Scripture upholds honesty as a quality closely related to excellence of character. The habitual practice of honesty is necessary for harmonious relationships. The Scriptures associate honesty not only with truth-telling but also with the pursuit of justice and faithfulness in interpersonal interactions. Through pursuing an honest character, we embody our respect for the moral ordering of the cosmos and its everyday realization in familial and political structures.
Scriptural texts promote a rigorous ethic of commitment to the truth for the sake of justice. God is “just” and “without deceit” (Deut. 32:4), and honesty preserves just social relations among God’s people. The OT characterizes honesty as essential to properly ordered relations within society. For example, the commandment “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor” (Exod. 20:16) emphasizes the importance of honesty for social institutions and interpersonal relationships (Swezey). Honesty in social interactions is a means through which Israel lives out the divine covenant (see Josh. 7:11) and preserves communal order.
The stability of the political and familial order depends on truthfulness, and numerous passages connect deceitful actions to familial discord (e.g., Gen. 37-44; Prov. 6). Perhaps for this reason, the scriptural texts sometimes link breaches of honesty to violence and disruption: the suffering servant is morally righteous because he does not take part in violence or deceit (Isa. 53:9; 1 Pet. 2:22), Hosea connects lying to violence (Hos. 12:1) and bloodshed (Hos. 4:2), and Proverbs links “a lying tongue” with “hands that shed innocent blood” (Prov. 6:17).
Both the Old and New Testaments present honesty as a witness to God’s own goodness. Because God is truth (Ps. 43:3; cf. John 14:6), honest and true actions are means through which God’s followers are faithful to the divine character. A commitment to truth challenges us to avoid hypocrisy (1 Cor. 5:1-8; Jas. 3:6-10) and to live in a manner consistent with the truth that God gives us, like the seeds that grow in good soil and bear fruit (Luke 8:15). We image God’s own goodness and truthfulness when we choose to be “doers of the word” and not merely hearers of it (Jas. 1:19-26).
In light of this strong commitment to honesty, it might seem that all instances of dishonesty are to be rejected. A lack of honesty is associated with God’s enemies. Scripture affirms God’s abhorrence of deception (Josh. 7:11; Job 15:35; Pss. 5:6; 10:7; 24:4; 32:2). Deceit is characteristic of God’s enemies (Prov. 26:24; Isa. 57:4; 2 Cor. 11:13; Acts 13:10; Col. 2:8; Rev. 21:27) and is associated with persons who do “evil” (Ps. 109:2; Prov. 12:20; Sir. 37:3; Isa. 32:7; Rom. 1:29; Heb. 3:13). John 8:44-45 associates lying and truthlessness with the devil and opposes these actions to God.
At the same time, however, Scripture points to a more complex view of honesty that may allow for the temporary distortion of the truth for the sake of serving God in a more ultimate sense. For example, the prostitute Rahab allows Joshua’s Israelite spies to stay in her home and then deceives the king of Jericho about their whereabouts (Josh. 2:1-6). She chooses these actions because she believes that Israel’s God is indeed God, and that God wants the Israelites to live in Jericho (Josh. 2:8-14). Although her faithfulness to God leads her to deceive her own people, tradition celebrates her actions and their motives. James 2:25 presents Rahab’s actions as works through which she has been justified before God.
Rahab’s story suggests that dishonesty may sometimes be justified as an expression of true love for God. Thomas Aquinas offers a similar view of truth and the vices that oppose it. For Thomas, truth is a virtue related to justice. Like justice, truth is important for social interactions and also promotes equality to some degree. Vices that oppose truth include lying, dissimulation, hypocrisy, boasting, and irony. But Thomas allows for the possibility that these vices might be overridden by charity. He argues that the severity of these vices should be determined through considering their consequences for social relations. Although these vices are opposed to truth, they are not always mortal sins; rather, they are mortal sins when they oppose charity by compromising love for God or for one’s neighbor (ST II-II, qq. 109-13).
This complex view of honesty has important implications for contemporary reflection on whether deception is ever morally justifiable—for example, in a situation in which honesty might lead to harm being done to another person. Because we can postulate hypothetical situations in which lying might seem morally acceptable, it may seem that a rigid commitment to strict truthfulness presents an ideal that it is impossible for humans to achieve on earth, an ethic of perfection that may have to be compromised as we face sin and evil. Some twentieth-century ethicists such as Reinhold Niebuhr read the Sermon on the Mount as presenting an ideal impossible for humans to emulate in a world tainted by original sin, and a case could be made for reading scriptural condemnations of dishonesty as part of this “impossible ideal.” In addition to Rahab’s story, other OT figures, including Jacob, Tamar, and Joseph, prudentially exercise deceit and trickery, and their actions do not seem to be censured (see Gen. 27; 30; 38; 44).
Regardless of conclusions we might draw about the feasibility of exercising complete honesty, the scriptural witness cautions against the problems that deceit and falsehood pose not only for personal holiness but also for community relations. More often than not, acts of deceit are unequivocally associated with evil, impurity, and opposition to the good. This overall commitment to honesty is rooted in a belief in God’s own truth and goodness and in the unity of truthfulness and love.
See also Deception; Dishonesty; Integrity; Oaths; Ten Commandments; Truthfulness, Truth-Telling
Bibliography
Swezey, C. “Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness against Thy Neighbor.” Int 34 (1980): 405-10.
Elizabeth Agnew Cochran
According to Eccl. 9:4 NIV, “Anyone who is among the living has hope [bittahon]” (or “trust”). So
Thomas Aquinas calls hope a “passion” that arises naturally in us; like fear, hope is something that we share naturally with the “dumb animals” (ST I-II, q. 40, a. 3). Unlike fear, however, hope responds not to the threat of evil but rather to the potential attainment of a good, which is difficult but not impossible. Hope pulls us into a future; it locates us within a story or a journey that is ineluctably tensed (Hauerwas and Pinches 126).
For Christians, hope is more than simply natural; it is also a theological virtue that stands between faith and love (“These three remain: faith, hope [elpis] and love” [1 Cor. 13:13 NIV]). Natural hope propels us into a future, but which future that is matters greatly for the theological virtue. Natural hope can picture a false world. On the road to Emmaus the disciples say mournfully to the unrecognized Jesus, “We had hoped [elpizomen] that he was the one to redeem Israel” (Luke 24:21). In subsequent conversation Christ must school their hope with understanding. Proper hope requires an informed faith. As the prophets point out for Israel, if hope is faithless, wrongly directed, it deserves to be lost. So Ezekiel’s dry bones say, “Our bones are dried up, and our hope [tiqwa] is lost” (Ezek. 37:11). False hope must be lost before true hope, and life, can be built.
Prophetic warnings against Israel’s false hopes apply today. No one lives without hope. Yet the need encourages the error, especially among a people softened by comfort. So 1 Tim. 6:17 cautions the rich not “to put their hope in wealth.” And Pope Benedict XVI argues that Christian hope has been displaced today by an idea of “progress” from Francis Bacon (1561-1626). “Hope too, in Bacon, acquires a new form. Now it is called: faith in progress” (Pope Benedict XVI 42-43). Bacon hoped that art would triumph over nature, so “overcoming all forms of dependency” (Pope Benedict XVI 43). By contrast, Christian faith rests in Christ, who suffered in dependent love.
As essentially “tensed,” hope is laced throughout the biblical story, which moves back and forth between promise and fulfillment. Hope steadies us in the movement, the “steadfast anchor of the soul” (Heb. 6:19). Tied to “endurance” (hypomone) or “patience” (makrothymeo), hope watches and waits—no easy task. (“Hope” mistakenly refers to what is expected as a matter of course: “Who hopes [elpizei] for what is seen?” [Rom. 8:24].) The good that we attain by hope is difficult, says Thomas, and requires training and exercise. In fact, security “lessens the character of hope: for the things in which a man fears no hindrance, are no longer looked upon as difficult” (ST I-II, q. 40, a. 8). Biblically, we can claim no better example than Abraham, who clung tenaciously to God’s promises: “Hoping against hope, he believed” (Rom 4:18). Commenting further, Paul “boasts” in the “hope of sharing the glory of God,” which links for him with difficulties faced: “We boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope” (Rom. 5:2-4).
