“Quality of life” is a phrase used to designate the broadest measures of well-being of an individual or community. It may be used, for example, in the consideration of the impact that graffiti or a park or street lighting may have on neighborhood crime rates. Nevertheless, quality-of-life considerations are most often raised in the context of medical care (especially end-of-life care decisions), and that is the usage considered here.
Contemporary Situation
Quality-of-life considerations frequently are involved with decisions to forgo medical treatments that may prolong one’s life but risk rendering its quality unacceptable and with decisions to undergo medical treatments to enhance the quality of one’s life but risk either significantly diminishing the quality of life or shortening life itself. Medicine’s abilities to cure disease and to preserve life often are attended by risks, great or small, of some harm, great or small, that diminishes a person’s potential for full flourishing. Decisions about treatment have always posed such problems—even the ancients risked blindness to have their cataracts removed. Recent medical technologies, however, have pressed this question as sharply as possible: do efforts to prolong life sometimes force us into living a life of untenable suffering?
Recognizing that illness and health always involve a patient who is part of a complex web of social commitments, personal aspirations, and religious convictions, medical professionals have begun to include considerations of a patient’s social, psychological, financial, and spiritual well-being in their treatment decisions and care plans. Yet the growing inclusion of quality-of-life considerations in medical care decisions prompts both relief and concern. Where they are perceived as a change from a problematic tendency—medical professionals focusing on pathologies rather than patients, on strictly medical attributes of health absent psychological, social, and spiritual ones—quality-of-life considerations are welcomed as enhancing patient care, particularly when those considerations are congruent with respect for the autonomy of patients and with palliative care (so Beauchamp and Childress; Shuman). Medicine is oriented toward the health of the patient, and the richest possible understanding of health (including so-called quality-of-life measures) is to be welcomed as enhancing the practice of medicine.
Where such considerations intersect with life-or-death decisions, however, they seem to some to destabilize basic political and medical commitments to the innate value of life. The more negative the assessment of an individual’s quality of life, the less that life will appear to be worth preserving; thus, some worry that quality-of-life assessments are wrongly used to justify the selective nontreatment (or passive euthanasia) of disabled individuals and the abortion of “defective” fetuses. While there is anecdotal and sociological evidence for such practices (see Rapp; Verhey), a more serious concern is the absence in Western political theory of any robust commitment to the moral standing of the individual or to the protection of the vulnerable that might put a check on the tendency to devalue disabled life (so Reinders). A decision not to treat may be perfectly congruent with a vigorous respect for life, especially when it is the proposed treatment, rather than the continuation of life, that is judged onerous; nonetheless, the concern that certain deaths will become too readily accepted seems apt.
Scripture and Tradition
Scripture does not, of course, address the minutiae of medical care decisions with any specificity. But even the broader question of how to account for nonmedical factors when making medical care decisions has no obvious analogue in Scripture.
The Scriptures do evidence a profound concern for all aspects of human flourishing. Torah instructs the Israelites to care for their neighbors, particularly the vulnerable members of society, in every possible way: through basic economic justice (Exod. 23:9; Lev. 19:13, 35-36; Deut. 25:15),
through care for neighbors’ property in their stead (Exod. 22:5; 23:4-5), through restitution for negligence or wrongdoing (Exod. 22:1-14; Lev. 6:1-7; Num. 5:5-8), through addressing systemic poverty (Lev. 25), and through generous and effective aid to the needy (Exod. 25:25-27; Lev. 19:9-10). The prophetic tradition continues these concerns, setting Israel’s and Judah’s political misfortunes in the context of their practices of social injustice (see, e.g., Isa. 58; Amos 5:10-15; Mic. 2-3; 6-7).
Similarly, the healing ministries of Jesus and the early church testify to a holistic understanding of human health and well-being. The evangelists highlight the importance of the relief of human suffering—economic (Mark 10:21 pars.; Luke 16:19-31; Acts 2:44-45), social (Mark 2:15-17 pars.; Luke 15:11-32; 19:1-10), physical (Matt. 4:23; 9:22; 10:1; 15:32)—in the ministry of Jesus and the early church and are notably attentive to the relationship between these modes of suffering (cf. Mark 5:25-26 // Luke 8:43; Luke 13:16; 17:11-19; John 9). The impulse throughout the Christian tradition to improve the quality of human life through personal and institutional means (almsgiving, friendship, forgiveness and reconciliation, hospitals, schools, the rule of law) evidences an understanding of these Scriptures as exemplary and authoritative.
In Scripture, life and its flourishing are good gifts of God the creator and redeemer. Yet Scripture does not present life as an absolute good or a life utterly free from suffering as a worthy (much less possible) goal. While human life, in all its fullness, is to be protected and enjoyed, many things are to be preferred to a life free from suffering, and some are to be preferred to life itself. The crucial tension is between eternal life and earthly life (Mark 8:35-36 pars.), and the follower of Christ is instructed to forsake all manner of temporal wellbeing, including life itself, for the sake of eternal life (see, e.g., Matt. 10:28, 39; and the hyperbolic 5:29-30; 18:8-9; Luke 9:23; John 15:19-20; Acts 4:34-35; 5:41; 1 Cor. 5:1-5; Heb. 10:34; cf. Matthew’s emphasis on heavenly reward in 5:12; 6:1-6, 16-18; 10:41-42).
Yet to take these Scripture passages, or Paul’s effusive desire simply to “be with Christ” (Phil. 1:20-22), as warrant to hasten death, either one’s own or another’s, in the face of a reduced quality of life is to misunderstand them. Death is yet an evil; it is a conquered enemy, and it is to be preferred to apostasy or unrighteousness, but it has not become, as Francis of Assisi sees it, a “sister,” nor is it anywhere in Scripture to be preferred to a suffering life.
See also Abortion; Ars Moriendi Tradition, Use of Scripture in; Bioethics; Death and Dying; Euthanasia; Happiness; Sanctity of Human Life
Bibliography
Beauchamp, T., and J. Childress. Principles of Biomedical Ethics. 6th ed. Oxford University Press, 2009; Rapp, R. Testing Women, Testing the Fetus: The Social Impact of Amniocentesis in America. Routledge, 1999; Reinders, H. The Future of the Disabled in Liberal Society: An Ethical Analysis. Notre Dame University Press, 2000; Shuman, J. The Body of Compassion: Ethics, Medicine, and the Church. Westview Press, 1999; Verhey, A. “Jesus and the Neonates: The Death of Infant Doe.” Pages 345-58 in Reading the Bible in the Strange World of Medicine. Eerdmans, 2003.
Sarah Conrad Sours
Race is an arbitrary categorization that frequently classifies humans into groups according to genetic heritage. However, given that many scholars consider the idea of race as a biological reality to be unwarranted, race is now theorized as an anthropological construct. Certainly, racial delineations vary from culture to culture, and it is clear that definitions of race depend on social, cultural, geopolitical, and ideological criteria. Therefore, discussing race is difficult because of its multiple meanings, as well as the continued factor of racial prejudice and the extreme practices that result from it. Broadly, racial identification resides in visible characteristics such as skin pigmentation, facial features, and/or hair texture. However, race theory of this nature first took root only as recently as the conquest of the New World. When the English colonists first landed in North America, rather than describe the vastly differing indigenous populations that they encountered as different peoples, cultures, or tribes, they began to make categorizations according to skin color. While physical differences among people had been previously rarely referred to as a matter of great importance, now race emerged on a black/white scale.
The sociopolitical construction of the idea of race served as a precursor to an economic policy. Europeans were not always the world’s dominant power, and many Europeans were enslaved. In fact, white slavery facilitated the dualistic defining of race. Enslaved women from Eastern Europe became symbols of beauty, giving rise to the first claims of the supremacy of whiteness. As early as the late fifteenth century, the colonial conquests advanced the idea of white dominance, conflating “white” skin pigmentation with the presumed superiority of white political and economic power for arranging reality. With this thinking, the “enlightened” peoples of Europe colonized the “primitive” peoples of Africa, Asia, Australia, and the Americas, conveniently facilitating the removal of land from some and the forced displacement from land of others. Celebrating the Anglo-Saxons as embodying manliness, beauty, liberty, and individualism, English settlers slowly defined blacks as slaves and whites as free, establishing arbitrary legal and judicial definitions of race. The white race was linked to freedom, whereas blackness was tied to enslavement.
