Category Archives: Ethics

Confessing Courage – Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945)

| | BibleMesh, Church History, Ethics, History, Politics
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The name, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), has become a byword for conviction and courage. In 1935, ten years before the Nazis hanged him in Flossenburg, Bonhoeffer presided over a seminary consisting of twenty-five young pastors. They were all part of the Confessing Church, believers who refused to drape Hitler’s policies with the Christian flag. Therefore, the seminary was illegal; they literally risked their lives to pray together, study together, and live together. In 1937 the Nazis shut down this clandestine seminary, and a year later Bonhoeffer wrote Life Together, reflections on a Christian community. In the pages of this book, he taught that courage is not only standing up against the unbelieving world; it includes standing up against one’s own sin in the context of the local church.

The Church had many enemies in Bonhoeffer’s day. Even before Hitler used religious language to promote his goals, modernism replaced the cross with “progress.” Commenting upon his time at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, Bonhoeffer wrote, “I never heard of the Gospel of Jesus Christ . . . of the cross, of sin and forgiveness, of death and life (while) in New York . . . only an ethical and social idealism which pins its faith to progress.”1 In Germany, the success of social idealism and Nazi nationalism meant the Church risked forgetting what God calls her to be: a community of faith subject to the Word of God. In order to fulfill this mission, Bonhoeffer encouraged believers to regularly confess their sins to one another (James 5:16).

Why is this so important? Because, according to Bonhoeffer, a congregation without mutual confession of sin is a church afraid to be sinners: “The pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner. So everybody must conceal his sin from himself and from the fellowship.”2 Bonhoeffer lamented this state of being. What an awful paradox: saved by the work of Christ alone and yet unwilling to let one’s sin be known. Why the silence? “Confession in the presence of a brother is the profoundest kind of humiliation. It hurts, it cuts a man down, it is a dreadful blow to pride. To stand there before a brother as a sinner is an ignominy that is almost unbearable.”3 And yet the shame must be born in order to follow Christ: “The Cross of Jesus Christ destroys all pride. We cannot find the Cross of Jesus if we shrink from going to the place where it is to be found, namely, the public death of the sinner. And we refuse to bear the Cross when we are ashamed to take upon ourselves the shameful death of the sinner in confession.”4

Is godward confession insufficient? Must a third party be brought into the mix? Bonhoeffer warned his readers that those ready to be honest with God while refusing to be vocal with their brother may be living in hypocrisy:

[W]e must ask ourselves whether we have not often been deceiving ourselves with confession of sin to God, whether we have not rather been confessing our sins to ourselves and also granting ourselves absolution. And is not the reason perhaps for our countless relapses and the feebleness of our Christian obedience to be found precisely in the fact that we are living on self-forgiveness and not real forgiveness.5

Yes, there is room for prudence in public confession. Done wrong, it can pointlessly titillate or humiliate others, including friends and loved ones. Sometimes it amounts to confessing the sins of others: “I repent of harboring ill feelings toward this brother who has wronged me.” But the dangers should only lead believers to exercise care in such confession—not to shun it.

In light of Bonhoeffer’s willingness to die for the faith, the call to mutual confession may seem minor, even trite. Not to him. He knew that dictators rise and fall. Persecution comes and goes. But the Church endures, and, until Christ returns, she is full of sinners. The courageous sinner, redeemed by the blood of Christ, will fight his sin by being honest about it, confessing it both to God and a brother or sister. Such courage may not make the history books, but it will mark those written in the Lamb’s Book of Life (Rev. 21:27).

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1 Quoted by James and Marti Hefley, By Their Blood: Christian Martyrs of the Twentieth Century (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1996), 203.
2 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1954), 110.
3 Ibid., 114.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid., 115-116.


“A public and general love”—Thomas Vincent (1634-1678)

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Thomas Vincent, who was removed from his pulpit during the great ejection of Puritans in 1662, is famous both for his book on Christian love and his courage during the great plague of London in 1665. As “pestilence walked in darkness, and destruction wasted at noon-day,” Vincent decided to remain in London to comfort and care for God’s people. It was the practical outworking of his teaching about the selfless public character of true devotion to Jesus.

