<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head><meta name="charset" content="UTF-8"/><title></title><link rel="stylesheet" href="main.css" type="text/css"/> </head> <body><h3>Anglican Ethics and Moral Theology</h3> <p>The English Reformation formed Anglicanism as a distinct tradition. The English reformers in the sixteenth century—most notably, Thomas Cranmer, Nicholas Ridley, and Hugh Latimer, all of whom were martyred—sought a reformation along the lines of continental Protestant Reformers. Besides the destruction of altars and monastic communities and the rejection and separation from the Roman Catholic Church, they emphasized the primacy of Scripture, the reading of Scripture in the vernacular in public worship, and justification by faith.</p> <p>However, by the seventeenth century, the Church of England under Queen Elizabeth (1533-1603) saw a church that was both Catholic and Reformed. This was in part because the church was constituted by the people of England as both Catholic and Reformed rather than the church constituting the people as either Catholic or Reformed. Believing that a nation cannot endure and prosper without a common, established religion, Anglicanism emphasized common worship, tolerance of differing opinions, and increasingly dispersed authority. Dispersed authority, along with the elimination of mandatory, private confession and priestly absolution, meant an emphasis on individual conscience.</p> <p>There was, in turn, an emphasis on practical piety, on forming the self in Christian faith. The practices of Christian faith were understood as matters of religious duties toward God and moral duties toward the neighbor and toward the self. These were referred to as matters of religion, justice, and temperance, or as the petition in the general confession in the 1552 Book of Common Prayer says, “to live a godly, righteous, and sober life.”</p> <p>This emphasis on practical piety pervades Anglican thought. For example, Richard Hooker’s apology for the Church of England begins with God’s order in which we participate through Christ, stressing later the experience of grace in the sacrament of Holy Communion over particular beliefs about the nature of the sacrament (Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, book V, 1597). Jeremy Taylor (The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living, 1650; The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying, 1651) and William Law (A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, 1728), both notable influences on John Wesley (1703-91), speak of Christian faith as a way of life. Joseph Butler focuses on virtue (Fifteen Sermons Preached at Rolls Chapel, 1726). Fredrick Denison Maurice turns to piety as the experience of reconciliation (The Kingdom of Christ, 1838/1842). In the twentieth century, William Temple details Christian faith as self-offering (Christus Veritas, 1924), and Kenneth Kirk offers an account of Christian faith as the practices that lead to and from the vision of God (The Vision of God, 1931).</p> <p>For Anglicans, “Scripture contains all things necessary to salvation” (Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, article 6). But, as claimed by Richard Hooker, Scripture does not interpret itself: one must be “persuaded by other means that Scriptures are the oracles of God” (Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, book I.XIV1). For those who are persuaded, Scripture reveals the truth and way of salvation that come by Jesus Christ, including those things, such as the Trinity, which are not brought to full light without the use of reason. This reflects the broad realist tradition of most of Anglicanism. “They err,” Hooker says, “who think that of the will of God to do this or that there is no reason besides his will” (Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, book I.II.5). Anglican ethics and moral theology, in turn, are generally eudemonistic. In perceiving what is true, we act so as to become what we are meant to be and thereby achieve fulfillment, beatitude.</p> <p>These theological and philosophical convictions reflect what has come to be described as an incar-national and sacramental theology, drawing from the prologue of the Gospel of John: “In the beginning was the Word [logos, the order of things]. . . . And the Word became flesh and lived among us” (John 1:1, 14). Concern is given to establishing the order of things as made known and effected by Jesus Christ. As with Richard Hooker, emphasis is given to participation in the divine order; or, as the Orthodox say, emphasis is placed on theosis, Athanasius’s claim that “God became human that humans might become God” (Inc. 54.3).</p> <p>Anglican ethics and moral theology have developed primarily along two foci. First, grounded in appeals to nature and forms of natural law, ethics is concerned with the end of life and the right ordering of society as a whole. Such work is that of a moral theology or casuistry seeking to provide moral teaching and guidance. Second, ethics is concerned about sanctification and the development of a virtue ethic. Of particular interest has been understanding conscience and an as-cetical theology concerned with moral formation and sanctification as tied to spiritual disciplines. Within the Anglican tradition moral theology and ascetical theology are integrally related.</p> <p>Given the first focus on the end and ordering of life, Scripture has, in Anglican ethics, served as a revelation of our supernatural end and as a moral guide for our present life. A biblical story and a covenant theology are assumed from Genesis to Revelation. Moral commands, most notably the Ten Commandments, reinforced the moral law as given in nature. So the Ten Commandments have been at the heart of the Catechism of 1549 and the Book of Common Prayer (in all its editions). In terms of practical moral reasoning, Anglicans of the seventeenth century—the Caroline divines such as William Perkins, William Ames, Robert Sanderson, Joseph Hall, Jeremy Taylor, and Richard Baxter—developed a practical moral theology that combined the ascetical emphasis on sanctification and virtue with the examination of cases. Again, moral law was grounded in nature as well as given in divine commands found in Scripture. As casuists, these thinkers understood the need for adjudicating such commands or rules given the particular circumstances of cases. In fact, natural law assumptions of the day reflecting establishment views were taken for granted.</p> <p>Given the second focus on sanctification and virtue ethics, Jesus Christ is the great exemplar, the prototype for what it means to be human. For example, Jeremy Taylor’s most influential book in his own time was titled The Great Exemplar (1649). Drawing from the four Gospels, Taylor offers a spiritual reading of Scripture combining narrative, meditation, and prayer in order to focus the reader on the gracious work of God and on holy life as a life given in relationship to God. New Testament figures are icons that illumine the Christian life. From the faith of Mary to the wickedness of Herod, the character of this life is told in terms of Jesus’ life and teachings.</p> <p>Since F. D. Maurice and the rise of historical consciousness—from Charles Gore to archbishops William Temple and Michael Ramsey and the present archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams— Christ has more frequently been understood as revealing the end of life as communion with God and the shape of such a life as self-offering to God and neighbor (Ramsey, An Era in Anglican Theology: From Gore to Temple, 1960). Such an understanding was also the theological ground for Anglican social thought with its critique of laissez-faire capitalism, fascism, and nationalism and its proposals for a Christian society (M. B. Reckitt, Maurice to Temple, 1947). As a theology of the cross, the canon of Scripture that interprets the rest of Scripture has at its center the Gospels, especially the Gospel of John, followed by Phi-lippians and its kenotic understanding of Christ (Phil. 2:6-8). Scripture as read and understood in light of worship—given lectionary readings that are thematically tied to the liturgical year—offers the shape of the Christian life. As Anglican Dom Gregory Dix says, the shape of eucharistic worship is, like that of Christ, kenotic (The Shape of the Liturgy, 1948).</p> <p>In the twentieth century, Kenneth Kirk draws together moral theology and ascetical theology. Begun in his book Some Principles of Moral Theology and Their Application (1920), Kirk’s work concludes with the publication of his Bamp-ton Lectures in 1931 as The Vision of God. Contextualizing moral commands in Scripture, Kirk grounds the moral life in the experience of its end in the vision of God as revealed in Jesus. Again, with Philippians and the Gospel of John as the primary sources, Jesus is the great exemplar, the prototype of what it means to be human.</p> <p>The description of virtue and what is distinctive about Christian virtue grounded in the love of God could and did become removed from explicit reference to Scripture, as was the case with Butler’s Fifteen Sermons and the English moral philosophy tradition represented by John Locke and David Hume. But as evident in Butler’s more philosophical account of virtue and its grounding in the love of God (sermons 13 and 14), Scripture reveals the end of life and in Christ the character of such a life.