Additionally, the moral views and practices of the dominant group became the standard applied to all, and those who appeared not to share the standard were deemed lesser beings who could be subjected to bondage. Prejudice against slaves became racial prejudice against nonwhites, most intensely against blacks. Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, whiteness expanded as immigrants and their children actively attempted to situate themselves within the new nation as “true” Americans. Noteworthy is the emblematic identification of the Irish. First considered nonwhite, they eventually joined Jewish, Italian, Russian, and Polish immigrants to be categorized as fully white, a status unattainable for African Americans.
Although race is a social construction and difficult to define, people do in fact find it useful and use the idea of race both unconsciously and intentionally. Often race has been used interchangeably with ethnicity to describe identity Racial and ethnic identities are essential aspects
of individual and communal identity. Behavior
and ideological attitudes that form cultural traditions become available to persons through religious, familial, neighborhood, and education communities. These shared practices sustain racial identification. An individual acknowledges his or her identity as a racialized person through deliberate concurrence with particular concepts, attitudes, and behaviors. However, these better represent ethnic practices. Neither African Americans nor European Americans are a race in the anthropological sense. Each is a population group, highly mixed in racial stock and ancestry. Ethnic consciousness increasingly replaced notions of white racial difference as new biological sciences demonstrated the genetic similarities of all humans. Eliminating the biological distinctions reveals controlling social, economic, and political conditions that disproportionately privilege some and disadvantage others.
The concepts of race and ethnicity remain important means for critically understanding the breakdown in society resulting from assumptions that certain practices of goodness, wisdom, or integrity have become identified as the prerogative of one ethnic or racial group. The practices of those privileged as representative of what is deemed normative cultural or ethnic identity often have appeared invisible, and white males of European descent were taken as the de facto template for defining humanity. Flaws rooted in historical inequities and long-standing cultural stereotypes imply only certain human opinions, goals, or behaviors appropriately define humanity. Socially constructed standards, however, rendered any deviance as ontologically determined rather than chosen against valid, though alternative, priorities or assumptions. The assumption that racial identity establishes behavior ignores environmental, social, and cultural factors and holds that observable physical categorization provides a biological delineation of predetermined social and moral behavior traits. Consequently, racial labels function erroneously in society as predictors of ethical behavior and intellectual capacity.
In recent years, race theorists have focused on whiteness as a category of constructed identity, giving attention to the idea of a racialized identification for those of white ethnicity. This is an important development because it helps us understand in a far more comprehensive way racialized identification as more than ethnic identity. A survey of intellectual, cultural, social, and legal history explains notions of difference among people groups from ancient empires to the present. Ancient societies did not divide people according to physical features, relying instead on religion, status, class, and language. These societies enslaved others as a result of war or debt.
Only recently has a theological account of race entered the collective consideration. One aspect of the genesis of the modern problem of whiteness resides in the theopolitical wrestling of the Western world with the so-called Jewish question. In order to understand the modern problem of race, this position seeks a full account of modernity’s struggle to alienate itself from Jewish history, thereby integrating race, religion, and the discourse about the modern state. In this approach, theology is acknowledged as a contributor to the process by which humans came to be viewed as racial beings.
Rather than begin with the European encounter with Native Americans and Africans, new arguments contend that modernity’s racial imagination originated in the process by which Christianity was severed from its Jewish roots. Viewing Jews as an alien, inferior race, this reasoning likewise implied the natural supremacy of white European peoples and the corresponding superiority of Christianity over Judaism. A connection with Christianity was born of the success of the European conquests that generated an assumption that God ordained white domination. The association of whiteness and good continues to hold significant influence in contemporary imagination. A scriptural imagination prompts reconsideration of these “superstitions” of whiteness/blackness.
Arguments for a binary racial construction of reality have been attributed to biblical accounts such as the mark of Cain, the curse of Ham/ Canaan, and the table of nations (Gen. 4:1-16; 9:20-27; 10). In none do we explicitly find either a dehumanization of the other or the signification of physical difference as identification of position. Paradoxically, the mark of Cain is neither promised to his descendants nor an indicator of his oppression; it was a sign of his divinely protected status. In a scriptural epistemology, the ideological systems of knowledge constructed on race emerge as a result of a distortion of God’s intended design. From this vantage point, racial identification is an errant exhibition of sin defined as anthropocentric concentration; it is a divisive human creation that distorts God’s design of humanity created in the divine image. The suggestion of the biblical witness gives rise to the notion of one race of humanity. Since classifications of persons by color (categories of race) do not exist in the witness of the biblical narrative, it holds that they will not exist in the new creation. Too often, Christian identity is qualified by a racial or ethnic identifier, ignoring the claim that Christ’s death has restored the nature of all humankind to its identity as a facsimile of the Creator. This redemption provides the ability to move beyond the racial framework with a Christian theology of Israel grounded in the nonracial flesh of Jesus. Transcending the binary categories of blackness and whiteness, a scriptural imagination restores God’s covenantal relationship with the Jews as the anti-gnostic and nonracist canopy under which all true Christians should live. Race is fundamentally a theological issue, and eradication is a sign of God’s reconciling work in Christ.
See also Anti-Semitism; Apartheid; Civil Rights; Culture; Ethnic Identity, Ethnicity; Freedom; Humanity; Human Rights; Prejudice; Racism; Rights
Bibliography
Bantum, B. Redeeming Mulatto: A Theology of Race and Christian Hybridity. Baylor University Press, 2010; Carter, J. Race: A Theological Account. Oxford University Press, 2008; Gossett, T. Race: The History of an Idea in America. Schocken, 1965; Jacobson, M. Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race. Harvard University Press, 1998; Painter, N. The History of White People. W. W. Norton, 2010; Snowden, F., Jr. Before Color Prejudice: The Ancient View of Blacks. Harvard University Press, 1983.
Joy Jittaun Moore
Racism, the most destructive form of prejudice, dehumanizes those who are different. Some of the most violent expressions of racist violence have been perpetrated against blacks in South Africa and in the United States and elsewhere in the African diaspora, and against Jews in Nazi Germany. Racism is based on a biological notion of race, wherein there is an assumption that real or imagined physical, mental, and moral characteristics are transmitted genetically and are therefore permanent. Racism assumes the hierarchical ordering and rejection of other races and the ideas, customs, and practices associated with them. Studies in the United States show that racial attitudes toward blacks are more negative than attitudes toward Hispanics, Asians, legal and undocumented immigrants, and whites. They also reveal that minorities sometimes internalize the same biases as majority groups, thus having prowhite or antiminority bias even with respect to their own group (a phenomenon called “internalized racism”).
“Institutional racism” restricts the choices, rights, mobility, and access of other racial groups to needed social and material resources. Systemic racism considers the way that material, attitudes, emotions, habits, and practices are embedded in social institutions, including power imbalances, the accumulation of intergenerational wealth, and the long-term maintenance of major socioeconomic deficits for other races. Given the decline of explicitly demeaning language and symbols, “aversive racism” occurs when a subject feels or expresses discomfort, uneasiness, disgust, or fear in the presence of blacks or other racialized minorities or in discussing race issues. “Symbolic racism” blends antiblack feeling and traditional American moral values in a way that results in support for the racial status quo. Symbolic racism assumes that blacks and others violate the values of self-reliance, work ethic, obedience, and discipline and expresses resentment for “special favors” (e.g., affirmative action) and rejection of the idea that there is continuing discrimination in society. Proponents of this view maintain that by operating out of symbolic racism, privileged people are able to maintain prejudicial stereotypes that normalize their own cultural values and oppose social policies aimed at improving the status of underprivileged groups without having to feel as if they are racists. Opponents insist that this concept is unfair, that such traditional values constitute empirical goods that are inherently beneficial for society.
