Press, 1989; Dixon, T. From Passions to Emotions: The Creation of a Secular Psychological Category. Cambridge University Press, 2003; Edwards, J. Treatise on Religious Affections. Yale University Press, 1959; Nussbaum, M. Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions. Cambridge University Press, 2001; Roberts, R. Emotions: An Essay in Aid of Moral Psychology. Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Gregory S. Clapper
While various terms have found currency (e.g., Coloreds, Negroes, Blacks, Black Americans), the term African American is used here to describe persons and communities who are the product of the dynamic intersection of two worlds: African and American.
Overview of the Emergence of African Americans
The task of how African Americans use the Bible in ethical deliberations and as a book from which ethical actions spring becomes much more problematic without a description of who African Americans are as a community of discourse.
Africa is the second-largest continent in terms of size and population. Africa by some counts is composed of more than fifty countries, and nearly a thousand languages and dialects are spoken by diverse tribes. Each tribe also has religious expressions intrinsic to its own histories and historical settings. Yet sub-Saharan and western Africa generally represent areas of Africa from which much of the history of African Americans is derived.
Despite the diversity of life in Africa, there is a legitimate sense that sociocultural and religious understandings can be filtered through a shared African worldview. The African worldview embraces a belief in a Supreme Being, although the Supreme Being is not viewed as necessarily active in everyday affairs. There are lesser divinities who serve as mediators and are active in the fabric of everyday life. The “spiritual” pervades all of life, so that the distinct notions of sacred and secular space make little or no sense. Further, in the African worldview harmony between the living and the dead is important. Rituals and ceremonies proliferate to assuage the displeasure of the gods and spirits who otherwise would disrupt the harmony that everyone desires.
Moreover, tribal life and tribal identity are corporate. The sense of self or personhood is embedded in the tribe or the community. An old Ashanti proverb captures this idea: “Because we are, I am.” Appropriate rituals mark the passage of children into tribal membership and mark the passage of young males and females into their adult roles. The Western notion of radical individualism is alien to the African worldview. One is not a person apart from community or tribal affiliation. In the West there is the notion that one can be a person apart from any identification with a community. There is little need to romanticize Africa or its inhabitants, but it is necessary to recognize the integrity of the African view of life, lived in a context of freedom and self-determination.
The English made initial contact with the western part of Africa in the fifteenth century, and their assumptions and presuppositions about Africans found their way into the logic and practices that cemented the racist ideology of white supremacy. In the subsequent practice of enslavement, millions of enslaved Africans began the journey across the Atlantic and ended up in the thirteen colonies. For those who survived the treacherous journey, their existence required strategies of survival and resilience in a new place—a place not truly their home.
In the colonies and later the United States, enslaved Africans, suffering under the oppressive weight of slavery, responded in ways that constructed paths of freedom and advanced the claim of being created in the image of God. Inevitably, enslaved Africans confronted North American evangelical Christians, especially during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The enslaved Africans’ engagement with the beliefs of North American evangelical Christians teased out a hybrid but real form of Christianity consistent with the values of their native land and the lived realities of African life in the New World. Future encounters with North American Christianity, especially during the First and Second Great Awakenings, also had significant shaping force.
From the inception of the slave economy and its deleterious practices, the enslaved men and women of African descent learned by necessity to live both as Africans, to the extent possible, and as Americans. Enslaved Africans engaged the assumptions of a white Christianity that sought to subjugate their minds and bodies, including their interpretations of the Bible that served as a canonical authority for racist readings of the Scriptures.
Christian Ethics in an African American Context
African American ethics refers both to a discipline and a way of thinking and being in the world. The United States has experienced significant racial progress over these nearly four hundred years. At this writing, the people of the United States elected the nation’s first African American president. In all dimensions of life, progress can be observed. Yet, the intransigence of racism and the entrenchment of its logic and assumptions still inform much of our corporate life. The importance of the African American community is essential to the multitude of moral and ethical conversations about the value of human life and the proper goal of our common strivings as humans on this earth. In this ongoing engagement, the interpretation of the Bible has been and still is central. A focus on this dimension of African American ethics represents the thrust of the remainder of this essay.