</p> <p>Parallel and in contrast to such development was an evangelical theology and ethic, beginning with John Wesley. While sharing common features with the broader Anglican tradition—for example, the place of piety and worship and the social character and obligations of Christian faith—the scriptural Christianity of evangelical Anglicans differed in taking a more positivist reading of Scripture as the revelation of the divine will. Emphasizing justification by faith and conversion, in terms of ethics the evangelical tradition read Scripture as a set of divine commands. In personal matters they were quite conservative; in social matters they were more radical reformers. For example, they assumed understandings of marriage and the prohibition against divorce, but condemned the slave trade and worked for specific reforms to address the conditions of the working poor. Most notable among these thinkers was William Wilberforce, whose thought is expressed in his 1797 publication of A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians in the Higher and Middle Classes of This Country Contrasted with Real Christianity.</p> <p>Anglicanism remains a diverse tradition. This includes those dissenting from Anglican catholicity or comprehensiveness. Some evangelicals, for example, seek to complete the English Reformation along the lines of the continental Reformation. Some Anglo-Catholics, who seek a unity of faith and witness, share a common desire to establish more centralized authority. Each defines the breadth of Anglicanism as heterodox, in which truth is sacrificed to tolerance (which is then called comprehensiveness). In either case, there is fundamental disagreement about the truth of Scripture.</p> <p>In terms of Christian ethics and moral theology, the divide between “conservatives” and “liberals” within Anglicanism may be understood as grounded in the difference between a voluntarist view of Scripture as the revelation of the divine will and ethics as a matter of divine command and a view of Scripture as historically and culturally shaped yet revealing a divine purpose and in Christ the character or virtues necessary for participation in the divine life. This is especially true in the highly contested area of human sexual ethics. On the one hand, Anglicans continue to deploy biblical critical studies to contextualize moral judgments and to understand them in light of broader ends. On the other hand, other Anglicans identify the authority of Scripture with specific moral commands.</p> <p>The diversity of contemporary Anglican moral theology also includes reflection on Christian ethics in a postestablishment or postcolonial context. These include prophetic and countercultural accounts of Christian faith in relationship to culture and society. Still, predominantly—as with the nonviolent American theologian William String-fellow and the nonviolent liberation theology of South African Desmond Tutu—Scripture offers a revelation of the end of human life while Christ is the exemplar or prototype of participation in that life—hence a continued focus on sanctification and a virtue ethic.</p> <p>See also Casuistry; Divine Command Theories of Ethics; John; Natural Law; Philippians; Sanctification; Ten Commandments; Virtue Ethics</p> <p>Timothy F. Sedgwick</p><h3>Animals</h3> <p>Western European Enlightenment rationality of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries made a fundamental distinction between the mental and the physical. This distinction categorically distinguished humans, the only physical beings with mind/spirit, from animals and the rest of brute nature. Notably, this distinction was also used to deny full personhood to women and to some peoples who purportedly lacked full possession of the reasoning capacities that signaled possession of mind. In terms of ethical consideration, then, mainstream Enlightenment rationality was decidedly androcentric, Eurocentric, and anthropocentric.</p> <p>During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Western rationality’s racism and sexism was largely recognized, and ongoing critique was initiated. But predominant Western rationality into the twenty-first century remains unwittingly anthropocentric. Consider, for instance, the category “animals.” While in biology class humans are commonly categorized as animals, in common ethical, religious, and popular discourse “animals” is not understood to include humans. In accord with this predominant expectation, for instance, one would not expect to encounter theological anthropology under this entry for “animals.” Indeed, in popular speech “animal” remains a term of derision when applied to a person. Or consider how ordinarily talk about animal experimentation would not be expected to include discussion of experimentation on humans.</p> <p>Significantly, anthropocentrism even permeates modern Western environmentalism. The environment in question is typically the human environment. Animals are part of the environment and sometimes are even grouped with minerals, soil, and crops as resources to be preserved, managed, and sustainably harvested. Humans are not part of the environment. In accord with modern anthropocentric rationality, humans alone are thought to be above brute nature.</p> <p>In place of the classic scriptural nexus “Cre-ator/creatures/creation,” then, modern Western Christians think in terms of the categorically different nexus of “God/humans/animals/nature.” This fundamental shift in understanding decisively determines the very vocabularies and concepts out of which modern Westerners think. As a result, for instance, in the Adam and Eve creation narrative translators naturally translate a Hebrew word (nepes) as “living being” when they apply it to humans and translate the same Hebrew as “living creature” when they apply it to the birds and beasts (Gen. 2:7, 19).</p> <p>Within the parameters of this predominant modern Western conceptual framework, “things” such as animals disappear as subjects of direct divine and moral concern. Humans, as a categorically unique kind of being, are understood to be the sole proper subjects of direct divine and moral concern. “Nature,” a category that includes everything that is not human, has only indirect or instrumental value. That is, natural objects, including animals, are considered valuable only insofar as they are valuable for humans.</p> <p>In this fashion, anthropocentrism, not as a considered conclusion but as an unquestioned presumption, pervades mainstream modern rationality. To be sure, the way anthropomorphism plays to human pride and self-interest means that it has always influenced human reflection. In the wake of Enlightenment rationality, however, anthropocentrism gained unprecedented philosophical justification and began to exert unprecedented influence. Animals were simply rendered invisible as subjects of direct divine and moral concern as anthropocentrism was inscribed into modern Western rationality at a primordial level.</p> <p>Not surprisingly, modern ethical and biblical reflection—and this obtains across the theological spectrum—has been decisively shaped by modernity’s anthropocentrism. Consider, for instance, the account of Noah and the flood. In a recent work focused on biblical creation theology, one author, explaining the thematic significance of the actual shape of Hebrew narratives, points out that the central verses in Hebrew narratives are also often the thematic key to the story. Accordingly, Gen. 8:1, “God remembered Noah,” would be the pivot-point for the story of Noah. However, Gen. 8:1 actually says, “God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the domestic animals.”</p> <p>In the same way, it has long been standard to refer to “God’s covenant with Noah” or the “Noa-hic covenant.” Until recently, it was not thought significant or even noticed that the text repeatedly (six times in nine verses) specifies that God’s covenant is not only with Noah but also “with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark” (Gen. 9:10).</p> <p>Similarly, even as twentieth-century students of the OT were taught to attend to the significance of blessings, the blessing of the fishes and the birds in Gen. 1:22 and the call for land creatures to be fruitful and multiply in Gen. 8:17 typically were not really noticed. In the same vein, while the creation of humans in the image of God and the blessing of humans and the call for them to have dominion over the earth in Gen. 1:28 is surely one of the most famous passages of Scripture, the explicitly vegan giving of seeds and fruits exclusively for food to every creature with the “breath of life” in the very next verses (Gen. 1:29—30) receives scant notice.</p> <p>As Western Christians have begun to become conscious of modernity’s anthropocentrism, however, they have begun to notice God’s delight in and blessing of nonhuman creatures in the seven days of creation narrative. They have begun to notice that the creation that God declares “very good” is expressly vegan. They have begun to notice that God covenants with all creatures and even the earth in what many now call the “rainbow” or “earth” covenant. Christians are attending anew to texts such as Ps. 148, where all creatures, from sun to birds to young men, are called on to praise God. They are noticing the wholly peaceable character of famous eschatological passages such as Isa. 11:1-10, the so-called Peaceable Kingdom passage, where “the lion shall eat straw like the ox,” and no creature anywhere, whether human, domestic, or wild, will “hurt or destroy” on all God’s holy mountain.</p> <p>Conscious of modernity’s anthropocentrism, Christians are noticing Jesus’ background assertion that God attends to the death of each sparrow (Matt. 10:29). And they are noticing that Jesus rightly presumes that not even his theological opponents will dare to deny that it is good to break the Sabbath in order to rescue a sheep or an ox from a pit (Matt. 12:11; Luke 14:5). They are noticing that the “fire” of 2 Pet. 3:11-13 does not destroy the physical universe, loosing souls to be with God in some unearthly reality, but rather burns away all unrighteousness as it refines a “new heaven [i.e., a new sky] and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.”