History books often call this Hebrew innovation ‘ethical monotheism.’
The polytheisms of Rome, Greece, Scandinavia, and India had deities who were largely amoral, both in their dealings with each other, and in their interactions with humans. The gods of Greek and Roman mythology had no interest in explaining ethical wisdom to humans.
If the Romans erred, two thousand years ago, in failing to connect religion and ethics, perhaps we err, in the twenty-first century, by overly identifying faith with a specific moral code.
In the course of the ‘culture wars’ of the last several decades, more than a few people have come to see the words ‘church’ and ‘Christianity’ as synonymous with the promulgation of a specific morality. The result is a significant amount of toxicity around those two words.
In the New Testament, Jesus spent less time talking about specific moral prescriptions, and more time talking about God’s affection for humans - an affection which, in turn, motivates humans to live in service to each other.
Contemporary followers of Jesus might do well to step back from social conflicts about specific behaviors. Instead, David Brooks writes, they
could be the people who help reweave the sinews of society. They already subscribe to a faith built on selfless love. They can serve as examples of commitment. They are equipped with a vocabulary to distinguish right from wrong, what dignifies and what demeans. They already, but in private, tithe to the poor and nurture the lonely.
Writing in the New York Times in June 2015, Brooks suggests that Jesus followers direct their energy to those distinctive tasks which are characteristically theirs and for which they have a passion:
Those are the people who go into underprivileged areas and form organizations to help nurture stable families. Those are the people who build community institutions in places where they are sparse. Those are the people who can help us think about how economic joblessness and spiritual poverty reinforce each other. Those are the people who converse with us about the transcendent in everyday life.
Such a “step back” from the culture wars of litigation, legislation, and lobbying would not in any way be a compromise of moral standards. Jesus followers would still understand themselves to have a duty to live ethically.
Rather, it would be a living out of those morals, rather than a promulgating of them.
This culture war is more Albert Schweitzer and Dorothy Day than Jerry Falwell and Franklin Graham; more Salvation Army than Moral Majority.
David Brooks writes that Jesus followers could be “doing purposefully in public what” they “already do in private.” There is significance in meeting physical needs - food, clothing, shelter - and spiritual needs - counseling victims of abuse or of addiction, grieving with those who’re mourning losses, or helping those with dysphoria or loss of identity. When those needs are met in the name of Jesus, personal and social transformation is possible.
Meeting those needs is an activity which Jesus followers have historically done well.
Leaving behind the conflict-driven style of culture war doesn’t mean abandoning moral standards. David Brooks writes that he doesn’t expect the followers of Jesus “to change their positions on sex, and of course fights about the definition of marriage are meant as efforts to reweave society.”
Rather, there is, and will be, a need for the kind of care which Jesus followers can give. Emotional pain and psychological suffering are real, common, and quite possibly increasing in our society. Spiritual caregiving is, and will be, needed, valued, and respected.
But the sexual revolution will not be undone anytime soon. The more practical struggle is to repair a society rendered atomized, unforgiving and inhospitable.
Perhaps the rancor of a political and media-driven culture war can be left to others. There are many Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, atheists, and others who are willing to defend life from the moment of conception, and willing to define marriage as possible only between one man and one woman.
Let followers of Jesus, instead, devote their effort to shredding fabric, both of society and of individual souls. David Brooks writes that Jesus followers “are well equipped to repair this fabric, and to serve as messengers of love, dignity, commitment, communion and grace.”