African American Communities’ Distinctive Approaches and Appeals to Scripture in Ethics
No reader approaches texts without presuppositions; that is, no community of readers comes to the text as blank slates. African Americans, at least at the beginning, filtered their fundamental readings of the Bible through a hermeneutical lens colored by their engagement with the distorted and dehumanizing practices of slaveholders, buttressed by a pernicious racist ideology. In the context of Africans being uprooted from their sense of place and a world of meaning-making and being compelled to live in a strange land, enslaved Africans responded in ways that promoted a quest for liberation or freedom. This liberation-ist or emancipatory impulse was a central thread in how the Bible was read and a central tenet of interpretation (exodus motif; Jubilee Year [Lev. 25:8-55]; Isa. 25:6-9; 65:20-25; Amos 5:21-24; Mic. 6:6-8; Luke 4:18-19; Rev. 21:3-7). This impulse to pursue liberation is central, in varying degrees, to all subsequent African American readings of the Bible.
European contact with the continent of Africa included also the role of missionaries and merchants and their use of the Bible to support colonialist ideologies. Europeans and whites presented the Bible as the sacred text, interpreted as having universal claims on all peoples. The slaves, even during the initial period of contact between “whiteness” and “blackness,” attempted, sometimes successfully, to offer alternative responses to racist ideologies. Thus, African American use of the Bible is a function of the lived black experience within North America, particularly in the United States.
African Americans read the Bible as marginalized outsiders (Evans 35). The distorted relationships between those viewed as masters and thus superior and those viewed as enslaved and thus inferior provided the conceptual space for alternative readings of Scripture. A way to understand this might be thus: the alternative readings sought to decenter dominant, dehumanizing discourses and biblical interpretations, while they sought also to center or move to the center those biblical interpretations designed to provide other visions of human flourishing. Specifically, alternative readings and interpretations provided a sense of racial empowerment, a basis for self-love, a platform for moral uplift, a structure for moral rearmament, and a promise of progress and a hopeful future.
Historically, African American readings of the Bible take into account the historical contexts in which the readers lived. While the list of African American scholars and practitioners who have addressed African Americans’ use of the Bible is long, Vincent Wimbush provides a helpful typology that attempts to provide a history of African American interpretations of the Bible. Wimbush identifies six “circles of biblical imaginary.” In his discussion are the implicit and explicit reminders that the circles of African American interpreters of the Bible are diverse and emerge during specific periods of history in the United States. The critique of American society, especially its expressions and practices of racism and the formative nature of its liberal democratic ethos, requires consistent attention to alternative, compensatory readings of the Bible.
At times, the voices of African Americans have been muted and their roles maligned by patriarchal practices of both white and black males. Yet, there is a cacophony of strident womanist voices that resist efforts to marginalize their readings and interpretations of the Bible and other texts. Their contributions are many and significant, speaking to the broad scope of African American experiences. Katie G. Cannon, Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan, Marcia Y. Riggs, Cheryl J. Sanders, Emilie M. Townes, and a host of others represent contemporary scholars whose works promote the kind of sociocultural analysis needed in any engagement of the African American community with alienating discourses and practices in our national life.
The rise of the independent black church movement in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries also gave birth to interpreters of the Bible who challenged racism and its social practices in the United States. The black church nurtured spokespersons who offered life-affirming biblical interpretation in addition to criticizing racist rhetoric and dismantling the evil of segregation.
Frederick Douglass and Jarena Lee represent bold nineteenth-century examples of African Americans who offered stinging critiques of American society and male patriarchy by engaging in a critical reading of the Bible. Yet, many decades later, the emergence of the Black Power movement in the twentieth century presented the African American community with an interpretive challenge to its readings and interpretations of the Bible. The appropriation of Black Power by the representatives of the black theology project (such as James H. Cone) presents a continuing challenge in the search for a broad agreement among African Americans regarding the place of socioeconomic and sociopolitical action in service to the ongoing quest for liberation. For black theologians such as Cone, Black Power is not alien to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
In his books, Cone not only addressed the quest for liberation but also repositioned it within a context where God is the “God of the Oppressed.” Cone asks and answers this basic question: “What has the gospel to do with the oppressed of the land and their struggle for liberation?” (Cone 9). Cone maintains that theologians who fail to place that question at the center of their work have ignored the essence of the gospel. While some black theologians criticized Cone early on for placing his work within the systematic structure of European theology, the basic point is that tensions exist between black theology and the black Christian churches. Some African American scholars have expressed deep concern that black churches, in their desire to link up with white evangelical Christianity, have diminished their capacity of allowing Scripture to serve as a prophetic critique of all forms of racist ideology (Wimbush 84). This concern is seen within the worship life of many black churches as their sermons focus on “otherworldly” existence, thereby eclipsing the moral importance of life in the here and now.