</p> <p>Examples revealing anthropocentric distortion of Scripture could easily be multiplied. But the clear effect of anthropocentrism vis-a-vis all these familiar texts is sufficient to make the problem evident. For as is now clear, modern Western philosophical, scientific, theological, ethical, and biblical understanding has been pervaded by an anthropocentrism that is alien to the Christian Scriptures. We must reevaluate not only Scripture and ethics but also theology, history, and worship in light of our newly found awareness that nonhuman creatures together with human creatures constitute a community of subjects of direct divine and moral concern.</p> <p>Insofar as all the theological disciplines have developed decisively in the modern West, rigorous reorientation in the wake of our recent and ongoing awakening to anthropocentrism is vital. The issues raised are diverse and complex. Clearly, the Christian Scriptures differentiate between humans and other creatures. But what exactly are the differences? And what are their ethical implications? How do our major translations and mainstream interpretations of Scripture need to change in order to correct for modern anthropocentrism? And what are the theological and ethical consequences of making such a correction? What in the patristic writings and those of the Reformers have we failed to notice or misinterpreted because we have been looking unawares through anthropocentric spectacles? How are we to consider the place and capacities of nonhuman creatures in relation to worship, salvation, or heaven? When, if ever, is it permissible to kill, eat, wear, or experiment on nonhuman creatures? Are there ethically significant distinctions to be drawn among nonhuman creatures? If so, what are the criteria? What are Christians to think ethically and spiritually about pets, zoos, wilderness areas, pesticides, transgenic organisms, the “creation” and patenting of life, extermination of invasive species, human-caused extinction events, and varieties of hunting?</p> <p>Anthropocentrism still reigns in early twenty-first-century scriptural interpretation, theology, and ethics. Nonanthropocentric focus on nonhuman creatures remains the purview of a small if fast-growing collection of scholars and advocates on the margins of mainstream theological discussion. But with ever-widening consciousness of the distorting influence of modern anthropocentrism, one can anticipate that the next few decades will see the emergence of significant areas of interpretive and ethical consensus about nonhuman creatures, as well as identification of edges of debate requiring ongoing research.</p> <p>Although nonanthropocentric interpretation of Scripture and ethics remains in its infancy, one can identify three broad currents of thought: (1) the “land ethic” or “deep ecology,” (2) “animal rights,” and (3) “animal theology.” The land ethic (c. 1948, Aldo Leopold) and deep ecology (c. 1972, Arne Naess) are biocentric and holistic. For Leopold, “a thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise” (Leopold 224-25). This move beyond anthropocentrism, which becomes self-conscious in deep ecology, de-emphasizes individual animals, human or otherwise, and focuses instead on the health of biosystems.</p> <p>Notably, this perspective may be reflected in Ps. 104. Nonetheless, it stands in tension with the vast majority of Scripture, which is overwhelmingly concerned with individual creatures. Christians will reject the position of a small minority of deep ecologists who refuse to distinguish ethically between amoebas and humans. Also, the land ethic and deep ecology should be distinguished from a metaphysical Darwinism (in contrast to a scientific Darwinism) that rejects moral ideals not consistent with biological realities, and that tends to invoke biological distinctions (e.g., capacity to reason, capacity for language) in the course of retaining modernity’s categorical anthropocentrism.</p> <p>Highly marginal nineteenth- and twentieth-century movements on behalf of animals rose to mainstream notice when Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation (1975) captured the public imagination and stimulated the late twentieth-century “animal rights” movement. Singer’s utilitarian argument turned upon the moral significance of animals’ capacity to suffer. His frank description of the suffering of animals at human hands stirred widespread indignation and spurred overt resistance to anthropocentric disregard for the well-being of nonhuman animals. Appropriating the most powerful moral and international legal vocabulary available, the movement established itself around an appeal to animal “rights.”</p> <p>A Christian version of animal rights quickly materialized with Andrew Linzey’s Animal Rights: A Christian Assessment (1976). The modern legal concept of “rights” is alien to Scripture, but globally it is a central ethical and legal category. Just as many Christians adopted the “rights” category on behalf of Christian ideals vis-a-vis humans, Linzey adopted the “rights” category vis-a-vis animals. By the 1990s, Linzey and other Christians had developed arguments using specifically scriptural and theological concepts, and as a result a variety of ethical positions predicated on “reverence for life,” “creature care,” and “love for all creatures” began to undergird Christian advocacy for “animal theology.”</p> <p>In contrast to biocentric perspectives, animal theology remains focused on individuals. In contrast to animal rights, animal theology is predicated on a nonanthropomorphic reading of Scripture and the Christian tradition. As illustrated above, the focus upon individual creatures and the inclusion of all creatures among a community of subjects who are loved by and worship God, and thus who are all subjects of direct divine and moral concern, is consistent with the mainstream of Scripture. However, scriptural, theological, and ethical debates over the precise contours of right regard for nonhuman creatures remain in their infancy. There is general agreement that anthropocentrism has distorted biblical interpretation, theology, and ethics, and that blatant mistreatment of nonhuman creatures is beyond the pale. But a mature, nonanthropocentric reading of Scripture and general consensus over right Christian response to a host of theological and ethical questions regarding nonhuman creatures are as yet the vital and still-to-be-realized product of this emerging sphere of scriptural, theological, and ethical reflection.</p> <p>See also Bioethics; Creation, Biblical Accounts of; Creation Ethics; Ecological Ethics; Humanity; Vegetarianism</p> <p>Bibliography</p> <p>Leopold, A. A Sand County Almanac. Oxford University Press, 1987; Linzey, A. Animal Gospel. Westminster John Knox, 2004; Linzey, A., and D. Yamamoto, eds. Animals on the Agenda: Questions about Animals for Theology and Ethics. University of Illinois Press, 1998; Pinches, C., and J. McDaniel, eds. Good News for Animals? Christian Approaches to Animal Well-Being. Wipf & Stock, 2008; Waldau, P, and K. Patton, eds. A Communion of Subjects: Animals in Religion, Science, and Ethics. Columbia University Press, 2006.</p> <p>William Greenway</p> <p>Annulment See Marriage and Divorce</p><h3>Antichrist</h3> <p>The term antichrist (Gk. antichristos) refers to the adversary of God and God’s aims who is expected to appear in the end times. The term derives from the combination of the noun Christos, which means “anointed one” or “messiah,” with the prefix anti, which means either “against” or “instead of.” In this case, both senses of the prefix are important because almost all the relevant literature portrays the antichrist as one who is “against Christ,” and some picture him also as a substitute for Christ. In the NT, the term appears only in 1-2 John (1 John 2:18 [2x], 22; 4:3; 2 John 7), but analogous figures appear in Rev. 13 (the beast from the sea), apocalyptic discourses in the Synoptic Gospels (e.g., false christs and false prophets in Mark 13:21-22), and 2 Thess. 2:1-3 (“the lawless one . . . destined for destruction”).</p> <p>The significance of the antichrist is tied to two traditions in Jewish and Christian thought: (1) the challenge of recognizing genuine agents from God, and (2) the crescendo of wickedness anticipated before God puts down the power of evil and actualizes his righteous aims in his kingdom.</p> <p>First, distinguishing between true and false prophecy has long been controversial. For example, in Deut. 18:21 this question is raised: “How can we tell that a message is not from the Lord?” (NET). According to Deuteronomy, the truth of a prophetic word depends on whether it happens. Passages in the NT likewise emphasize the need to distinguish God’s message from its counterfeits. In 1 John 4:1-3 the author warns that false prophets have gone out into the world. These people are false teachers who deny the Father and the Son (1 John 2:22) and refuse to accept that Jesus really came to earth as a human (1 John 4:2; cf. 2 John 7). Such people speak by “the spirit of the antichrist” (1 John 4:3) (see also Jer. 28:9; Mark 13:22; 1 Cor. 12:1-3). The issue persists in the early church, with the result that the Didache distinguishes between true and false prophets and apostles in terms of the doctrine they teach and the behaviors they practice, especially with regard to potential abuses of hospitality and money (Did. 11).