The term child abuse can have a broad range of meanings, from failure to prevent immediate harm to a child to active forms of abuse, including emotional, psychological, sexual, and physical abuse. However, identifying exactly when child abuse has occurred is a much more debated question among Christian ethicists. One common example centers on whether corporal punishment is a form of child abuse.
Until the early 1990s, the topic of children and the issue of child abuse were largely overlooked in the field of Christian ethics, despite significant attention in other fields such as psychology and sociology. Since then, Christian ethicists have engaged the issue of child abuse at a number of different levels. Interests have included issues such as human rights for children, international child labor abuse, clergy abuse, Internet predators, and child neglect by parents and society. Areas of Christian ethical reflection in relationship to child abuse have included original sin and the nature of a child, the moral agency of the child, and the spiritual formation of the child.
The use of the Bible in relationship to child abuse has produced a wide range of responses; however, much of the attention has focused on the question of corporal punishment as it relates to the physical abuse of children. Further, the issue of child abuse often has centered exclusively on younger children. Questions surrounding emotional, psychological, and sexual abuse, particularly in older children, are in need of further consideration.
In addition, the Bible has come under criticism by some as an authoritative text that implicitly
and explicitly facilitates child abuse. Two commonly mentioned examples are the sacrifice of Abraham’s son Isaac and God the Father’s sacrifice of his only-begotten Son, Jesus. Further, scriptural passages such as Prov. 13:24, “Those who spare the rod hate their children, but those who love them are diligent to discipline them,” and Heb. 12:5-11, which parallels God and fathers as those who discipline their children, are viewed by some scholars as a parenting manual for corporal punishment. Even more, texts such as Exod. 20:12, which states that children should honor their parents, are seen as holding the potential for perpetuating multiple forms of child abuse.
On the one hand, those who make a case for this negative view of the Bible in relationship to child abuse note that a literal reading of the Bible and a view of the child as inherently sinful are catalysts for a perspective that calls for the breaking of the will and the submission of the child to the parents. On the other hand, supporters of this approach to children point to the emphasis placed in Scripture on physical discipline and obedience of children to their parents. Perhaps part of the difficulty in this debate is that the Bible apparently provides contradictory perspectives on the nature of children, depending on which passages one selects and what interpretive hermeneutic is applied to the Scripture.
One such example in which the Bible is used as a resource to assist victims of child abuse is found in the work of Scott Marshall. Marshall points to passages such as Lev. 18:6-18, where children are protected from sexual abuse, and Matt. 18:1-6, in which Jesus welcomes children into the midst of his adult disciples. Other passages that affirm God’s love for children as gifts and blessings further promote a positive account of the role of children within the Bible. Further, Donald Capps uses the image of the garden to recast the theological framework for viewing the raising of children in a more positive perspective.
The fact remains that Christian ethicists and biblical studies have only begun to engage the assortment of issues and questions that surround child abuse within their respective disciplines and, even less, as they interact with one another. Difficult questions remain to be sorted through as the nature and role of children become increasingly urgent issues, especially in light of greater awareness of global child abuse in its myriad forms.
See also Abuse; Children; Discipline; Exploitation; Moral Agency; Parenthood, Parenting; Sexual Abuse
Bibliography
Bunge, M., ed. The Child in Christian Thought. Eerdmans, 2001; Capps, D. The Child’s Song: The Religious Abuse of Children. Westminster John Knox, 1995; Marshall, S. “Honor Thy Father and Mother: Scriptural Resources for Victims of Incest and Parental Abuse.” JPC 42 (1988): 139-48; Pais, J. Suffer the Children: A Theology of Liberation by a Victim of Child Abuse. Paulist Press, 1991.
Mark A. Tarpley
In addition to infertility, there are at least five other important aspects of childlessness that Christian ethicists must consider. First, voluntary childlessness continues to rise in part because of the postponing of childbirth to later years due to career concerns and/or marrying at a later age. Second, childlessness is related to miscarriages. Third, childlessness among same-sex unions continues to become an increasingly significant question. Fourth, the desire of singles for children is becoming an important issue. Fifth, continued medical advancements not only provide us with a greater understanding of infertility but also offer many alternative fertility options to couples unable to conceive children. These new medical findings offer both hopeful possibilities and difficult ethical decisions.
In Scripture, childlessness provides the backdrop for narratives that invoke elements ranging from shame, power, rivalry, and jealousy to promise, providence, and redemption. The biblical examples of Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Hannah as well as the NT figures of Elizabeth and Mary illustrate some of these different elements in what are often referred to as “barren mother” type-scenes. What is revealed in these narratives is the complexity of the human person and human relationships as it relates to childlessness and the divine-human encounter in a life of faith. In addition to the type-scene approach, Jeanne Stevenson-Moessner’s recent work has extended the idea of childlessness to include God as the adoptive parent as a powerful biblical metaphor for Christian living.
The way in which the biblical witness and the contemporary ethical landscape interact on the question of childlessness raises a number of challenging ethical questions, many of which depend on how one approaches the biblical text, understands the nature and purpose of children and family structures, and approaches bioethical issues. For example, some ethicists see childbearing and children as an essential characteristic of marriage, while other ethicists give priority to the relational character of marriage and reduce the emphasis on childbearing. Despite these difficulties, general agreement can be found rooted in the biblical witness that God is an important partner in working through the issue of childlessness in which God and the couple or individual must struggle together within a community of faith.
See also Abortion; Adoption; Bioethics; Children; Conception; Concubinage; Family; Family Planning; Homosexuality; Infertility; Marriage and Divorce; Parenthood, Parenting; Procreation; Reproductive Technologies
Bibliography
Cook, J. Hannah’s Desire, God’s Design: Early Interpretations of the Story of Hannah. Sheffield Academic Press, 1999; Havrelock, R. “The Myth of Birthing the Hero: Heroic Barrenness in the Hebrew Bible.” BibInt 16 (2008): 154—78; Magnuson, K. “Marriage, Procreation, and Infertility: Reflections on Genesis.” SBJT 1 (2000): 26—42; Stevenson-Moessner, J. The Spirit of Adoption: At Home in God’s Family. Westminster John Knox, 2003; Wildes, K., ed. Infertility: A Crossroad of Faith, Medicine, and Technology. PM 53. Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1997.
Mark A. Tarpley
As people of faith reflect today on the lives of children and on the responsibilities that adults bear for them, they often turn to Scripture as a resource. At the same time, critics have charged that some problems faced by children today, such as child abuse, are caused in large part by teachings about children both in Scripture and in subsequent reflection on Scripture throughout the Christian tradition (Greven; Miller). In moral reflection on children today and the challenges that they face, is Scripture a helpful resource or part of the problem? What does Scripture say about children?
In the OT, children are often described as a joy and a gift. A blessed man is depicted with many children who are like arrows in his quiver or olive shoots around his table (Pss. 127:3-5; 128:3-6), and the births or promises of children are seen as blessings and gifts (Gen. 13:16; 15:1-7; 1 Sam. 1:19-20). God’s blessing of Abraham centers on the promise of many descendants (Gen. 12:1-3; 15:5). In Gen. 1:28, Adam and Eve receive their first blessing and first directive: “Be fruitful and multiply.” Likewise, the absence of children was a cause of great sorrow throughout both Testaments. Abraham, Sarah, Rachel, Hannah, and Elizabeth grieved over barrenness and longed for children (Gen. 16; 21:1-7; 29:31; 30:1-24; 1 Sam. 1-2; Luke 1).
Children were included in the covenant. As a sign of the covenant, male infants were to be circumcised (Gen. 17:10-14). God also speaks to and works through children in special ways. The boy Samuel heard God calling his name (1 Sam. 3:1-20). Joseph had prophetic dreams (Gen. 37).
David, the youngest son, was called to defeat the giant Goliath (1 Sam. 17).