Christian hope never stands alone; it is supported by, is almost interchangeable with, faith and love. In Hebrews, for instance, we are told that “faith is the assurance of things hoped for” (Heb. 11:1). Yet distinctions between the three virtues can be drawn. As good habits, virtues can be identified by bad habits or vices that oppose them. Hatred opposes love, and unbelief contrasts with faith. Yet when we lose hope, we fall into despair. By despair, Thomas says, “a man ceases to hope for a share in God’s goodness” (ST II-II, q. 20, a. 4). Despair he identifies as the most dangerous sin. A person might act out of hatred or unbelief, but despair saps a person of all motivation. Those who lose hope lose their own stories and spiral into utter isolation.
Hope picks such people up and sets them on a path; it induces them “to seek for good things.” Initially, the search is individualized because, according to Thomas, “hope regards directly one’s own good, and not that which pertains to another.” Schooled by love, hope expands beyond the self. “If we presuppose the union of love with another, a man can hope for and desire something for another man, as for himself” (ST II-II, q. 17, a. 3). Eschatologically, God’s future is not merely mine but the whole of creation’s, now groaning but awaiting its full redemption in Christ (Rom. 8:22).
Indeed, as essentially tensed, as surrounded by faith and love, as centered in the resurrection, hope looks always toward the eschaton, the “hope of eternal life that God, who never lies, promised before the ages began” (Titus 1:2). Hope fills the span between one coming of Christ and the next. Yet this sharply focuses Christian hope. The Messiah coming to reign is the Messiah who already came to suffer and die. The Lamb is worthy to open the scroll precisely because, as the heavenly chorus says to him, “You were slaughtered and by your blood you ransomed for God saints from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Rev. 5:9). Schooled theologically, Christian “hope of glory” (Col. 1:27) can never turn triumphal—a point as much relevant now as in the future kingdom. As John Howard Yoder insists, proper theological hope should shelter the church from the “Constantinian temptation” to bring the kingdom by force; only as such can it expose the pretentious hopes of the age that pin the meaning of history to something other than the crucified Christ, “our hope” (1 Tim. 1:1).
See also Eschatology and Ethics; Faith; Idolatry; Security; Virtue(s); Wealth
Bibliography
Benedict XVI. Saved in Hope (Spe Salvi): Encyclical Letter of the Supreme Pontiff Benedict XVI. Ignatius Press, 2008; Hauerwas, S., and C. Pinches. Christians among the Virtues: Theological Conversations with Ancient and Modern Ethics. University of Notre Dame Press, 1997, 113—28; Yoder, J. The Original Revolution: Essays on Christian Pacifism. Herald Press, 1977, 140—76.
Charles R. Pinches
This OT book is associated with Hosea, son of
Beeri. Hosea was a prophet active during the turbulent, final years of the northern kingdom of Israel (ca. 750-720 BCE). He is best known for the stories of his marriage to Gomer (1:2-9), and the book uses the prophet’s broken family as a metaphor for the people’s relationship with God. Yet the bulk of Hosea (chaps. 4-14) contains divine judgments against Israel’s political and religious leaders for various kinds of wrong behavior and calls the people to return to faithfulness in light of God’s love. Metaphors drawn from family, agricultural, and animal realms address the people’s life before God. Ethical engagement with the book requires an exploration of these metaphors, especially the ways they fund an alternative imagination for their hearers’ perception of reality.
The prophet’s words focus on the moral failures of the people in their fidelity toward God and others (e.g., 4:1-3). Although often thought to be associated with the worship of the Canaanite god Baal, Hosea’s criticisms are more typically concerned with the hypocrisy of the leaders of the community, especially kings (7:5-7; 8:4-10) and priests (4:4-6), accusing them of worshiping God ostensibly yet refusing to follow God’s desires in the social and political dimensions of the community’s life. In Hosea’s view, the health of the kingdom depends on ethical leadership that comes from a sense of fidelity to God and generates faithfulness among the people. The book places these ethical demands in the broader context of God’s enduring love for the people (2:14-23; 11:1-9; 14:4-8), which offers the ability to return to God for reconciliation.
The ethical discourse of Hosea poses difficulties for contemporary readers. In addition to depicting
a punishing God, much of Hosea’s language and imagery, especially in the marriage metaphor of chapters 1-3, is patriarchal, using female characters and experiences to represent sin and describing acts of physical abuse and sexual violence as symbols for divine judgment. In modern contexts so rife with domestic violence, such actions, even when depicted as a means toward reconciliation, can lead to views of God that produce destructive behavior, especially toward women and children. One can emphasize the ancient cultural context of these images or use other biblical depictions of God as correctives, but raising questions about such imagery and the import that it might have in contemporary society is a necessary part of ethical reflection on Hosea.
Not limited to its original context, Hosea’s language and metaphors speak into any situation in which politics, economics, and religious ideology have become intertwined to serve the interests of the economically and socially advantaged. In the same way that the prophet challenged the royal and social elite of his day, the book offers an ongoing word of judgment against the co-opting of religious beliefs and practices in the service of social, political, military, and economic systems that injure the vulnerable and tear at the fabric of the community. Such a word of judgment, however, remains in the context of an enduring divine love, which permits the hopeful possibility of redemption from the destructive systems of power, greed, and violence.
See also Covenant; Idolatry; Old Testament Ethics
Bibliography
Keefe, A. Woman’s Body and the Social Body in Hosea. JSOTSup 338. Sheffield Academic Press, 2001; Kelle, B. Hosea 2: Metaphor and Rhetoric in Historical Perspective. SBLAB 20. Society of Biblical Literature, 2005; Simundson, D. Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah. AOTC. Abingdon, 2005.
Brad E. Kelle
The concept of hospitality has long been central to Christian life, and at its heart it means welcoming the stranger. The words hospitality, hospital, and hospice are derived from the Latin root hospes, meaning “guest.” The modern hospital derives from the ancient practices of religious societies that set up houses for the ill traveler, which typically were adjacent to places of worship. For example, St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, founded in London in 1123, cared for those with incurable diseases and the dying. Beginning at about the time of the Renaissance and progressing into modernity, the objectives of hospital care changed so that by 1544 St. Bartholomew’s would no longer admit patients if they had incurable conditions. In 1842 the term hospice came to describe a place for the terminally ill, and an institution was created in Lyon, France, for these purposes.
Hospice care (offering palliative care for the terminally ill) engages the terminally ill and their families to “ improve quality of life . . . through the . . . treatment of pain and other problems, physical, psychosocial and spiritual” (Bond 2008). St. Christopher’s Hospice, founded by Cicely Saunders in London in 1967, serves as a model for the modern hospice.
Hospice in its ancient and modern versions derives from the Christian response to the challenges of caring for the sick and dying. Scripture, in particular the Gospels, gives several examples of responses to Jesus’ suffering and dying, ranging from abandonment to full engagement. Jesus is abandoned by his fearful and despairing disciples before his death and crucifixion (“Then all the disciples deserted him and fled” [Matt. 26:56]), much as doctors and even friends and family sometimes isolate, ignore, and abandon their patients and loved ones in institutions as they become frail and enter the end of life. Other Gospel passages do not portray abandonment, but rather depict individuals who could not fully engage the suffering, remaining at a safe distance from Jesus and his tormentors (Matt. 27:55-56; Mark 15:40). Finally, there are the scriptural examples of those who were fully present, exemplified in Jesus’ mother, her sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, Mary Magdalene, and the Beloved Disciple, who bore witness at the cross (John 19:25-26).
Contemporary concepts of hospice emphasize the practice of true compassion by being present with the dying, not just in hospitals and institutions, but most often in the home. Hospice is not a site of care but rather a practice of compassionate and caring presence that gives caregivers that sacred privilege to walk with those who are suffering, as did Simon of Cyrene with Jesus (Matt. 27:32; Mark 15:21; Luke 23:26). By having the strength to be present, hospice caregivers can transform
suffering by forming a community that can sustain “the sufferer in the face of pain, anger and despair” (Schmidt 2005).
