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For the Christian, virtue comes from God's character,
so moral rules and principles are those consistent with the outworking
of God's virtue known in Holy Scripture.
TOPICS
The Rev. Dr. Al W. Jenkins
Rector
ETHICS
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Definition:
Ethics is a very broad subject and it refers to the principles that define behavior.
Biblical
ethics refers to the principles that define behavior that conforms to
the will of God in Holy Scripture.
Specifically, ethics is the branch of axiology – one of
the four major branches of philosophy, alongside metaphysics,
epistemology, and logic – which attempts to understand the nature of
morality; to define that which is right from that which is wrong. The
Western tradition of ethics is sometimes called moral philosophy.
The terms 'ethics' and 'values' are not interchangeable.
Ethics is concerned with 'how' a person, institution, etc. should
behave, whereas values are the inner judgments that determine how that
person, institution, etc. 'actually' behaves.
Making decisions always involves ethics and ethics
requires sensitivity to implications of choices - the ability to
evaluate sometimes complex, ambiguous and incomplete facts, and the
skill to implement ethical choices.
It requires a framework of
principles that are reliable and a procedure (model) for applying them
to life. The study of ethics is a flexible discipline because it
implies that a Christian is growing and therefore changing as one
learns from life, history, theology, philosophy, and other disciplines.
Character: There are six pillars to character.
They are trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring,
and citizenship.
The elements of trustworthiness are honesty,
reliability, and loyalty.
The elements of respect are civility, courtesy,
decency, dignity, autonomy, tolerance, and acceptance.
The elements of responsibility are accountability,
pursuit of excellence, and self-restraint.
The elements of fairness are being able and
willing to process, impartiality, and equity.
The elements of caring are empathy and benevolence.
The elements of citizenship are civic virtues and
duties.
Please visit the Josephson Institute of Ethics or
Character Counts.
HUMAN SANCTITY &
MEDICINE
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Abortion: The following constitutes the Episcopal Church's
position on abortion - (emphasis is mine)
Resolution
Number: 1994-A054
Title: Reaffirm General Convention Statement on Childbirth and Abortion
Source: General Convention, Journal of the General Convention
of...The Episcopal Church, Indianapolis, 1994 (New York: General
Convention, 1995), pp. 323-25.
Resolved,
the House of Bishops concurring, That this 71st General Convention of
the Episcopal Church reaffirms resolution C047 from the 69th General
Convention, which states: All human life is sacred from its
inception until death. The Church takes seriously its obligation
to help form the consciences of its members concerning this sacredness.
Human life, therefore, should be initiated only advisedly and in full
accord with this understanding of the power to conceive and give
birth which is bestowed by God. It is the responsibility of our
congregations to assist their members in becoming informed concerning
the spiritual and physiological aspects of sex and sexuality.
The Book of Common Prayer affirms that "the birth of a child is a joyous
and solemn occasion in the life of a family. It is also an occasion for
rejoicing in the Christian community" (p. 440). As Christians we also
affirm responsible family planning.
We regard all abortion as having a tragic dimension, calling for
the concern and compassion of all the Christian community.
While we acknowledge that in this country it is the legal right of every
woman to have a medically safe abortion, as Christians we believe
strongly that if this right is exercised, it should be used only in
extreme situations. We emphatically oppose abortion as a means of
birth control, family planning, sex selection, or any reason of mere
convenience.
In those cases where an abortion is being considered, members of this
Church are urged to seek the dictates of their conscience in prayer, to
seek the advice and counsel of members of the Christian community and
where appropriate, the sacramental life of this Church.
Whenever members of this Church are consulted with regard to a
problem pregnancy, they are to explore, with grave seriousness, with the
person or persons seeking advice and counsel, as alternatives to
abortion, other positive courses of action, including, but not
limited to, the following possibilities: the parents raising the child;
another family member raising the child; making the child available for
adoption.
It is the responsibility of members of this Church, especially the
clergy, to become aware of local agencies and resources which will
assist those faced with problem pregnancies.
We believe that legislation concerning abortions will not address the
root of the problem. We therefore express our deep conviction that
any proposed legislation on the part of national or state governments
regarding abortions must take special care to see that the individual
conscience is respected, and that the responsibility of individuals
to reach informed decisions in this matter is acknowledged and
honored as the position of this Church; and be it further
Resolved, That this 71st General Convention of the
Episcopal Church express its unequivocal opposition to any
legislative, executive or judicial action on the part of local, state or
national governments that abridges the right of a woman to reach an
informed decision about the termination of pregnancy or that would limit
the access of a woman to safe means of acting on her decision.
This decision
is now supplemented by a vote by the Executive Council of the Episcopal
Church taken during the January 9-12, 2006 meeting in Des Moines, Iowa, in
which they approved the Episcopal Church's membership in the Religious
Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC). This organization's literature
states its "primary role is educating the public to make clear that
abortion can be a moral, ethical, and religiously responsible decision."
Source: The Living Church Foundation, 1/20/2006
The above national resolution (1994)
and the recent decision (2006) of the Executive Council exacerbates
division in the Episcopal Church.
It is "double
speak" and points to the relaxing of ethical values by
legislating Anglican morality.
Natalie E Roche, MD,
Assistant Professor, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Women's
Health,
University of Medicine and
Dentistry of New Jersey, wrote the following for eMedicine, September
28, 2004:
“Termination
of pregnancy has been practiced since ancient times and by all cultures.
The indications and social context for termination of pregnancy vary
with culture and time.
The use of abortion to preserve the life of the mother has been
widely accepted. Early Jewish scholars' interpretation of the Talmud
required that the fetus be destroyed if it posed a threat to the mother
during delivery. The ancient Greeks allowed abortion under certain
circumstances. Ancient Romans did not consider a fetus a person until
after birth, and abortion was practiced widely. Early Christians had
varying practices regarding abortion. By 1869, the Catholic church
declared abortion a sin punishable by excommunication.
In the United States, legislation regarding abortion has varied with
the times. Before 1800, no statutes addressed the subject of abortion.
The first antiabortion legislation appeared in the 1820’s; the
preservation of pregnant women's health was the motivating force. During
this time, the mortality rate from abortion was high, while the
mortality rate from childbirth was less than 3%. By 1900, abortion in
the United States at any time during pregnancy was a crime, with the
exception of therapeutic abortion performed to save the mother's life.