Children were viewed not only positively as a
blessing and a delight. Even from conception and birth, a child was sinful (Ps. 51:5). Children were also foolish and lacking in the wisdom expected of adults (2 Kgs. 2:23-24; Prov. 22:15; Isa. 3:4-5; Wis. 12:24-25; 15:14). Because of both children’s value within the community and their ignorance, adults had a special responsibility to teach children (Deut. 6:2-7; Prov. 1:8; 3:1; 6:20). Children, who were to honor and be obedient to their parents, also needed the parents’ firm discipline (Prov. 3:11-12; 13:1, 24; 22:15; 23:14).
Adults had special responsibility to provide not only for their own children but also for orphans, including the orphans of foreigners (Exod. 22:22; Deut. 10:18; 24:17-21; Isa. 1:17; 10:2; Jer. 22:3). Harming or failing to care for the orphan is condemned (Deut. 27:19; Job 6:27; 22:9; Ps. 94:6; Jer. 5:28). Children sometimes were adopted and raised by another family or a member of the extended family, as in the case of Moses and Pharaoh’s daughter as well as Esther and Mordecai (Exod. 2; Esth. 2:7).
Throughout both Testaments, God is described as a father (Deut. 32:6; Isa. 63:16; 64:8; Jer. 3:4, 19), and God as father models appropriate paternal care for children: loving, providing, defending, rebuking, encouraging, and forgiving. God’s parental care extends not just to his Hebrew children, but to all people.
The few passages in the NT Epistles related to children tend to focus on the ordering of the household. In Eph. 6 and Col. 3, children are instructed to obey their parents, and then, immediately following, fathers are instructed to “not provoke your children” (Eph. 6:4; Col. 3:21). Instead, fathers should “bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4). In both cases, these passages come between similar instructions about obedience of wives to husbands and slaves to masters. Similarly, 1 Tim. 3 and Titus 2 center on the order of the household, listing among the requirements for bishop or deacon the importance of managing one’s children well so that they are “submissive and respectful in every way” (1 Tim. 3:4). In Hebrews, adults are instructed to submit to and respect the discipline given by God just as children are to submit to the discipline provided by their parents (Heb. 12:5-11). Generally absent from the Epistles and from Acts is the strong, continuous OT focus on children as a blessing as well as the radical claim found in the Gospels that children provide a model for adults.
In the Gospels, as in the Epistles and the OT, children are instructed to honor and obey their parents (Matt. 15:4; 19:19; Mark 7:10; 10:19; Luke 18:20). Likewise, Jesus picks up other themes of the OT concerning children. Children are a blessing and a part of the covenant community, and adults have special responsibilities to children.
In some respects, however, Jesus’ words are strikingly different and more radical than the teachings of the OT and especially the NT Epistles and the wider Greco-Roman context. Jesus not only heals children (Matt. 9:18-26 pars.) but also blesses them and takes the more radical step of pointing to them as models for adults (Mark 10:13-16 pars.).
Jesus uplifts children as those to whom the kingdom of God belongs and insists that unless adults become as children, they will never enter the kingdom (Mark 10:13-16 pars.). Those who wish to be great are especially admonished to become humble like a child (Matt. 18:1-4). When one welcomes children, one welcomes Christ (Matt. 18:5 pars.). Moreover, children can have special knowledge (as in the OT). In Matthew, it is not the religious leaders but the children who recognize the identity of Jesus and shout, “Hosanna to the Son of David” (Matt. 21:14-16). In response to the anger of the priests and scribes, Jesus alludes to Ps. 8:2: “Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise for yourself” (Matt 21:16 NASB).
The value of children is also emphasized in the NT narrative by God’s coming into the world in the form of an infant. Before God took on the nature of an adult, God had assumed the nature of an infant and child. Moreover, even within the being of God we find the relationship between parent and child; the internal relations of the Trinity are expressed in the familial language of the love of son for father and father for son.
Although Jesus spoke of children as valuable and as models for adults, he expressed ambivalence about familial relationships, including the relationships between parents and children. In Matt. 19:29, for example, we find Jesus saying, “Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life.”
Many of the teachings about children found in the Epistles and the Gospels stand in sharp contrast. Whereas the Epistles give greatest attention to the ordered relationship between parents and their own children, Jesus focused more on the relationship between faithful people and children generally, not simply or necessarily those who are biologically related. Whereas the Epistles emphasize hierarchical relationships within the family and the obligation of fathers to provide care and discipline for their children and for the children, in turn, to be obedient to their parents, Jesus lifts up children as models for adults.
These teachings about children from the OT and the NT provide the basis for subsequent Christian reflection on children. Several issues have been predominant. First, the more radical Gospel themes about children as models for adults have generally been neglected in favor of an emphasis on authority and order. Christian thinkers have frequently drawn on the fifth of the Ten Commandments, to honor parents, as well as admonitions from the NT Epistles for children to obey their parents (especially their fathers) and for fathers to properly order their households and discipline their children.
For example, Martin Luther, reflecting on the fifth commandment, insists that children should “revere their parents as God’s representative” and honor them “as the most precious treasure and the jewel on earth” (Luther 23, 30). Obedience to parents is a greater work than almost any other. It should please children to obey their parents because this obedience “is so highly pleasing to the Divine Majesty and to all angels, and vexes all devils, and is, besides, the highest work which we can do, after the sublime divine worship” (Luther 26). Even almsgiving and care of neighbor are not as important as honoring and obeying one’s parents.
Another common topic of discussion in Christian reflection on children has been the nature of children. In most of the Christian tradition (as in the Jewish tradition), children are seen as a great blessing and gift. John Calvin and John Wesley, for example, drew on Ps. 127:3 to insist that children are a blessing from God. Friedrich Schleiermacher wrote of the blessings that come through dealing with children and youth; interaction with the young, “more than anything else, keeps us fresh and cheerful” (Schleiermacher 46).
When Augustine and the Pelagians argued about the nature of children, they set the framework and even vocabulary for much subsequent discussion in the Christian tradition. When the Pelagians insisted that children are born with capacities for good and, like Adam, take on sin over time, Augustine countered by insisting that from conception a child inherits the original sin of Adam, which had been passed down from one generation to the next. Before children have actual opportunity to sin, they are in a state of noninnocence. Only through baptism would children be cleansed from the guilt of original sin. A key passage of Scripture in the discussions of original sin from Augustine and Pelagius through much of the Christian tradition is Rom. 5:12: “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned.” Reflecting on this passage, Augustine wrote, “As infants cannot help being descended from Adam, so they cannot help being touched by the same sin, unless they are set free from its guilt by the baptism of Christ” (Augustine 335).
Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Wesley, and many others in Western Christianity incorporated, in part, this Augustinian understanding of original sin in children. In many cases, they also softened it. John Wesley, for example, insisted that all bore the guilt of the original sin, but that through prevenient grace all humans experienced a restoration of some of the capacities lost in the fall. Late in life, Wesley even suggested that by prevenient grace the guilt of original sin was erased as soon as any child was born.
These claims about the nature of children are linked to another set of discussions about parental responsibilities for children. Children, as special blessings from God and as beings who are immature and even sinful, deserve and need special care. Parents are admonished to care for, instruct, and discipline their children. From John Chrysostom and Thomas Aquinas to John Calvin and Jonathan Edwards, the role of parents in caring and disciplining children is paramount.
Of course, not all parents are able or willing to care for their children, and in these cases the responsibility falls on others—other individuals, churches, or the state, for example. The concept of subsidiarity, originating in Catholic moral theology, provides one example of how to order these various responsibilities. Applying the concept of subsidiarity to the care of children, one would hold that ideally children should be cared for by those at the most immediate local level, the family. If the family fails to care for the children, then the responsibility falls to other local groups such as churches or local civic organizations. If these smaller groups fail to care for children, then the responsibility falls to the state.