The Bible does have examples of nationalism and ethnocentrism that may be equivalent to racism, but there are other theological currents that forcefully counter it. The second creation account in Gen. 2:4-24 emphasizes the equality of all people, and Gen. 1:27 denies racial superiority, since all are created in God’s image, a conclusion that flies in the face of racial separation and homogeneous congregations. Although neither story specifically mentions race, some deduce a Middle Eastern ethnicity for the first humans from the setting in Mesopotamia, though modern genetics places the first humans in sub-Saharan Africa. The so-called curse of Ham (Gen. 9:18-27) is an example of a text that has been interpreted through a racist lens, used often in antebellum defenses of slavery and white supremacy. In the story, Ham, Noah’s son, sees his father’s genitals as Noah lies in a drunken stupor. When he wakes, Noah does not curse Ham, but curses Canaan, Ham’s son, to slavery. Racist interpretations extended this curse to all of the black peoples listed in the adjacent Table of Nations in Gen. 10, despite the lack of connections between these peoples and the Ca-naanites. The text is actually a curse against Ca-naanites as Israel’s perennial enemies, and while it may be true that the curse on Canaan is racist and legitimizes slavery of Canaanites, it is also true that there has never been a full-scale enslavement of Canaanites. Indeed, many hold that historically Israel emerged as a nation from within Canaan.
The historical writings in the OT have tendencies toward both the exclusion and inclusion of outsiders in Israel. Some maintain that the Deuter-onomistic History espouses a concern for religious purity from a relatively late date in Israel’s history, but other traditions counter the anti-Canaanite theme, as does a consideration of the ethnic formation and composition of Israel. To begin with, there is no more exclusivistic practice than the herem, the complete ethnic cleansing and annihilation commanded in Deut. 7:2. Although we cannot excuse or justify a practice that is so offensive to modern sensibilities, it is still important to note that the herem was not unique to Israel in the ancient Near East. In Scripture, the herem has a theological basis: destruction was not mandated for all enemies, only those who would lead the Israelites to worship of other gods (Deut. 20:10-18). Indeed, Scripture also sanctions death for Israelite cities that abandon God (Deut. 13:12-18). Many think that by the time the Deuteronomistic History was written, the different Canaanite peoples mentioned in the history had long since disappeared. Indeed, independent of controversies about dating these historical texts, even the “conquest” narrative in Joshua reflects the presence of numerous Canaanites still living in the land: Gibeonites (chaps. 9-10), Geshurites and Maacathites (13:13), Anakim (14:12), Jebusites (15:63), and Canaanites (16:10; 17:12; cf. Judg. 1).
Against this exclusivist tendency, we can note that Deuteronomy makes special provisions for “resident aliens” along with widows and orphans in a concern for social justice (Deut. 24:17-22; 14:28-29). Resident aliens (gari'm) have the same rights as citizens (16:9-12; 24:14-15) and may participate in the Passover when circumcised (Exod. 12:48), though foreigners who have not assimilated religiously (nokrim) are excluded. The blended Israel that celebrates Passover perhaps represents a partial fulfillment of the promise to Abraham (Gen. 12:3). Old Testament narratives about the formation and composition of Israel also counter the exclusivist tendency. The “mixed crowd” of Israelites that emerged from Egypt included Egyptians and other ethnic peoples (Exod. 12:38). Moreover, it is difficult to differentiate Israelites from Canaanites, especially considering the instances of foreigners who become joined to Israel in the narratives, such as Rahab (Josh. 2:10-14) and the Gibeonites (Josh. 9:3-27). Also, many individuals in David’s kingdom were non-Israelites, such as Uriah the Hittite (2 Sam. 23:29); David’s bodyguards, the Cherethites and Phele-thites (2 Sam. 15:13-18); the Cushite messenger in 2 Sam. 18:19-33; and Orna, a Jebusite from whom David purchased the land for the temple (2 Sam. 24; 1 Chr. 21).
Biblical passages about marriage in the OT also reflect both inclusive and exclusive tendencies. On the one hand, among the patriarchs, Judah and Simeon marry Canaanites, while Joseph marries an Egyptian. Numbers 12 provides an implicit sanction of intermarriage when it condemns Miriam and Aaron in their opposition to Moses’ marriage to a Cushite (i.e., Ethiopian). Some surmise that the opposition was principally in reaction to the wife’s skin color, since Miriam is afflicted with leprosy, a whitening skin disease, as a punishment (Num. 12:10-16), though others speculate that a power struggle was at issue. On the other hand, in order to prevent idolatry, Israel was forbidden from marrying Canaanites (Exod. 34:15-16; Deut. 7:1-4; Josh. 23:12; cf. Deut. 21:10-14). In addition, Ezra-Nehemiah expands the prohibition in Deut. 7 against marrying Canaanites by prohibiting marriage to any non-Israelites (Ezra 9-10; Neh. 13:25; cf. Mal. 2:10-16).
Many have taken note of the universalism in Isa. 2:2-4 (cf. Pss. 67; 86:9-10; 117:1-2; Isa. 19:19-25; 45:14; 49:6; 66:18-24; Mic. 4:1-3). Even more compelling, however, is the idealized image of shalom in Isa. 11:1-9, where creatures who are naturally predator and prey live in peace, an image that showcases the horizontal dimension of shalom as opposed to an almost exclusive focus on the vertical. Interpretations of references to Cushites in the prophetic literature have sometimes reflected racial bias. Earlier interpreters of Amos 9:7 see an unfavorable comparison between Israel and Cush; now interpreters see Cush as an example of a powerful nation that will ultimately belong to God. Jeremiah 13:23 does not reflect negatively on the skin color of Cushites, but rather only maintains that Israel’s sin has become an unchangeable part of its nature.
In the Gospels and Acts, most attention is focused on Luke-Acts, with its six Samaritan episodes (Luke 9:51-56; 10:25-37; 17:11-19; Acts 1:8; 8:4-25; 15:3), a concentration that is significant, given the traditional animosity between Israelites and Samaritans. Luke’s focus on Jesus’ ministry to outsiders and the mission to gentiles in Acts begins in Luke 2:31-32, where Simeon alludes to the universalism in Isa. 49, continues in Luke 3:23-4:30, wherein the genealogy emphasizes Jesus as a representative of all humanity, and is boldly proclaimed in Luke 4:18-19 with a quotation of Isa. 61. The parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) explicitly counters racism and ethnic prejudice, since the hero is a Samaritan who helps an injured man in contrast with the religious leaders who bypass him. Jesus shows that loving one’s neighbor transcends racial and cultural boundaries, and the episode challenges hatred and stereotypes of the “other,” illustrating that faithfulness to Jesus means taking action. Many interpret Pentecost in Acts 2 as a reversal of the Tower of Babel episode in Gen. 11:1-9, which explains the origins of languages and cultures as a consequence of sin, though others caution against this. The ambiguity may be seen in the fact that Peter’s appeal to Joel 2:31 (“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved”) occurs in a speech addressed to “men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem.” Other episodes in Acts point to the diversity of the early church: the apostles resolve the conflict over the feeding of the Hellenistic Jewish widows by adding Hellenistic leaders to oversee the activity (Acts 6:1-6); the Ethiopian eunuch is regarded as the first gentile convert among a people who live at the farthest reaches of the known world (Acts 8:26-39); through the conversion of Cornelius, a Roman centurion, Peter learns that God shows no partiality (Acts 10:34-35); and the presence of Simeon called Niger (Acts 13:1) suggests that the church at Antioch had multicultural members and leadership from the beginning (cf. Acts 11:19-20). In the Fourth Gospel, Jesus ignores gender, ethnic, and social boundaries in his encounter with a female Samaritan sinner (John 4:1-42). More strikingly, John 10:16 places great weight on the importance of the formation of a unified community that includes “other sheep that do not belong to this fold” in the context of the discourse on the good shepherd. Indeed, John 17:20-23 discusses the goal of Jesus’ mission as unity between God, Jesus, and his followers.