See also Ars Moriendi Tradition, Use of Scripture in; Death and Dying; Dependent Care; Healthcare Ethics
Bibliography
Bond C., V. Lavy, and R. Woolridge. Palliative Care Toolkit: Improving Care from the Roots Up in Resource-Limited Settings. Help the Hospices, 2009; Clemens K.,
B. Jaspers, and E. Klaschik. “The History of Hospice.” Pages 18-23 in Oxford Textbook of Palliative Medicine. Oxford University Press, 2005; Schmidt, S. “Not in the Medical Records.” Center for Christian Ethics at Baylor University, 2005. http://www.baylor.edu/christianethics /SufferingarticleSchmidt.pdf.
Richard Payne
Offering hospitality to strangers is central to the gospel and to the Christian moral tradition. Throughout much of the church’s history hospitality has been a normative feature of Christian identity and ministry. Old Testament stories and law, as well as Jesus’ life, death, parables, and practices, witness to its centrality. The importance of hospitality in the formation and growth of the early church suggests its continuing relevance for the people of God. Though variously understood and often undermined, hospitality remains important in Christian practice and tradition.
Within hospitality are located moral and practical concerns about care for vulnerable strangers, those with whom potential hosts have no natural bonds, but for whom their lack of welcome could be dangerous or cruel. Particular biblical texts have shaped a normative understanding of hospitality that emphasizes recognition of, and care for, those persons who are left out of society’s benefits and are disconnected from life-giving relationships.
Hospitality in the Old Testament
God is portrayed as a generous and protective host in a number of biblical texts; to be hospitable is part of God’s character (Exod. 16:4-36; Deut. 10:17-18; Pss. 91; 146:9). The people of God are expected to view themselves as aliens or sojourners, dependent on God’s care and provision (Gen. 15:5-16; Lev. 25:23; 1 Chr. 29:14-15). In addition, faithful Israelites are commanded to care for sojourners and other vulnerable persons in their midst, remembering their own experience of having been mistreated strangers in Egypt (Exod. 22:21; Lev. 19:33-34; Deut. 10:19; 24:14-22).
Throughout the ancient world hospitality was commonly understood as the practice of welcoming strangers into one’s household for short-term refreshment and shelter. Hosts were responsible to feed and to protect those guests who had come under their roof. Acts of hospitality by individuals or by familial households are important parts of numerous OT narratives and often are evidence of the righteousness of the host. In many cases, welcoming a stranger brings the host into close contact with messengers or purposes of God, and these encounters are filled with blessing and promise.
Abraham and Sarah welcome three strangers and give them honor, food, and a place to rest (Gen. 18). Sometime during this visit, they learn that the strangers are angels who have come with the promise that a son will be born to the couple in their old age. This is the most important OT story for the Christian hospitality tradition (see Heb. 13:2), but others are central as well: Rahab’s provision of sanctuary to the Israelite spies (Josh. 2), Elijah’s experience of hospitality at the hands of a foreign widow during a famine (1 Kgs. 17), and Elisha’s regular welcome in the home of a Shunammite woman (2 Kgs. 4:8-37). In each one of these stories, the host is blessed through the presence of the guest(s) (see also 1 Sam. 25).
A few stories are more ambiguous, however. In Gen. 19, Lot’s hospitality to two strangers is contrasted with the response of the men of Sodom, whose inhospitality and degradation show that the city is ready for judgment. In order to protect his male guests from sexual violation, Lot offers his daughters to the crowd to “do to them as you please,” raising troubling questions for contemporary readers about the vulnerability of women and their status as protected persons during that time. Similarly, the story of the Levite’s concubine in Judg. 19 is a terrible reminder that a community’s understanding of who is deserving of the protection of hospitality can be very limited.
Certain ambiguities in the practice of hospitality arise from tensions that are present within the notion of covenant loyalty to Yahweh, evident in Israel’s responses to different kinds of strangers. Because the God of Israel cares for sojourners, the sojourner (get, tosab) in Israel is to be protected and to receive the same kind of provision as widows and orphans. Sojourners or resident aliens and Israelites are to be treated similarly in the courts (Deut. 1:16-17; 24:17-22). Some are included in religious celebrations and, as they adopt the faith of the Israelites, are incorporated into the community (Exod. 12:43-49; Num. 9:14; Deut. 16:9-15; 26:1-15). Those strangers who leave behind their communities, religious identities, and political ties receive particular care in Israel, especially when their economic circumstances are fragile.
Other kinds of strangers are treated differently, however. The Israelites are instructed to exclude persons who might threaten their identity or unity. Those strangers or foreigners (nekat, noktt, zat) who continue to worship other gods, maintain connections with their home communities, or interact with Israelites primarily as merchants or traders do not generally receive welcome. Because of Yahweh’s demand for exclusive loyalty in commitment and worship, strangers who might distract from that loyalty are excluded (Exod. 23:28-33; 34:10-16; Deut. 7:1-11; 18:9-14; Josh. 23:12-13; Ps. 106:34-39). While hospitality is at the heart of the covenant in terms of Yahweh’s welcome to Israel and to vulnerable strangers, covenantal commitments simultaneously require the community to care for vulnerable sojourners and to be wary of strangers who might undermine loyalty to God alone.
In the wisdom literature, the righteous person is portrayed as hospitable, especially in caring for strangers and others in need. Job defends his righteousness by saying, “The stranger has not lodged in the street; I have opened my doors to the traveler” (Job 31:32). In the prophets, Isaiah describes the kind of worship that God desires as including care for the destitute and welcoming the homeless stranger into one’s home (Isa. 58:6-7). The word of the Lord through Isaiah promises that the foreigner who loves the Lord will find welcome in “a house of prayer for all peoples” (Isa. 56:3, 6-7).
Hospitality in the Gospels
In the incarnation God becomes vulnerable to human welcome (John 1). Jesus is portrayed as stranger and guest as well as host in the Gospels. He experiences the marginality, vulnerability, and rejection of the stranger while proclaiming welcome to all who desire to come to him and to enter the kingdom of God. His hospitality is expansive and personal, offering welcome to those who are lost, sick, rejected, and in need. As both guest and host, Jesus challenges prevailing but often hidden socioreligious patterns of exclusion.
The Gospel of Luke is particularly rich with images of Jesus’ experiences of hospitality. Born into a family in need of shelter, he later describes himself as having “nowhere to lay his head” (Luke 2:7; 9:57-58). He is frequently a guest in the homes of Pharisees (Luke 7:36-50; 14:1-24), friends (Luke 10:38-42), and sinners (Luke 5:27-32; 19:1-10). These shared meals provide an important setting for his teachings on divine and human hospitality.
Numerous Gospel stories show Jesus serving as a host; he feeds crowds gathered on hillsides, and he breaks bread with his disciples and cooks breakfast for them after his resurrection (Matt. 14:13-21; 15:32-39; 26:26-29; Mark 6:30-44; 8:1-10; 14:22-25; Luke 9:10-17; 22:7-23; John 6:1-14; 13:1-20; 21:1-14). On the road to Emmaus Jesus begins his interaction with two followers as a stranger, is invited by them to become their guest, and in breaking bread together, he becomes their host (Luke 24:13-35).
God hosts the children of Israel as they wander in the wilderness, supplying manna daily to meet their needs. In John 6:31-59, Jesus describes himself as the bread of life, the manna. Understanding Jesus as both host and bread draws together dimensions of hospitality from the OT and the NT with eucharistic practice.
Two texts from the Gospels are particularly important to understandings of hospitality in the Christian tradition. In Luke 14:12-14, Jesus challenges the tendency to offer hospitality to persons from whom one might expect to receive benefit or reward, and he tells his host to welcome to his dinner parties “the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind,” those who cannot repay the favor. In doing so, human hosts imitate the generosity of God, who welcomes into the kingdom those same vulnerable groups (Luke 14:15-24). Such a host could expect God’s reward.