</p> <p>Second, ancient Jewish writings anticipate increased wickedness on the earth, sometimes together with the rise of an evil tyrant in opposition to God, in preparation for the end. For example, the book of Daniel describes a mighty ruler who wages war against God’s holy ones (7:18-27), a king who will grow strong in power, cause fearful destruction, and destroy the powerful and the people of the holy ones (8:24). God must act against this ruler in order to break the power of evil and to establish his everlasting kingdom (7:27; 8:25). Similarly, in Mark’s account of Jesus’ warning about the end times, Jesus adds to his references to wars and earthquakes the coming of false prophets and false messiahs who will attempt to deceive the faithful through showy miracles and pronouncements. The most picturesque is Revelation’s description of the beast from the sea, presented as the antithesis of Christ, with his counterfeit crowns (13:1; cf. 19:12), blasphemous names (13:1; cf. 19:11, 13, 16), power and authority (which the beast receives from Satan [13:2], but Jesus has from God [12:5, 10]), and a mortal wound that has been healed (13:3; cf. 1:18; 5:6). Clearly, the beast from the sea is Satan’s agent of war against God’s people (see 12:17-13:18) and as such is presented as the negative image of Christ.</p> <p>Speculation about the antichrist continued in the early church. For example, in the Epistle of Barnabas, the beast of the fourth kingdom (Dan. 7:7-8) is the contemporary Roman Empire, identified with the increase in wickedness accompanying the last days (Barn. 4.1-5). Didache 16 anticipates the rise of false prophets together with a deceiver who will claim to be God’s Son. In agreement with 1-2 John, Polycarp wrote that the antichrist is the spirit of false teaching (Pol. Phil. 7). Both in the NT, then, and in the early church it was possible to speak of the antichrist (or antichrists, in the case of 1 John 2:18) in the present tense while at the same time holding to the belief that the end time would see the emergence of the antichrist in his fullness.</p> <p>See also Eschatology and Ethics; Revelation, Book of Bibliography</p> <p>Lietaert Peerbolte, L. The Antecedents of Antichrist: A Traditio-Historical Study of the Earliest Christian Views on Eschatological Opponents. SJSJ 49. Brill, 1996; McGinn, B. Antichrist: Two Thousand Years of the Human Fascination with Evil. HarperSanFrancisco, 1994.</p> <p>Joel B. Green</p><h3>Antinomianism</h3> <p>Antinomianism is an approach to Christian ethics that rejects behavioral standards of any sort as instances of a fixed and inflexible legalism. An-tinomian practice maintains that Christians live without reference to norms as recipients of the free grace of God.</p> <p>One can find teaching against antinomianism in the OT (e.g., Isa. 5:7, 13, 24-25; Hos. 4:6; 8:12; Mal. 2:7-8), and it is possible that the Epistle of Jude counters an early Christian antinomian-ism that is a distortion of Paul’s understanding of freedom and grace (see vv. 4, 8, 16, 23). More discussion about antinomianism is focused on Matthew’s approach to the law. Although some have speculated that Matthew’s polemics are directed against antinomians as well as rabbis, others are more skeptical and see in Matthew a new and demanding form of religious practice. Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount does not replace the law, but rather fills out its intention (e.g., Matt. 5:27-32).</p> <p>Paul’s approach to these issues is the focus of contemporary debate between two broad lines of interpretation. Traditional interpretation holds that Paul’s teaching is explicitly antinomian by opposing Spirit, gospel, and grace on the one hand, and law on the other. In this view, Paul attacks the law as the foundation of an unattainable system of works focused on self-achievement. Gaining in acceptance, however, is the idea that the traditional approach involves a mischaracterization of Judaism. Thus, a second group of interpreters maintains that grace was as central to the Judaism of Paul’s day as it was in Paul’s thought, and that both Judaism and Paul affirm that God’s people will be judged according to their deeds (e.g., Rom. 2:6-16; 1 Cor. 3:12-15; 11:27-34; 2 Cor. 5:9-10; Gal. 6:7). This view sees Paul’s opposition to the law as grounded not in human inability to obey God’s commands (cf. Phil. 3:6), but rather in his conviction that works of Torah no longer mediate the grace of God to a single ethnic group (Rom. 3:28-30).</p> <p>Today, the Christian’s relationship to the law is a matter of continuing concern. The church continues to struggle to balance law and grace in the life of the community while acknowledging the essential nature of the law and the OT for moral reflection in the NT. Whether citing or alluding to the law in ethical instruction (Matt. 5:17; Luke 4:3-12), describing believers as “fulfilling” the law by walking by the Spirit (Rom. 8:4), or urging believers to comport themselves with the “law of liberty” (Jas. 1:25), the NT rejects the idea that the faithful are free to ignore divine standards of behavior in the law.</p> <p>See also Law and Gospel; Legalism; Libertinism Bibliography</p> <p>Bassler, J. “Grace: Probing the Limits.” Int 57 (2003): 24—33; Charry, E. “The Grace of God and the Law of Christ.” Int 57 (2003): 34-44; Holloway, Z. “A Conceptual Foundation for Using the Mosaic Law in Christian Ethics—Part 2.” Chm 120 (2006): 213-30; Loubser, G. “Paul’s Ethic of Freedom: No Flash in the Galatians Pan.” Neot 39 (2005): 313-37; Rowston, D. “The Most Neglected Book in the New Testament.” NTS 21 (1975): 554-63; Westerholm, S. “Letter and Spirit: The Foundation of Pauline Ethics.” NTS 30 (1984): 229-48; Yeago, D. “Gnosticism, Antinomian-ism, and Reformation Theology.” ProEccl 2 (1993): 37-49.</p> <p>Love L. Sechrest</p><h3>Anti-Semitism</h3> <p>Anti-Semitism is hostility and/or prejudice against Jews and Judaism. Christian anti-Semitism, the specific topic of this entry, refers to the prejudice long held by Christians against Jews. The basis for this prejudice often is grounded in the NT, but a closer look at the Scriptures demonstrates the complexity of this issue both in antiquity and throughout history. Although the term itself implies discrimination against all Semites (Arabs and other Semitic-language-speaking peoples), it has been used exclusively in reference to Jews and Judaism.</p> <p>Confusion of Terms</p> <p>Although the term anti-Semitism would logically be a referent to hostility against any group of Semites, it is often and irregularly interchanged with the term anti-Judaism. The terms anti-Jewish and anti-Semitic are commonly used, though not uniformly. One common distinction associates “anti-Jewish” with the issue of Jews as a religious group and “anti-Semitic” with the issue of Jews as an ethnic group; however, inconsistent usage of this distinction has led to what Flannery calls “a semantical confusion that has often rendered rational discourse on the subject well nigh impossible” (Flannery 5). In the present article, the term anti-Semitism applies to all forms of anti-Judaism, but with the understanding that the term itself is more appropriately used only after its creation in the nineteenth century and only in reference to Jews and Judaism.</p> <p>Anti-Semitism and the New Testament</p> <p>One cannot read the NT without noting passages containing invective against the Jews and Judaism. The polemic ranges from subtle insult to stinging attack. Note, for example, Matt. 5:20: “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (cf. Matt. 23:34-36; 27:25); John 8:42-44: “Jesus said to them [the Jews], ‘If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now I am here. I did not come on my own, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot accept my word. You are from your Father the devil, and you choose to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him”; Acts 7:51-53: “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you are forever opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do. Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, and now you have become his betrayers and murderers. You are the ones that received the law as ordained by angels and yet you have not kept it” (see also, e.g., Rom. 10:4; 1 Thess. 2:14-16).</p> <p>Although these passages certainly demonstrate a clear hostility between early Jewish Christians and non-Christian Jews, it often is difficult to determine the degree to which such polemical language reflects an intramural or an extramural fight. It has become increasingly clear that early non-Christian Jews and Jewish Christians were engaged in disputes over what it meant to carry on the covenant traditions of the Jewish people. These quarrels are best viewed as being between rival siblings, each striving to define itself in a post-70 CE, post-Second Temple era, in which the only Jewish survivors are Pharisaic Jews (the precursors of rabbinic Judaism) and messianic Jews (the precursors of Christianity). So, if these and other similar NT passages do indeed reflect the kind of “in-house” conflict within first-century Judaism, why do they continue to be so problematic?</p> <p>The problem, simply stated, is that these texts have been anachronistically applied to Jews and Judaism throughout two thousand years of history. Although the first-century controversy between messianic and nonmessianic Jews may have been a Jewish in-house dispute, for centuries the passages have engendered Christian “anti-Jewish” or “anti-Semitic” attitudes and actions and have been called forth as a defense or justification for atrocities of all kinds against the Jewish people and Judaism. What began as an internal conflict became the seedbed for Christian “anti-Semitism” throughout the history of Christianity. From the damning preaching of Melito of Sardis in the second century and John Chrysostom’s “Eight Homilies against the Jews” in the fourth century, to the equally vicious condemnation by Martin Luther (“The Jews and Their Lies”) in the sixteenth century, to the unspeakable horrors of the Nazi regime, NT passages (such as those listed above) have fueled the fires of prejudice and outrage against the Jews for putting Jesus to death (hence deicide) and for rejecting Jesus as the Messiah (damnable disbelief from the perspective of many Christians). In turn, Christianity has been accused of being anti-Semitic in origin. Indeed, Rosemary Radford Ruether has called anti-Judaism the “left hand of Christology.” (For a concise review of the history of Christian anti-Semitism, see Saperstein.)