During the 1950's, the practice of medicine came under increasing
scrutiny, and guidelines were set to define the indications for
therapeutic abortion. The guidelines allowed therapeutic abortion if (1)
pregnancy would "gravely impair the physical and mental health of the
mother," (2) the child born was likely to have "grave physical and
mental defects," or (3) the pregnancy was the result of rape or incest (Mcfarlane,
1993). In the United States, the legalization of abortion by
Roe v Wade in 1973 upheld
the fundamental right of a woman to determine whether to continue her
pregnancy.
U.S. statistics indicate that the vast majority of abortions are
elective. Therapeutic abortion is rare. The ability to define
therapeutic abortion performed for maternal indications is difficult
because of the subjective nature of decisions made about potential
morbidity and mortality in pregnant women. A variety of medical
conditions in pregnant women have the potential to affect health and
cause complications that may be life threatening.
Prenatal screening in the form of prenatal diagnostic screening
continues to improve the antepartum diagnosis of fetal anomalies. The
decision to continue or terminate a pregnancy complicated by fetal
anomalies is a difficult decision. The most difficult decisions are
associated with anomalies that are unpredictable or highly variable in
their expression.
The increase in the use of assisted reproductive technologies has
been associated with an enormous increase in multifetal pregnancies.
These pregnancies are complicated by increased fetal morbidity and
mortality rates, which are largely caused by prematurity and growth
retardation. Selective reduction has been introduced as a technology to
improve perinatal outcomes in these pregnancies and has been successful
in reducing preterm deliveries and associated morbidity and mortality.
Patients in need of therapeutic termination of pregnancy can be
identified at any gestational age; however, the consideration of
therapeutic abortion is generally limited to pregnancies at 24 weeks'
gestation or less. Many patients are in the second trimester of
pregnancy because of the timing of fetal assessment tools (eg,
amniocentesis, ultrasound).”
There are no Christian
justifications for taking the life of a baby in the womb of its mother
for birth control, convenience (abortion on demand), or medical research.
A medical abortion in a hospital may be appropriate if there is a
substantial diagnosed risk that the mother might die during the
pregnancy or delivery. A medical abortion may also be appropriate if the
baby has a fatal condition that will not allow the child to live outside the womb of
its mother.
The
decision should remain with the mother (who will be accountable to God) in accordance with her conscience
and her perceived principles of Christian faith. She should have the
guidance of her family,
attorney, clergy, and doctors when making this decision.
Law and Right to Die - The term
"right to die", also called dying with dignity, refers to various
issues around the death of an individual when that person could
continue to live with the aid of life support or in a diminished or
enfeebled capacity.
Most often, the idea of the right to die is related to a
person's wish that caregivers allow death—for example, by not providing
life support or vital medication— under certain conditions when
recovery is highly unlikely or impossible. It may also refer to issues
regarding physician-assisted suicide. It may be called passive
euthanasia in cases where the patient is unable to make decisions about
treatment. Living Wills and Do Not Resuscitate orders are legal
instruments that make a patient's treatment decisions known ahead of
time and allowing a patient to die based on such decisions is not
considered to be euthanasia. Usually these patients have also made
explicit their wish to receive only palliative care to reduce pain and
suffering.
Although specialized legal instruments differ from state
to state, there is one document that is very important in this context.
The Medical Durable Power of Attorney (or MDPOA) designates an agent to
make decisions in case of incapacity, and can be used to give written
guidance regarding end of life decision making. The MDPOA is generally
considered to be the most powerful of all such instruments. All others
may require interpretation on the part of health care providers or even
court-appointed guardians. The MDPOA takes the job of interpretation
out of the hands of strangers and gives it to a person selected and
trusted by the individual.
Termination
of Life Support - Life support can
morally be withdrawn when a person is pronounced brain dead. Brain
death is defined as a complete and irreversible cessation of brain
activity. Absence of apparent brain function is not enough. Evidence of
irreversibility is also required. Traditionally, death has been defined
as the cessation of all body functions, including respiration and
heartbeat. Since it became possible to revive some people after a
period without respiration, heartbeat, or other visible signs of life,
as well as to maintain respiration and blood flow artificially using
life support treatments, an alternative definition for death was
needed. In recent decades, the concept of "brain death" has emerged. By
brain-death criteria, a person can be pronounced clinically dead even
if the heart continues to beat due to life support measures.
A brain-dead individual has no electrical activity and no
clinical evidence of brain function on neurologic examination and no
spontaneous respirations.
Medically Assisted Suicide - This
is also called "Physician-Assisted Suicide", which is a media term. It
is more accurately rendered "Doctor-Aided Dying" or "Compassionate Aid
in Dying." Here the physician may actively serve as a casual agent in
the patient's death by providing a medical means by which the patient
can take his or her life. This is generally done through a prescription
for a lethal dose of medication with the physician providing the
instructions as to how much medication to ingest. It is quite uncommon
and the AMA strongly opposes this. However, a poll conducted by Harris
Interactive in April 2005 found that 70% of Americans believe it is
moral. In 1982, just 53% agreed that it was moral. So, it is growing in
popularity with the American public. In fact, 67% of Americans surveyed
by the Harris poll said they would favor a law like Oregon's Death With
Dignity Act in their state.
The Oregon law, ratified by their voters in 1994 and again
in 1997, requires that:
a. Two doctors certify that the patient has no more than
six months to live;
b. Patients make three requests to the doctor for a lethal
dose of medication - twice orally and once in writing.
c. The prescription is filled only after a 15-day waiting
period;
d. Patients take the drug themselves - the prescribing
doctor may not administer the drug.
Suicide and the involvement of physicians in suicide is
immoral for a Christian.
Extraordinary Medical Treatment - This area of
ethics is broad because there are so many situations to which decisions
are applied.
EMT is often applied to those in PVS (Permanent Vegetative
State). PVS are those who have lost all higher brain function and for
whom the only part of the brain that continues to function is the brain
stem, which controls the person's involuntary activities, such as
breathing, heartbeat, and digestion. Life support can morally be
withdrawn when a physician determines there is no hope for a person to
breath on their own.
EMT is also applied when a patient has been without oxygen
for an extended amount of time and a physician determines there could a
very significant amount of irreversible brain damage and the patient
will never enjoy a reasonable quality of life. In such instances, EMT
should not be applied. In some of these instances a member or members
of the person's family will insist on EMT, receive it, and the patient
will live. That person or the family will then have to be responsible
for the care of the patient, which can be very difficult, if not
impossible. In those cases, the patient cannot live without extremely
expensive state care and extra-ordinary personal and/or family care.