Matthew 25:31-46 is the most important biblical text for the Christian hospitality tradition. In addressing his disciples’ questions about how they will recognize the end of the age and his return, Jesus encourages them to prepare for it by living in response to him in the present. By explicitly linking care for the “least of these” with care for himself, Jesus draws the closest possible connection between hospitality to vulnerable persons and strangers and offering welcome to the Son of Man. Despite interpretive difficulties within the text itself, the passage is prominent in most discussions of hospitality throughout Christian history and ties entry into the kingdom to the practice of hospitality in this life.
Hospitality in the Early Church
The life-transforming significance of Jesus’ costly welcome becomes the basis for practice within early Christian communities. Paul writes in Rom. 15:7, “Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.” The early churches struggled with how to respond to differences within their communities related to religious background, sensitivity to former cultural practices, and social and economic status. Reminding them of the acceptance and welcome they had received in Christ, Paul urges the Roman church to model in their shared life a similar sacrificial welcome to one another and to strangers (see also Rom. 12:13).
In early Christianity the practice of hospitality was important in addressing social and cultural differences within the communities, in responding to the physical needs of strangers and fellow believers, in strengthening corporate identity, and in providing household-based settings for community gatherings and worship (Riddle). Shared meals in which poor people could be fed and a distinctive Christian identity could be forged and reinforced were a particularly important, though difficult, dimension of hospitality (Acts 2:44-46; 10:1-11:18; 1 Cor. 11:17-34; Gal. 2:11-14; Jas. 2:1-13). Hospitality as a practice of congregational life was well fitted to the needs of the early congregations, especially as believers traveled to escape persecution and to spread the gospel.
Certain passages suggest that hospitality was expected of every believer (Rom. 12:13; Heb. 13:2; 1 Pet. 4:9), but that it was also a specific requirement for leadership in God’s household (1 Tim. 3:2; 5:10; Titus 1:8). That the early church encountered some difficulties with hospitality is evident from the instruction in 1 Pet. 4:9 to practice it “without complaining” and from Paul’s comments that he, unlike false apostles, did not burden the communities (2 Cor. 11:8-9; 12:14-18; 1 Thess. 2:9). Although the practice of hospitality was central in the early Christian communities, two categories of persons were denied welcome. Both claimed to be believers. Those who persisted in immoral lifestyles and those who propagated false teaching were excluded (1 Cor. 5:9-11; 2 John 9-11).
In the NT Epistles, the primary focus of hospitality was on strangers, though often the strangers welcomed would have been other Christians in need. Philoxenia, one of the key terms for hospitality in the NT, combines the Greek word for “the love or affection of those connected by kinship or faith” (phileo) and the word for “stranger” (xenos).
The Distinctive Character of Christian Hospitality
Hospitality remained important in the first several centuries of the church, especially in meeting the needs of the local poor, strangers, and pilgrims. Efforts to make hospitality more predictable and more widely available gave rise to hospitals and hospices. Its importance in monastic life is especially evident in the Rule of Benedict from the sixth century (chaps. 53, 61). The possibility of welcoming Jesus in the guise of a stranger was held in tension with a commitment to creating a distinctive and separated way of life.
In most ancient cultures the provision of hospitality to strangers was highly regarded as an expression of mutual aid. In some societies it was also a deliberate means by which relationships were forged and reinforced through reciprocal benefits. Particularly in the fourth and fifth centuries, Christian writers rejected this more calculating approach to hospitality and offered an understanding that was based on Jesus’ teaching in Matt. 25:31-46; Luke 14:12-14.
Christian hospitality was to be distinguished from conventional practice by the welcome offered to the “least,” those who could not be expected to be able to repay the favor. Lactantius, Jerome, and John Chrysostom, among others, rejected “ambitious” hospitality or hospitality done for “advantage” as inadequate for Christians. The emphasis on welcoming needy strangers became the normative understanding of hospitality in the Christian tradition.
Nevertheless, Christians found the practice of hospitality to be useful and to their advantage during many periods, especially because of the blend of intimacy and power that it often represented. Despite ongoing critiques of the misuse of hospitality, by the late Middle Ages, even in the church, it was associated with power, luxury, and indulgence. There were some efforts during the Reformation and early modern period to recover earlier understandings of hospitality, but by the eighteenth century, the term had been emptied of most of its moral meaning in the West. Although many of the activities and institutions associated with hospitality continued, understandings and practices of hospitality were fragmented across multiple spheres of life and increasingly distanced from the Christian tradition.
The practice of hospitality regained some moral standing in the twentieth century. In the 1930s, the Catholic Worker movement used the language of hospitality to describe its commitment to sharing life with those who were homeless and destitute. More recently, it has been important as a term in philosophical and theological discussions of recognition and responses to “otherness.” Some denominations have used the concept to frame church responses to homosexuality (e.g., “welcoming and affirming” congregations). At the political level, hospitality has been connected to offering sanctuary or asylum, especially to refugees. In social ministry it has been retrieved in efforts to move away from anonymous or humiliating provider-recipient models of assistance toward more mutuality and respect. In response to the marginalization of certain populations (e.g., people who are poor, homeless, or with disabilities), hospitality has been emphasized in drawing persons into community. In recent efforts to retrieve the traditions and practices of the ancient church, hospitality has been an important bridge between contemporary and ancient reflections on the Eucharist, shared meals, justice, inclusion, and responding to social and ethnic differences.
See also Aliens, Immigration, and Refugees; Homelessness; Hospice; Imitation of Jesus; Koinonia
Bibliography
Greer, R. Broken Lights and Mended Lives: Theology and Common Life in the Early Church. Pennsylvania State University Press, 1986; Koenig, J. New Testament Hospitality: Partnership with Strangers as Promise and Mission. OBT 17. Fortress, 1985; Oden, A., ed. And You Welcomed Me: A Sourcebook on Hospitality in Early Christianity. Abingdon, 2001; Pohl, C. Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition. Eerdmans, 1999; Riddle, D. “Early Christian Hospitality.” JBL 57 (1938): 141-54; van Houten, C. The Alien in Israelite Law. JSOTSup 107. Sheffield Academic Press, 1991; Volf, M. Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation. Abingdon, 1996.
Christine D. Pohl
Many commentators have noted that the exhortations to wives and husbands, children and parents, and slaves and masters in Eph. 5:22-6:9 and Col. 3:18-4:1 not only are comparable in content but also are similar in form, and further that cognate materials are found in 1 Pet. 2:18-3:7 (see also 1 Tim. 2:8-15; 3:2-4; 6:1-2; Titus 2:9-10). Martin Dibelius first proposed that this type of ethical material should be understood as stemming from the ancient Greek “household codes” (Ger. Haustafeln)—rules concerning the management of a household in a patriarchal family—which continued to exist widely in the Greco-Roman world and were simply incorporated by the NT writers (see further Weidinger). That thesis, with further elaborations and some variations (particularly with regard to rationale), has since been espoused by many scholars.
The oldest example of such an ancient topos (conventional theme, topic, or form) appears in Aristotle’s Politics, a fourth-century BCE work on moral philosophy:
There are by nature various classes of rulers and ruled. For the free rules the slave, the male [rules] the female, and the man [rules] the child in a different way. All possess the various parts of the [human] soul, but they possess them in different ways. For the slave has not got the deliberative part at all; the female has it, but without full authority; while the child has it, but in an undeveloped form. (Pol. 1.1260a.9-14)
Aristotle’s identifications of those who “by nature” are to be considered “those who rule” vis-avis “those who are ruled” had a continuing influence on all Greco-Roman political, religious, and ethical thought, coming particularly to expression in the Stoic “duty codes” and the writings of the Hellenized Jewish philosopher-theologian Philo.
Scholars have taken diametrically opposed positions with respect to the parallels between Greco-Roman household codes and NT exhortations regarding family relations. Many have argued for a direct genealogical relationship and further have claimed that the appearance of such household codes in the NT indicates a departure among early believers in Jesus from a dependence on the Spirit’s guidance in favor of a regulated (possibly an institutionalized and/or even a secular) form of church governance. Others have insisted that the parallels between the household codes of antiquity and the family-related statements of the NT are not very close and so may be discounted.