Show your love to Christ in your public-spiritedness and zeal for Christ’s honor and interest. Let your affections be public, not private, narrow, contracted, and centering in self. Let your love be a public and general love. Love not only relations, but love all Christ’s disciples, though of different persuasions and interests, because of the image of Christ. And love not only your friends that love you, but also your enemies that hate you, because of the command of Christ. Let your desires be public desires. Desire the welfare of the universal church, and of all God’s people throughout the world; and, accordingly, pray for their peace and prosperity. And endeavor, as you have opportunity, to promote the public good more than your own private advantage.1

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1 Thomas Vincent, The True Christian’s Love for the Unseen Christ (1677; modernized reprint, Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria,1993), 105-

“An Elemental Moral Code”—Hugh Heclo

| | BibleMesh, Culture, Ethics, Politics, World Religions, Worldview
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Hugh Heclo, a professor of political science at George Mason University, argued at Harvard University in March 2006 that American democracy depends upon Christianity. Politically, morally, and socially, the doctrines of the Christian faith nurtured democracy. While many grant that religion in general is an important cultural foundation, Heclo asserted that Christianity specifically is a religion well suited, even today, for freedom. He explains why in the following excerpt from his book Christianity and American Democracy. Christianity and democracy share a common enemy: hypocrisy.

[T]raditional Christianity comes with an elemental moral code that helps stabilize and order an otherwise chaotic democratic society. It teaches people to be honest rather than lie, to be fair rather than cheat, to keep rather than break promises, to shun selfishness, and all the rest. Of course, there are many citizens who try to behave morally without the Christian God, or any god at all. And certainly there are many immoral Christians. The point is that traditional Christianity makes it its business to ferret out religious hypocrisy. Given the temptations to misuse freedom, it is likely one will be surrounded by a democratic society that simply works better if it has citizens in it who not only try to do the right thing but who know why, because of the teachings of their religion, they are under a personal and higher obligation to actually do it.1

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1 Hugh Heclo, Christianity and American Democracy (Cambridge: Harvard University, 2007), 236-237.


The Outward Expression of Christian Charity—Mary G. Chandler (1818 – 1907)

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Mary Greene Chandler was a nineteenth-century author, who married the son of Unitarian leader Henry Ware in 1862. Although associated with Unitarianism, her thoughts here on character express biblical truths that all believers would do well to heed.

This selection is taken from her 1854 book, The Elements of Character, which likely had an influence on U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. In the following passage, she argues that even though some use manners as a cover for ungodly character, the righteous will inevitably reflect their character through appropriate social graces.

There is so much undeniable hypocrisy in the high-bred courtesy of polished society, that among many religious persons there has come to be an indifference, nay, almost an opposition, to Manners that savor of elegance or courtliness. If, however, Christian charity reign within, rudeness or indifference cannot reign without. One may as well look for a healthy physical frame under a skin revolting from disease, as for a healthy moral frame under Manners rude and discourteous; for Manners indicate the moral temperament quite as accurately as the physical temperament is revealed by the complexion… The best Manners possible are the simple bringing down of the perfect law of charity into the most external ultimates of social life.

Meeting, Mating, and (Maybe) Marrying in America

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Eighty-four percent of unmarried Americans between the ages of 18 and 23 have already had sex according to a newly released, massive study, Premarital Sex in America: How Young Americans Meet, Mate, and Think About Marriage (Oxford, 2011) by Mark Regnerus and Jeremy Uecker. Regnerus is a sociology professor at the University of Texas at Austin, and the author of Forbidden Fruit: Sex and Religion in the Lives of American Teenagers (Oxford, 2007). Uecker is a post-doc with the Carolina Population Center at UNC-Chapel Hill. Together they have collated a monumental amount of data from numerous sources to describe the sexual values of young adults in the United States.

Some will be shocked to read that,

Only 4 percent of all 18-23-year-old women are currently in a romantic relationship but not sexually involved with the person whom they are seeing.

To turn it around, 96 percent of 18-23-year-old women in a romantic relationship are also sexually involved with the person whom they are seeing! That’s simply stunning.

While turning 18 used to be the marker of adulthood, when children moved out of their parents’ house and started living “on their own,” today fewer young people than ever consider themselves adults at 18. Regnerus and Uecker observe:

When we ask our introductory sociology class—comprised largely of college freshmen and sophomores—how many of them think of themselves as adults, seldom do more than 10 percent of them raise their hands. These are America’s emerging adults: accelerating in sexual desire and interest and at the cusp of their peak fertility and virility, yet slowing down to meet growing educational expectations, pursue expanding career pathways, and savor the joys of friends and self-actualization.

Or, as New York Times columnist David Brooks insightfully puts it:

Now young people face a social frontier of their own. They hit puberty around 13 and many don’t get married until they’re past 30. That’s two decades of coupling, uncoupling, hooking up, relationships and shopping around. This period isn’t a transition anymore. It’s a sprawling life stage, and nobody knows the rules. Once, young people came a-calling as part of courtship. Then they had dating and going steady. But the rules of courtship have dissolved. They have been replaced by ambiguity and uncertainty. Cell phones, Facebook and text messages give people access to hundreds of “friends.” That only increases the fluidity, drama and anxiety.