Living Will & DNR Order - Having a Living Will
is a very good moral decision. A Living Will, also
called Will to Live, Advance Health Directive, or Advance Health Care
Directive, is a specific type of power of attorney or
health care proxy or advance directive. It is a legal instrument that
usually is witnessed or notarized. These documents state:
-
That the principal is appointing an
individual to direct their health care decisions should the principal
be unable to do so (e.g. called "Power of Attorney for Health Care"),
or
-
Specific directives as to the course
of treatment that is to be taken by caregivers, or, in particular, in
some cases forbidding treatment and sometimes also nutrition and water,
should the principal be unable to give informed consent ("Individual
Health Care Instruction") due to incapacity.
As
the name suggests, the Will to Live tends to emphasize the wish to live
as long as possible rather than refusing treatment in the case of
serious conditions.
A
DNR,
or Do Not Resuscitate Order is a written directive from a person, their
doctor, or someone entitled to make decisions on their behalf, that
they should not be revived if they suffer cardiac arrest. This is
sometimes known as a no-code order. Instead, the person wishes to have
a natural death without painful or invasive medical procedures. This is
usually because the person suffers from an inevitably fatal illness,
and does not wish to prolong the suffering. The DNR order came into
being in the U.S. in the 1960s when defibrillation allowed the reversal
of cardiac arrest, but this may prolong the life of the patient for
only a short time. In the U.S., cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and
advanced cardiac life support (ACLS) should not be performed if a valid
written "DNR" order is present. In any cases of doubt, emergency
medical technicians, paramedics and other medical workers will perform
as if a DNR order did not exist, as is required by law. For the DNR to
be valid there may be rules such as the use of a special form and/or
additional signatures of a doctor and/or witnesses, etc. The exact
rules for obtaining and for emergency medical personnel accepting the
validity of a DNR order vary widely according to jurisdiction.
Euthanasia - This is often referred to as
"active euthanasia", meaning the patient's life is ended by the direct
action of a physician.
Euthanasia is immoral. One, this prerogative belongs
exclusively to God. Two, administering euthanasia leaves no opportunity
for a misdiagnosis. Three, euthanasia could move from voluntary to
non-voluntary. This might lead to a patient having to justify their
existence, if they could. Those with Powers of Attorney and relatives
could become tired of a person living for any number of reasons -
family pressure, bills, draining an estate, inability to enact wills,
'need to remarry issues', etc. Four, prohibition of euthanasia will
keep the law out of the medical setting. Five, euthanasia will open the
door to neglect of the elderly and terminally ill. Six, the elderly
need a secure setting in which to deal with their medical choices at
the end of their life. In particular, they do not need to consider
those choices in an atmosphere of fear produced by the possibility of
involuntary euthanasia.
Genetic Technologies - Helpful advances are the
use of genetic technologies in forensics and the prevention/cure of
diseases.
Unhelpful advances would be gene enhancement therapies to
create designer embryos and genetically engineered children. Eugenics
is also immoral. Eugenics is weeding out genetic undesirables in a
society.
Other ethical concerns in genetics are population testing
(carrier testing), privacy of personal genetic data, genetic
discrimination, genetic stigmatization, and psychological trauma caused
by illegal sharing of genetic data - all based on one's genetic profile
in genetic registries. It would be morally correct to determine who
holds the registries and how the registries would be used.
Stem Cell Research - Stem cell
research is one key to finding cures to such diseases as Parkinson's,
Alzheimer's and multiple sclerosis or to treat paralysis. Using adult
stem cells is justifiable, but using human embryonic stem cells is
immoral because human life and personhood begin at conception.
Birth Control:
Birth control is a regimen of one or more actions, devices, or
medications followed in order to deliberately prevent or reduce the
likelihood of a woman giving birth or becoming pregnant. Methods and
intentions termed birth control may be considered family planning.
Mechanisms which are intended to reduce the likelihood of the
fertilization may be referred to as contraception. Contraception
prevents fertilization. Methods of birth control which prevent the
implantation of an embryo if fertilization occurs are medically
considered to be contraception but characterized by others as
abortifacients.
Birth control is controversial. There are those who oppose all
forms of birth control short of sexual abstinence; those who oppose
forms of birth control they deem "unnatural," while allowing natural
family planning; and those who support most forms of birth control that
prevent fertilization, but oppose any method of birth control which
prevents a fertilized embryo from initiating a pregnancy.
Prior to the 1900’s, contraception was generally condemned by all
the major branches of Christianity. This unified front no longer exists.
Among Christian denominations today there are a large variety of
positions for contraception.
Like pre-1930s Protestantism, the Roman Catholic Church has been
morally opposed to contraception as far back as one can historically
trace. Couples seeking marriage in the RCC are in most dioceses required
to undergo counseling by a priest. In the past, priests led couples
seeking to delay children to the rhythm method, but today they are instructed to
point new couples toward the more effective methods of natural family
planning.
The condemnation of contraception was first relaxed by the Anglican
Communion at the 1930 Lambeth Conference, and most Protestant groups
followed suit over the course of the 20th century: "The Church of
England does not regard contraception as a sin or a contravention of
God's purpose." — Church of England, Science, Medicine,
Technology and the Environment (2005).
The
Jewish view on birth control currently varies between the Orthodox,
Conservative, and Reform branches of Judaism. Among Orthodox Judaism,
use of birth control has been considered only acceptable for use in
limited circumstances. Conservatives, while generally encouraging its
members to follow the traditional Jewish views on birth control, has
been more willing to allow exceptions regarding its use to fit
better within modern society. Reformed Judaism has generally been the
most liberal with regard to birth control allowing individual followers
to use their own judgment in what, if any, birth control methods they
might wish to employ.
The following constitutes the current position of the
Episcopal Church on birth control (emphasis is mine) -
Resolution
Number: 1994-D009
Title: Reaffirm Family Planning and Control of Global Population Growth
Source: General Convention, Journal of the General Convention
of...The Episcopal Church, Indianapolis, 1994 (New York: General
Convention, 1995), pp. 281-82.
Resolved,
the House of Bishops concurring, That the 1994 General Convention of the
Episcopal Church affirm that rapid global population growth adversely
affects the prospects for peace and justice by exacerbating poverty,
deprivation and suffering, and depleting environmental resources; and be
it further
Resolved, That the Episcopal Church reaffirm the 1930 Lambeth
Conference of the Anglican communion, which approved contraception for
purposes of family planning; and be it further
Resolved, That the Episcopal Church, in order to improve the
quality of life for all, commend to the several dioceses and agencies of
the Episcopal Church as well as to the relative structures of the
Anglican Communion programs and projects to provide information to
all men and women on the full range of affordable, acceptable, safe, and
non-coercive contraceptive and reproductive health care services,
utilizing educational programs which start with parents and
their children; and be it further
Resolved, That governments everywhere be encouraged to recognize,
acknowledge and seek remedies to reverse the rapid global population
growth that adversely affects the health, education and quality of life
of women; the prospects for peace; and depletes environmental resources;
and be it further
Resolved, That the Secretary of the 1994 General Convention be
requested to send a copy of this resolution to the President of the
United States, the Vice-President of the United States, the
Undersecretary for Global Affairs of the Department of State, the
chairman of the International Conference on Population and Development,
the representative of the Anglican Consultative Council to the United
Nations, the Secretary General of the United States Catholic Conference,
the Administrator of USAID, and the Secretary General of the United
Nations, together with a letter expressing the hope that the actions
proposed above be carried out world-wide.