However, parallels need not always be viewed as genealogical in nature but rather may be understood as simply analogical in nature—that is, as resemblances in certain particulars between things otherwise unlike, with those resemblances often stemming from similar situations. Although the NT writers (particularly Paul) may have known of existing Greco-Roman household codes, experienced the same situations addressed by these pagan codes, and used the forms of those codes in speaking to the same family situations, the NT exhortations regarding wives/husbands, children/ parents, and slaves/masters would then be seen as more analogical in nature than strictly genealogical and as more distinctly Christian than pagan.
Important to note in the NT exhortations regarding relations between members in a Christian family are at least three significant matters. First, all NT exhortations are based on how the addressees have experienced the new spiritual reality of being “in Christ” and in the “body of Christ”—themes of great importance in the NT, particularly in Ephesians and Colossians—and not on the dictates of “nature” (as in paganism) or certain principles that may be derived from God’s creation (as in Judaism). Second, the exhortations of Eph. 5:22-6:9 are introduced by the words of 5:21: “Submit [participle of the verb hypotasso] to one another out of reverence for Christ,” with the verb “submit” not restated in 5:22 (though carried over from 5:21), which suggests that in a Christian family there is to be some type of personal submission of all the members to one another. Third, whereas in the Greco-Roman household codes the privileges of “ruling” were granted to husbands, parents, and masters and the responsibilities of “submitting” and “obeying” were assigned to wives, children, and slaves, in the family exhortations of the NT there appears a large measure of “mutuality” (i.e., a sharing of status, responsibilities, and sentiments) between wives and husbands, children and parents, and slaves and masters, with both parties in each of the three sets being exhorted to do what is right “in the Lord” on behalf of the other. Together, these three distinctive features signal a very definite advance in NT ethics over every ethical system or series of exhortations that are based on “nature” or certain perceived orders in God’s creation.
See also Authority and Power; Children; Colossians; Ephesians; 1 Peter; Slavery; Submission and Subordination; 1-2 Timothy; Women, Status of
Bibliography
Balch, D. Let Wives Be Submissive: The Domestic Code in 1 Peter. SBLMS 26. Scholars Press, 1981, 1-20; Clarke, W. “Die Haustafeln.” Pages 157-60 in New Testament Problems: Essay, Reviews, Interpretations. London, 1929; Crouch, J. The Origin and Intention of the Colossian Haus-tafel. FRLANT 109. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1972; Di-belius, M. An die Kolosser, Epheser, an Philemon. 3rd ed. HNT 12. Tubingen, 1953 (see especially the excursus following Col. 4:1); MacDonald, M. The Pauline Churches: A Socio-Historical Study of Institutionalization in the Pauline and Deutero-Pauline Writings. SNTSMS 60. Cambridge University Press, 1988, 102-11; Verner, D. The Household of God: The Social World of the Pastoral Epistles. SBLDS 71. Scholars Press, 1983, 16-23; Weidinger, K. Die Haustafeln: Ein Stuck urchristlicher Paranese. UNT 14. Leipzig, 1928.
Richard N. Longenecker
Hubris See Pride Human Dignity See Humanity Human Experimentation See Bioethics Humanitarianism
This activist form of humanism derives from both a sense of duty to aid others and a claimed right to intervene in troubled situations to mitigate suffering. It is historically rooted in faith-based traditions of almsgiving, charity, philanthropy, generosity, and loving care for the neighbor in need—indeed, for the stranger and even the enemy. Monastic and diaconal centers and leaders have long been advocates for the poor, provided homes for orphans, and offered havens for the sick or handicapped, many trying to live out the implications of Jesus’ words, “Just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me” (Matt. 25:40).
In the New World, as Johan Neem has recently documented, eighteenth-century Puritans formed voluntary associations as parachurch “corporations” for education, missions, and medical care outside the direct control of the state. Further,
Gary Bass has gathered numerous reports of the role that “liberal” movements played in the nineteenth century to stop the bloodshed of ethnic conflicts or to aid the victims of natural disasters, gaining popular support by the increased impact of the press and populist celebrities with a cause. These influenced public opinion and developed the skills of citizens to form grassroots movements that shaped political policies and tax laws for nonprofit organizations.
The twentieth century saw the advent of world wars, hot and cold, which brought injury and displacement to millions. Humanitarian organizations multiplied and presented themselves as based on a religiously and politically neutral set of values that derive from “natural” human sympathy. Taking advantage of historic legal provisions in democratic states that allowed the easy incorporation of eleemosynary (motivated by mercy or pity) institutions and the new possibilities of working internationally, a fresh amalgam of motivations and values has taken massive organizational form in the contemporary world. In his work on the Red Cross, Jean Pictet identified “seven core principles” of genuine humanitarianism that are widely discussed: humanity (for all persons), impartiality (based on need, not status), neutrality (not taking sides in conflicts), independence (of any institution that may benefit), voluntary (noncoercive and nonprofit), unity (seeking cooperation), and universality (worldwide in reach).
Such ideals have mobilized a multitude of large rescue, relief, service, development, or advocacy organizations widely known today. These are based primarily in the West, usually organized in one country as a nongovernmental organization (NGO) that works internationally (e.g., Greenpeace, Medecins Sans Frontieres), attached to a religious body (Catholic World Relief, Church World Service), or as a self-consciously interfaith organization (Oxfam), even if they work with government programs (USAID), intergovernmental programs (UN High Commission for Refugees), or transnational corporations (Save the Children, CARE).
No one knows how many people are helped by these organizations, but surely it involves millions. And no one knows how many workers serve in these organizations, but at any given time it surely is in the tens of thousands. Few can challenge their moral commitment, dedication, or quality of service, but they have been challenged regarding their relationships to what many consider to be “nonhumanitarian” organizations— that is, political, military, economic, and resurgent religious institutions. A trenchant treatment of these issues can be found in the book Humani-tarianism in Question, key issues of which can be summarized.
Political Issues
Most humanitarian organizations seek to be apolitical in the sense that they do not seek governmental change. Yet, in some places it is impossible for NGOs seeking to meet the needs of the victims of floods (as in Myanmar) or famine (as in North Korea) or disease (as in Zimbabwe) to act freely. Such governments want the material goods that NGOs bring but also want to retain control of their distribution, in ways believed to reinforce tyrannical control and exacerbate the problems that the people face, or they refuse access. In some cases, the NGOs need protection from contending parties because the provision of food, medicine, and shelter is seen by one side or the other to be aiding the enemy or makes it seem that the NGOs are agents of that side. In other cases, the home governments of states from which the NGOs come have a political interest in the resources or policies of a country being served and seek to co-opt the NGOs, perhaps by supplying needed goods in return for priorities that fit with governmental interests.
Military Issues
The political issues sometimes overlap with overt military issues. The classic doctrines of just and unjust war, rooted in the Christian tradition and adopted in parts of international law, generally speak of the conditions that make it justifiable for a nation to resist unjust aggressors, but recent moral developments regarding human rights and genocide have prompted new thinking about the propriety of “humanitarian military intervention.” The cases of atrocities in Rwanda, where action was not taken; of Kosovo, where it was taken by a multinational force, NATO, that also took over humanitarian efforts; and of Iraq, where some arguments and efforts of this sort were tried through contracted corporations, have blurred the traditional lines of distinction.
Economic Issues
These appear first in raising the money for humanitarian organizations. Funding may come from governments or military organizations, as mentioned, from foundations that sometimes bend the purposes of the humanitarian group to the foundation’s priorities, or from mass voluntary giving, which requires large-scale fundraising from private donors, some percentage of which goes back into further fund-raising that both educates the public and limits the amount that goes to the needy. Economic issues also arise from the bureaucratization needed to run organizations of scale and thus the professionalization of staff. And they arise from the question of whether profit-oriented organizations can do a more efficient job of serving the needy and investing in the productive possibilities found among people in need and capitalizing on their need for jobs, goods, and services.