Recent decades have seen a resurgence of interest in children as fitting topics of sustained theological and ethical reflection. Some of these discussions continue the themes addressed in Scripture and in the Christian tradition: What responsibilities do individuals and social groups have for children? What is the nature of a child, and, given that nature, how should children be formed? How is the household to be ordered, and how are children best disciplined?
Christians today face other topics that are not so familiar. The desire for children is echoed in Scripture, but some of the reproductive techniques used to get those children are new and present moral challenges unknown centuries or even decades earlier. Some Christian denominations have opposed, for example, in-vitro fertilization and donor insemination; others have given support. Moreover, the desire to form and nurture healthy children is a familiar theme, but the capacity to shape children before birth through genetic engineering and genetic selection is also new and presents challenges to Christian communities. New technologies for birth control and for the termination of pregnancies have also changed the moral landscape in relation to children.
Although the responsibility that adults bear for children is a key theme of Scripture and the subsequent Christian tradition, the affirmation of the inherent “rights of children” is a more recent way of framing and reshaping the discussion. What rights do children have, and how do these rights shape their relationships with their families and societies? How does the right to bodily integrity and autonomy shape the relationship between parent and child? If one affirms that children have rights to healthcare, food, housing, and education, who is responsible for the protection of these rights and the provision of the things necessary to fulfill them? What responsibilities do Christians have to secure these rights for children around the world, half of whom live in poverty? Because of the global nature of the economy, poverty in one country is often linked to the consumption and investments of people in other countries. What responsibility do Christians have for consuming and investing in ways that are life-giving for children around the world?
To return to the question with which this article began, have the OT and the NT and their interpretation over time been helpful or harmful to children? Some themes in Scripture are clearly beneficial, such as the claims that children are a blessing, a special responsibility, and even a model for adults. Other themes are thought by some to be damaging for children, such as the claim that infants and children are somehow guilty of sin (even original sin). Bonnie Miller-McLemore, however, argues that a robust and nuanced understanding of sin can help adults today reflect on and care for children more faithfully. According to Miller-McLemore, many recent reflections on children and childrearing (e.g., in the field of psychology) are so committed to the idea of children’s innocence that they have difficulty accounting for the complexity of children’s moral and spiritual lives, including their struggles with selfishness and malice. She argues that Christian teachings about sin would help account for and take more seriously the complex lives both of children and parents. Miller-McLemore’s work is one example of a recent trend among mainline Christian scholars to look more closely at Scripture and the Christian tradition for resources to reflect on and help children (see also Bunge; Bunge, Fretheim, and Gaventa; Jenson).
See also Child Abuse; Discipline; Family; Foster Care; Household Codes; Infertility; Orphans; Parenthood, Parenting; Reproductive Technologies
Bibliography
Augustine. “Letter 157.” Pages 319-53 in vol. 20 of The Fathers of the Church, ed. R. Deferrari. Catholic University of America Press, 1953; Bunge, M., ed. The Child in Christian Thought. Eerdmans, 2001; Bunge, M., T. Fretheim, and B. Gaventa, eds. The Child in the Bible. Eerdmans, 2008; Couture, P Seeing Children, Seeing God: A Practical Theology of Children and Poverty. Abingdon, 2000; Greven, P. Spare the Child: The Religious Roots of Punishment and the Psychological Impact of Physical Abuse. Vintage Books, 1990; Hall, A. Conceiving Parenthood: American Protestantism and the Spirit of Reproduction. Eerdmans 2007; Jenson, D. Graced Vulnerability: A Theology of Childhood. Pilgrim Press, 2005; Luther, M. The Large Catechism. Trans. R. Fischer. Fortress, 1963; Miller, A. For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1983; Miller-McLemore, B. Let the Children Come: Reimagining Childhood from a Christian Perspective. Jossey-Bass, 2003; Schleiermacher, F. The Christian Household: A Sermonic Treatise. Trans. D. Seidel and T. Tice. Edwin Mellen Press, 1991.
Rebekah Miles
Choice See Free Will and Determinism
The sixty-five chapters of 1-2 Chronicles make this work one of the longest in the OT. Written in the first half of the fourth century BCE in Jerusalem, Chronicles urges wholehearted dedication to the second temple, its clergy, and its liturgical rites. Chronicles could also be characterized as a retelling of the history of the monarchy in Jerusalem, from David to Zedekiah, to which is prefaced a genealogy beginning with Adam and continuing to a list of the descendants of the twelve sons of Israel (Jacob). There is also a list of the descendants of King Saul and an account of his death.
David and Solomon are presented by the Chronicler in an idealized fashion. They presided over a united people of God and were responsible for the building of the first temple and establishing its regular clergy and services. David’s generosity toward the construction of the temple knew no bounds and provided an excellent example for the other leaders of the people (1 Chr. 29:1-9). In his prayer at the dedication of the temple Solomon urged God to respond to calamities such as drought, famine, sickness, and especially military defeat by hearing the people when they repent and forgiving them (2 Chr. 6:24-35). In response to the prayer, Yahweh promised that if the people humble themselves, pray, seek his face, and repent, he will hear them, forgive their sin, and heal the land. This promise provides a pattern for human and divine activity in many points of Judah’s history, especially in the case of Hezekiah, who serves as a second David and Solomon.
This idealized portrait of David and Solomon contrasts sharply with the description of these kings in the books of Samuel and Kings. No mention is made in Chronicles of David’s adultery with Bathsheba, his murder of Uriah, his son Amnon’s rape of his half-sister Tamar and David’s weak response to this crime, and Absalom’s revolt and his death under questionable circumstances. David’s long contest with Saul (1 Sam. 16-30) is passed over in silence, and Yahweh turns the kingdom over to David in 1 Chr. 10:13 with no mention of the civil war with Ishbaal or the death of Abner and Ishbaal under questionable circumstances (2 Sam. 2-4). Similarly, the book does not discuss the seven hundred wives or three hundred concubines of Solomon, let alone their leading him astray to serve other gods (1 Kgs. 10:28-11:40). Even Solomon’s journey to sacrifice at the “high place” at Gibeon (1 Kgs. 3:2-6) is cast in a different light, since according to the Chronicler the tabernacle was located at Gibeon (2 Chr. 1:3-6). Here, Solomon did not become king through the conniving of Nathan and Bathsheba, who took advantage of David’s weakness in his final illness, nor is there any mention of the attempt by Adonijah, Solomon’s brother, to usurp the throne. Rather, David, in full command of his powers, designated Solomon as king in fulfillment of the oracle of Nathan (1 Chr. 17:15; 22:9-10), and he cited a divine oracle designating Solomon as the king chosen by Yahweh (1 Chr. 28:6-7, 10). David’s sin in regard to the census is retained, but David also acknowledged his guilt and decided to fall into God’s hands because God’s mercy is great (1 Chr. 21). There is no evidence that the Chronicler meant to silence the books of Samuel and Kings or even replace them. Instead, he stressed qualities of David and Solomon and of their rule of a united Israel that spoke directly to the issue that necessitated his writing. They were dedicated to the temple, generously supported it, and followed God’s will in erecting it.
Hezekiah is one of several kings who reformed worship in the temple (cf. Asa, Jehoshaphat, Joash, Manasseh, and Josiah) and removed idols and other forms of syncretism. Hezekiah and Josiah also invited remnants from the north to participate in worship in Jerusalem, foreshadowing the same inclusive view of Israel that runs throughout Chronicles.
In the book of Kings, Manasseh is described as the worst king of Judah and is responsible for misleading the people to misbehave more than the nations that preceded them in the land (2 Kgs. 21:1-9 // 2 Chr. 33:1-10). Because of this behavior, exile had become inevitable, despite the outstanding behavior of Manasseh’s grandson Josiah (2 Kgs. 21:11-16; 23:26; 24:3-4). In Chronicles, however, the sinful Manasseh was taken captive to Babylon, where he repented, humbled himself, affirmed monotheism, and was graciously restored to his throne by Yahweh. Back in Jerusalem, Manasseh also carried out a number of reforms and restored the altar of Yahweh and offered on it sacrifices of well-being and of thanksgiving (2 Chr. 33:11-17). Whatever one’s ethical behavior, therefore, repentance and forgiveness are possible, and Manasseh is described as a model for Judah itself when it goes into exile.