</p> <p>An Ongoing Dilemma</p> <p>Recognition of the potential for harm inherent in these biblical passages has prompted biblical scholars to approach these texts in a variety of ways. Whereas pre-World War II biblical interpretation often promoted the idea of Christian supersession-ism (Christianity as the replacement and completion of Judaism), the post-Holocaust context had to come to grips with the way such texts had been used to foment Christian hatred and persecution of Jews, culminating in the complicity of so-called Christian peoples in the horrors of the Shoah (the Holocaust).</p> <p>Since the 1960s, however, various positive steps have been taken to address Christian anti-Semitism. In 1965 the Vatican II Council issued the historic document Nostra aetate (“In Our Time”), presenting important changes in the church’s official teaching on Jews and Judaism. Jews were no longer to be viewed as “Christ-killers,” and the Jewish religion was to be revered as an ongoing and living tradition. This was followed in 1974 by “Guidelines for Implementing Nostra Aetate,” in 1985 by “Correct Ways to Present Jews and Judaism in Preaching and Catechism,” and in 1998 by “We Remember the Shoah.” These moves by the Roman Catholic Church included Pope John Paul II’s historic visit to the Jewish synagogue in Rome (1986), where he referred to the Jewish people as “our elder brethren.” The World Council of Churches has also made efforts to address the problem of Christian anti-Semitism. This is apparent in its 1967 publication “The Church and the Jewish People” as well as its 1982 “Ecumenical Considerations on Jewish-Christian Dialogue.” The past thirty years have seen a number of statements from within Protestant Christianity as well. The United Methodist Church, Episcopal Church, Presbyterian Church USA, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, American Lutheran Church, and United Church of Christ have issued statements regarding the inappropriateness of using the polemical passages of the NT as justification for hostility against Jews and Judaism as well as calling into question the practice of Christian proselytizing of Jews.</p> <p>Although progress has been made in our reinterpretation of these texts, much work remains. In the world of the church, these texts too often continue to be ignored, thoughtlessly used, or explained away. Many Christians still consider Judaism to be incomplete and Christianity to be its fulfillment; too many Christians continue to stereotype Jews and Judaism as “Other,” an inferior “Other.” Clearly, these are unpleasant texts, but history has shown that we cannot afford to ignore them or dismiss them. In our increasingly pluralistic world, it is imperative that we wrestle not only with these “anti-Jewish” passages in the Christian canon but also with how they have been interpreted and misused. Only then can we begin to overcome a history of abuse. Contextual understandings of the NT writings within the formative period of early Jewish Christianity are imperative for all interpretations that seek to read these texts with responsibility and integrity.</p> <p>See also Religious Toleration; Supersessionism Bibliography</p> <p>Boys, M. Seeing Judaism Anew: Christianity’s Sacred Obligation. Rowman & Littlefield, 2005; Flannery, E. The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-Three Centuries of Antisemitism. Paulist Press, 1985; Fredriksen, P., and A. Reinhartz. Jesus, Judaism, and Christian Anti-Judaism: Reading the New Testament after the Holocaust. Westminster John Knox, 2002; Ruether, R. Faith and Fratricide: The Theological Roots of Anti-Semitism. Seabury, 1974; Saperstein, M. Moments of Crisis in Jewish-Christian Relations. SCM, 1989; Siker, J. Disinheriting the Jews: Abraham in Early Christian Controversy. Westminster John Knox, 1991.</p> <p>Judy Yates Siker</p><h3>Anxiety</h3> <p>The term anxiety can mean several things. It is an emotion closely related to fear, worry, and dread; a basic human physiological response characterized by increased autonomic system activity to situations that combine danger and uncertainty, or an existential condition that shapes basic human interactions with the world and God. Though interrelated, each use of the term is freighted with distinct connotations for Scripture and ethics.</p> <p>Anxiety as emotion is closely related to fear, but whereas fear is an emotional response to an identifiable danger, anxiety is a response to an unidentified threat or anticipated danger. Most expressions of this emotion (e.g., separation anxiety) are understandable responses to stressful situations and are likely to be evolutionary adaptations that, though uncomfortable, help those feeling the emotion to focus on the situation at hand, asking questions about both the situation and one’s ability to successfully cope with it. Some expressions of the emotion, however (e.g., performance anxiety), can be disabling. More than any other person, Sigmund Freud brought anxiety to the fore; his understanding of its relation to the unconscious continues to impact contemporary understandings of the emotion. A universal emotion, anxiety nevertheless exhibits cultural variations: in a highly formal society, anxieties about breaking etiquette may be pronounced, while in a highly conformist society, it may be anxieties about being different.</p> <p>The Scriptures usually encourage those feeling anxiety not to worry (explicitly in Matt. 6:25-34; Phil. 4:6; implicitly in Prov. 12:25), suggesting in these instances that anxiety is a manifestation of the human failure to trust in divine providence. There is, though, countertestimony to such encouragement in Scripture that recognizes either the mysteriousness of God’s governance (as in Job) or the importance of learning to fear God rather than feel anxiety (e.g., Ps. 2:11). Although Christian ethicists have talked about the valued role of the emotions, including anxiety and fear, in ordering a moral life since antiquity, the attention to emotion in moral reasoning receded after the Enlightenment and has only just come back into focus as the result of work by various feminists, classicists, neurobiologists, and others. One exception to this is the use of the “anxious bench” in American evangelicalism since the early nineteenth century—a place where those considering becoming Christian sat so that others could pray for them to reorder their lives. One contemporary concern of social ethicists is that Christians challenge the social structures that promote undue anxiety.</p> <p>Anxiety as a physiological response is closely connected to anxiety as an emotion but tends to be more positive about the possibilities for anxiety to stimulate moral action. According to behaviorists such as O. Hobart Mowrer, anxiety prepares us to deal with traumatic events before they occur. Since anxiety produces discomfort, we develop learned behaviors that help us either avoid or mitigate the impact of such events. Those behaviors may be premoral, but attention to this system provides insights into the early processes of moral development, as when children avoid dangerous or immoral behavior out of anxiety about possible consequences. Although anxiety as a physiological response helps order conventional moral life, Christians recognize that often they are called into anxiety-provoking situations—for example, practicing nonviolence at the risk of bodily suffering, reaching out to strangers or enemies at the risk of rejection, and generally refusing to live a life marked by the avoidance of suffering.</p> <p>Anxiety as an existential condition has had the clearest and most dramatic impact in Christian ethics, due largely to the influence of S0ren Kierkegaard, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Paul Tillich on twentieth-century Christian ethics. Kierkegaard not only foreshadowed the philosophical tradition of existentialism (as developed by Heidegger, Camus, Sartre, and others), which emphasizes angst in ethics, but also gave Niebuhr and Tillich a language for considering the complexities of the human condition. According to Niebuhr, the human ability to transcend the self gives an awareness of our own mortality; the tension between</p> <p>self-transcendence and finitude creates anxiety that should lead to creativity and trust but inevitably leads to sin. Tillich emphasized anxiety as an ontological (versus psychological) condition, the proper response to which is the courage to be. One of the seminal challenges to their approach, though, is to ask whether a Christian theological anthropology should be constructed around anxiety or gratitude.</p> <p>See also Emotion; Freedom; Moral Development Bibliography</p> <p>Freud, S. The Problem of Anxiety. Psychoanalytic Quarterly Press, 1963; Hiltner, S., and K. Menninger, eds. Constructive Aspects of Anxiety. Abingdon, 1963; Kierkegaard, S. The Concept of Dread. Princeton University Press, 1968; Niebuhr, R. Human Nature. Vol. 1 of The Nature and Destiny of Man. Westminster John Knox, 1996; Tillich, P. Reason and Revelation; Being and God. Vol. 1 of Systematic Theology. University of Chicago Press, 1973.</p> <p>Mark Douglas</p><h3>Apartheid</h3> <p>Today most people believe that apartheid—the idea of separate development of people in their racial groups—was a terrible doctrine, evil, oppressive, and certainly unchristian. However, hard though it may be for those outside South Africa to understand, apartheid was a scriptural doctrine taught by the Dutch Reformed Church and backed by its excellent faculties of biblical studies in major universities. The biblical basis for apartheid was set out in the report Human Relations and the South African Scene in the Light of Scripture (1976). This is a challenge to those involved in biblical ethics, since both those who argued for apartheid and those in the liberation struggle used similar methods of exegesis to justify their opposing positions. This can be demonstrated by a brief consideration of the four main subgenres of ethical material in the Bible.