Religious Issues
It is a serious question whether humanistic conceptions of duty, right, and care can sustain these institutions over time in a global environment or whether political, military, and economic issues will absorb such efforts. The dreams of socialist humanism seem to have faded, and the capitalist view that a market economy would automatically generate a humane world of interdependent plenty seems to be tarnished. If these utopian humanisms are inaccurate, it is reasonable and biblical to assume that participation in efforts to help the neighbor in need will require a faith-based compassion, working with and among, but also in addition to, the common organizations of civilization.
See also Almsgiving; Benevolence; Compassion; Economic Ethics; Generosity; Hospitality; Neighbor, Neighbor Love; Political Ethics; Sanctity of Human Life; World Poverty, World Hunger
Bibliography
Barnett, M., and T. Weiss, eds. Humanitarianism in Question: Politics, Power, Ethics. Cornell University Press, 2008 (see especially the chapters by M. Barnett, C. Calhoun, and S. Hopgood); Bass, G. Freedom’s Battle: The Origins of Humanitarian Intervention. Knopf, 2008; Lyman, P., and P. Dorff, eds. Beyond Humanitarianism: What You Need to Know about Africa and Why It Matters. Council on Foreign Relations/Foreign Affairs, 2007; Neem, J. Creating a Nation of Joiners: Democracy and Civil Society in Early National Massachusetts. Harvard University Press, 2008; Pictet, J. The Fundamental Principles of the Red Cross. Henry Dunant Institute, 1979; Stackhouse, M., and P. Paris, eds. Religion and the Powers of the Common Life. Vol. 1 of God and Globalization. Continuum, 2000 (see especially the chapters by D. Shriver and W Schweiker).
Max L. Stackhouse
Overview
“Humanity” refers to the whole (including differences regarding language, ethnicity, nationality, gender, etc.) of those who are created human, and more figuratively the essence of that which is created human. In the first case, one can speak of “humanity” as the collective of humankind. In the second case, “humanity” refers to a shared nature or essence, which then warrants certain kinds of moral considerations (e.g., one can speak of “universal human rights” and, conversely, “crimes against humanity”). Any account of ethics directed toward particular ends (i.e., teleological ethics) will hold as critical definitions of “humanity,” since one’s understanding about what constitutes humanity will determine the specific ethical warrants required of, from, and about humanity. From Aristotle’s account of the virtues, through Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas, to natural-law theory, ethical deliberation involves continuity between doing and being, or living commensurate with one’s nature or essence. Due to the eschatological shape of Christian theology, the constitution of humanity and, hence, its ethical meaning require attention to both what humanity was created to be and to which end it is directed. For Christian ethics, then, denoting the ethical import of “humanity” requires a substantial review of biblical literature that begins with foundational accounts of the created nature of humanity and its articulation throughout the biblical narrative culminating in “the new humanity.” Even moral systems less reliant on teleological modes of argument still hold at their center notions of humanity. For example, the monumentally important eighteenth-century philosopher Immanuel Kant prioritized a specific conception of humanity within the duty-oriented, or deontological, structure of his ethics.
Scripture
In the OT, the Hebrew word adam can denote a particular human or humanity in the generic sense (e.g., Gen. 1:26; 2:7; 5:1, Isa. 52:14). The word adam is also used as the proper name for Adam (Gen. 4:1). Like the OT, in the NT “human” (Gk. anthropos, anthropinos) indicates what is characteristic of humanity in distinction from God (e.g., Acts 17:25; Rom. 3:5; 6:19; 1 Cor. 2:13; 9:8; Gal. 3:15; Phil. 2:7) and other creatures (e.g., Jas. 3:7; 2 Pet. 2:16; Rev. 9:7; 18:13).
The OT introduces humanity in its opening accounts of the origin of all things as God’s creation. In the first account (Gen. 1:1-2:3), God formed and filled the universe with an order characterized by the division of realms (heavens/earth, sky/wa-ters, land/sea) and their inhabitants (sun/moon, plants/trees, birds/aquatics, wild animals/creep-ing things). This order of harmonious difference extends finally to the creation of humanity, differentiated by male and female. As with the other living creatures, God blessed them, commanded them to “be fruitful and multiply,” and gave them vegetation for food. God distinguished humanity by making them in God’s own image and by giving them dominion over all other creatures. God declared all creation good and blessed the seventh day, on which he rested.
The second account (Gen. 2:4-25) focuses on the creation of humanity and its relation to the other realms and inhabitants of the earth. God formed the first human (Heb. adam) “from the dust of the ground [adamah]” with the “breath of life.” God placed this human in the garden of Eden, where he willed that vegetation grow and receive water from a river and tending from the human. God declared it “not good” for the human to be alone, so he formed animals and birds out of the ground and gave them to the human to name. God created a partner from the side of the human, who called the partner “woman” (’issa) and himself “man” (,is) (Gen. 2:23). The relationship between the two humans is oriented to the union of man and woman becoming one flesh (Gen. 2:24).
Together, these accounts reveal the place and purposes of humanity within creation, which are repeated and developed throughout Scripture: humans were made in the image of God, “a little lower than angels” (Ps. 8:5; Heb. 2:7), and were given dominion over the other creatures and the task of tending to God’s creation in partnership with other humans in order to foster harmonious relationships of delight and rest among God, humans, and the rest of creation (cf. Exod. 20; Lev. 25-26; Deut. 5; Heb. 4).
God’s purposes for humanity and all creation were distorted by Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, when they distrusted and disobeyed God, pridefully refusing to accept the limitations of their creatureliness by eating from the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 3). This fall of humanity perverted the harmonious difference of the created order, so that rather than honoring God and submitting to his will, humans usurp God’s role in seeking to possess divine knowledge independently; as a result, rather than cooperating with others in relationships of reciprocal love and service, individuals assert their own innocence and blame others; rather than stew-arding creation as God’s image-bearers for God’s glory, humans exploit creation for their own distorted ends. Finally, all humans face death, which God warned was the consequence of eating from the forbidden tree.
After the fall, human sin multiplied, resulting in violence, injustice, and suffering (Gen. 4-6). God was grieved by human wickedness and judged humanity to have fallen so far from his intention for them that God sought to remove humanity and all living creatures from the earth by causing a great flood. God’s judgment proved restorative when God looked favorably on Noah, who was “righteous and walked with God,” and God willed to preserve creation through him (Gen. 6-8). God promised to preserve the creation and so to maintain his plan to bring about his purposes for all of creation through humanity.
However, humanity persisted in their wickedness and attempted to live independently of God, evinced by the construction of the tower of Babel (Gen. 11). In response, God introduced a further distinction between humans beyond that of male and female: nations of people bound together by shared language and land. God set apart one nation beginning with the call of and promise to Abraham and Sarah to be his people through whom he would bless all nations (Gen. 12). Reminiscent of the creation of humanity in Eden, God’s call involves land and human fruitfulness, but this time God commands them to go into a land of their own, rather than the whole earth, and promises, rather than commands, the fruitfulness and multiplication of them and their descendants. As God chose Noah through whom to preserve all creation, so he chose Israel, the descendants of Abraham and Sarah, through whom he promised to “bless all nations” and to restore all creation to his initial purposes.
From this point forward in Scripture, until the NT Epistles, the fundamental distinction within humanity is that between Israel and the nations, eventually called “Jews” and “gentiles.” God delivered the Israelites from Egyptian bondage and confirmed God’s covenant with them (Exod. 13). God, through Moses, gave them the Torah as a charter specifying his relation to them as their only God and instructing them how to live as his people set apart to be a “priestly kingdom and a holy nation” and to serve as an example to all nations of true humanity characterized by “wisdom and discernment” (Exod. 19:6; Deut. 4:6). Israel was distinct insofar as God chose them to live in covenant relationship with him and enabled them to do so by providing the law’s instruction of the way of life to follow and that of death to avoid, as well as the means to achieve forgiveness for their sins (Deut. 30:19; Lev. 4-5).