In the Pauline Epistles, Gal. 3:28 is the centerpiece of reflection on racism in the biblical materials (cf. Col. 3:1-11), which teaches that access to God is no longer through ethnic identity or adherence to law. The verse stresses unity in Christ beyond racial, gender, and socioeconomic stratification, not the obliteration of differences. Paul addresses the issue of diversity within unity in 1 Cor. 12:12-30, where the “body of Christ” metaphor illustrates the interdependence among the individual members of the body, a dynamic that may be applied to modern racial relations as well. Ephesians 2:11-22, possibly even more commonly cited than Gal. 3:28, develops Paul’s theology of race relations in Christ, attaching enormous significance to human fellowship in the work of Christ. While Eph. 2:11-12 is written from a Jewish perspective of “superiority over gentiles,” Eph. 2:14-15 depicts Jesus as the peacemaker who ends hostility and brings shalom in the new humanity. Here we see human relationships as the purpose of Christ’s incarnation and death; Jews and Greeks are united in order that the new humanity may then be presented to God for reconciliation.
See also Anti-Semitism; Apartheid; Discrimination; Ethnic Identity, Ethnicity; Humanity; Image of God; Prejudice; Race; Slavery
Bibliography
Bonilla-Silva, E. White Supremacy and Racism in the PostCivil Rights Era. Lynn Rienner, 2001; Byron, G. Symbolic Blackness and Ethnic Difference in Early Christian Literature. Routledge, 2002; DeYoung, C., et al., eds. United by Faith: The Multiracial Congregation as an Answer to the Problem of Race. Oxford University Press, 2003; Feagin, J. Systemic Racism: A Theory of Oppression. Routledge, 2006; Hays, J. From Every People and Nation: A Biblical Theology of Race. InterVarsity, 2003; Hodge, C. If Sons, Then Heirs: A Study of Kinship and Ethnicity in the Letters of Paul. Oxford University Press, 2007; Isaac, B. The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity. Princeton University Press, 2004; Jones, J. Prejudice and Racism. 2nd ed. McGraw-Hill, 1997; McKenzie, S. All God’s Children: A Biblical Critique of Racism. Westminster John Knox, 1997; Rodriguez, R. Racism and God-Talk: A Latino/a Perspective. New York University Press, 2008; Sadler, R. Can a Cushite Change His Skin? An Examination of Race, Ethnicity, and Othering in the Hebrew Bible. T&T Clark, 2005; Sechrest, L. A Former Jew: Paul and the Dialectics of Race. T&T Clark, 2009; Sharp, D. No Partiality: The Idolatry of Race and the New Humanity. InterVarsity, 2002; Snowden, F. Before Color Prejudice: The Ancient View of Blacks. Harvard University Press, 1983.
Love L. Sechrest
Rape is commonly understood as an act of sexual violence in which one person forces another to have sexual intercourse. Modern definitions of rape emphasize the female victim’s lack of consent. By contrast, rape in the biblical world and the ancient Near East assumes an androcentric and group-oriented perspective. It is understood primarily as a crime against another male or group of males related to the victim. The woman’s consent does play a critical role, however, in determining the extent of the offense and the subsequent punishment of the perpetrator.
The primary sources for understanding rape in the biblical world come from legal and narrative materials in the OT. Scholars identify Deut. 22:2527, 28-29 as rape laws. There are also three biblical narratives that depict rape: Gen. 34; Judg. 19; 2 Sam. 13. Scholars sometimes have included other texts such as 2 Sam. 11:2-5 (David and Bathsheba) or prophetic texts such as Hos. 2:2-3 within their discussion of rape in the Bible. However, the Deu-teronomic laws and three biblical rape narratives use vocabulary and describe dynamics that unambiguously identify these passages as rape texts.
In Hebrew, the verb for rape is Inna, which has the broader meaning of “oppress” or “commit violence against.” In the context of sexual relations, the word is used in combination with other verbs of force to describe the act of rape. Within the three narrative texts, the narrator and characters use the word nebala, meaning “disgraceful thing,” to make judgments on the perpetrator and the rape itself. This term connotes a serious breach of social mores and boundaries and occurs primarily within the idiom “to do a disgraceful thing in Israel” (Gen. 34:7; Judg. 20:6; 2 Sam. 13:12).
Deuteronomy 22 contains legislation that deals with various forms of sexual contact, including adultery and rape. Within these laws, a woman’s marital status—married, engaged, or not en-gaged—is a determining factor in understanding the nature of the crime and the extent of the punishment. If a man has sexual relations with a woman who is married or engaged, the offense is handled as adultery, regardless of whether the man raped the woman. The punishment for the offending male is death. The woman is also put to death if she consented to the sexual encounter in question. In the case of rape, the woman is not punished (v. 26). Similar to other laws in the ancient Near East, a woman’s consent is tied to whether she cries out for help. The context of the sexual encounter also determines female consent. If the act occurs in a town and the woman does not cry out, the offense is considered to be consensual, presumably because someone would have heard a woman’s cries if she had resisted (v. 23). If, however, the crime occurs in the open country, the woman is innocent, since she might have cried out with no
one to hear her (v. 27). In a case where a man rapes
an unbetrothed woman, he is required to pay the bride price to the woman’s father because the offense is considered to be a financial loss for the father. The perpetrator is required to marry the woman without the possibility of divorce (v. 29). Though by modern standards this penalty is problematic for the woman, the law seeks to protect the female victim’s financial future.
There are three rape narratives in the OT: Shechem’s rape of Dinah, daughter of Jacob (Gen. 34), a violent mob’s gang rape of an unnamed concubine in Gibeah (Judg. 19), and the rape of Tamar, daughter of David, by her halfbrother, Amnon (2 Sam. 13). In each of these stories the progression of events moves from the initial rape of the woman to escalating violence among men to some form of social fragmentation. The shared progression points to cultural configurations of rape within honor/shame societies. The use of the term nebula (“disgraceful act”) in all three rape narratives points to the shame-inducing character of the offense in biblical culture. The offended males and their larger social groups respond to the act of rape as a challenge to their honor. Thus, the initial offense of rape escalates into retributive cycles of violence among men.
The resulting social fragmentation subtly leads the reader of these narratives to pass negative judgment on the subsequent male responses to rape.
See also Abortion; Abuse; Feminist Ethics; Sexual Abuse; Violence
Bibliography
Pressler, C. The View of Women Found in the Deutero-nomic Family Laws. bZaW 216. De Gruyter, 1993; Ya-mada, F. Configurations of Rape in the Hebrew Bible: A Literary Analysis of Three Rape Narratives. SBL 109. Peter Lang, 2008.
Frank Yamada
Reconciliation is in the apostle Paul’s proclamation at the very heart of the Christian gospel, rooted as it is in (1) God’s love and purpose, (2) Christ’s ministry and death, and (3) what appear to be the earliest Christian confessions.
The Language of Reconciliation
The Greek verbs katallasso and diallasso (“to reconcile”) and the Greek noun katallage (“reconciliation”) are compound forms built on the verb allassO (“to alter, change”) and the noun allos (“other”), and so they basically mean “to make otherwise” and connote “a change of relationship or situation.” They appear frequently in Greek writings to signify a change of circumstances or relationships in the political, social, familial, and/or moral spheres of life. However, they played no part in the cultic expiatory rites of the Greco-Roman world and are almost entirely absent in Greek religious writings, for pagan religions did not think of relations between divinity and humanity in terms of personal nearness. Only Sophocles, who was one of the three great tragic poets of the fifth century BCE, in depicting the humiliation and suicide of the warrior Ajax, speaks about a person reconciling himself to the gods (A;. 744), but he says nothing about how such reconciliation was accomplished.