There
now seems to be three main moral issues in birth control. One, natural
conception is an act of God, not a woman. Two, world populations are
growing at such an alarming rate that poverty and disease (and resulting
deaths) are growing exponentially. Three, sexually transmitted diseases
are out of control - especially the world’s largest pandemic - AIDS.
The study of the history of birth control goes back centuries. If
interested, one may do an internet study beginning with WebMD,
Epigee Women's Health, the Yale-New Haven Teacher's Institute History of
Birth Control, and/or the Houghton Mifflin Online Study Center's
History of Birth Control.
My opinion is that life begins at conception and destroying life at
conception or thereafter is morally wrong, except in the cases I have
outlined under the topic of abortion. The case for over population,
based on contemporary studies, does not seem accurate. The case for the
pandemic of sexually transmitted diseases is accurate and I would hold
that in those cases, birth control is justifiable. The case of the
Anglican Communion justifying contraception as a means of birth control
in 1930 needs additional examination because that decision may not be as
simple as reported. The case for the education of families in the use of
birth control methods by the Episcopal Church's decision in 1994 needs
additional attention, as it seems much too broad and does not elevate
abstinence as a biblical standard. Churches and parents need to be very
careful what they teach children or children will view worldly standards
of birth control as morally right and they are not. The sexual education
of children by Christians should always begin with the Bible and God's
opinion on the subject.
Reproductive Technologies - This is a term for all
current and anticipated uses of technology in human and animal
reproduction, including:
- artificial
insemination
- artificial wombs
- cloning
- cryopreservation of sperm, oocytes, embryos
- embryo testing & transfer
- genetic testing
- hormone treatment to increase fertility
- in vitro fertilization
- preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD)
- sperm selection
Medical research advances quickly and it is important to the church to
have a moral position on developing reproductive technologies. To do
this, it has to stay informed. Some new technologies are now quite
common and helpful to people. Others are questionable.
The areas that are questionable in ethics are providing
anything other than hybrid embryos for medical research, embryonic
commerce, cloning, artificial wombs, and aspects of genetic testing.
The following are morally questionable: using human
embryos for research, selling embryos, cloning technology beyond tissue
matching, use of artificial wombs beyond endometrial cells, and genetic
testing/therapy/informational banks that is/are not highly regulated to
protect the public's privacy and to prevent discrimination and racism.
JUSTICE
TOP
1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th World - The terms
First World, Second World and Third World can be used to divide the
nations of Earth into three broad categories.
After World War II, people began to speak of the NATO and
Warsaw Pact countries as two major blocs. The two "worlds" were not
numbered. It was eventually pointed out that there were many countries
that fit into neither category, and in the 1950s this latter group came
to be called the Third World. It then began to seem that there
ought to be a "First World" and a "Second World."
Eventually, it became common practice to refer to nations
within the Western European and United States' sphere of influence
(e.g. the NATO countries) as the First World. Besides North
America (USA and Canada) and Western Europe, the First World
also included other industrialized capitalist countries such as Japan
and some of the former British colonies, particularly Australia, New
Zealand, and South Africa.
The term Second World has largely fallen out of
use because of the circumstances to which it referred largely ended
with the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
Third World is a term created by Jawaharlal Nehru
(First Prime Minister of India), originally to distinguish nations that
aligned with neither the West nor with the East during the Cold War.
Today, the term is used to denote nations with a low UN Human
Development Index (HDI), independent of their political status. Many "Third
World" countries are located in Africa, Latin America,
and Asia. They are often nations that were colonized by another nation
in the past. Third World countries are generally very poor but
with high populations and birth rates. In general, they are not as
industrialized or technologically advanced as other countries.
The majority of the countries in the world are Third
World. These countries are also known as the Global South, developing
countries, least developed countries and the
Majority World in academic circles. Development workers also call
them the Two-Thirds world (because two-thirds of the
world is underdeveloped) and The South. Some dislike the term ‘developing
countries’ as it may imply that economic development is the only
way forward, while they believe it is not necessarily the most
beneficial. The term Third World is also disliked as it may
imply the false notion that those countries are not a part of the
global economic system. Some claim that the underdevelopment of Africa,
Asia and South America during the Cold War was influenced, or even
caused by the Cold War economic, political, and military maneuverings
of the most powerful nations of the time.
The term Fourth World is used by some to describe
the poorest Third World countries, those which lack industrial
infrastructure and the means to build it. More commonly, however, the
term is used to describe either indigenous peoples or other oppressed
minority groups within any country.
Civil
Rights - Civil rights
are the protections and privileges of personal liberty given to all
citizens by law. Civil rights can refer to the equal treatment of all
citizens irrespective of race, gender, and class – or, it can refer to
laws which invoke claims of positive liberty.
Laws guaranteeing civil rights may be written, derived
from custom, or implied. In the United States, civil rights laws are
most often written. For example, laws protecting civil rights appear in
the Constitution, in the amendments to the Constitution, in federal
statues, in state constitutions and statues, and in the ordinances of
counties and cities. States and local governments can expand civil
rights beyond the U.S. Constitution, but they cannot diminish
Constitutional rights.
Examples of civil rights and liberties include the right
to redress if injured by another, the right to privacy, the right of
peaceful protest, the right to a fair investigation and trial if
suspected of a crime, and more generally-based constitutional rights
such as the right to vote, the right to personal freedom, the right to
life, the right to freedom of movement and anti-discrimination laws.
As the United States emerged from its foundations and
formalized its principles of freedom through a written Constitution,
important civil rights were granted to citizens. When those grants were
later found inadequate, civil rights movements emerged as the vehicle
for claiming more equal protection for all citizens and advocating new
laws to limit the effect of current discriminations.
Class,
Privilege, and Wealth - The present state of
American culture reflects that social mobility is declining, there is a
growing gap in income equality, and there is a crisis in equal
opportunity in education. Without correction, a variety of permanent
American underclasses will be created. This is immoral.