The Chronicler was faced with a serious ethical dilemma as he wrote his book. The postexilic province of Yehud, in which he lived, was a small territory, about three times the size of the city of Chicago, with a population of fifty thousand or less, perhaps as small as twenty thousand. Yehud was therefore a tiny entity in the mighty Persian Empire, which extended from Libya and Egypt in North Africa in the west and to India in the east. Some in his audience no doubt wanted to throw off the hegemony of that empire, but the Chronicler recognized that the return of the exiles from Babylon to Palestine and the building of the second temple took place because Yahweh had used King Cyrus to bring these policies about. The Chronicler seems to have accepted the rule of the Persians as inevitable, at least for his time, and advocated his views on the temple, its clergy, and its rituals within this overall support for the Persian Empire. In our time, when many employ postcolonial insights in interpreting the Bible, the ethics of the Chronicler’s position is debatable. The Chronicler, as in many of our own ethical choices, seems to have settled for what was realistically possible.
While in many parts of the Bible faithfulness is followed by reward or well-being and unfaithfulness by punishment, in Chronicles these rewards or punishments are more immediate and individual, normally taking place within a person’s lifetime. There is no accumulated sin or merit as in the books of Kings. The doctrine of retribution places high value on moral or ethical decisions. That doctrine, of course, also has its problems, as the book of Job persuasively argues, when apparently righteous persons are not rewarded. Others argue that the doctrine of retribution can contribute to a feeling of works-righteousness. Some argue that the Chronicler is less concerned to demonstrate strict relations between acts and consequences than to emphasize Yahweh’s benevolence and mercy toward the people (cf. 1 Chr. 22:12; 29:18; 2 Chr. 30:18).
The focus on temple worship and the rights of its clergy might suggest that the Chronicler had a very wooden idea of piety and the religious life. But we need to note how often the word joy is used in his history and how warmly he can speak of faith: “Believe in the Lord your God and you will be established” (2 Chr. 20:20).
See also Exile; 1-2 Kings; Old Testament Ethics; 1-2 Samuel
Bibliography
Japhet, S. I & II Chronicles. OTL. Westminster John Knox, 1993; Klein, R. 1 Chronicles. Hermeneia. Fortress, 2006; Knoppers, G. 1 Chronicles 1—9. AB 12. Doubleday, 2004; idem. 1 Chronicles 10—29. AB 12A. Doubleday, 2004.
Ralph W. Klein
Church See Ecclesiology and Ethics Church and State See Government Circumcision
Circumcision is a rite practiced in a number of West Semitic cultures, involving some modification of the foreskin of the penis. As practiced in Israel, the rite involved the complete removal of the foreskin and was most often performed on the eighth day after a boy’s birth. It was a necessary mark of belonging to God as part of the chosen line of Abraham, and as a member of the covenant people that receive (and, in part, are the realization of) God’s promises (Gen. 17:9-14). The fact that this rite of “belonging” could be performed only on male Israelites raises questions about how a woman’s place in the covenant people was understood to be secured, whether by her relationship to an Israelite man (a father or husband) or by some other means.
Circumcision, together with covenant membership, was not strictly related to biological descent. Those who are not “Abraham’s seed” by birth could become such through circumcision (Gen. 17:12; Jdt. 14:10; Josephus, Ant. 13.9.1; 13.11.3).
Election, of which circumcision is an outward sign, carried ethical responsibilities. God chose Abraham so “that he may charge his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice” (Gen. 18:19). In recognition of this ethical dimension, Jewish authors often assert that outward circumcision is insufficient of itself to guarantee the reception of covenant blessings. These authors call for the metaphorical application of circumcision to other parts of the body, including ears, lips, heart, and inclination, images that refer to hearing God’s commandments correctly, speaking the truth about God’s decrees, and “loving God” faithfully (which meant faithfully observing the covenant stipulations [Deut. 10:16-17]). Such behavior showed the internalization of the outward sign of circumcision (Jer. 9:25-26).
During the Hellenistic period, serious cultural and political pressures were brought to bear against physical circumcision. Greeks despised the practice as a barbaric mutilation of the human form. As a result, Jews who were eager to blend in with the Greeks and other gentiles around them and to participate (naked, as was the custom) in Greek cultural practices and networking opportunities such as the athletic games in the gymnasium (2 Macc. 4:13-15) even performed epispasm in order to reverse the effects of circumcision (1 Macc. 1:14-15). A ban on circumcision was rigidly enforced during the most fevered period of Hellenization (1 Macc. 1:44-61). Nevertheless, most Jews of the period maintained their commitment to physical circumcision as the necessary rite for entering the covenant people.
Particularly in the face of ridicule and cultural prejudice, Jews began to formulate more advanced moral interpretations of physical circumcision to defend the practice. Philo of Alexandria (d. c. 50 CE) provides the fullest example of such reflection (see especially Spec. Laws 1.1.1-1.2.11; QG 3.48). In addition to benefits of hygiene, ritual
purity, and fertility, he argued that circumcision
trims the excess of sexual pleasure by removing the protective covering that keeps the glans beneath more sensitive. The rite thereby enacts, and thence continues to symbolize, the Jew’s commitment to master the full range of the passions and to limit self-indulgence so that those passions do not subvert the Jew’s commitment to the ethical virtues
prized by Jews and Greeks alike (Spec. Laws 1.2.9; see also QG 3.48). This connects the rite with the positive value placed on self-mastery in much of the ethical literature of the period (4 Maccabees provides a readily accessible example). The ethical meaning of circumcision here, which for Philo ennobles and promotes the continued practice, becomes for Paul a substitute for circumcision. In the letter in which Paul argues most vociferously against the necessity of circumcision for joining the people of promise, he concludes by spelling out how the gift of the Holy Spirit enables the mastery of the passions that, for Philo, circumcision symbolized and began (Gal. 5:13-26).
In addition, circumcision nurtures humility before God as the giver of all life, a visible reminder that we are not ourselves the authors of life, even of our own offspring (Spec. Laws 1.2.10; see also QG 3.48). The rite, Philo explained, was a remedy for human pride in the face of life and death; from the point of insemination, circumcision called men (especially) to acknowledge God’s sovereignty over all life.
Philo’s figurative understanding does not lessen his commitment to physical circumcision (Migration 89-93). The same view would not prevail within the early Christian movement. Aware of the prophetic and Deuteronomic emphasis on the indispensability of the “circumcision of the heart,” Paul argues that such inward circumcision is alone necessary, since it is what God truly seeks and approves in a human being (Rom. 2:25-29; see also Barn. 9.4-5). Paul declares three times that “neither circumcision nor uncircumcision” carries any value (1 Cor. 7:19; Gal. 5:6; 6:15), wholly replacing this outward sign with a focus on the ethical transformation that genuine discipleship entails. Christians were circumcised with “a circumcision not effected by hands” in the “putting off of the body of the flesh” by dying and being buried with Christ in the rite of baptism, thus being raised to new life from a state of being “dead in trespasses” (Col. 2:11-13). The ontological-ethical implications of baptism (see most especially Rom. 6:1-11) reprise the ethical implications of circumcision: dying to the passions of the flesh and the deeds to which they drive us, deeds that are not consonant with righteousness and justice, so as to use our bodies henceforth as tools of justice.