This critical appraisal of black churches is a reminder that if the readings and interpretations of the Bible, and all aspects of worship, do not provide a critical analysis of social, economic, and political realities and inspire African Americans to seek life-affirming modalities of existence, then the African American church is being unfaithful to God and to the African American communities through time and space. While hearing this criticism clearly, black churches have often made their own criticisms of academic black theology. Specifically, it is argued that those who embrace the black theology project must seek a deeper analysis of, or at least be more attentive to, the ways that liberation is expressed by black churches in their preaching, singing, pastoral care, and other practices. The notion of liberation, for them, must be broadened to include the spiritual liberation from sin as a necessary component of the gospel. Some African American theologians fear that the increased participation of African Americans in holiness, pentecostal, and fundamentalist church groups will mean the loss of those liberative interpretations of Scripture that have historically sustained African Americans. Yet, more conservative Christians need not be antagonistic to the ongoing quest for liberation (e.g., Cheryl J. Sanders). African Americans as a community of discourse have embraced, and still embrace in many cases, various reading strategies that build bridges across all forms of human division.
A Way Forward: Some Concluding Thoughts
African American ethics takes up God’s agenda of reconciliation as revealed in Scripture. The problem is how one promotes the biblical notion of reconciliation in the face of the continuing legacy of racism and racist ideology in the United States. The role of Scripture is formative for a community’s life, through its practices and social embodiments of more truthful interpretations of the biblical story in all of its aspects. There is general historical agreement that ongoing reflection on the social and cultural realities in which all humans participate is a critical ethical dimension of our communal readings of the Bible.
African American ethics should not be marginalized by African American insistence that whites cannot understand the plight of African Americans. Such an insistence ensures a racial ownership of human experiences in a way that is not consistent with life lived with God’s end in view. Likewise, even white Christians, whether labeled as liberal, conservative, or fundamentalist, must exercise vigilance against appealing to unexamined claims to universal and absolute interpretations of the Bible that effectively obscure the presence of African Americans and thereby render African American life invisible. Interpretation requires that a community be capable of welcoming the stranger who enters its midst. That is why it is important to engage diverse reading communities in order to humanize our lives together and to experience the real benefits of connecting with broader communities of discourse. Galatians 3:28 is a central verse for gifting our vision to seek the plurality of oneness in the church and world.
Finally, vigilance against uncritical participation in the nation’s liberal democratic society is required. African American ethics suffers to the extent that faith becomes only an inward, individualistic experience. Aligning faith commitments to the logic and presuppositions of market capitalism, without proper vigilance, mutes the prophetic impulses necessary for liberation and transformation of lives and communities.
See also Discrimination; Emancipation; Jubilee; Justice; Liberation; Liberationist Ethics; Race; Racism; Reconciliation; Slavery
Bibliography
Andrews, D. Practical Theology for Black Churches: Bridging Black Theology and African American Folk Religion. Westminster John Knox, 2002; Blount, B. Then the Whisper Put on Flesh: New Testament Ethics in an African American Context. Abingdon, 2001; idem, ed. True to Our Native Land: An African American New Testament Commentary. Fortress, 2007; Cartwright, M. “Wrestling with Scripture: Can Euro-American Christians and African-American Christians Learn to Read Scripture Together?” Pages 71—114 in The Gospel in Black and White: Theological Resources for Racial Reconciliation, ed. D. Okholm. InterVarsity, 1997; Cone, J. God of the Oppressed. HarperSanFrancisco, 1975; Evans, J., Jr. We Have Been Believers: An African-American Systematic Theology. Fortress, 1992; Felder, C., ed. Stony the Road We Trod: An African American Biblical Interpretation. Fortress, 1991; Paris, P. The Social Teaching of the Black Churches. Fortress, 1985; Raboteau, A. Slave Religion: The "Invisible Institution” in the Antebellum South. Updated ed. Oxford University Press, 2004; Riggs, M. Awake, Arise and Act: A Womanist Call for Black Liberation. Pilgrim Press, 1994; Sanders, C. Saints in Exile: The Holiness-Pentecostal Experience in African American Religion and Culture. Religion in America. Oxford University Press, 1996; Thurman, H. Jesus and the Disinherited. Friends United Press, 1981; Usry, G., and C. Keener. Black Man’s Religion: Can Christianity Be Afrocentric? InterVarsity, 1996; Walker, T., Jr. Empower the People: Social Ethics for the African-American Church. TSNABR 5. Orbis, 1991; Wilmore, G. Black Religion and Black Radicalism. Rev. ed. Orbis, 1983; Wimbush, V The Bible and African Americans: A Brief History. Facets. Fortress, 2003.