Yet Israel remained fallen like all humanity, of whom the psalmist says that they do not “seek after God. They have all gone astray. . . . There is no one who does good” (Pss. 14:2-3; 53:1-3 [cf. Rom 3:10-12]). That humanity’s sin is a perversion of God’s good order for creation is indicated by the link between human sin and the barrenness of the land (Hosea, Habakkuk) and God’s punishment of Israel through exile from the land he had given to them and/or enslavement to foreign rulers (Neh. 9:16-37). Israel’s cycle of disobedience and return to the Lord parallels that of humanity’s fall and the goal of delight and rest in God toward which he purposed creation. Israel could not fully attain to this goal because, while their partial obedience to the law recovered their humanity to a degree, the law in itself could not transform the heart to bring about complete obedience, nor could it defeat death and so give life. Thus, Israel was hindered not only from within but also from without by powers of death that enslave and pervert his order (Job 2; Isa. 24:17). Despite the perversion of creation, humanity and the earth remained God’s good creation and a reflection of God’s glory (Isa. 6:3) toward which he had love and compassion.
God raised up prophets through whom he declared that he was “about to do a new thing” that would restore the created order by making rivers in the desert, wild animals to honor him, and God’s people to declare his praise (Isa. 43:19-21). God promised to make a new covenant with Israel, to “remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh” (Ezek. 11:19) and put the “law within them and . . . write it on their hearts” (Jer. 31:33).
The story of God’s restoration of creation through the chosen people of Israel culminates in the NT in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, Israel’s “Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Matt. 1:1). Jesus proclaimed, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news” (Mark 1:15). In his teaching and actions Jesus revealed the full meaning of the laws and institutions that God gave to the people Israel, and he demonstrated God’s intention to bring restoration to all of creation by fostering human community, healing the sick, and proclaiming the forgiveness of sin and the gift of eternal life in God’s kingdom of peace. Jesus revealed that Israel’s enemies are the enemies of all humanity, namely sin and death. According to the Gospels, he taught that no one could enter God’s kingdom without being born again of water and the Spirit (John 3:5), eating his flesh and drinking his blood (John 6:53), exceeding in righteousness (Matt. 5:20), doing the will of the Father (Matt. 7:21), and becoming like a child (Matt. 18:3).
The NT Epistles interpret J esus’ teaching in light of his death, resurrection, and ascension and his commission of the church in the power of the Holy Spirit. Paul speaks of Jesus as the one prefigured by Adam (Rom. 5), the last Adam (1 Cor. 15:45), and the new humanity (Eph. 2:14-16). Adam is regarded as the representative human, in whom all humanity participates by virtue of their own disobedience and eventual death. As a human, Jesus shared in the death of Adam; however, as the uniquely obedient and innocent human, Jesus did not share in Adam’s sin but rather became sin for the sake of humanity (2 Cor. 5:21). Jesus absorbed the powers of evil in his mortal body, such that they died in his death and he triumphed over them in his resurrection to new life (Col. 2:15), the first of God’s redeemed creation. Thus, Jesus is the last Adam—the last representative of humanity, whose resurrected life declares the ultimate defeat of death and evil and the gracious offer of God’s life-giving Spirit for participation in God’s new creation (2 Cor. 5:16-17).
In Jesus the consequences of the fall are undone: “In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor. 5:19), and “he died for all so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them” (2 Cor. 5:15 [cf. Rom 6:4]) and that they might “exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:17). Jesus has truly defeated sin and death, but this can be only a partial reality for humans. Until Jesus returns, raises the dead, and transforms mortal bodies into resurrection bodies, humans can only partially experience Jesus’ victory through participation in his resurrection body and the life of the Spirit (Rom. 8; 1 Cor. 15). This participation occurs through baptism into Jesus’ death and resurrection, whereby humans are born again through incorporation into the one body of Christ, which is the church.
The church is the “new humanity” of formerly opposed humans now reconciled in Christ (Eph. 2:15-16). Paul explains, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). The church participates in the new creation, where the distinctions between humans that are the result of the fall, including nations and slavery, are abolished. With respect to males and females, the created distinction remains, while the fallen opposition is removed. God’s intended order of harmonious difference is restored in the church, where males and females live in cooperative partnership and where each member is gifted by the Holy Spirit for the good of the whole (1 Cor. 12). The church is to function like a body in which all share a corporate life as “members of one another” with Christ as the head (Gal. 3:28; Eph. 4:25).
The church is sustained as Christ’s body through the Lord’s Supper, wherein the church partakes of the body and blood of Christ (1 Cor. 11:17-34). Paul instructs his churches to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 13:14 [cf. Gal. 3:27]) and so live in accord with their union with Christ, since
by baptism they “have stripped off the old human with its practices and have been clothed with the new human, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator” (Col. 3:9-10 [translation mine]). As Israel was called to be God’s holy people, so the church is called to be holy and blameless, set apart as an example of true humanity.
The Ethics of Humanity
Any mode of Christian ethics needs to be mindful of the biblical narrative in order to situate human action and existence in terms of how Scripture portrays the origins and destiny and goods and challenges related to the biblical depiction of humanity. Of course, interpreting Scripture in relationship to a consistent portrayal of humanity has itself involved controversy. Debates regarding the humanity of Jesus Christ have remained a constant over the church’s long existence. These efforts to delineate the relationship between Christ’s divinity and humanity and both in relation to a general conception of humanity hold important implications for all manner of practical ethical considerations, such as worship, the sacraments, martyrdom, the church’s relationship to the world, and many more. The creedal affirmation of Christ’s “full humanity” involves broad implications for how one might understand the moral expectations demanded of humanity, given the prevalence of sin in relation to Christ’s recapitulation of humanity as described by early patristic literature. Some have argued that the fall of humanity necessarily requires that Christian ethics take a “realistic” approach to moral possibilities (e.g., in the case of war and the likelihood of earthly justice). However, others have argued that the effects of sin on humanity can be mitigated through varying modes of divinization (classical Eastern Orthodoxy) or sanctification (Roman Catholicism and Methodism), such that the life and death of Jesus as embodied in the NT church as God’s new humanity demonstrate the generatively broad horizon of ethical possibility.
In recent years, definitions of humanity have played a role in almost every important ethical question. From global capitalism to artificial reproductive technology to “rights” language, Christian ethicists have leaned into various notions of humanity in order to postulate Christian postures toward various issues in contemporary Christian ethics. Because many approaches to Christian ethics rely on naturalist or essentialist modes of argumentation, the nature of humanity has proved to play a critical role within several highly contested and complex topics in Christianity ethics. For example, the question of human ontology (the study of essence, nature, or being) continues to hold a prominent role in questions related to the human fetus. One popular strategy has been to attach “humanity” to the fetus (i.e., to grant the fetus the ontological status of a human), which then anathematizes certain medical procedures (e.g., abortion, artificial reproductive technologies, stem-cell research), following the suggestion that humanity as such deserves respect and consideration. Even if one steers clear of essentializing arguments, one can adjudicate such issues depending on how one understands humanity. Even if one does not grant the fetus human ontological status, one could still problematize medical and technological interventions such as stem-cell research by arguing against the commodification of humanity. Yet conversely, one could just as likely argue for the moral avocation of stem-cell research by way of another kind of claim about humanity, that respecting the uniqueness of humanity in the created order warrants precisely the kinds of medical and technological interventions that stem-cell research represents.
Because “humanity” is featured so variously in the Bible, and because the theological tradition has proffered so wide an array of interpretations of those various iterations, depending on how one interprets Scripture, one will position oneself in relation to these complex issues. Also, as explicated by recent developments in hermeneutics, one’s position in relation to these complex issues determines one’s interpretation of Scripture on such issues. This latter point demonstrates the significant roles that communities and practices play in the formation of moral imaginations and habits. The rise of postmodern philosophy as the grid through which to develop approaches not only to contemporary moral concerns but also to ancient sources and texts (such as Scripture and historical interpretations of Scripture) has led to an emphasis on hermeneutic communities of discourse that inculcate individuals into various modes of reading Scripture and the tradition. With the idea that linguistic habits frame ethical deliberation and action, contemporary Christian ethics has placed heavy emphasis on the interrelation among liturgy, language, and moral law. In turn, this has meant recouping descriptions of humanity as necessarily theological and hence scriptural. Rather than a freestanding and even secular definition of “humanity,” the scriptural portrayal of the creation of humanity in the image of God locates Christian ethics as a discipline internal to the doxological life of the church.