See also Covenant Bibliography
Collins, J. “A Symbol of Otherness: Circumcision and Salvation in the First Century.” Pages 163-86 in "To See Ourselves as Others See Us": Christians, Jews, and "Others" in Late Antiquity, ed. J. Neusner and E. Frerichs. Scholars
Press, 1985; deSilva, D. 4 Maccabees. GAP. Sheffield Academic Press, 1998; Fox, M. “The Sign of the Covenant: Circumcision in Light of the Priestly ’ot Etiologies.” RB 81 (1974): 557-96; Goldingay, J. “The Significance of Circumcision.” JSOT 88 (2000): 3-18; Hall R. “Epispasm and the Dating of Ancient Jewish Writings.” JSP 2 (1988): 71-86; Sasson, J. “Circumcision in the Ancient Near East.” JBL 95 (1966): 473-76.
David A. deSilva
City, Cities See Urbanization
“Civil disobedience” is a modern phrase coined by Henry David Thoreau for which there is no simple consensus definition. Examples that often inform attempts at definition include the movements associated with Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. Other attempts include the possibility of violent resistance within civil disobedience. As a broad working definition, “civil disobedience” refers to the deliberate disobedience of a law in order to preserve one’s moral integrity, protest, bring attention to an injustice, and/or catalyze the process of change in a bad law or policy.
Ethical-theological analyses of disobedience proceed on the assumption that there are two distinct yet overlapping general spheres of law and authority, one (human law) being subordinate to the other (God’s law), and that conflicts between these spheres are possible. This conflict is present in, for example, the plight of Daniel (see Dan. 6), his choice being presented as one between obeying God’s law or a human law. There is a general presumption, however, that those subject to any law should obey that law (see Rom. 13:1-8; Titus 3:1; 1 Pet. 2:13-16). The burden of proof, the demonstration that a conflict actually exists and calls for civil disobedience in some instance, therefore, rests with the disobedient.
At least one distinction is critically necessary in considerations of civil disobedience. Laws that oblige one to do what God forbids or prevent one from doing what God commands are thereby deemed bad and should be disobeyed. These instances call for direct civil disobedience—disobedience of the bad law. The refusals by the Hebrew midwives to obey Pharaoh’s murderous command (Exod. 1:15-21) and by Peter and the apostles to stop preaching (Acts 4:18-19; 5:27-29) exemplify, respectively, both aspects of direct civil disobedience. Indirect civil disobedience involves disobeying a law that one would normally respect in the course of protesting some other law or policy deemed bad, as exemplified by Esther’s disobedience on behalf of the Jews (Esth. 4:11, 16).
Disagreements in evaluating particular instances of civil disobedience today often involve
(1) establishing the immorality of a law or policy,
(2) differing conceptions of the nature and role of moral norms, and/or (3) the proper method of weighing conflicting norms when deliberating possible actions. These complexities and difficulties are exemplified in current debates among opponents of abortion laws in the United States who ask, for example: what actions of indirect civil disobedience are justified in relation to a law that does not command but permits the sin of others?
Further general principles should also inform reflection on civil disobedience today.
1. One must be diligent about the facts and context in question to satisfy the burden of proof.
2. Civil disobedience should be considered a last resort, especially in relatively just, liberal societies.
3. The moral objections to the injustice of the bad law or policy in question must outweigh the moral objections to civil disobedience generally as well as the particular act of civil disobedience chosen and its consequences.
4. One should expect and accept punishment for breaking the law, which strengthens the moral force of a given instance of civil disobedience by reflecting one’s commitment to the rule of law and normal civil obligations.
See also Authority and Power; Civil Rights; Conscientious Objection; Dirty Hands; Dissent; Duty; Government; Martyrdom
Bibliography
Bedau, H., ed. Civil Disobedience in Focus. Routledge, 1991; Coleman, G. “Civil Disobedience: A Moral Critique.” TS 46 (1985): 21-37.
Peter L. Jones
Civil rights are individual or group protections from threats, especially of violence or deprivation of freedom, that should be enumerated and established by the state. Civil rights, in the specific sense of the term, developed in the Western liberal political tradition, although certainly other political theories also prohibit arbitrary actions of formal and informal authorities that harm some or all individuals in a society. It is generally assumed that civil rights are not something granted by society; rather, they are intrinsic to the individual or natural human order. In other words, the general assumption is that the social-contract description was not the invention of civil rights but rather a revealing of something essential for the thriving of human community and individuals. Until fairly recently, these rights were defined as “negative”—that is rights of noninterference. Civil rights theories almost always include (1) some claim about the inherent nature of the rights-holder, (2) some assertion that rights check the behavior of the majority and/or more powerful, and (3) some description of rights protection as a primary function of the state.
Civil rights tend to be asserted using deontological language; rule utilitarian reasoning can generate a prima facie standard of rights but not the “trumping” authority of rights over utility. What civil rights theories do not have in common is agreement on (1) who is included among rights-holders, (2) the extent of specific rights, (3) how rights should be prioritized, and (4) the ultimate source of rights.
The two major impediments to realized civil rights are bigotry acted out in the populace and intentional deprivation for self-serving purposes by those in power.
Recently, civil rights as a category has been expanding, both in the sense of specific rights being “added” or “discovered” and in the analytical ethical sense. The latter is most evident in the increasing use of the three-generation model.
• First-generation rights are negative rights or rights of noninterference (e.g., freedom of speech, assembly, religious exercise).
• Second-generation rights are positive rights or rights of entitlement (e.g., food, healthcare, education).
• Third-generation rights are rights of groups (e.g., right to self-determination for ethnic groups, solidarity claims for classes of people, the right of development; these allow the abrogation of prima facie individual rights for the sake of the collective rights).
Traditionally, only the first-generation rights were deemed actual civil rights. Now, the expanded understanding is used by some United Nations affiliates, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and nation-states (notably South Africa). This more recent analytical model is sometimes justified with the language of the French Revolution: liberty (first-generation negative rights), equality (second-generation rights of entitlement), and fraternity (third-generation rights of the community). Third-generation rights do not readily fit traditional Western social-contract theory, since the moral agent ceases to be the human individual and becomes instead the human as a subset or component of the group.
An example of the three-generation model can be constructed using selection for employment. The right to apply for a job and be fairly considered would be deemed first-generation (this would include affirmative action, narrowly understood). The right to a job, but not necessarily that particular one, would be a second-generation right. If, instead of affirmative action, there was an actual quota for hiring by ethnic or gender category, that would be a third-generation right for the purported disenfranchised group.
The understanding of civil rights has been marked by punctuated change, with the greatest shifts starting in the eighteenth century and often associated with social trauma. The United States was declared to exist on July 4, 1776. In the founding document, the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson and his coauthors appropriated, with a slight change, John Locke’s language of rights to life, liberty, and property from the Second Treatise on Government. All individuals were entitled to life and liberty, though in practice these rights were limited by the claim that some could not properly exercise them (on the basis of gender, ethnicity, property ownership, and status as a slave). The enforcement of civil rights was also restricted by citizenship status and by the nationstate’s borders (both limits on enforcement still remain to a great extent). Each individual was also at liberty, theoretically, to pursue his or her own goals, with “happiness” understood as the contentment that comes from satisfying the individual telos or human purpose. Importantly, it was the pursuit of happiness, not happiness itself, that was deemed a right. Using a social-contract construct, the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution emphasized negative rights (especially in the Bill of Rights).
Two other influential social arguments about rights occurred in the eighteenth century. With its heritage of the Magna Carta and common law,
a debate raged in Great Britain over the degree to which rights could or should be extended to or protected for those at various levels of society. In particular, “rights” language was increasingly used to protect the recently urbanized who had been forced off land due to the application of the enclosure laws and industrialization, those seeking religious freedom, and, as in the United States, those enslaved.
The French social argument about rights, while similar, placed a far greater emphasis on the social location of the rights-holders, specifically in debates about the property holdings and obligations to the poor of the various “estates.” The social contract in France, paralleling arguments in Jean-Jacques Rousseau, was based on the “general will” (la volontegenerate), by which the whole was deemed more than the sum of the individual parts. In other words, civil rights could be held not only by individuals but also by groups or, importantly, by “the” group (the state).