James W. Lewis
The Greek word agape in the LXX translates Hebrew words reflecting multiple facets of affection and commitment. The narrative complexity of the word comes alive with attention to the OT text as it came to be translated from Hebrew to Greek. The LXX translators used agape to translate words as disparate as ’ahab, often a form of intimately passionate love; raham, related to the Hebrew word for “womb,” a poignantly physical attachment eliciting mercy toward another; and dod, which indicates a joyful delight in another. Passages pair agape with Greek versions of hesed, an abounding loyalty often linked to forgiveness; haseq, which refers to being bound or attached to another; and rasa, which refers to being pleased with another—all words that shape the meaning of agape in particular contexts. Agape is used in these instances both for God’s love and our responsive stance toward God and neighbor, creating an intertextual meaning.
Scriptural study of agape helpfully complicates Western scholarship on Christian love. In his seminal work on agape in Western ethics, Gene Outka refers his readers back two generations to another progenitor. Referring to Anders Nygren, Outka suggests, “His critics have been legion, but few have ignored or been unaffected by his thesis. . . . One may justifiably regard his work as the beginning of the modern treatment of the subject” (Outka 1). Nygren began a particularly modern pursuit, that of crystallizing the import of agape around a vital essence or, as he puts it, “motif.” His work set a scholarly trajectory to distill the term and make it universally applicable. Through purportedly “scientific analysis,” agape could be made “indifferent to value” and thus readily available to Christians across time and place.
The effort made intuitive sense in postwar Western Europe. The scriptural command to love God, neighbor, stranger, and enemy had become central in Western European thought. The horrors of Nazi Germany and the retributive firebombing of German and Japanese cities had made tragically clear how ready leaders (and the led) were to set aside the command when circumstances dictated or allowed. By the time Nygren’s Agape and Eros came out in English, the Western world was predictably ready for the crystal clarity and diamond-like beauty of Nygren’s “scientific analysis” on agape. The truly loving agent whom Nygren distilled in his study was a serviceable ideal for a miserably misanthropic era: purely self-giving, shorn of particular context, capable of instant and unambiguous action for the sake of another, initiated by God alone, with no storied motivation on the part of the loving one.
A serviceable ideal is scarcely the whole story. Hans Frei is a crucial interlocutor when considering agape as an item of ethical study. Frei’s genealogy of “mythophiles” helps to give context to the supposedly context-free studies of agape initiated by Nygren. Frei argues that to “paraphrase by general statement” the truth of Scripture is to “reduce it to meaninglessness.” To search the manifold forms and contexts of the scriptural canon in order to find a “central ideational theme” is, according to Frei, to make a type of reader’s category error. Frei explains that meaning in Scripture is “not illustrated (as though it were an intellectually presubsisting or preconceived archetype or ideal essence) but constituted through the mutual, specific determinations of agents, speech, social context, and circumstances that form the indispensible narrative web” (Frei 280). Efforts to summarize reliably the core of Christian love are susceptible to the same sort of attempt to find the core Jesus of history, or the perduring anchor of faith. To paraphrase one commentator, the search for the historical agape is likely to recover a picture that looks remarkably like the scholar searching.
Scriptural references to agape may link God’s command to love one’s neighbor to a story of God’s anguish at the deep betrayal of God’s people, or to God’s liberation of a people betrayed by their own neighbors. Reading the texts together, in tension, may bring out a word of solace or a word of God’s judgment. By way of assigned lectionary texts, attentively and cyclically read, a congregation may receive a command to love in conjunction with their origins as nameless nomads, or in the midst of a call to rage against and passionately love family members who have forsaken them, or in conjunction with a story demanding attention to the deviant, or alongside a summons to perceive with gratitude those who become more holy each day. Agape becomes a resonant term, one evoking not one particular stance but rather a web of scriptural stories and meanings.