</p> <p>First, in terms of rules, the report interpreted God’s command to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen. 1:28) to include the separate diversity of peoples, as confirmed in Deut. 32:8-9 and Acts 17:26-27 with “the boundaries of their territories” (General Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church, Human Relations, 14-15). Also, commands form bidding the marriage of Israelites with other peoples were used to prohibit mixed marriages in South Africa under article 16 of the Immorality Act (General Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church, Human Relations, 93-99).</p> <p>Second, contrasting principles were derived from Gen. 1:28: “separate development” (God made us all different), as argued by the Dutch Reformed</p> <p>Church (Human Relations, 14-15), versus “unity” (God made us one in our diversity), as argued by the liberationists. Similarly, the Dutch Reformed Church’s treatment of Pentecost produced the principle of everyone hearing “God’s great deeds in our own language” (Acts 2:10). However, Bax (128-30) criticized the exegesis in the Dutch Reformed Church report and produced the opposite principle of the Spirit at Pentecost “breaking down the barriers that separate humanity.”</p> <p>Third, the first French Huguenot settlers applied the paradigmatic narrative of the exodus story from slavery to a land flowing with milk and honey to their experience of escaping from persecution in Europe to the riches of the Cape area such as the Franschhoek Valley. However, they also applied the conquest material from Joshua and Judges to justify their oppression and slavery of the native peoples. This was further reinforced by the Boers’ escape from the oppression of the British authorities in the Cape on the Great Trek culminating in their victory over twenty thousand Zulus at Blood River on December 16, 1838, subsequently kept as Covenant Day. However, the irony is that the same exodus paradigm lies at the heart of liberation theology and the black theology that influenced Desmond Tutu and Allan Boesak.</p> <p>Finally, the overall worldview of biblical theology was used by both sides. Thus, the Dutch Reformed Church viewed its understanding of “human relations in the light of scripture” as based upon the whole scheme of creation-fall-incarnation-redemption, while the liberationists argued exactly the same for their understanding.</p> <p>The fact that both sides could appeal to the same Scriptures using similar hermeneutical methods was a challenge at the time and remains so today. Despite the scriptural support for apartheid marshaled by the Dutch Reformed Church, the consequent oppression and bloodshed could not be justified. Thus, a decade later, its report Church and Society (1986) recognized that “the conviction has gradually grown that a forced separation and division of peoples cannot be considered a biblical imperative” (Dutch Reformed Church, Church and Society, 47). After the transition to majority democratic rule, Dominee Freek Swanep-oel from the Dutch Reformed Church admitted to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that “the church had erred seriously with the Biblical foundation of the forced segregation of people. . . . We have indeed taught our people wrongly with regard to apartheid as a Biblical instruction” (TRC Faith Communities Hearings, East London, November 17-19, 1997). Thus, the pro-apartheid exegesis serves as a warning that we must read the Scriptures within an inclusive community of interpretation where the voices of those most affected by any interpretation are properly heard. Only then can such oppression carried out under the supposed aegis of biblical justification be avoided in the future (see Burridge 347-409).</p> <p>See also Colonialism and Postcolonialism; Liberation-ist Ethics; Race; Racism</p> <p>Bibliography</p> <p>Bax, D. “The Bible and Apartheid, 2.” Pages 112-43 in Apartheid Is a Heresy, ed. J. de Gruchy and C. Villa Vicen-cio. Lutterworth, 1983; Burridge, R. Imitating Jesus: An Inclusive Approach to New Testament Ethics. Eerdmans, 2007; de Gruchy, J. The Church Struggle in South Africa: Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Edition. Fortress, 2005; General Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church. Church and Society: A Testimony of the Dutch Reformed Church. Dutch Reformed Church Publishers, 1986; idem. Human Relations and the South African Scene in the Light of Scripture. Dutch Reformed Church Publishers, 1976.</p> <p>Richard A. Burridge</p> <p>Apocryphal Books See Deuterocanonical/ Apocryphal Books</p><h3>Apostolic Fathers</h3> <p>The Apostolic Fathers is a collection of late first-to mid-second-century texts that form a bridge between the NT and patristic literature. Typically included are the following: a letter by the church at Rome (1 Clement), a letter by Polycarp of Smyrna (To the Philippians) and an account of his martyrdom (Martyrdom of Polycarp), seven letters by Ignatius of Antioch, an anonymous letter attributed to Barnabas, an apology to Diognetus, a homily (2 Clement), a manual of instruction (Didache), and collected visions and teachings (Shepherd of Hermas).</p> <p>Social ethics generally permeate these works. The NT directive to seek God’s kingdom seems particularly evident. In 2 Clement, Christians are exhorted toward mutual love (9.6) and righteousness (11.7). In Shepherd of Hermas, those who seek the seal of baptism must first be clothed</p> <p>in the twelve virtues and bear their names (Herm. Sim. 9.14-16). Several authors encourage the giving of alms and charity. Polycarp insists that alms deliver the giver from death (10.2), while the Di-dache urges charity for all who ask (1.5).</p> <p>More broadly, the Apostolic Fathers arises at a transitional moment as the church discards its Jewish roots for more Hellenistic moorings. Of primary concern is the question of what ethics might be for Christians as they separate from the customary moral doctrines of the synagogue.</p> <p>The authors of 1 Clement and the Didache take a conservative view, envisioning an ethic that continues to cling to conventional Jewish ideals. The letter of 1 Clement is written to correct a situation at Corinth in which younger elders have removed the established leadership of the church without due process. The author responds by offering Moses as a model by which leaders should execute their duties. The unique nature of this Jewish prophet serves as a key to how all Christians must live. There is nothing more divine than to live in order and harmony as is befitting God’s will in the manner of patience, humility, righteousness, and self-control. Though explicitly directed toward Corinth’s leadership, such attributes surface throughout the work as essential for the life of the larger community.</p> <p>The Didache embraces a parallel position, offering the Decalogue as a foundation for correct Christian living. Prohibitions against acts such as murder, adultery, and theft form the structure of a desirable community ideal. At the same time, the Didache integrates warnings against lesser transgressions in order to protect the faithful from even greater sins. Included here are cautions against worldly practices such as magic, sorcery, abortion, infanticide, astrology, and idolatry (1.1-6.2). These sins typify the “way of death” and find analogous warnings in Barn. 18-20. The Didache counsels Christians to walk in the “way of life” instead, attending to the wisdom that paves its path. The “two ways” is popular within late J udaism and Qumran (see 1QS 3.13-4.26), as well as elsewhere among early Christians (see Herm. Mand. 6.1-2.10).</p> <p>Other authors in this literature depart notably from any vision of ethics that depends on traditional Jewish norms, instead typically integrating elements of Hellenistic philosophy and instruction. The letters of Ignatius and the Epistle to Diognetus best illustrate this view.</p> <p>Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, writes seven letters to churches in Asia Minor and Italy as soldiers take him to martyrdom in Rome early in the second century. He fears unstable leadership, Christians who would return the church to Judaism, and the threat of Docetism. These concerns push him toward a three-tiered model of institutional leadership that features a central overseer (bishop) and a cadre of supporters (deacons and presbyters). Like 1 Clement and Hermas, both from Rome, Ignatius speaks of endurance, unity, and patience. He envisions church harmony to be an express result of compliance with the will of the bishop. The duty of Christians is to model their lives around the directives of God’s duly ordained leaders, who provide regulation through correct liturgical practice and appropriate theological confession. For Ignatius, an ethical lifestyle means an existence of obedience.</p> <p>The Epistle to Diognetus takes a more Stoic approach to Christian ethics. After indicating the various ways in which Christianity is superior to the foolish worship practices of Jews and the idolatry of pagans, the author argues that Christians live in the world much like a soul dwells within a body. They reside on earth, unseen, suffering wrong, loving those who hate them, and existing as immortal beings, appointed by God for the benefit of the mortal world (6.1-10). It is because they are citizens of another kingdom that believers in Christ quietly suffer injustice, become poor, and experience dishonor and slander. This concept ultimately became a foundation for Augustine’s The City of God and has influenced Christian views of ethics in the West.