In the mid-nineteenth century in the United States the civil rights of individuals came into conflict with sovereignty claims or so-called states’ rights. The Civil War was directly or indirectly about which government entity (federal or state) had the authority to enumerate civil rights and about the authority of the government (at any level) to limit the negative rights of particular classes of people. In order to morally allow ethnospecific slavery and the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population, some persons living within the national borders had to be defined as being out of or at the edge of the human race; had they not been so defined, they would have been entitled to civil protection under the social contract. After the end of the Civil War in 1865 and the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, legal protections were extended to all individuals (again, this was theoretical, as women and indigenous people remained in lower statuses and application was inconsistent).
Women were included in voting rights in the United States with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, a consequence of the suffragette movement (first-wave feminism) in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This group of women, some from socially liberal traditions and some from evangelicalism, commonly were associated with the temperance movement. They argued that the rights of women would strengthen families and the society at large. A smaller segment of the movement, associated with birth control and eugenics efforts, used both “rights” and “utilitarian” language.
The next major shaping of civil rights in the United States occurred during the Great Depression, in the late 1920s and the 1930s. New Deal political language, in response to economic malaise and building on early twentieth-century labor organization formulas, added entitlements or positive rights to those rights that the state was obligated to protect. Franklin Roosevelt famously declared in his 1941 State of the Union message that all people were entitled not only to negative rights but also to freedom from want, implying a governmental obligation to positively satisfy the physical needs of citizens to the extent possible.
The post—World War II civil rights movement was primarily a response to the limitation of individual legally acknowledged rights by nonfederal governmental entities and, to a lesser extent, private organizations. School boards used “separate but equal” arguments based on the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson reasoning, county commissions skewed literacy tests for voting, and public accommodations were restricted on the basis of “color.” Jim Crow laws, coupled with the broader cultural passivity toward or even affirmation of those laws, created onerous burdens on a specific class of persons. Events, though, seemed to weave together to make the enforcement of civil rights inevitable. The insistence that African American soldiers be allowed to fight in World War II, the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case led by the NAACP, activity by the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and the National Council of Negro Women, as well as shifts in professional sports, promoted civil rights in accord with the post-Civil War constitutional amendments. The final implementation of legal protection for civil rights regardless of ethnicity was cemented by the civil rights movement proper with actions directed by Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference as well as those led by the Congress of Racial Equality, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and local boycott groups. King drew on experiences in South Africa and in India under Gandhi, and, in a way not seen since the urban social crusaders of the early twentieth century, he appropriated religious language. Specifically, King used just-coercion theory (see King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”) and “beloved community” language in asserting the necessity of coercive nonviolent action. In essence, the American civil rights movement was a recollection of the negative-rights assertions of the postbellum amendments and the insistence that the governments, at the various levels, protect citizens as members of the social contract.
In the 1960s and through the 1970s the language of rights changed, with a far greater emphasis on positive rights and identity politics. The anticolonial revolutions of the post-World War II decades provided language that shaped civil rights arguments in the so-called developed world. A heavy emphasis on “liberation” arguments and the uniqueness of various group perspectives shaped debates over women’s rights and gay rights, and, most important at a theoretical level, pushed the discussion of civil rights away from dichotomous to multilayered thinking. At the end of the twentieth century in the United States it was generally recognized that civil rights is not only a matter between blacks and whites but also a legitimate concern for other ethnic groups as well as groups defined by other characteristics. What certainly was not agreed upon, however, was what constituted a group deserving of distinct protection, as arguments about abortion, gay marriage, and animal rights have indicated.
Civil rights in a narrow social-contract sense is neither rejected nor supported directly in Scripture. What is quite evident in the OT is that all persons are due just treatment. However, this is an assertion not so much about the recipient as about the nature of those who serve. When respect for the sojourner is commended, the appeal is to the moral character of individuals and the called community, not a claim about political order among strangers. In the writings of the prophets there is a great deal about oppression, especially by corrupt political leaders, but once again this critique is developed primarily on the basis of the character that the unjust are supposed to have but do not. Injustice by the Israelites is often associated with idolatry and failure to live out the deep purpose or telos of being the people of God. Christians can legitimately understand civil rights as middle-axiom expressions of a moral good of the nationstate that they share with nonbelievers, but they should not equate civil rights with biblical justice as outlined by the OT prophets. The latter is far “thicker,” having to do with the nature of being God’s people, whereas the former is “thin” and a minimum reasonably expected for all societies.
In the NT there is no statement about civil rights. Nonetheless, the treatment of Jesus, and its obviously unjust character, has been recognized as a foil for what should be available to all, especially fair judicial proceedings. Paul asserts his rights as a citizen, although this is not a general claim about human status but rather one about his Roman political status (Acts 16:38; 22:22-29; 25:10-11). Paul makes a claim to rights in the church on the basis of his ecclesial authority, but these are not civil rights (1 Cor. 9). When Paul elsewhere urges Philemon to respect and care for Onesimus, he does so on the basis of brotherliness among the faithful, seemingly echoing the Johannine familial declaration that those who accept Jesus have the “right” to be named the children of God (John 1:12-13). Similarly, the change in status initiated by belief in Christ creates equality before God that is to be respected by other believers but does not apply in the same way to nonbelievers (Gal. 3:28). In these examples, however, as well as in the Sermon on the Mount and Paul’s statements about lawsuits (1 Cor. 6), it seems that although Christians have rights before God that should be respected by other believers, it is best not to appeal to such rights within the church. Arguably, “rights” language should not be a primary ecclesial language, but rather familial and agapic language.
Nonetheless, although the theory is not explicitly presented in Scripture, civil rights are based on assumptions, in part, historically derived from Christianity. This does not mean that other cultural groups did not have similar positions, but that the historic line can be traced from Scripture through Catholic natural-law theory through Reformation individualism to the dialectic tension between revivalist evangelicalism and the British Enlightenment. The common assumption was that all humans have worth before, and indeed bear the image of, their Creator. Thus “endowed,” their natural rights warrant civil protection. The nation-state is to politically and legally treat all alike, allowing each to pursue his or her own telos rather than assuming that there is a telos for the society defined by authorities into which all individuals must fit.
See also Aliens, Immigration, and Refugees; Civil Disobedience; Deontological Theories of Ethics; Discrimination; Egalitarianism; Equality; Happiness; Human Rights; Law, Civil and Criminal; Natural Law; Natural Rights; Rights; Social Contract
James R. Thobaben
Class conflict (or class struggle) refers to a type of tension and antagonism among social groups differentiated along political and economic lines.
The issue of how to respond faithfully to class conflict generated heated debates between Latin American theologians and the Catholic Church beginning in the 1960s. Latin American theologians argued for the indispensability of Marxist-style class analysis in uncovering appropriate biblical and ethical responses to the chronic poverty and widespread economic injustice the people of their parishes and communities suffered (Gutierrez; Mi-guez Bonino). Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI), prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, declared that a singular focus on class conflict limits ethical options to capitalism or Marxist socialism and reduces all of theology, Scripture, and Christian reality to political-social praxis.
This specific debate on class conflict was precipitated and fueled by a lengthy tradition. In the Bible, the principle of justice as redress addresses the material inequalities that lead to class conflict (Mott). The Jubilee system is the preeminent example of this biblical principle of redress. During the Jubilee Year, all land is returned to the family of origin (Lev. 25:25-28). This principle is rearticulated in the law, wisdom literature, and the prophets as well as the NT injunctions to forgive debt (Matt. 6:12; 18:23-35; Luke 7:41-43; Rom. 13:8).
During the Reformation, Martin Luther unwittingly provided theological grounding for class conflict in Germany between the peasants and the ruling class. Luther’s emphasis on the priesthood of all believers and the doctrine of justification by faith, along with his advocacy for the translation of the Bible into the vernacular, served as a challenge to traditional authority that culminated in German peasant revolts. The church hierarchy was convinced that Luther’s message bred only discord and conflict, even though Luther openly opposed the revolt.