Hosea may be a helpful example of the way agape is shaded in Scripture. God’s stance toward Israel is one of profound memory and investment in this prophetic book. The book suggests that love for those who are closest and with whom memories are shared is at times painful and difficult, perhaps even more so than love for those who are distantly strange. The stranger in one’s own bedroom may be harder to love than the one across an ocean. At the risk of paraphrasing, one might say that Hosea narrates the acute betrayal unique to intimacy, love, and deep memory. Because God’s agape is entwined with God’s enduring relationship with the people of Israel, God’s anger is particularly passionate and even vengeful. As in the case of Jeremiah and Isaiah, Hosea’s metaphors draw from the intensity of a lover’s vulnerable connection to his beloved and from a mother’s passion for disobedient children. God has known God’s people from conception, heard their cries in Egypt, and held them as they toddled toward maturity. God remembers a people who accepted God’s love with grateful, youthful abandon and cannot with this memory send them away when they seek other lovers. The book layers metaphor upon metaphor, with God summoning Israel to respond in repentance and renewed commitment, as God is Israel’s true parent, lover, and spouse. God’s agape here may seem scandalously foolish, even indecent. The word may appear here as a judgment on those who remain distantly engaged, as a word of admonishment on those who note with dispassionate regard the loved ones they are vulnerably to cherish.
In Exodus and Leviticus, Abraham’s and Moses’ descendants are to remember with gratitude the mercy that God has shown them even while they were wandering and murmuring, and thus they are to identify with and show mercy to the wanderer in their midst. A NT text that is helpfully read for features of agape is Luke’s Gospel, as Luke’s readers are set before a forgiving God and led to include even enemies in the scope of Israel’s stance of mercy. Willard Swartley has described Luke’s version of agape as an outrageous extension of the banquet tradition to those who might otherwise be seen as unfit to invite to the table (Luke 14:16-24). Echoing a strand of agape in the OT, that of God’s searching for those who are scattered (Ezek. 34), Luke narrates a God who longs for those who are “in the wilderness” (Luke 15:4) due to oppression or rebellion. Although the parable of the nameless man on the highway may be read as a call to love universally, the Samaritan, an outsider, most clearly answers the call to love. This move may be read as a universalizing one, but it may also be read, perhaps simultaneously, as a recalibration of inside and outside, placing the stranger inside God’s enduring covenant (Luke 10:29-37). The stories of lost sheep and small coins may newly adjust the vision of those interlocutors who deem themselves to be obviously above mere shepherds and surely better than a woman with a broom. The Lukan parables recast divine and human agape as abiding in the face of transgression. They go beyond this, even, to indicate that those who are lost are unique recipients of God’s concern and, when found, a cause for God’s delight.
Colin Grant suggests that the love evoked in agape is “identified only through the horizon of theological conviction and sustained through the apparatus of religion.” Grant reads human agape as best cast in a context of “the divine extravagance of giving” (Grant 19). In this encyclopedic setting, wherein scholars each must sift through and explain particular, scriptural terms for the sake of clarity and brevity, one example of divine extravagance may be the lavish fecundity of Scripture itself—as it bears judgment, lament, joy, patience, resilience—for the daily task and manna of agape.
See also Altruism; Charity, Works of; Covenant; Enemy, Enemy Love; Grace; Love, Love Command; Neighbor, Neighbor Love
Bibliography
Frei, H. The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics. Yale University Press, 1974; Grant, C. “For the Love of God: Agape.” JRE 24 (1996): 3—21; Hall, A. L. “Complicating the Command: Agape in Scriptural Context.” ASCE 19 (1999): 97—113; Heschel, A. The Prophets. Harper & Row, 1962; Nygren, A. Agape and Eros. Trans. P. Watson. Westminster, 1953; Outka, G. Agape: An Ethical Analysis. Yale University Press, 1972; Sakenfeld, K. D. Faithfulness in Action: Loyalty in Biblical Perspective. Fortress, 1985; Swartley, W. The Love of Enemy and Nonretaliation in the New Testament. Westminster John Knox, 1992; Vacek, E. Love, Human and Divine. Georgetown University Press, 1994.