There are no equivalents to the language of reconciliation in Hebrew or Aramaic. The closest terms in the OT as well as in the later rabbinic codifications (the Jewish Talmud and its associated tractates) are the verbs kapher and raser, which mean “to please, appease, satisfy, placate.” When used in the context of a wrongdoer placating by some act of restitution a person who had been wronged, these verbs may be seen as connoting certain features that correspond, at least to some degree, to the idea of “reconciliation,” though without any change of personal relationships or of emotional feelings necessarily being involved.
The somewhat parallel Greek verb epistrepho (“to turn, turn around, turn back, return”) is used in a purely secular fashion in Judg. 19:3 LXX with reference to a Levite “returning his concubine to himself.” The noun diallage (“reconciliation”) appears in Sir. 22:22; 27:21 with respect to friends being reconciled (cf. the use of the verb diallasso in Matt. 5:24 with respect to a person being reconciled to a brother or a sister). In m. Yoma 8.9 it is said, “For transgressions that are between man and God, the Day of Atonement effects atonement; but for wrongs that are between a man and his fellow, the Day of Atonement effects atonement only if he [the wrongdoer] has appeased his fellow” (i.e., only if a form of reconciliation has taken place between the two parties, as instigated by the wrongdoer).
Reconciliation as a Religious Term among Jews A religious use of the term reconciliation appears first among J ews in 2 Maccabees, where the writer prays, “May [God] hear your prayers and be reconciled [katallasso] to you [the Jewish addressees], and may he not forsake you in the time of evil” (2 Macc. 1:5). Later in that same writing the writer expresses the common Jewish belief that after God has chastened his people because of their sins— and so when he becomes, in effect, reconciled to his people—the Jerusalem temple will be restored to its former glory (2 Macc. 5:20; 7:33). Further, after the early successes of Judas Maccabeus against the Seleucids, the author of 2 Maccabees tells his readers that the Israelite warriors “made common supplication and implored the merciful Lord to be wholly reconciled [katallasso] with his servants” (2 Macc. 8:29). Josephus also twice uses the terminology of reconciliation (both as a noun and as a verb) in a religious manner: first, in telling his Roman readers that he had declared at the close of his address to the Jewish insurgents of his day, “The Deity is reconciled [eudiallaktos] to those who confess and repent” (J.W. 5.415); second, in reporting that Samuel, at a time of King Saul’s “contempt and disobedience,” pleaded with God “to be reconciled [katallasso] to Saul and not angry with him” (Ant. 6.143).
Paul’s Use of the Concept and Language of Reconciliation
It was Paul, however, who focused on the concept of reconciliation in his Christian theology and made the language of reconciliation central in his preaching to gentiles in the Greco-Roman world. The term appears in very significant portions of his letters and is used by him almost entirely in a theological sense. The noun katallage appears four times (Rom. 5:11; 11:15; 2 Cor. 5:18, 19); the verb katallasso five times (Rom. 5:10 [2x]; 2 Cor. 5:18, 19, 20); the verb apokatallasso (an emphatic form with a prepositional prefix) three times (Eph. 2:16; Col. 1:20, 22). Only one secular use occurs in Paul’s Letters, when he exhorts a wife who may have thoughts about separating from her husband: “If she does separate, let her remain unmarried or else be reconciled [katallasso] to her husband” (1 Cor. 7:11).
Somewhat surprisingly, language about reconciliation does not appear in any of the other writings of the NT, and is rare in the extant Christian writings of the second century. Among the earliest extant Christian writers, it therefore may be considered especially Pauline. Yet by the form, content, and context in which this reconciliation terminology is used in 2 Cor. 5:19 (“In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us”), it may be postulated that Paul was actually quoting a portion of early Christian confessional material here in this verse, for the statement of 2 Cor. 5:19 evidences a certain balance of structure; is introduced by the particle hoti (a so-called hoti recitativum), which Paul and other NT writers often used to introduce a quotation from some traditional material; incorporates in a formal manner the essence of Christian proclamation; and serves as the linchpin or central feature of what else is said by way of exposition in 2 Cor. 5:18, 20.
It probably is best, therefore, to surmise that Paul came to know this language of reconciliation in a vital manner because of its inclusion in some early Christian confessional material, and that he appreciated it as being most expressive of what he had personally experienced in his relationship with God through the work of Christ and the ministry of God’s Spirit. Further, it may be postulated that he made this relational and personal soteriological language central in his preaching to gentiles in the Greco-Roman world simply because he believed it to be more theologically significant, more culturally meaningful, and more ethically compelling than many of the forensic soteriological expressions of traditional vintage that were used among both Jews and Jewish Christians.
Paul always makes two important theological points when he speaks of reconciliation. First, contrary to a Jewish understanding of reconciliation, where God is spoken of as being reconciled to his people or situations (as in the references from the LXX, Josephus, and the rabbinic writings cited above), Paul always speaks of God as the subject of the verb katallasso and never its object. That is, in Paul’s proclamation it is always God who reconciles “people” and “the world,” and never the reverse (Rom. 5:10: “we were reconciled to God”; Rom. 5:11: “our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation”; Rom. 11:15: “the reconciliation of the world”; 2 Cor. 5:18: “God, who reconciled us to himself”; 2 Cor. 5:19: “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself”). Second, God’s reconciliation of people and the world is based on the work and faithfulness of Jesus Christ and never on what people might do in their attempts to please God or by their own faithfulness (note, in the context of Paul’s discussions of reconciliation, texts such as Rom. 5:10: “We were reconciled to God through the death of his Son”; 2 Cor. 5:15: “[Christ] 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. 5:21: “[God] made [Christ] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God”).
Paul’s language of reconciliation is inclusive in its applications, since it refers not only to the reconciliation of “people” (Rom. 5:10-11; 2 Cor. 5:18) but also to the reconciliation of “the world” (Rom. 11:15; 2 Cor. 5:19). Further, his teaching with respect to reconciliation has reference not only to what God has already accomplished (Rom. 5:10; 2 Cor. 5:19) but also to what he presently is accomplishing in the believer’s life (2 Cor. 5:17) as well as to what he will yet bring about both for those who have responded positively to him and for his entire creation (Rom. 5:10-11; 8:19-25). Yet inherent in Paul’s proclamation of reconciliation—reconciliation has been provided by God, is a present reality for those who turn to him in faith, and will be fully brought about for all his people and all his creation—is what may be called “the twofold absurdity” of the Christian gospel: (1) reconciliation with God comes about by means of death (i.e., objectively, the physical death of Jesus of Nazareth, God’s Messiah, but also subjectively, the “death” of a person’s self-reliance before God, and so a turning to God in complete trust in him alone); and (2) “the ministry of reconciliation,” both in its proclamation and its exemplary practice, has been delegated by God to finite humans, who themselves have been reconciled to God (2 Cor. 5:18b, 19b).
The Ministry Component and Ethical Compulsion of Reconciliation Paul’s teaching regarding reconciliation includes a ministry component, for not only has God
reconciled people to himself but also he has “entrusted the message of reconciliation to us” (2 Cor. 5:18). So we who have been reconciled to God and are experiencing in an initial measure that reconciliation are commissioned as “ambassadors for Christ” and therefore are called by God to “entreat” all people “on behalf of Christ” to be “reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:20).
Likewise, there is a vitally important ethical compulsion in Paul’s teaching about reconciliation. For just as being loved by God we are motivated to love, and just as being forgiven by God we are motivated to forgive, so being reconciled by God to himself we are motivated “on behalf of Christ” to be agents of reconciliation to people individually and to the world inclusively. God’s love for us is expressed in our love for others; God’s forgiveness of us takes bodily form in our forgiveness of others. So also God’s reconciliation of us to himself and to others compels our involvement in working for the reconciliation of others, whatever their needs and as God directs us, whether that involvement manifests itself almost unconsciously or quite deliberately. To divorce in practice an ethic of reconciliation from the doctrine of reconciliation is, sadly, to deny them both.