The debate between Luther and the Catholic Church about class conflict was recapitulated on the cusp of the twentieth century. In Rerum novarum (1891) Pope Leo XIII condemned class conflict as contradictory to fundamental Christian beliefs (O’Brien and Shannon). Leo tried to nudge European Catholics away from counterrevolution and toward political participation and social reform. Forty years later, with confidence in reform shattered by World War I and a worldwide depression, Pope Pius XI also condemned class conflict in Quadragesimo anno while simultaneously calling for an honest discussion of differences and inequality that abstains from hatred (O’Brien and Shannon). The Protestant movements of roughly the same time period underwent parallel shifts. Washington Gladden, a key figure in the social gospel movement, wanted the church to be conscious of issues of wealth, inequality, labor unions, and socialism without taking sides in class warfare (Dorrien 65-67).
By the mid-twentieth century, both Catholics and Protestants attempted to distance the church from the difficulties of class conflict. Many observers now agree that they failed to address in a constructive or compelling way the structural and institutional problems that provided impetus for class conflict. Liberal Christianity, in its Catholic and Protestant forms, was too middle class to challenge existing social relationships. A transformative Christianity was needed, one that learned from Marx’s theory of class conflict and his critique of the capitalist modes of production and distribution, in the struggle on behalf of and with the poor (Dorrien 246).
Some theological reactionaries, disillusioned socialists, and postmodernists claim that class conflict has lost its significance and explanatory power. These theorists fail to realize that class conflict inspired and formed the basis of social theory rooted in power. Many social theorists and ethicists are now convinced that society is best understood as conflicts between more powerful groups that use their power to exploit groups with less power. Liberation theologies attempt to theorize these broader social, cultural, and geopolitical movements based on conflicts of power. What began as a debate over class conflict has given way to new ethical methodologies and scriptural hermeneutics that form a more adequate basis for Christian theological and ethical reflection within pluralistic, multicultural, and postmodern societies.
See also Liberationist Ethics; Poverty and Poor; Preferential Option for the Poor
Bibliography
Dorrien, G. Social Ethics in the Making: Interpreting an American Tradition. Wiley-Blackwell, 2009; Dus-sel, E. Philosophy of Liberation. Trans. A. Martinez and C. Morkovsky. Orbis, 1985; Gutierrez, G. A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation. Trans. C. Inda and J. Eagleson. Orbis, 1973; Miguez Bonino, J. Christians and Marxists: The Mutual Challenge to Revolution. Eerd-mans, 1976; Mott, S. Biblical Ethics and Social Change. Oxford University Press, 1982, 65-72; O’Brien, D., and T. Shannon. Catholic Social Thought: The Documentary Heritage. Orbis, 1992, 12-79.
R. J. Hernandez-Diaz
The labels “clean” and “unclean” presuppose an overarching conception of a proper order (the cosmos in a state of “purity”) and of disruptions to that order (“pollution”). Purity and pollution were meaningful concepts for Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, and most other ancient peoples, but in the scriptural tradition we encounter these concepts primarily as formulated within ancient Israelite and early Jewish society.
God commanded the priests to “distinguish between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean” and to teach the Israelites how to do the same (Lev. 10:10). Something or someone in the normal state, as the cosmic order presupposed in the Torah defined “normal,” is clean. Bodies that did not leak were clean. Animals that looked and behaved the way animals should (e.g., sea creatures that had fins and scales, like fish ought to have, rather than legs like land animals or hides like land snakes) were clean. The label “unclean” applies when something crosses the line into abnormality. The ordinary spaces and things that are appropriate to the everyday world of human interactions are described as “common.” “Holy” describes those spaces or things set apart from the ordinary to belong in some special way to God.
Concerns about purity and pollution were driven by the awareness of the special power of the divine to bless or to curse, to help or to harm. The divine was “other”—holy. People intuited that, in God’s presence, certain things were appropriate and others inappropriate. Isaiah’s vision of God brought immediate awareness of what was inappropriate (hence, “unclean”) in his own life and in the people among whom he lived (Isa. 6:1-8): “I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips” (Isa. 6:5). To enter the presence of the Holy One in a state of uncleanness was to invite disaster upon oneself, possibly upon the whole nation. Codifying the clean and unclean, and developing processes for containing and eliminating defilement, allowed humans to know when and how to approach the Holy One suitably and safely, giving access to the source of blessing and help (Lev. 26:3-12).
The purity codes of ancient Israel (as also of Greece and Rome) made no hard-and-fast distinction between ritual and ethical categories of defilement. Eating certain meats; committing incest, adultery, or bestiality; and idolatry all constitute pollution that would cause the Holy Land to reject the Israelites. Avoiding unclean foods (Lev. 11) and pursuing justice in relationships (Lev. 19) were facets of the holiness required of the people in order for them to remain in the land of a Holy God. A purification offering was offered for certain moral offenses and for the pollution incurred through childbirth. The more serious pollution taboos (murder, certain sexual deviations, and idolatry), for which there is no purification, fall within modern ethical categories. Separating out the Torah’s moral and ritual requirements, however, was a Christian innovation. For the Jew, concerns about purity and pollution—about enjoying ongoing favorable encounters with God—enforced both ritual and ethical cleanness.
Israel’s obligation to “make a distinction between the clean animal and the unclean” bears witness to God’s act of distinguishing between Israel, the people whom God selected for God’s self, and the nations, whom God regarded as inappropriate for such association and hence as “unclean” (Lev. 20:22-26). Observing dietary laws, in turn, helped maintain the social boundaries of Israel as a distinct people, God’s special (holy) possession. Other facets of the purity codes, in turn, mirror the concern with maintaining boundaries, such as the labeling of leaking bodies or bodies with broken skin as unclean. Others extend the mirroring of God’s actions begun in Lev. 20:22-26. As God rested on the seventh day, so too Jews rest from work on that day, mirroring and witnessing to the God of creation (Exod. 31:12-17). Law-observant Israel becomes a living reflection of the character of the Holy God in the midst of the world, a holy island of order in the midst of the gentiles’ aberrations.
Around the turn of the common era, Jews (especially in Greek-dominated environments) began to pursue ethical reinterpretations of the laws concerning clean and unclean. The Epistle of Aristeas, for example, reads the dietary laws symbolically, suggesting that their primary interest is providing ethical guidance. Clean animals represent traits of the virtuous person, such as meditating upon wisdom (ruminating) and discerning between right and wrong (the cloven hoof) (Let. Aris. 150). Unclean animals represent vices popularly associated with these animals, such as violence with carrion birds or sexual looseness with the weasel (Let. Aris. 144-48). The author of 4 Maccabees regards the dietary laws as an exercise regimen designed to develop the virtue of self-control (4 Macc. 1:31-35). The ethical meaning did not, however, replace ritual observance.
The early Christian movement advanced a more exclusively ethical redefinition of purity and of the holiness that reflects God’s character and that enables people suitably to approach the Holy God. Jesus rejected the concern over what foods one ingested in favor of a concern with what attitudes, intentions, and words one projected: “It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles” (Matt. 15:11). Speech defiles the person, if that speech embodies immoral intentions, destroys reputations, or pollutes relationships (Matt. 15:19).
Pauline Christianity particularly understood God to be creating a new holy people from all nations. Since God’s presence became available both to Jews and Gentiles by the Holy Spirit, Christian leaders concluded that “in cleansing [the Gentiles’] hearts by faith [God] has made no distinction between them and us” (Acts 15:9), decisively reversing the Levitical command that Jewish Christians “make a distinction” between clean and unclean, between themselves and people of other races (Lev. 20:22-26). Since the “dividing wall of hostility” (Eph. 2:14) that separated ethnic Jews from Gentiles was being torn down by God in Christ (Acts 10:1-11:18; Eph. 2:11-20), the Levitical purity regulations that replicated and reinforced that boundary also came to be regarded as superseded. At the same time, Christian leaders drew new lines of social separateness, again couched in discussions of foods that were inappropriate for the Christian to ingest. The new unclean meat was meat from animals sacrificed to idols, and this facilitated the creation of barriers against participating in the idolatrous worship that surrounded Christians in the Greco-Roman world. Pollution taboos thus still reinforced the group’s distinctive identity and ethos.