In “The
Promise of American Life”, Herbert Croly noted that “a democracy, not
less than a monarchy or an aristocracy, must recognize political,
economic, and social distinctions, but it must also withdraw its
consent whenever these discriminations show any tendency to excessive
endurance.” So far Americans have been fairly tolerant of economic
distinctions. But that tolerance may not last long if the current trend
towards “excessive endurance” in class, privilege, and wealth is not
reversed. The middle class culture will become much smaller as
underclass and upper class cultures become more distinct.
The Economic Policy
Institute found that social mobility has declined since the 1970s and
most researchers agree that the dramatic increase in income inequality
over the past two decades has not been accompanied by an
equally dramatic increase in social mobility. Two economists at the
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston have analyzed family incomes over three
decades. They found that 40% of families remained stuck in the same
income bracket in the 1990s, compared with 37% of families in the 1980s
and 36% in the 1970s.
Merit has replaced the old system of inherited privilege.
Merit is at least partly class-based. Parents with money, education and
connections cultivate in their children the habits that today’s
meritocracy rewards. This is particularly true of the markers of
upscale Americans – college degrees, graduate degrees, career path, and
the parents’ profession. When their children succeed, their success is
seen as earned. The perception among the well-to-do that everyone could
simply do likewise and achieve the same results is inaccurate. That we
have confused the benefits conferred by wealth with merit says a lot
about how far we are from doing something about the growing gap in
American social mobility, wealth distribution, and educational
opportunity.
If one can remember that ultimately class, privilege and
wealth (money) are passing illusions (because one cannot control or
even possess them except for a very limited time) in the greater scheme
of life, then one can balance their understanding of eternal matters
and act responsibly and morally.
Immigration
& Borders - The borders and ports of the US are particularly
vulnerable, not only to illegal immigration, but also as a route for
terrorists. Guarding them is very costly. For example, on the 1,951 mile
border between Mexico and the US, it takes 10,000 federal
agents to guard it. In 2004, they made 1.14 million arrests. That was a
24% increase from the previous year. Local communities along the border
are being swamped with services they cannot afford and these local
economies are faltering. Federal payments are far short of matching
actual expenses.
Here are some 2005 U.S. Border Patrol statistics:
5,000 - Approximate miles of border with Canada
1,951 - Approximate miles of border with Mexico
95,000 - Approximate miles of U.S. shoreline
29,000 - Approximate number of Border Patrol agents & officers
317 - U.S. ports of entry
210 - Average number of fraudulent documents confiscated daily at U.S.
borders
1 - Average number of travelers detained daily for terrorism or national
security
135 - Average daily arrests at U.S. ports of entry
1,237 - Average number of non-citizens denied entry daily at U.S. ports
of entry
2,313 - Pounds of narcotics seized daily at U.S. ports of entry
For the preservation of a stable democracy, we
have learned since 2001 that it is important and moral to strengthen
the porous borders and security of the United States.
Where people desire to become legal immigrants, they
have a right to do so. Illegal immigration is not moral nor is it
healthy for the American society. However, U.S. immigration laws
are not equal under the law and need legislation.
The idea of having immigrants who do not want to be citizens or
who are unable to be citizens, be issued guest-worker permits, is a good
alternative. Those whose intentions are to remain illegal, should be
deported, because it will eventually destroy the infrastructure of the
U.S. government and significantly increase the risk of terrorism.
Internet Pornography - For a Christian, any kind of
pornography is immoral because it is a sexual perversion and
it does not represent God's values of decency defined in the Bible.
Parents have a responsibility to consider installing
internet screening software on home computers and computers of children
under adult age.
Those with Christian businesses (as well as pastors with
churches) have an equal responsibility to ensure office computers are
not being used by employees for pornography. Software
exists that will allow supervisors to quickly check a computer for
pornographic use.
The internet is a global information
community, so legal precedents are just now 'beginning' to be
established. Who decides - global, national, state, or local law?
Because of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1973 in Miller vs.
California, obscenity cases have been judged according to standards
of local communities. The Supreme Court has not ruled on any case that
would establish how to define "local standards", but the U.S. 6th
District Court of Appeals has upheld a 'local' jury conviction of
internet pornography.
Literacy - Greg Toppo reported in
USA TODAY on December 15th, 2005 that that according to a
new federal survey, eleven million U.S. adults — about one in 20 — have
such poor English skills that they can't read a newspaper, understand
the directions on a bottle of pills or, in many cases, carry on a basic
conversation.
Recent immigrants with limited or no English skills
account for most of the group, adult education advocates say, but the
survey suggests that even the average adult has low skills.
The first comprehensive look at adult literacy since a
similar study in 1992, the National Assessment of Adult Literacy,
released in December 2005 in Washington, found that an estimated 30
million adults, or 14%, have "below basic" skills.
The survey concluded that an estimated 11 million adults
are "non-literate" in English, including 4 million who probably can't
speak English and 7 million who can't answer basic written questions.
"We remain concerned that the numbers are so high," said Leslie Burger,
president-elect of the American Library Association. She and others
said the high numbers of non-literate adults is a function of increased
immigration in the past decade. Many new immigrants, advocates say,
could benefit from adult education programs but worry that doing so
could expose them to government scrutiny and even deportation. The
non-literate population includes adults who may be able to read and
write — even at high levels — in their native language.
Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said in December
2005 that, “the federal government will coordinate adult education
efforts through several federal agencies. One adult unable to read is
one too many in America." Jose Velazquez, director of the National
Center for Family Literacy's Hispanic Family Learning Institute, said
education needs to focus more on adults. "This country right now is
focused on No Child Left Behind, but we can clearly see from this data
that many adults are being left behind."
Christians have a moral responsibility to help those who
are illiterate become literate. This would be a tremendous outreach
opportunity for most Christian churches.
Poverty
- There is
no ethical issue larger or more important than poverty. Poor people
describe poverty as the lack of food, medical help, and assets as well
as the powerlessness that stems from dependency on others, and the
helplessness to protect themselves from exploitation and abuse because
of their dependence.
Poverty facts include, but are
not limited to:
Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a
book or sign their names.
20% of the population in developed nations consume 86% of the world’s
goods.
In 1960, the 20% of the world’s people in the wealthiest countries
had 30 times the income of the poorest 20% — in 1997, 74 times as much.
An analysis of long-term trends shows the distance between the
richest and poorest countries was about:
-
3
to 1 in 1820
-
11
to 1 in 1913
-
35
to 1 in 1950
-
44
to 1 in 1973
-
72
to 1 in 1992
The developing world now spends $13 on debt repayment for
every $1 it receives in grants.