A Brief Summation in Light of Some Current Discussion
The traditional forensic soteriological terms justification, expiation, and redemption were quite well known to both Jews and Jewish Christians (so, quite rightly, the emphases of Ed Sanders, James Dunn, and others and the so-called New Perspective on Paul). However, the relational, participationist, personal soteriological expressions “reconciliation,” “peace with God,” “in Christ,” “in the Spirit,” and “Christ by his Spirit in us,” which Paul highlights in Rom. 5—8, are realities known only through divine encounter and personal acquaintance (so the emphases of Ralph Martin and Seyoon Kim). Both the forensic set of terms and the relational, participationist, personal set of expressions are important for a fuller understanding of the “good news” of the Christian gospel. Yet at the heart of the Christian message—at least as proclaimed by Paul in his gentile mission, and so by extension to most people today—is the relational, participationist, and personal proclamation of God’s reconciliation to himself of sinful and rebellious people through the work of Christ and the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
See also Atonement; Forgiveness; Salvation
Bibliography
Breytenbach, C. Versohnung: Eine Studie zur paulinischen Soteriologie. WMANT 60. Neukirchener Verlag, 1989; Denney, J. The Christian Doctrine of Reconciliation. Hodder & Stoughton, 1917; Fitzmyer, J. “Reconciliation in Pauline Theology.” Pages 155—77 in No Famine in the Land: Studies in Honor of John L. MacKenzie, ed. J. Flanagan and A. Robinson. Scholars Press, 1975; Goppelt, L. “Versohnung durch Christus.” Pages 147—64 in Christologie und Ethik: Aufsatze zum Neuen Testament. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1968; Kasemann, E. “Some Thoughts on the Theme ‘The Doctrine of Reconciliation in the New Testament.’ ” Pages 49—64 in The Future of Our Religious Past: Essays in Honor of Rudolf Bultmann, ed. J. Robinson, trans. C. Carlston and R. Scharlemann. SCM, 1971; Kim, S. The Origin of Paul’s Gospel. Eerdmans, 1982, 19—20, 311-15; Marshall, I. H. “The Meaning of ‘Reconciliation.’ ” Pages 117-32 in Unity and Diversity in New Testament Theology: Essays in Honor of G. E. Ladd, ed. R. Guelich. Eerdmans, 1978; Martin, R. Reconciliation: A Study of Paul’s Theology. Rev. ed. Academie Books, 1989; Taylor, V Forgiveness and Reconciliation: A Study in New Testament Theology. Macmillan, 1941.
Richard N. Longenecker Redemption See Atonement
From the beginning, the Reformed tradition was a diverse, even ambiguous movement, developing in different communities around several influential leaders, including John Calvin (1509-64), but also other formative figures, finding support in many countries and taking on a variety of local forms. It was a confessional tradition, without any central structures of authority to determine uniformity in faith, polity, and life. Even the confessions and their corresponding church orders were diverse and local.
The story of Reformed ethics is therefore complex. It became the story of ethical developments in many countries and continents: for example, Switzerland, France, and Germany; but also the Netherlands and Belgium and many churches worldwide affected by their church life and theology; Britain, especially Scotland, and again many churches under their influence; churches in eastern Europe, including Hungary, and others; the United States and Canada, and their pervasive presence in the world; many churches in Africa, including western, central, and southern Africa; churches in many societies in Asia, such as Indonesia and South Korea, in addition to many others; and regions in Latin America.
It is impossible to do justice to this richness. Many of these churches are members of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC, after 2010 the World Communion of Reformed Churches), including churches mostly from Calvinist, Presbyterian, and Congregationalist origins, but also others with diverse historical backgrounds. These churches do not share any common confessional tradition or any structure of authority that could guarantee identity and uniformity. During the 1920s, the world body considered the possibility and necessity of one common Reformed confession and asked Karl Barth for advice. He strongly rejected the idea as against the nature of being Reformed, and he specifically referred to ethical challenges of the time, to which they would not have a common response.
The term Reformed refers to a further complicating characteristic, namely, its changing historical nature, summarized in the slogan “A Reformed church is continuously being reformed according to God’s Word.” Even within the particular churches, major shifts can be observed regarding morality The tradition is very sensitive to context, culture, and history. The Reformed faith has often been held responsible, whether with praise or blame, for contributing to major historical changes—for example, the birth of modernity, democratic culture, notions of human dignity, and the free-market economy. At the same time, however, it has been deeply transformed by these developments. The story of Reformed ethics in any specific society today is therefore not only one of diversity but also one of change. Accounts of Reformed ethics in the Netherlands during the twentieth century, for example, describe how an influential, even dominant, Reformed subculture and way of life disappeared completely.
Calvin’s Ethics
The importance of Calvin’s own views for the tradition should not be overestimated. Still, his work illustrates several typical later trajectories. Different ethical voices would appeal to different ethical approaches already present here. Debates about Reformed ethics often take the form of appeals to Calvin against Calvin, or Calvin against (some form of) Calvinism.
Calvin was deeply concerned with the implications of faith for life, as his major work, called an instruction in the Christian religion or piety, demonstrates. His concern was that the gospel should be purely proclaimed but “also heard.” Calvin was primarily a pastor, and through his activities and writings—sermons, commentaries, lectures, Bible studies, letters, treatises, but also his involvement in public life, local and international politics, social services, poverty relief, education, and legal affairs—he sought to assist the faithful in what he saw as the Christian life.
His key conviction was that we do not belong to ourselves (1 Cor. 6:19-20). This knowledge brings both comfort and claim. In the tradition this conviction remained central, almost as summary of Reformed ethics. It is the theme of the Heidelberg Catechism (1563), an influential and formative (spiritual, doctrinal, and ethical) confessional document; it was key in the convictions behind the Theological Declaration of Barmen (1934), the founding document of the Confessing Church in Nazi Germany; it is the opening motif in the Brief Statement of Faith (1993) of the Presbyterian Church (USA); it is the recurring refrain of the Debrecen litany (1997), drafted by the WARC to challenge economic injustice and ecological destruction.
Still, both the conviction itself and the integral relationship between comfort and claim became controversial. Questions regarding self-love, selfdenial, and self-sacrifice, whether personal or communal (nation, country), led to intense debate. Conflicts regarding gospel and law, the third use of the law, justification and sanctification, grace and gratitude, freedom and responsibility, became commonplace.
Calvin developed this conviction in a trinitarian way, leading to a complex description of the Christian life—before the face of the gracious Father; in growing unity with Jesus Christ; through the active work of the Holy Spirit. For him, all these were important. Ethical themes therefore appear in several theological contexts in his work. Accordingly, his followers often emphasized different trajectories. Three such theological contexts in Calvin had major histories of reception.
First, at the heart of his discussion of our knowledge of God as gracious Father, he deals with God’s moral law and argues that it is summarized in the Decalogue (Institutes 2.8). He searches for positive intent behind each commandment, applying them to ethical issues of his day. In Reformed history this approach became common, raising controversies regarding natural-law approaches to ethics and the need for Scripture in discerning the divine moral law. Of special importance is his claim that believers should respect the dignity of others, irrespective of who they are and what they do, since we should recognize in them both the image of God and our own flesh.
Second, he describes the Christian life when discussing our knowledge of God in Jesus Christ and the nature of justification and sanctification (Institutes 3.6-10). Already during his own day, this section was published separately It became an important resource for Reformed ethics. Belonging to God, we are called to lives of self-denial, searching for righteousness in relation to others and piety in relation to God; to take up our cross as followers of Jesus, accepting our sufferings and trusting in God’s power, learning patience and experiencing God’s consolation; to meditate on the future life, not in order to escape the present but rather to come to proper estimation of life, receiving perspective and priorities; to enjoy and appreciate God’s wonderful gifts to delight and sustain, support and empower us for our daily lives of service and love (Leith).