Writers used the language of “clean and unclean” to foster a new moral separateness between disciples and their past lives and also, by implication, the ongoing social practices that they had rejected. “Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. And this is what some of you used to be. But you were washed, you were sanctified” (1 Cor. 6:9-11). The disciples’ purification in baptism set them apart from their pagan past. The conceptual boundary between the holy and the unclean reinforces the inappropriateness of returning to that lifestyle and promotes the disciples’ commitment to preserve the purity of the new life intact (see also Eph. 4:19).
The conceptual categories of clean and unclean came to be applied to moral considerations throughout the early church, such as sexual license (e.g., Eph. 4:19; 5:3-5; Jude 7-8), disruptions of congregational harmony (Phil. 2:14-15; 2 Tim. 2:21-23), and greed and the vices that accompany competition for this world’s goods (Jas. 4:1-4). This is fully in keeping with the Hellenistic Jewish tendencies (although Philo and the author of 4 Maccabees still observed the Torah in its particulars) as well as Greek and Latin ethical philosophers, as when Epictetus urges his students not to defile the indwelling deity “with unclean thoughts and filthy actions” (Diatr. 2.8.13). There is an overall movement toward the view that God is ultimately concerned about the cultivation of justice and other virtuous practices and the elimination of immoral practices and destructive attitudes. Such renders people fit to stand in the presence of the Holy God in anticipation of a favorable reception.
Postindustrial societies may lack the religiously motivated conceptions of purity and pollution found in ancient Israel, but they also draw fixed lines between people, whether on the basis of microbes or hygiene, or along social-spatial and ethnic lines. The redrawing of purity maps in the scriptural and parabiblical tradition, especially the shift from social and ritual pollution to ethical lapses, poses an ongoing challenge to examine personal, cultural, and social purity lines and to conform them to two basic principles. The first is to keep these lines porous, extending love, kindness, and human connection to other people in any condition, mirroring God’s commitment to compassionate redemption. The second is to remain separate from the true pollution that alienates people from the Holy God, namely, continued involvement in attitudes and practices that poison relationships and inhibit the universal experience of justice and shalom.
See also Holiness Code; Hope; Priestly Literature Bibliography
deSilva, D. Honor, Patronage, Kinship and Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture. InterVarsity, 2000; Douglas, M. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966; Levine, B. Leviticus. JPSTC. Jewish Publication Society, 1989; Mil-grom, J. Leviticus 1—16. AB 3. Doubleday, 1991; Nelson, R. Raising Up a Faithful Priest: Community and Priesthood in a Biblical Theology. Westminster John Knox, 1993.
David A. deSilva
Cloning See Bioethics Coercion See Authority and Power Cohabitation See Marriage and Divorce
The collection for the saints refers to the monetary gift Paul raised among predominantly gentile churches on behalf of “the poor among the saints at Jerusalem” (Rom. 15:26). Although reluctant to ask for financial support of his own apostolic ministry, Paul appears in his letters as a relentless advocate on behalf of the economic situation of the Jerusalem believers. References to the collection are centered in the Pauline Epistles: Rom. 15:25-32; 1 Cor. 16:1-4; 2 Cor. 7:14-9:15; Gal. 2:9-10. Acts mentions the Pauline collection only in passing (24:17), but does refer to an earlier, parallel gift from the Antiochene Christians to Jerusalem (11:27-30).
The economic grounds for the relative poverty of the Jerusalem Christians are unknown. Some have postulated that the disinvestment of capital and economic distribution among the church’s members led to its impoverishment, but this is a problematic reading of Acts 2:42-47; 4:32-5:11. Disinvestment was voluntary, not required; the ways in which income from disinvestment might have been deployed in economic development in Acts have not been adequately explored; and a number of earlier interpreters sought to discredit the practices of economic koinonia described in Acts as a way of discrediting Marxism and/or communism. In fact, we have no evidence supporting the conclusion that Jerusalem’s economic koinonia was a failed experiment. It is more likely that the economically depressed situation in Jerusalem was the consequence of the usual combination of natural calamities facing an agrarian-based economy (e.g., drought, famine) and the lack of any state-generated assistance under Roman administration.
What is particularly fascinating about Paul’s efforts on behalf of the Jerusalem poor is the range of arguments and motivations he brings to the task of encouraging “cheerful” giving (cf. 2 Cor. 9:7) among his predominantly gentile churches. This is evidenced already in the array of terms by which he refers to the collection: charis (“favor, grace, benefaction” [1 Cor. 16:3; 2 Cor. 8:4, 6, 7, 19; cf. 8:1, 9; 9:14]), leitourgia (“religious service” [2 Cor. 9:12]), eulogia (“blessing” [2 Cor. 9:5-6]), koinonia (“fellowship” [Rom. 15:26; 2 Cor. 8:4; 9:13]), and diakonia (“service, support” [Rom. 15:31; 2 Cor. 8:4; 9:1, 12, 13]), in addition to logeia (“collection [of money],” used only twice in the NT [1 Cor. 16:1-2]). Clearly, the apostle works with no dichotomy between economics and faith, and indeed he understands economic sharing in preeminently theological and relational terms.
The collection is a classic example of embodied ethics. The collection is a Christian practice, noted for Paul’s emphasis on giving as regular, proportional, personal, and voluntary (1 Cor. 16:1-4; 2 Cor. 9:5), and is rooted in and expressive of the gospel. Thus, at one level, it is an act of love and service toward others, a profound reflection of Christ’s incarnation (2 Cor. 8:9), a participation in God’s own generosity (2 Cor. 9:6-15), and a demonstration of faith (e.g., 2 Cor. 8:24; 9:13). Scripturally, Paul grounds this economic counsel in God’s provision of daily manna (2 Cor. 8:15; see Exod. 16:11-31), an object lesson in Israel’s history demonstrating God’s provision of daily sustenance and the uselessness of hoarding one’s surplus.
At another level, the collection is a tangible expression of the unity and equality of Jew and gentile in Christ. Economic sharing without any hint of repayment characterizes persons and communities who understand themselves in familial terms, unified in heart and purpose as well as economics. For Paul, it is critical to demonstrate that the gentile mission had as its consequence not the proliferation of churches but the growth of the one church. This point is of special interest, since gift-giving in antiquity, in an even more formalized sense than is true today, generally was a means of broadcasting one’s honor and placing others in one’s debt. Not only is this interpretation of gift-giving absent from Paul’s message, it is also actually undermined. If anything, the debt Paul recognizes is that of the gentiles: “For if the Gentiles have come to share in their [i.e., the Jerusalem saints’] spiritual blessings, they ought also to be of service to them in material things” (Rom. 15:27). More pointedly, Paul emphasizes the values of mutuality and equity with regard to the gospel and so, by implication, with respect to economic status within and among Christian communities. Thus, to the Corinthians he writes that they should aim for equality (isotes, “fair balance” [2 Cor. 8:13-14]). And this is motivated by recognition of the unrivaled generosity of God.
See also Koinonia Bibliography
Bassler, J. God and Mammon: Asking for Money in the New Testament. Abingdon, 1991; Downs, D. J. The Offering of the Gentiles. WUNT 2:248. Mohr Siebeck, 2008; Georgi, D. Remembering the Poor: The History of Paul’s Collection for Jerusalem. Abingdon, 1992; Nickle, K. The Collection: A Study in Paul’s Strategy. SCM, 1966; Wheeler, S. Wealth as Poverty and Obligation: The New Testament on Possessions. Eerdmans, 1995.
Joel B. Green