</p> <p>Between these extremes are several authors who combine Jewish and Hellenistic themes in their understanding of what it means to live an ethical lifestyle. The bishop Polycarp, for instance, is concerned for order and harmony within the church, much like his contemporary Ignatius and the author of 1 Clement. In contrast to the latter text, however, he hesitates to incorporate OT texts when arguing on behalf of righteousness as a key to being Christian. His warnings to avoid any temptation toward slander, greed, and false testimony (4.3) and his admonitions to be gentle, steadfast, and enduring in patience (12.2) largely reflect NT themes and ideals, which find distinctive parallel in the teachings of Ignatius. Polycarp may actually seek to avoid a close connection with Judaism because of open hostility between the synagogue and church in Smyrna. The author of the Martyrdom of Polycarp ultimately accuses the Jews there of instigating his death.</p> <p>Two other authors run beyond Ignatius and Polycarp in the use of OT texts in detailing an ethical lifestyle, though they make use of these materials in differing ways. The author of 2 Clement composes an entire homily based on Isa. 54. In reflection of the prophet’s words, Christians are encouraged to endure their suffering in patience with the hope of God’s future reward. They are warned to avoid adultery, slander, and jealousy; they are enticed to be self-controlled, merciful, and kind (4.2). As transients in the world, Christians must live a holy and righteous life in order to obtain God’s kingdom.</p> <p>The Epistle of Barnabas, however, once more lays claim to the figure of Moses as an ideal for those who would be faithful to God. Unlike 1 Clement, this author uses the prophet as a counterbalance to the faithlessness of the early Israelites. Whereas Moses acted with distinction in revealing the divine will for the chosen people, the Jews ultimately forsook their right to this covenant with God through their disobedience to the demands of that agreement. It is now for Christians to meet those same contractual demands in faith, thus to complete their true role as the people of God in a lifestyle of ethical piety.</p> <p>The ethical agenda of the Apostolic Fathers is both broad and inclusive, featuring the essentials of traditional Jewish values and incorporating the best of Hellenistic moral concerns. The mixture of these elements is inconsistent, however, hinting at the diverse ways in which early NT values would ultimately become fixed within later patristic ethical values.</p> <p>See also Almsgiving; Authority and Power; Didache; Martyrdom; Virtue(s)</p> <p>Bibliography</p> <p>Brandle, R. Die Ethik der Schrift an Diognet: Eine Wie-deraufnahme paulinischer und johanneischer Theologie am Ausgang des zweiten Jahrhunderts. ATANT 64. The-ologischer Verlag, 1975; Holmes, M., ed. and trans. The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations. 3rd ed. Baker Academic, 2007; Jefford, C. The Apostolic Fathers and the New Testament. Hendrickson, 2006, 73—106; McDonald, J. The Crucible of Christian Morality. RFCC. Routledge, 1998.</p> <p>Clayton N. Jefford</p><h3>Armaments See War</h3><h3>Ars Moriendi Tradition,</h3><h3>Use of Scripture in</h3> <p>The Ars Moriendi (“art of dying”) tradition is a genre of devotional literature written to help Christians face death faithfully. Although some writings on how to die well predate them (e.g., J ean Gerson’s De arte moriendi [c. 1408]), two anonymously written texts—Tractatus artis bene moriendi (c. 1415), and its abridged version, the Ars moriendi—are commonly recognized as the earliest works in the Christian Ars Moriendi tradition. Both enjoyed enormous popularity across Europe into the sixteenth century They reflected the belief that one’s disposition at death decisively determined one’s eternal fate, depicting the deathbed as a place where Satan tempts the dying to faithlessness, despair, impatience, pride, and avarice. The texts offer practical strategies for avoiding each temptation.</p> <p>The Tractatus makes little use of Scripture, drawing more heavily on liturgical texts and authorities such as Augustine and various popes.</p> <p>Even when it instructs readers to model their dying after Christ, the text makes no direct references to the Gospels, merely naming five actions of Christ on the cross to be imitated.</p> <p>Erasmus’s Preparing for Death (1533) is far superior to the medieval Ars moriendi. Its focus shifts from dispensing techniques for outwitting Satan toward highlighting the need to live virtuously throughout life in order to die well. Erasmus’s work is saturated with scriptural content; he draws especially on Pauline letters and other epistles to argue that trust in God’s mercy and faith in the saving power of Christ’s death and resurrection are the keys to sustaining hope in the face of death.</p> <p>Erasmus uses biblical narrative (e.g., Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane) much more effectively when calling upon Christians to imitate Jesus in dying. He also highlights many passages about forgiveness (e.g., Luke 15:11-32; 18:10-14) in order to inspire readers to express forgiveness (a crucial task for the dying) and to strengthen their hope in God’s mercy.</p> <p>During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, several distinguished theologians contributed to the Ars Moriendi tradition. Their use of Scripture varied widely, typically reflecting the theological commitments of each author. Thomas Lupset’s humanistic Way of Dying Well (1534) is devoid of scriptural references, reflecting his confidence in reason and natural law, whereas Thomas Be-con’s The Sicke Man’s Salve (1561) cites Scripture to support almost every point. A notable Roman Catholic work is Robert Bellarmine’s The Art of Dying Well (1619), which focuses primarily on the sacraments and the cultivation of virtue but draws heavily on Scripture to support this emphasis. Bel-larmine highlights Luke 12:35-37 as a reminder that death could come at any time, encouraging readers to prepare themselves to meet the Lord by living righteously. Texts stressing the relative unimportance of a world that is passing away (e.g., 1 Cor. 7:31; 2 Cor. 4:17-18) are also emphasized.</p> <p>Perhaps the most sustained instance of scripturally grounded reflection upon death in this genre is William Perkins’s A Salve for a Sicke Man (1595). Perkins considers the claim in Ecclesiastes that the day of death is better than the day of birth (Eccl. 7:1). Perkins proceeds systematically, considering whether death is natural or a punishment for sin, how death could be regarded as welcome when Jesus prayed to be spared from death (Luke 22:42), and many other questions. Perkins’s main conclusion is that the sting of death is sin (1 Cor. 15:56); Christians should lead lives of repentance and trust in God’s mercy in order to remove their fear of death.</p> <p>Holy Dying (1651) by Jeremy Taylor is notable for its seamless integration of Christian and classical sources. Taylor calls readers to follow the way of the cross if they would learn to live well and die well. Christians should avoid a life of ease and instead, “Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to dejection” (Jas. 4:9). Taylor asserts that those who fail to learn patience by enduring smaller hardships throughout life will find it nearly impossible to die well. He encourages readers to see suffering as a form of chastisement for sin; one endures suffering as a form of mortification of the flesh so that one’s spirit might ultimately be saved (1 Cor. 5:5).</p> <p>Taylor draws most heavily on Scripture in three sections on prayer and virtue. He says that one becomes patient by learning to trust that God hears the afflicted (Ps. 6:9) and shows mercy toward those who trust in the Lord (Pss. 17; 27; 31). The section on faithfulness draws more deeply from the NT, calling readers to believe in God’s promise of salvation through Jesus Christ and to be confident that all sinners have Jesus as their advocate before God (1 John 2:1-2). The section on charity returns to the psalms (especially Ps. 71), offering expressions of love for God while calling to mind God’s mercy.</p> <p>Taylor’s use of Scripture is emblematic of the way the Ars Moriendi tradition matured beyond its medieval roots. The tradition draws on a wide variety of texts that capture the central tenets and themes of Christian faith in order to make the case that only a lifetime’s pursuit of deep, vibrant faith can prepare one to die well.</p> <p>See also Aged, Aging; Death and Dying; Hospice; Suffering; Virtue(s)</p> <p>Bibliography</p> <p>Atkinson, D., ed. The English Ars Moriendi. Peter Lang, 1992; Beaty, N. The Craft of Dying: A Study in the Literary Tradition of the Ars Moriendi in England. Yale University Press, 1970; Eire, C. From Madrid to Purgatory: The Art and Craft of Dying in Sixteenth-Century Spain. Cambridge, 1995. Erasmus. “Preparing for Death.” Pages 389-450 in The Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 70, ed. J. O’Malley. University of Toronto Press, 1998; O’Connor, M. The Art of Dying Well: The Development of the Ars Moriendi. Columbia, 1942; Taylor, J. Holy Living and Holy Dying. Ed. P. Stanwood. Clarendon, 1989. Vogt, C. Patience, Compassion, Hope, and the Christian Art of Dying Well. Rowman & Littlefield, 2004.