See also Bioethics; Image of God; Sanctity of Human Life
Bibliography
Arendt, H. The Human Condition. University of Chicago Press, 1958; Hauerwas, S., and S. Wells, eds. The Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics. Blackwell, 2004,68—81; Lau-ritzen, P. “Report on the Ethics of Stem Cell Research.” http:// www.bioethics.georgetown.edu/pcbe/reports/stemcell /appendix_g.html; Shuman, J., and B. Volck. Reclaiming the Body: Christians and the Faithful Use of Modern Medicine. Brazos, 2006; Wright, N. T. The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology. Fortress, 1993; idem. Jesus and the Victory of God. Fortress, 1997; idem. The New Testament and the People of God. Fortress, 1992; idem. The Resurrection of the Son of God. Fortress, 2003.
Lindsay K. Cleveland and Jonathan Tran Human Nature See Humanity Human Rights
The notion of human rights is both simple and enormously complex; millions understand it well enough to claim that they have rights or that their rights have been violated, and yet scholars, lawyers, and presidents debate the meaning of human rights endlessly and without resolution. Indeed, a significant contingent, including some Christian scholars, doubt whether the idea makes any sense at all.
The core of the idea of human rights is the belief that simply by virtue of being human, persons must be treated in certain specific ways and must not be treated in certain specific ways by their fellow humans. Something inherent in and fundamental to the meaning of human existence requires a minimum standard of treatment (or existence) for all persons.
At one level, then, human rights as a concept prescribes moral or even legal obligations related to how human beings treat one another. If a person has a human right not to experience X (e.g., torture, abuse, restrictions on free speech), then all other appropriately positioned persons, including collectivities such as governments, are morally obligated to refrain from doing X to that person; indeed, they are morally obligated to act in such a way as to prevent X from being done to that person or any person. The term negative rights sometimes is used to describe those acts that people have a legitimate claim to not have inflicted upon them.
More expansively, if a person has a human right to experience Y (quality education, healthcare, rest, leisure), then all other appropriately positioned persons, including governments, are morally obligated to act in such a way as to ensure that Y is available to that person. Here human rights specify not just how people must or must not be treated, but more broadly describe the conditions in which they live or the experiences or benefits they must enjoy. These positive rights, often articulated in modern human-rights theories and treaties, are more difficult both to specify and to enforce. Some theorists emphasize negative rights over positive rights or to the exclusion of positive rights.
A dialectic of rights and duties characterizes human-rights theory. Any person who possesses a right can legitimately claim that all other persons possess a duty in relation to the protection or advance of that right. Thus, any elaborate moral or legal structure that acknowledges a range of human rights simultaneously acknowledges a range of moral and legal duties to see to the recognition and advance of those rights.
A hallmark of human-rights theory is its universality. Simply by virtue of being human, each and every person has human rights. Each right that I claim for myself is a right that I am simultaneously claiming for every other self. Each duty that I believe falls on all to recognize and advance my rights is a duty I place on myself to recognize and advance the rights of all others.
In this way, a commitment to human rights serves as a remarkable force for the recognition of human equality and the improvement of the lot of those whose lives are most miserable. For example, when the signers of the Declaration of Independence declared that everyone has “the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” they offered their words in a context in which only free white men of property had full political rights. Their “rights talk” exceeded their “rights practice,” but it set into motion a long historical process by which ever more previously disenfranchised groups claimed the rights long articulated by that document.
Rights claims are moral claims, but they often become legal claims as well. Human-rights theories assume that governments do not create rights but only recognize rights that are independent and prior to the existence of governments. People have rights by virtue of being human; governments are obligated to recognize those rights. Not only is it impermissible for governments to violate those rights but also governments must sanction those individuals and groups that do violate human rights. In most nations, as well as in international law, human rights are now recognized as properly enforceable by legal means where this is necessary. Legislatures pass laws specifying particular human rights as well as penalties for their violation. International tribunals, such as the International Criminal Court, seek to deter and to punish the gross violation of human rights by individuals, governments, and nations.
A final feature of human-rights theory is the notion of inalienability. This essentially means that certain human rights are so basic, so fundamental to human existence or human dignity, that they may under no circumstances be lost, given away, taken away, or forfeited. For example, if personal liberty from enslavement is an inalienable right, it means that persons can neither sell themselves nor be sold or owned by others under any circumstances. Yet some rights are indeed forfeitable. For example, a person’s freedom of movement can be forfeited if that person commits crimes that require imprisonment as punishment or to protect the community.
Biblical Considerations
Debate over the idea of human rights among Christian theologians and ethicists is partly rooted in the fact that no explicit theory of human rights is offered in Scripture. Biblical materials do, however, offer a wide range of resources that fit easily with the kind of human-rights commitments just outlined. In fact, it is not too much to claim that they are the ultimate foundation of such commitments. The fundamental biblical grounding for human rights is the worth of the human person before God, our creator, sustainer, and redeemer.
It is striking how often human-rights documents, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) or the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966), ground their specific human-rights claims in the “inherent dignity of the human person.” But they do not further elucidate the origins of this purported inherent dignity. It is a majestic claim lacking any warrant other than, as in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, its role in serving as “the foundation for freedom, justice, and peace in the world.” In other words, belief in the inherent dignity of the human person serves a critically important instrumental role in creating the conditions for a better world. We have to believe in human rights because the consequences of failing to do so, as with the Nazi regime in Germany in the last century, are so grotesque.
However, the fact that an idea has good consequences does not necessarily mean that one should believe it. Contemporary international and secular human-rights declarations seem to many religious observers to be drawing silently on borrowed theological capital. Some would go further and claim that belief in human rights is incoherent, at least apart from biblical revelation. The surest ground for belief in inherent human dignity is a transcendent one. Christians and Jews believe that human beings are of equal and immeasurable worth because of specific biblical claims, laws, and teachings about how human beings are to be viewed and treated, and because the broader biblical narrative paints a picture of God’s involvement with human beings that elevates the worth and value of the human person. The incarnation—in which God takes flesh in Jesus Christ, ministers to society’s outcasts, teaches the obligation of love and mercy to all, suffers at the hands of humans, and dies for our salvation—serves as the ultimate grounding of Christian belief in the sanctity, dignity, and rights of each and every human being.
Noting the difficulty or even incoherence of secular warrants for rights claims, the lack of an explicit theory of human rights in the Bible, and the late emergence of a well-developed theory of human rights in Western culture, some Christian thinkers have rejected the idea altogether as an Enlightenment fiction.
Biblically, a rejoinder to this rejection of human rights can be offered as above. Historically, recent studies have traced “human rights” language farther and farther back into Western history, well before the Enlightenment period. Baptists are especially proud to note that pre-Enlightenment (early seventeenth century) Baptist leaders such as Richard Overton made arguments for human rights based on Scripture and on their painful experiences of religious persecution—a reminder that religious liberty lies very near the core of most understandings of human rights.
Toward the Future
Today, a large number of Christian groups exist to advance human rights in areas such as national security, modern-day slavery, sex trafficking, prison reform, genocide, abortion, and women’s rights. They often find themselves in partnership with human-rights groups grounded in secular commitments or other religious faiths. Such partnerships offer a significant opportunity for holistic Christian moral witness and collaborating with others for the common good.
See also Baptist Ethics; Civil Rights; Humanity; Image of God; Incarnation; Natural Law; Natural Rights; Rights; Sanctity of Human Life; Social Contract
Bibliography
Claude, R., and B. Weston. Human Rights in the World Community: Issues and Action. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006; Donnelly, J. Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice. 2nd ed. Cornell University Press, 2002; Hayden, P. The Philosophy of Human Rights. Paragon House, 2001; Reed, E. The Ethics of Human Rights: Contested Doctrinal and Moral Issues. Baylor University Press, 2007; Wolterstorff, N. Justice: Rights and Wrongs. Princeton University Press, 2007.
David P. Gushee