Of all human rights failures today, those in economic and social
areas affect by far the larger number and are the most widespread
across the world’s nations.
Approximately 790 million people in the developing world are still
chronically undernourished, almost two-thirds of whom reside in Asia
and the Pacific.
According to UNICEF, 30,000 children die each day due to poverty.
They die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed
from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak
in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death. That
is about 210,000 children each week, or just under 11 million children
under five years of age, each year.
Today, across the world, 1.3 billion people live on less than one
dollar a day; 3 billion live on less than two dollars a day; 1.3
billion have no access to clean water; 3 billion have no access to
sanitation; 2 billion have no access to electricity.
The richest 50 million people in Europe and North America have the
same income as 2.7 billion poor people.
A mere 12 percent of the world’s population uses 85 percent of its
water, and these 12 percent do not live in the Third World.
About 0.13% of the world’s population controlled 25% of the world’s
assets in 2004.
10,000 women in
developing countries die each year giving birth.
200,000 children in developing countries under age five die of
disease each year.
2,000,000 people will die of AIDS
this year in Africa alone.
As many as 115,000,000 children in developing countries are not in
school.
Poverty has many faces and it is a global challenge that
is growing exponentially. Peace with stable political and economic
justice systems have to prevail for systems to develop to support the
poor. Peace provides a way to build a climate for investment, jobs, and
sustainable growth. There is a vital relationship between long-term
economic growth and human development, yet without human development,
economic growth cannot be sustained. Making institutions of government
more accountable to poor people and strengthening the participation of
poor people in political processes and local decision-making
discourages poverty. In addition, reducing poor people's vulnerability
to ill health, crop failures, natural disasters, economic shocks and
violence is an important aid in the relief of the poor.
As more and more poor move to cities, another kind of
poverty is urban poverty. The urban poor live with many deprivations.
Their daily challenges include:
- limited access to employment
opportunities and income,
- inadequate and insecure housing and
services,
- violent and unhealthy environments,
- little or no social protection
mechanisms, and
- limited access to adequate health and
education opportunities.
Urban poverty is not just a collection of characteristics, it is a
dynamic condition of vulnerability or susceptibility to risks that
includes cities and towns of all sizes.
Poverty is associated with the poor, but the growth of
poverty in a global environment still grappling with unstable
governments, military and trade wars, and uncompromising world and
religious views makes all people poor. Every person on the face of
earth is paying for poverty and the cost increases annually.
Victimization - Christians have an
explicit responsibility to minister to the needs of real victims with
heartfelt empathy - discerning victim from opportunist. An opportunist
is a person willing to take immediate advantage,
often unethically, of any circumstance of possible benefit.
Today, there is a bewildering assortment of victims, a
cacophony of angry opportunists vying with one another for victim
status, shouting for redress. Instead of being personally responsible
for a solution to their situation, they project their victimhood upon
others. A Nation of Victims (Charles J. Sykes, St. Martin’s
Press, New York, 1992) is an excellent primer to understand this
movement.
A legitimate victim is someone who, through no fault of
their own, has suffered significant loss of some essential part of
their life. With or without help, a real victim finds a responsible way
to manage life. However, many in today's society seem to increasingly
believe that when one experiences hardship or pain, blame should be
attached somewhere and redress achieved by enshrining irresponsible
behavior as a handicap to achieve legal protection and economic gain.
By virtue of assuming victim status, the perpetrator is excused and
even lionized for taking affirmative action to free himself or herself
from his or her ‘oppressors’. In this social movement, personal
irresponsibility is evolving into a civil right.
It is a Christian duty to promote moral concepts for being
personally accountable. Christians also have an explicit responsibility
to minister to the needs of true victims, but Christians should
minister with their eyes open to the additional responsibility of
discerning true victim from victimological opportunist.
Native
American Rights - The
civil, human, and religious rights for those indigenous
to the Americas
prior to
European colonization, and their descendants in
modern times is an important moral subject. This term encompasses a
large number of distinct tribes, states,
and ethnic groups,
many of them still enduring as political communities.
Federally recognized tribes are considered domestic
dependent nations, with their rights to tribal sovereignty preserved.
Tribal sovereignty refers to tribes' right to govern themselves, define
their own membership, manage tribal property, and regulate tribal
business and domestic relations; it further recognizes the existence of
a government-to-government relationship between such tribes and the
federal government. The federal government has special trust
obligations to protect tribal lands and resources, protect tribal
rights to self-government, and provide services necessary for tribal
survival and advancement.
It is morally correct to preserve the tribal sovereignty
and treaty rights of First Americans.
Racial Profiling - One need not consider
race to the exclusion of all other factors to be engaged in racial
profiling. Rather, a "profile" will often contain a variety of factors:
If one or more of them is race, then it is a racial profile. Profiling
involves giving prominent consideration in security searches to
characteristics that have no direct connection with wrongdoing.
The costs of racial profiling can be great.
- There is an element of inherent
unfairness in singling a person out for suspicion because of a trait
that is generally harmless.
- Such treatment can create a stigma for
members of particular groups.
- Such a stigma can exacerbate any
tendency that a group exhibits to be involved in a particular kind of
wrongdoing. It may reinforce a stereotype that a certain type of person
is "expected" to be a criminal, a drug user, a terrorist, etc.
- Accepting profiling where its use can be
legitimated may open the door to institutionalized discrimination and
the erosion of civil liberties.
It seems unreasonable to visit disproportionate burdens upon one
segment of the population, defined by its racial characteristics. In
part, this is because race is immutable and therefore cannot be altered
to avoid unwanted disparate treatment.
No state law enforcement agency or official should stop,
detain, or search any person when such action is solely
motivated by consideration of race, color, or ethnicity, and the action
would constitute a violation of the civil rights of the person.
Separation of Church
and State - In the
United States separation of church and state is governed by the
Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution and by
legal precedents interpreting that clause. The term, "separation of
church and state", does not appear in the Constitution.
The view that religious and state institutions should be
separate is a wide spectrum, ranging between, but not including, the
extremes which secularize or destroy the church, and theocracy which
absorbs the state into the function of the church. A government that
does not make direct appeal to a specific institution of religion for
the justification of its powers is a secular government. Some
secularists assert that the state should be kept entirely separate from
religion, and that the institutions of religion should be entirely free
from state interference. Some secular governments establish
quasi-religious justifications for their powers, constructed for
ceremonial and rhetorical purposes, but designed for the general
welfare and the benefit of the state, without necessarily favoring any
specific religious group, or conforming to any doctrine other than its
own - an arrangement called civil religion. Other secularists assert
that the state ought to encourage religion by providing exemptions from
taxation, or providing funds for education and charities, including
those that are "faith based", but ought not establish one religion as
the state religion, require religious observance, or legislate dogma.