</p> <p>Christopher P. Vogt</p> <p>Artificial Insemination See Reproductive Technologies</p><h3>Artificial Intelligence</h3> <p>Artificial intelligence is the science and engineering of making “intelligent” machines. While the term is currently invoked at the interface of several fields, including computer science, nanotechnology, and robotics, it also enjoys a longer history as a theme in the world’s literature, mythology, and religious traditions (McCorduck). From the “golden robots” of Hephaestus to the golem stories in Jewish lore, from the dreams of Dr. Faustus to the cautionary tale of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, from the cinematic adventures of Buck Rogers to Stanley Kubrick’s darker vision in 2001: A Space Odyssey, the history of such musings provides a richer framework for assessing recent technical developments.</p> <p>On the one hand, the issues raised by the aims of computer science to create artificial intelligence touch on, and at times overlap with, religious questions concerning human responsibility and accountability raised by technology in its broadest sense: what theological vision informs our judgments about the appropriateness of human efforts to alter or transform nature? Two basic interpretive perspectives, both informed by Scripture, have emerged in the Christian tradition. The first, more literally conservative in its implications, stresses the essential giftedness of creation and cautions us against reducing it to merely instrumental status. The second framework, recently elaborated in the language of humans as “created co-creators” (e.g., Hefner; Peters), appears more dynamic and open-ended in its willingness to view human efforts to transform nature, including human nature, as an appropriate exercise of our creativity. The realm of artificial intelligence also finds some parallels with recent developments in synthetic biology, whose express aim is to engineer new forms of biological life “from the ground up” that have never existed before in evolutionary nature. On the other hand, the realm of artificial intelligence also poses novel issues, because recent efforts to replicate human intelligence challenge us to reflect anew about the status of homo sapiens as a distinct form of consciousness and agency in the world. Such reflections include both descriptive and prescriptive issues, which in turn require careful theological scrutiny.</p> <p>At the descriptive level, definitional questions continue to plague discussions. What do we mean by “intelligence” in the first place? Which functions or capacities are central to the way that intelligence is defined? Moreover, even if particular human capacities such as computation or memory retrieval can be mimicked in programmable machines, whether such functions can ever eventuate in an “awareness” that parallels human selfconsciousness remains a matter of deep dispute among philosophers of mind.</p> <p>From a scriptural perspective, questions about human uniqueness are centrally captured by a twofold emphasis in the Christian tradition: humans are made “in the image of God” and must be understood as unitary creatures comprising body, soul, and spirit. Both themes provide important correctives to certain tendencies at work in popular discussions of science, including artificial intelligence. The theme of imago Dei refers</p> <p>to our capacity to reason, but it also is tied to</p> <p>other attributes of God that we are meant to reflect: freedom, compassion, and covenantal love (hesed), and the capacity for relationship with others (Campbell). Any account of artificial intelligence that seeks to reduce or minimize the range of such human capacities in order to draw simplistic parallels between humans and machines will be deeply impoverished. The second theme, that of our unitary nature as creatures of body, soul, and spirit, suggests that any effort at thoroughgoing materialism will, of necessity, fail to honor the robust scriptural vision of our human nature and destiny as creatures who live the “already but not yet” character of the resurrection’s promise.</p> <p>See also Dualism, Anthropological; Humanity; Image of God; Monism, Anthropological</p> <p>Bibliography</p> <p>Campbell, C. “Cloning Human Beings: Religious Perspectives on Human Cloning.” Paper commissioned by the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (1997): http:// bioethics.georgetown.edu/nbac/pubs/cloning2/cc4.pdf; Hefner, P. The Human Factor: Evolution, Culture, and Religion. Augsburg Fortress, 1993; McCorduck, P. Machines Who Think: A Personal Inquiry into the History and Prospects of Artificial Intelligence. 2nd ed. A. K. Peters, 2004; Peters, T. Playing God? Genetic Determinism and Human Freedom. 2nd ed. Routledge, 2002.</p> <p>B. Andrew Lustig</p><h3>Asceticism</h3> <p>Asceticism is the programmatic use of suffering or self-denial for spiritual or moral growth. It may include abstinence (e.g., from food or sex), renunciation (e.g., of property, political power, marriage, or social contact), or the deliberate self-infliction of pain (e.g., self-flagellation or the application of noxious substances).</p> <p>Scripture and Tradition</p> <p>Scripture is not univocal on this matter, its voices ranging from the approving to the suspicious. Aside from the general fast commanded for the Day of Atonement (Lev. 16:29; 23:27), there is little in the way of divine commandment to fast (see, perhaps, Joel 1:13-15; 2:12-15), unless one sees the impact of the various Sabbath regulations as a kind of economic asceticism (Exod. 23:10-12; Lev. 25).</p> <p>More commonly, ascetic practices are narrated as voluntary and commendable. Fasting, the wearing of sackcloth, and the application of ashes are often associated with spiritual preparation (Matt. 4:2; Luke 4:2; Acts 13:3; 14:23), mourning (Gen. 37:34; 2 Sam. 1:12; 3:31-35; Esth. 4:3), petition (2 Sam. 12:16-23; Ezra 8:21; Neh. 1:14), penance (2 Kgs. 19:1; Jon. 3:5-8), or subservience (1 Kgs. 21:27; cf. political subservience in 1 Kgs. 20:31).</p> <p>Ascetic practices are also associated with vocation. Samson, Samuel, and John the Baptist are obliged to follow the (normally voluntary) ascetic practices of Nazirites (Judg. 13; 1 Sam. 1:11; Luke 1:15; cf. Num. 6). In the NT, following Christ is so strongly linked with suffering—political persecution, sacrificial sharing, and personal restraint— that one may argue that Christians have a general vocation of suffering, the cultivation of which through practices of self-denial is not unwarranted (e.g., Matt. 5:10-12; 10:38; 16:24; Luke 9:23; John 15:19-20; Acts 4:34-35; 5:41; Gal. 5:19-24; Phil. 1:29; 1 Thess. 5:5-7; 1 Tim. 3:2-3; Heb. 13:13; 1 Pet. 4:1-2).</p> <p>Accordingly, church history is replete with examples both of “heroic” self-denial and of a suspicion toward legalistic or immoderate asceticism. Ascetic practices are associated predominantly with the monastic tradition, beginning with the ascetic feats of the desert monastics (e.g., Anthony the Great, Simeon the Stylite), continuing with the Cenobitic monastic orders, most particularly among mystic theologians (e.g., Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Francis of Assisi) emphasizing the imitation of Christ’s passion.</p> <p>The prophetic tradition, however, includes fasting among those religious rites vitiated by economic injustice or religious insincerity (Isa. 1:10-17; 58:4-7; Jer. 14:12; Amos 5:21-24; Mic. 6:6-8; Zech. 7; cf. Jesus’ critique of the Pharisees in Matt. 23:23; Luke 18:11-13). Aside from a preparatory forty-day fast, Jesus’ public ministry is not characterized by asceticism; his apparent sociality (Matt. 11:19; Luke 7:34) and his followers’ lack of fasting (Mark 2:18 pars.) arouse controversy. The early church seems to have practiced fasting (Acts 13:3; 14:23) and other voluntary asceticism (Acts 21:20-26), but Paul urges those who adopt any kind of ascetic practice not to allow it to cause dissension (Rom. 14; 1 Cor. 7:5).</p> <p>Thomas Aquinas, similarly, insists that abstinence be practiced “with due regard” for the moral and physical health of the individual and the needs of the community (ST II-II, q. 146, a. 1), and</p> <p>Protestants have largely jettisoned the association of asceticism with vocation, eschewing mandatory celibacy and poverty for ordained clergy.</p> <p>Contemporary Situation</p> <p>Many moderns find themselves to be heirs of William James, who, in The Varieties of Religious Experience, approves of moderate practices of selfdenial as promoting a sort of healthy temperance and moral robustness yet regards with suspicion anything that does not observe “the golden mean.” Following James, many find themselves willing to acknowledge the medical and psychological benefits of moderate self-denial while still associating (what are seen as) extreme ascetic practices with psychological disorder.</p> <p>Political critiques of Western capitalism, however, suggest that our success in the acquisition of wealth, knowledge, and power has led to an inability to sympathize with those who are suffering. What we think of as “reasonable” comfort, on this read, has been too heavily influenced by habits of consumption and leisure. Self-denial becomes a means both of solidarity with those who have no choice whether to suffer and of retraining one’s understanding of “reasonable” freedom from suffering.</p> <p>Certainly, contemporary Christians can affirm wholeheartedly the medical, psychological, ecological, and moral benefits of disciplined self-denial. Yet the weight of Scripture and tradition suggests that Christians may need to be willing to imitate Christ in ways that are more threatening and unpalatable in a world that too easily strives for the dangerously comfortable.</p> <p>See also Celibacy; Continence; Food; Self-Denial; Temperance; Vegetarianism</p> <p>Bibliography</p> <p>Bynum, C. Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women. University of California Press, 1987; James, W. The Varieties of Religious Experience. Penguin Classics, 1983; Solle, D. Suffering. Augsburg Fortress, 1984.</p> <p>Sarah Conrad Sours Astrology See Divination and Magic Asylum See Aliens, Immigration, and Refugees</p> </body> </html>