Amy Laura Hall
Aged Aging
Ethical actions and attitudes toward older people flow from an understanding of who they are. Two distinctive characteristics of older people stand out at various points in Scripture.
The Characteristic Wisdom
First, older people generally are wise. “Is not wisdom found among the aged?” Job asks rhetorically, and “Does not long life bring understanding?” (Job 12:12 TNIV; cf. 15:10; 32:7). “Elders” (normally elderly) are, therefore, in the best position to give good counsel based on the experience and memory of what God has done (e.g., Exod. 3:18; Deut. 32:7; Acts 15:2; 1 Pet. 5:5). In old age, people “still produce fruit” (Ps. 92:14), even if that simply means living a life of moral virtue (Titus 2:2-3) or praising God (Ps. 148:12). The more severe the limitations of old age, the greater the inspiration such examples are for the community. The mere presence of elderly people, in fact, is perhaps the best reminder that our own days will quickly pass—a reality that we must learn if we are to “gain a wise heart” (Ps. 90:12). Accordingly, a family that has lost all of its elderly members has been severely punished (1 Sam. 2:31). A city with men and women of “great age” is considered blessed (Zech. 8:4).
The difference that the wisdom of elderly counsel can make is nowhere more dramatically illustrated than in 1 Kgs. 12 (cf. 2 Chr. 10). There, a large assembly of God’s people asks King Re-hoboam to lighten their harsh workload. The king consults with two groups of counselors, one of old men and one of young men. His failure to heed the wise counsel of the old men leads to the dramatic breakup of God’s kingdom into the two antagonistic kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Wisdom, then, generally is presented as a function of the life experience that only elderly persons have. Because it is also the product of righteousness and God’s Spirit, however, it is possible occasionally for young people to have wisdom (Job 32:8-9; Eccl. 4:13) and older people to lack it (Job 12:20).
The Characteristic Weakness
A second characteristic of many elderly persons, at least at some point, is that they are weak. Old age is acknowledged in Scripture as a time of suffering and vulnerability (2 Sam. 19:35; Eccl. 12:1-7). It is a time of failing eyes (e.g., Gen. 27:1; 48:10; 1 Sam. 4:15; 1 Kgs. 14:4), failing feet (e.g., 1 Kgs. 15:23), and declining overall bodily health (e.g., 1 Sam. 4:18; 1 Kgs. 1:1). Knowing that insensitive people take advantage of the weakness of older people, the psalmist prays, “Do not cast me off in the time of old age; do not forsake me when my strength is spent” (Ps. 71:9; cf. 71:18).
Such weakness generally is characteristic of older people but not necessarily so. Elderly people, therefore, should not automatically be written off as mentally or physically incapable simply because of their age. God often breaks through stereotypes. Who would have thought that Sarah and Abraham would have a child in their very old age (Gen. 18:11-14; 21:5-7); or that the Shunammite woman would have a baby with her elderly husband (2 Kgs. 4:14-17); or that the elderly Zechariah and Elizabeth would have a child (Luke 1:7, 18, 24-25, 36-37)? Who would have expected Jacob to father Joseph at such an old age that Joseph became special for that reason (Gen. 37:3)? Although weakness often is present in older people, it must be discovered and documented, never assumed.
The Response of Respecting
Both the wisdom and weakness of elderly people call for ethical responses, namely, respecting and protecting. We respond appropriately to wisdom by respecting it and those who possess it. Evil societies sometimes are characterized by their lack of respect for older people (Deut. 28:50; 2 Chr. 36:17; Isa. 47:6). It is an evil day when “the youth will be insolent to the elder” (Isa. 3:5), when elders are shown no respect (Lam. 5:12). Those who are young are to resist the temptation to despise or speak harshly to those who are old (e.g., Prov. 23:22; 1 Tim. 5:1) and instead are to recognize gray hair (i.e., old age) as a crown of splendor (Prov. 16:31; 20:29).
People are to “rise before the aged,” says the Lord, and “defer to the old” (Lev. 19:32). This particular command is one of seven commands in Lev. 19 whose importance is underlined by the conclusion, “I am the Lord.” And this command regarding elderly people prefaces those words with the call to “fear your God.” The point seems to be that obedience to this command in particular expresses a special reverence for God. By showing respect for those who are elderly, we are revering God.