The legal concept of the union of freedom of belief and
freedom of worship, with the absence of any state-sponsored religion,
originated in the United States. Consequently the US has become a
nation of many religious institutions which flourish under the freedom
of legal protection. The US government, however, does not allow total
unrestricted freedom of religious practice. Federal, state, and local
laws take precedence over the free exercise of religious beliefs, which
means that laws against any crime committed by a religious institution
can be enforced even if such practices are part of a group's religious
beliefs.
Violence Against
Women - Violence against women (and children) is highly immoral. The
places were violence against women are most noticeable in our culture
are in the media, domestic relationships, dating, sexual assault and
abuse, elder abuse, stalking, and abuse of mentally ill women. One
third of women in the United States are abused each year, a major
reason being the commercial exploitation of women by the media which
conditions society to treat women as a commodity (an object of personal
gratification).
It is often hard and confusing for a woman to admit that she is in an
abusive relationship, or to find a way out. There are clear signs to
help you know if you are being abused. If the person you love or live
with does any of these things to you, it’s time to get help:
- monitors what you’re doing all the time
- criticizes you for little things
- constantly accuses you of being
unfaithful
- prevents or discourages you from seeing
friends or family, or going to work or school
- gets angry when drinking alcohol or
using drugs
- controls how you spend your money
- controls your use of needed medicines
- humiliates you in front of others
- destroys your property or things that
you care about
- threatens to hurt you, the children, or
pets, or does cause hurt (by hitting, beating, pushing, shoving,
punching, slapping, kicking, or biting)
- uses or threatens to use a weapon
against you
- forces you to have sex against your will
- blames you for his or her violent
outbursts
To get
immediate help and support call the National Domestic Violence Hotline
at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or the National Sexual Assault
Hotline at 1-800-656-4673.
SECULAR &
CHRISTIAN ETHICS
TOP
Business Ethics - Business
ethics is a form of applied ethics that examines ethical rules and
principles within a commercial context; the various moral or ethical
problems that can arise in a business setting; and any special duties
or obligations that apply to persons who are engaged in commerce.
Generally speaking, business ethics is a normative discipline, whereby
particular ethical standards are assumed in corporate policy and
business professionalism - and then applied. In business, ethics is a
moving target as individuals and business cultures are very different
in their perception of values.
Business ethics aren't identical to the philosophy of
business, the branch of philosophy that deals with the philosophical,
political, and ethical underpinnings of business and economics.
Business ethics makes specific judgments about what is
right or wrong, which is to say, it makes claims about what ought to be
done or what ought not to be done. While there are some exceptions,
business ethicists are usually less concerned with justifying ethical
principles, and are more concerned with practical problems and
applications, and any specific duties that might apply to business
relationships.
Contemporary ethical issues in business are accounting and
financial standards, advertising deception, black market sales,
bribery, kickbacks, business intelligence, corporate espionage,
political contributions, corporate governance, corporate crime, price
discrimination, competitive disinformation, discrimination, affirmative
action, sexual harassment, employee issues, professional conduct,
environment, labor, marketing, sales, negotiation techniques, patent
and copyright infringement, planned obsolescence, product liability and
product defects.
Because of the insatiable demand by the American public for low
cost products in the 21st century, two of the fastest growing domestic
business ethics concerns are 1) manufacturing outsourcing, which affects
a wide range of ethical sub-systems; and 2) the building of large
corporate stores in rural towns, which changes generational small
businesses and the character of those towns. In both cases, thousands of
people have lost their vocations, business, and retirement. Both
concerns have a moral and immoral side and both are "fueled" by the
American appetite of consumerism and wealth accumulation.
Christian
Humanism - Christian
humanism is a philosophical
union of Christian
and humanist
principles. It has been traced back to at least the 12th century,
and its proponents claim it to be grounded in the mystery of God present
in history as a human being, Jesus, and
secondly, on "several" teachings of Jesus, as found in the New Testament.
It does not elevate ordinary human beings to the status of deities, nor
does it deny the primacy of God, but rather it seeks to celebrate
humanity and place the 'serving' of one's fellow human beings as one of
the highest Christian duties.
Christian humanism carries within it a potential for
reaching across the metaphysical
divide separating two sides of American culture, in which one side
places moral authority in something transcending the individual, and
the other places moral authority in personal human experience.
Christian humanism is first of all a movement for widened
learning that emerged out of the Renaissance and was brought by devoted
Christians to the study of the philological sources of the Greek New
Testament. This project was undertaken at the time of the Reformation
in the work of Erasmus
(Roman Catholic), Martin Luther
(Augustinian priest who led the Evangelical Reformation), and John Calvin (of the Reformed tradition who believed in studying
the Bible in the original languages).
The broader tradition extends the usage of the term
"Christian humanism” to describe the vocations of Christians active in
the discipline of Humane Letters and who serve on Humanities faculties
of colleges and universities. Many authors of novels and poems (T.S.
Eliot), writing in the Twentieth and Twenty First centuries can be
described as "Christian humanists". Many teachers of literary criticism
also call themselves "Christian humanists," and understand literary
values as including those of gentility, morality, and
faith-perspective. Novelists of the preceding generation identified in
this manner were Dorothy Sayers
(Anglican), Charles Williams
(Anglican), C. S. Lewis
(Anglican), J. R. R. Tolkien
(Roman Catholic), and Flannery O'Connor
(Roman Catholic).
Some Christian
humanists value culture but confess that mankind is fully developed
only as it comes into a right relationship with Christ.
Pelagianism - Pelagianism is very
much a part of the 21st century Christian scene. It is the belief that original sin
did not taint human
nature, and that mortal will is
capable of choosing good or evil without Divine aid.
Thus, Adam's
sin
was "to set a bad example" for his progeny, but his actions did not
have the other consequences imputed to original sin.
Pelagianism views the role of Jesus as
"setting a good example" for the rest of us, thus counteracting Adam's bad
example. In short, a person has full control of his or her life, and
thus full responsibility for his or her own salvation in
addition to full responsibility for every sin.
Pelagianism was condemned by Christianity as a heresy in 431
A.D.