Third, he gives an influential depiction of “Christian freedom” (Institutes 3.19), originally introducing his discussions of church polity as well as civil government. His views of the visible church and of public life rest on his understanding of freedom—again a formative tradition in Reformed ethics. Following Luther’s treatise on Christian freedom as well as Galatians, he adds a far-reaching argument concerning the adiaphora, defending the freedom to be indifferent toward the indifferent (Douglass). This critical potential often would liberate Reformed believers from established practices and institutional forms regarded by others as divinely ordained and unchangeable. Barth would describe evangelical ethics as an ethics of freedom.
Since Calvin, any of these three approaches could be emphasized at the cost of the others, contributing to the ambiguous history of reception. Some construct ethics primarily on the basis of the moral law, using notions such as natural law, general revelation, and common grace; some concentrate on personal ethics, emphasizing dis-cipleship and meditation; others argue for social ethics and public responsibility.
Reformed Ethics in History
Even a brief historical overview of Reformed ethics is impossible. Hopefully, a few representative illustrations can highlight some typical features.
Since the earliest days, instruction played a formative role in Reformed piety, whether through catechisms, sermons, or writings. The teaching, study, and instruction of Scripture became central. Confessions such as the Heidelberg Catechism deeply influenced Reformed life (Verhey). Application of the Decalogue as moral law became widespread. Preaching probably was the most important discipline and practice in Reformed ethics. Bieler famously studied Calvin’s social and economic thought by analyzing his sermons.
The first Calvinist ethics came from a jurist, Lambertus Danaeus (1577), providing an instructive illustration of what would often happen. The humanist background, already present in Calvin, is developed further, together with philosophical influences, from both Aristotle and Stoicism— characteristic of humanist and philosophical influences later. The changing mentality of the times— a strong sense of social crisis and an awareness of the falling apart of the social order, and therefore the urgent need for social reconstruction—moti-vates Danaeus’s work, as will often become the case again when social crises lead to ethical revisioning. In the work itself, his legal training and interests combine with fundamental theological convictions—again typical of later developments in which legal thought and theological conviction regularly combine (Strohm, Ethik).
Reformed thought contributed greatly toward the separation between church and state and the development of legal systems based on human dignity and rights (Witte) and independent from the influence of institutional church and religion (Strohm, Calvinismus).
At the dawn of the modern period, Friedrich Schleiermacher’s philosophical ethics provides a helpful distinction among three approaches, focusing, respectively, on goods (values, visions), virtues (character, moral agency), and duties (norms, rules, principles, decisions). In terms of this distinction, different Reformed ethical traditions show different preferences, with important implications for the role of Scripture in their respective approaches. Some concentrate on broader visions and worldviews and use Scripture accordingly, in so-called social, political, or public theology and ethics. Some concentrate on the personal life of believers as moral agents and emphasize virtues and character, again reading Scripture accordingly, in so-called individual ethics. Some concentrate on moral decisions and the role of norms and rules and mine Scripture for that purpose, often leading to so-called scriptural principles, to the direct application of texts to moral dilemmas, even to so-called moralism and legalism. Depending on their experience, people may identify Reformed ethics with any one of these approaches and its respective role for Scripture, but all three have been dominant in Reformed history, exemplified by different communities.
Some illustrations may suffice. In the Netherlands, Abraham Kuyper created a comprehensive worldview (called “neo-Calvinism”) with a lasting impact on culture and specific subcultures in many places in the world (Heslam). In South Africa, for example, this legacy was important both in the justification of the apartheid worldview and in the struggle against this ideology (Boesak; de Gruchy).
Influential public theologians and ethicists in North America, such as Reinhold Niebuhr, H. Richard Niebuhr, Paul Lehmann, and James Gustafson, made their contributions standing within the tradition of Reformed ethics. Gustafson, for example, takes three theological tenets from this tradition: the sense of a powerful Other (in Calvinist terms, God’s sovereignty), the centrality of piety or religious affections for morality (for him, the Calvinist affections of dependence, gratitude, obligation, remorse, possibility, and direction), and the recognition that all human activity should be related to what we can discern about God’s purposes (which is why his ethics is “theocentric,” based on “theology as a way of construing the world”).
From Europe, Karl Barth had a large influence. Based on his earlier work, some regard his ethics as a form of arbitrary decision-making, but it is more adequately understood as a comprehensive attempt to live within “the moral ontology” or “world” of Scripture (Webster), which even includes attention to personal ethics of virtues and character (Mangina).
A century ago, Ernst Troeltsch made an influential argument for the significance of Reformed Protestantism for modernity. Following Max Weber’s thesis about the foundational role of Calvinist ethics for the free-market economy (and Georg Jellinek’s even earlier thesis about the Calvinist origins of modern notions of religious freedom), he extended that to other spheres of public life, including individualism and democratic culture. Such theses remain contested. As genealogical claims (“Calvinism caused . . .”) they are difficult to maintain, but as indications of deep affinities they remain instructive.
Characteristics of Reformed Ethics
Although difficult and controversial, some characteristics of Reformed ethics can be discerned. It is, first, already typical that ethics is so central. Interest in the Christian life—in discipleship, sanctification, the third use of the law, respect for human dignity, calling, covenant, social life, public responsibility, political participation, issues of freedom and justice, democracy and social well-being, culture, scholarship, education—belongs integrally to the Reformed vision. Some close link between Scripture and ethics is taken for granted. Scripture is confessed and read as normative (sometimes even as trustworthy, sufficient, and clear), not only for matters of faith but also of life.
It is, second, characteristic that this passion for ethics flows from theological and confessional convictions. There are noteworthy exceptions (arguing that ethics should be general, philosophical, and natural, not based on or expressed in the language of faith), but the overall picture is rather that doctrine and faith are integrally related. This often implies that theology in a narrow sense (a particular view of God) plays a decisive role in the particular view of ethics. Barth and Gustafson offer an illustration. Agreeing on the crucial importance of the doctrine of God for ethics, Gustafson radically differs from Barth’s particular view of God (namely, revealed in Christ and therefore trinitarian and salvific). The spectrum of theological possibilities is obviously rich and complex and therefore also the use of Scripture, supporting pictures of God and providing ethical orientation.
Third, the term Reformed points to the selfcritical willingness to be examined anew and, if needed, transformed in the light of Scripture. This self-understanding often made Reformed ethics deeply historical and contextual. It implies that ethical convictions and practices are seen as temporary, for now and for the time being, never final, but based on present insight. This makes notions such as realism (Reinhold Niebuhr), responsibility (H. Richard Niebuhr), vocation (“here and now”), discerning God’s will (the early Barth), and reading and responding to the context (Lehmann) popular in Reformed ethics—all underlining the historical responsibility to discern and respond—rather than notions of obedience or loyalty to authority. For the way Scripture is read and heard, this has major implications, with the emphasis on hearing and responding to the “living Word,” often in a communal way. The congregation, believers together, those studying and reading Scriptures in communion, are seen as the locus of interpretation.
Fourth, it is characteristic that such continuous renewal according to Scripture can refer either to believers, to the church, or to society. Drawing practical implications for all three—for personal life, for the visible church, and for political and public spheres—has always been integral to Reformed ethics. Accordingly, the message of Scripture can be construed differently in order to provide orientation for such embodiment; popular Reformed motives are, for example, gratitude, discipleship, being raised to new life and dying of the old self, the kingdom of God, the lordship of Jesus Christ, and the prophetic role of the church. Such a prophetic attitude often means commitment to social justice, typical of WARC since its inception, until its Accra Declaration (2004) regarding economic injustice and ecological destruction.