The Response of Protecting
If we rightly respond to wisdom by respecting people who possess it, we appropriately respond to the relative weakness of elderly people by protecting them. God is frequently portrayed in biblical writings as the protector of those who are weak (Exod. 22:22-27; Pss. 35:10; 140:12), and God’s people are challenged to be the same (Prov. 31:8-9; 1 Thess. 5:14). So it is not at all surprising to find God affirming, “Even to your old age I am he, even when you turn gray I will carry you” (Isa. 46:4).
That God says “even in old age” emphasizes that in a world enamored with strength and productivity it is all too easy to neglect older people. King David observed this phenomenon in his day, which is why he implores God to sustain him, as he puts it, “even when I am old and gray” (Ps. 71:18 TNIV). Because God is a sustainer of those who are old, it is natural to expect that godly people will be as well (e.g., Ruth 4:15). Community is built, to the benefit of all, when the needs of some provide others opportunity to serve and to witness the blessing of being served.
Elderly people are as worthy of staying alive and even receiving life-saving care as anyone else. In fact, whether a particular society values the wisdom and other contributions of older people is ultimately beside the point. All persons are God’s creation in God’s own image (Gen. 1:27) and are the objects of God’s sacrificial love in Christ (John 3:16). God pours out the Spirit on those who are old as well as on those who are young (Joel 2:28;
Acts 2:17). The equal worth of all persons demands that all be respected and that those who are weak accordingly receive special protection.
Contemporary Challenges
This biblical outlook is at odds with some influential contemporary outlooks. For example, a utilitarian way of viewing people promotes whatever most people in society consider beneficial. In contemporary cultures that value people primarily in terms of their economic productivity, elderly people may not be given the same access to needed resources as younger people. This problem is compounded by its discriminatory impact on women. In the United States, for example, a large majority of older people are women. Scripture identifies the male/female distinction, along with slave/free and ethnic distinctions, as inappropriate categories used by one group to assert superiority over another (e.g., Gal. 3:28). Biblical writings exhort the community to provide special protection and care to older women in particular, who often are widows (e.g., Isa. 1:17; Jas. 1:27).
A biblical outlook is also at odds with the common human aspiration to live forever in this world. Genesis 3 introduces the suffering that unavoidably marks this world because of people’s sinful self-centeredness. In response, God banishes humanity from the garden of Eden so that people cannot “take from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever” (Gen. 3:22). Far from mere punishment, this banishment is a wonderful example of God’s mercy. In place of eternal life in this world of “bondage to decay” God offers an opportunity for forgiveness and the redemption of our bodies (Rom. 8:21-23). The resurrection of the crucified Jesus is God’s victory over death and sin. That victory is a divine victory, not a technological victory. God’s only begotten Son transforms death itself into the doorway to an immortality of joy (Rev. 21:4). Efforts to extend life become antagonistic to God’s purposes if understood as part of a larger attempt to achieve immortality in this world. However, long life and health can be received as a blessing (Prov. 10:27; 16:31; Isa. 65:20). In response to God’s gift and cause, our efforts to extend life through a variety of medical and other interventions can constitute a welcome participation in God’s merciful involvement in a suffering world.
See also Death and Dying; Dementia; Dependent Care; Euthanasia; Family; Healthcare Ethics; Widows
Bibliography
Bailey, L. “Biblical Perspectives on Aging.” QR 9 (1989): 48-64; Dulin, R. A Crown of Glory: A Biblical View of Aging. Paulist Press, 1988; Harris, J. Biblical Perspectives on Aging: God and the Elderly. 2nd ed. Haworth Press, 2008; Hauerwas, S., et al., eds. Growing Old in Christ. Eerdmans, 2003; Kilner, J. Life on the Line: Ethics, Aging, Ending Patients’ Lives, and Allocating Vital Resources. Eerdmans, 1992; Mitchell, C., R. Orr, and S. Salladay, eds. Aging, Death, and the Quest for Immortality. Eerdmans, 2004; President’s Council on Bioethics. Taking Care: Ethical Caregiving in Our Aging Society. U.S. Executive Office of the President, 2005; Sapp, S. Full of Years: Aging and the Elderly in the Bible and Today. Abingdon, 1987.
John F. Kilner