The bottom line is that, by their own profession, adolescents are having grown-up sex. And, like all adolescents, they somehow expect not to have to face the negative consequences.

What all of this means of course is that by the time these young adults reach their 30s they are more likely than not to be sexually, emotionally, and relationally wounded. Someone will have to help them pick up the pieces of their broken lives.

It is not for the sake of prudery that—following the biblical pattern—previous generations have maintained that sex, marriage, and procreation were indissoluably linked, even if they didn’t always obey the pattern themselves. The Bible’s aim is to glorify God and to prescribe relationships and institutions in which humans can flourish. Marriage is one of those institutions. As Christopher Ash has so remarkably put it in the title of his book, marriage is sex in service to God.

Sex should be reserved for those who are mature enough to take on the responsibility that comes with it, namely, marriage and openness to nurturing children. Following this script would either mean postponing sexual activity or having to grow up.

Premarital Sex in America is not all bad news, however. Regnerus and Uecker do offer a profile of young adults who are still virgins, even declaring: “we want to clarify that plenty of young adults are still virgins, and these shouldn’t be thought of as abnormal or sexually stunted. They are, nevertheless, not the norm.”

What the virgins have in common:

  • They’re in college, especially four-year degree programs, or else are college graduates.
  • They’re more religious, especially in terms of how central it is to their identity.
  • They’re not prone to getting drunk.
  • They don’t consider themselves popular.

A few characteristics of emerging-adult virgins are gender specific:

  • Asian men are more likely than white men to be virgins.
  • Regular churchgoing is more a hallmark of virginity in men than it is in women.
  • Politically conservative women, by party or self-identity, are more likely to be virgins.

The book ends by helpfully exploding ten myths about sex in what the authors describe as “emerging adulthood.”

  • First, long-term exclusivity is a fiction.
  • Second, the introduction of sex is necessary in order to sustain a fledging or struggling relationship.
  • Third, the sexual double standard is inherently wrong and must be resisted by any means.
  • Fourth, boys will be boys. That is, men can’t be expected to abide by the sexual terms that women may wish to set.
  • Fifth, it doesn’t matter what other people do sexually; you make your own decisions.
  • Sixth, porn won’t affect your relationships.
  • Seventh, everyone else is having more fun than you are.
  • Eighth, sex need not mean anything.
  • Ninth, marriage can always wait.
  • Tenth, moving in together is definitely a step toward marriage.

An Atheist Who Loses Faith in His Morals

| | Culture, Current Events, Ethics, Philosophy
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Joel Marks, professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of New Haven and a scholar at the Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics at Yale University, recounts his loss of faith in a recent New York Times article. Don’t misunderstand, he’s always been an atheist, but now he’s lost his faith in morality.

I had thought I was a secularist because I conceived of right and wrong as standing on their own two feet, without prop or crutch from God. We should do the right thing because it is the right thing to do, period. But this was a God too. It was the Godless God of secular morality, which commanded without commander – whose ways were thus even more mysterious than the God I did not believe in, who at least had the intelligible motive of rewarding us for doing what He wanted.

The honest atheist makes the point that so many Christian apologists have been making for so long, that atheism has no grounds for moral absolutes. And Marks seems to be okay with that. Since he doesn’t want an authoritative God over him, why in the world would he want such claustrophobic morals?

But there’s a dark side to Marks’ conclusion and he’s not quick to hide it:

[I]f there was one thing I knew in this entire universe, it was that some things are morally wrong. It is wrong to toss male chicks, alive and conscious, into a meat grinder, as happens in the egg industry. It is wrong to scorn homosexuals and deny them civil rights. It is wrong to massacre people in death camps.

But suddenly I knew it no more. I was not merely skeptical or agnostic about it; I had come to believe, and do still, that these things are not wrong (emphasis mine).

While Dr. Marks plays intellectual dodgeball in the halls of New Haven, we can only hope that he, and others like him, continue to brake for small children who run into the street. But this doesn’t keep Marks from persuading others towards his desires:

My outlook has therefore become more practical: I desire to influence the world in such a way that my desires have a greater likelihood of being realized.

Yikes! It’s very convenient that Marks uses Mother Teresa as an example of one influencing the world toward her desires, but with no moral foundations, Hitler and Pol Pot become a more likely consequence.

But the rest of the world can’t live this way and, I’m assuming, neither can Marks. For throughout his essay, he still uses words like “victim” and “perpetrators.” Without assuming some sort of moral framework, these words are meaningless and empty, yet he uses them with much conviction.

As Christians we know that the presence and authority of God is everywhere, even on the lips of atheists (Ps. 139:7). And most certainly there is evil. We see it played out on our TV’s, in the newspaper, and in our own hearts. And we know it’s a most hideous and costly evil, one that would cost God his only Son to make right.