Finally, Reformed people are described as “people of the Book,” underlining Scripture’s importance. The two elementary spiritual practices in the tradition have been worship, where Scripture, through exposition and teaching, is central, and the meditative reading and study of Scripture, whether privately, in households, or in groups. Scripture, including the OT, is regarded as authoritative and often described as the Word of God. In confessing Scripture’s authority for faith and life, the Reformed tradition shows several distinctive emphases, including an affirmation of the need for interpretation; a stress on scholarly exegesis; attention to Scripture as a whole, stressing both diversity and unity; acknowledging some scopus, thrust, or message; respecting the role of tradition; taking the fellowship of believers seriously; regarding preaching, teaching, and study as central for edification; and emphasizing the guidance of the Spirit.
Bibliography
Bieler, A. Calvin’s Economic and Social Thought. Ed. E. Dommen. Trans. J. Greig. World Alliance of Reformed Churches, World Council of Churches, 2006; Boesak, A.
The Tenderness of Conscience: African Renaissance and the Spirituality of Politics. Sun Press, 2005; de Gruchy, J. Liberating Reformed Theology: A South African Contribution to an Ecumenical Debate. Eerdmans, 1991; Douglass, E. Women, Freedom, and Calvin. Westminster, 1985; Gustafson, J. Ethics from a Theocentric Perspective. 2 vols. University of Chicago Press, 1981—84; Heslam, P Creating a Christian Worldview: Abraham Kuypers Lectures on Calvinism. Eerdmans, 1998; Leith, J. John Calvin’s Doctrine of the Christian Life. Westminster John Knox, 1989; Mangina, J. Karl Barth on the Christian Life: The Practical Knowledge of God. Peter Lang, 2001; Strohm, C. Calvinismus und Recht: Weltanschaulich-konfessionelle Aspekte im Werk reformierter Juristen in der fruhen Neuzeit. SLMAHR 42. Mohr Siebeck, 2008; idem. Ethik im fruhen Calvinismus: Humanistische Einflusse, philosophische, juristische und theologische Argumentationen sowie mentalitatsgeschicht-liche Aspekte am Beispiel des Calvin-Schulers Lambertus Danaeus. AK 65. De Gruyter, 1996; Verhey, A. Living the Heidelberg: The Heidelberg Catechism and the Moral Life. CRC Publications, 1986; Webster, J. Barth’s Moral Theology: Human Action in Barth’s Thought. Eerdmans, 1998; Witte, J. The Reformation of Rights: Law, Religion and Human Rights in Early Modern Calvinism. Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Dirkie Smit
Refugees See Aliens, Immigration, and Refugees Rehabilitation of Offenders See Prison
and Prison Reform
Religious toleration is respect, freedom, and nondiscrimination of a person or idea with regard to religion. In most modern cultures tolerant respect for a person’s religion or religious ideas implies disagreement with that religion; tolerant freedom and nondiscrimination imply freedom and nondiscrimination under a system of laws, formal or informal, legal or moral.
Today, religious toleration can create acute problems. Complex cultures that implicitly endorse one religion but give legal freedoms to many create difficulties for indigenes to fully commit to one religion as a matter of faith but tolerate others as a matter of principle.
Scripture and Religious Toleration
In the world of Scripture, religious toleration was an issue of a different sort for two reasons. First, the traditional societies of Scripture tended toward more religious homogeneity. With respect to religion, the OT people of God made decisions that reflected communality rather than individuality. Religion was synonymous with tribe. Second, their basic stance toward other tribes’ gods was henotheistic. The reality and, sometimes, even the beneficence of other tribes’ gods were not in question; the real issue was the relative power of other gods vis-a-vis Yahweh. In the confrontation with Baal, Elijah’s belief was that Yahweh was stronger than Baal, not that Yahweh was real and Baal was not. The issue was not toleration of mistaken belief but rather confrontation with the powers.
This is not to say that the idea of toleration is absent in the OT. But when the idea was introduced, it tended to be transcendent, a divine prerogative or a kingly right. Toleration (the word and its derivatives appear rarely in English translations) had the feeling of patient endurance on the part of one more powerful and perhaps more mature than regular individuals. In Psalms, for example, the phrase “His mercy endures forever,” which appears more than forty times, has a sense of God’s toleration for human foibles—his forgiveness will always be available.
In the NT we sense a move toward the modern idea of toleration. It is accompanied by a social shift toward empire, and within empire, nationhood. Within Roman political boundaries and the scope of Greek philosophical influence many religions existed. Romans managed religious differences; Greeks debated them. In Jesus’ teaching an ethic emerged that emphasized patience and endurance and love on the part of individuals with one’s neighbors (and even enemies).
The church fathers played to both the Roman political mentality and the Greek philosophical one. Justin Martyr attempted to place Christian teachings within the Greek debate over logos, while other fathers, such as Clement and Tertullian, saw the other religions as the wayward creations of God’s former viceroys (McDermott). As God’s underlings, these “angels” got some things right and some things wrong. In both cases, the other religions were to be tolerated as either slightly mistaken or insufficiently religious creations of lesser beings.
Toleration in the Christian Tradition
One does not have to page through very much of church history to see that religious toleration has not always, or even often, been seen as a virtue. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and John Calvin are only the most well-known of Christian leaders who come out in favor of persecution rather than toleration of religious difference. The reasons for such persecution vary, ranging from attempts to punish heretics, to dominate marginal populations, to protect the purity of the faithful. Although most of these church teachers definitely run against the ideal of modern advocacy for religious toleration, an enduring lesson emerges: religious toleration is never absolute. It is probably safe to say that all Christian communities have taken Jesus’ teachings of loving one’s neighbor as a call for some level of religious toleration, but no Christian communities have taken toleration to include all religious deviancy. Mistaken belief sometimes can be tolerated, evil cannot.
Religious toleration is a historical product of the Enlightenment, with its emphasis on the value and worth of human rationality and agency. The modern understanding of religious toleration is an intellectual product of John Locke, who wrote A Letter Concerning Toleration. Locke wrote within the context of the emerging European nation-state and the accompanying phenomenon of established Christian churches. Early modernity found itself free of the hegemony of the Holy Roman Empire, but not totally free of alliances between church and state. Countries with established churches, paid for and supported by governments, raised inevitable issues of freedom of religion for free churches and minority faiths.
Continental philosophy’s creation of the idea of the autonomous self did much to shift the locus of discussions of religious tolerance from the arena of tribe/empire/state responsibility to individual human rights, where it is mostly discussed today. The idea of religion being a freely chosen option by individuals with identity and agency has been much of the reason why the issue of religious toleration is such an important one.
Contemporary Applications
In assessing where we are as a Christian community today in grappling with this issue, we find it not at all difficult to return to the biblical text for resources to inform our discussions. Jesus’ ethical teachings particularly lend themselves to be used as rationales and supports for dealing with religious toleration issues. His teachings anticipate the Enlightenment and Lockean emphasis on individual human religious rights without abandoning the importance of grappling with political religious responsibilities.
The growing prevalence of democratic pluralisms as political forms of choice means that religious toleration on both the political level and the individual level will continue to be important. We live in an age when the separation of church and state has become almost complete, and in such a social scenario the rights and privileges of individuals to practice their religion will raise the issue of how those rights relate to the sometimes competing rights of others. In such a setting it is probably helpful to see the spectrum of possible positions on the issue of religious toleration to include four settings:
acceptance tolerance intolerance persecution
Although it might be tempting to consider religious tolerance as a private and/or communal attitude toward those of other religions, the reality is that religious tolerance usually moves us toward actions of acceptance, and that religious intolerance usually moves us toward acts of persecution.
See also Enemy, Enemy Love; Freedom; Human Rights; Persecution; Tolerance
Bibliography
Locke, J. The Second Treatise of Government; and, A Letter Concerning Toleration. Dover Publications, 2002; McDermott, G. God’s Rivals: Why Has God Allowed Different Religions? IVP Academic, 2007; Zagorin, P. How the Idea of Religious Toleration Came to the West. Princeton University Press, 2003.
Terry C. Muck
Remarriage See Marriage and Divorce