Civil
Religion - The term "civil
religion" was coined by Jean Jacques Rousseau in his treatise, "On the Social
Contract" (1762), which was widely influential among America's
founders. Rousseau frowned on the model of monarchies, in which the
head of state was the head of the church; and he took a negative view
of Christianity itself, because he believed it divided citizens'
loyalties between their civic and spiritual obligations. His solution
was to create a "purely civil profession of faith" that would be
promoted by a nation's leaders.
After the revolutionary period in America, civil religion
went without much examination or commentary until University of
California, Berkeley professor Robert Bellah
revived the subject in his 1967 essay, "Civil Religion in
America."
"In American political theory, sovereignty rests, of
course, with the people; but implicitly, and often explicitly, the
ultimate sovereignty has been attributed to God," Bellah wrote. "This
is the meaning of the motto, 'In God We Trust,' and the inclusion of
the phrase 'under God' in the pledge to the flag."
John
Winthrop is the formal beginning of American civil religion.
Winthrop, a devout Puritan and
leader of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, delivered his famous sermon on
board the Arabella
en route to Massachusetts. In it, he said, "Thus stands the cause
between God and us. We are entered into covenant with Him for this
work. We have taken out a commission. ... For we must consider that we
shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us." -
John Winthrop, "A
Model of Christian Charity," 1630.
Winthrop's Puritan followers looked upon him as a
Moses-like figure, leading them to the promised land. The crossing of
the Atlantic became a metaphor for crossing the Red Sea and the Jordan
River, and Massachusetts would be the new Israel.
This idea has carried forward from colonial times, through
the Revolution, the Civil War and right up to the present. Civil
religion applies the themes spelled out by Winthrop.
Civil
religion contains the following elements:
Myths: Sacred stories, parables and legendary acts of
heroism, such as George Washington’s feats of heroism in the
Revolutionary War and Abraham Lincoln’s sacrifices to preserve the
union.
Rituals: Ceremonies and actions that define communities
and cross denominational lines, such as the honoring of the dead,
memorializing people who died in battle, and saying the Pledge of
Allegiance.
Ethics: Codes of moral conduct, what the Puritans called
“cutting covenants with the Lord,” and enacting covenants with one
another.
Art, Music, and Architecture – Such as public buildings
and courthouses built in classical style, and other structures and art
forms infused with elements of Americana.
Doctrines: The Declaration of Independence and the Bill
of Rights.
Social Formations: Veterans of Foreign Wars, the
American Legion, Daughters of the American Revolution, etc.
Themes
of civil religion are:
Chosen-ness: The idea that the
nation and its citizens have been chosen by God for a higher purpose.
Freedom and Liberty: Universal ideas that no one can
oppose.
Individualism: A strong emphasis on individual
freedom and responsibility, which also places a heavy obligation on
individuals to live up to the covenant.
The American Dream: Going from “rags to riches,” or
making one’s fortune and the idea that wealth must be given back to the
community in the form of philanthropy or social services.
Fundamentalism - Christian
fundamentalism, which has no single founder, is a Christian orientation
that originally started in reaction to biblical scholasticism. In
particular, fundamentalists reject the documentary
hypothesis—the theory held by higher biblical
criticism that the first five books of the Bible were composed
and shaped by many people over centuries. For instance, the term
‘fundamentalist’ derives from a series of twelve volumes of 94 essays
entitled The Fundamentals: A Testimony To The Truth, 27 of them
objecting to higher criticism
of the Bible. The essays were written by 64 British and American
conservative Protestant theologians between 1910 and 1915.
The original formulation of American fundamentalist
beliefs can be traced to the Niagara Bible
Conference (1878-1897) and in 1910, to the General Assembly of
the Presbyterian Church which distilled several beliefs
into what became known as the "five fundamentals": inerrancy of the
Scriptures, the virgin birth and the deity of Jesus, the doctrine of
substitutionary atonement through God's grace and human faith, the
bodily resurrection of Jesus, the authenticity of Christ's miracles
(or, alternatively, his premillenial second coming).
A number of evangelicals
in the 1800’s prepared the way for the movement. American evangelist Dwight L. Moody
(1837-1899) and British
preacher and father of dispensionalism John Nelson Darby
(1800-1882) among
others propounded ideas and themes carried into fundamentalist
Christianity.
As the movement developed, premillennialism,
dispensationalism, and separatism began to overwhelmingly characterize
the leaders, which also had a negative effect on the way that
evangelicals as a whole were perceived by outside observers. The
non-scholastic (literal) approach to the Scriptures was increasingly
seen as a main protection against the gradual degradation to
theological modernism. However, the increasing radicalism of Christian
fundamentalists caused evangelicals to distance themselves from it.
Today, a Christian evangelical and a Christian fundamentalist are two
very different Christian orientations, although most people do not know
the difference. Fundamentalists criticize evangelicals for a lack of
concern for doctrinal purity and for a lack of discernment in
ecumenical endeavors in working co-operatively with other Christians of
differing doctrinal views. The original 20th century Fundamentalist
Movement broke up along very definable lines within conservative
Evangelical Protestantism as issues progressed.
Fundamentalists differ from Pentecostals in their strong
insistence upon "correct" doctrine and often advocate separatism (which
often also divides fundamentalists from each other) as opposed to the
experiential and emotive emphasis of Pentecostals.
Today's fundamentalists look to the
Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy for its identity and as its
primary historical point of reference. Because its worldview is in the
past, it is in decline and becoming more extreme. Fundamentalists in
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, despite their doctrinal and practical
differences, are united by a common worldview which anchors all of life
in the authority of the sacred and a shared ethos that expresses itself
through outrage at the pace and extent of modern secularization.
Extremism, whether religious or not, that harms others is
immoral. This would include emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual
harm that goes beyond the right of responsible opinion.
Humanism - This entails a commitment to the
search for truth and morality through human means in support of human
interests. In focusing on our capacity for self-determination, it
rejects a dependence on supernatural entities, sacred texts, local
traditions or religious creeds. It endorses a recognition of a
universal morality based on the commonality of human nature, suggesting
that the long-term solutions to our problems cannot be parochial.
What defines humanism is not a disbelief in the
supernatural but a rejection of the importance of the supernatural in
human affairs. In this way, humanism does not necessarily rule out some
forms of theism or deism. Therefore, there are many humanists who
consider themselves quite religious - some of whom are members of
(typically, liberal) religious organizations. What humanism clearly
rejects is blind deference to supernatural beliefs in resolving human
affairs, not necessarily the beliefs themselves.
According to humanism, it us up to an individual to find
the truth, not wait for it to be handed to a person through revelation,
mysticism, tradition, or anything else that is incompatible with the
application of logic to the evidence. In demanding that we avoid
blindly accepting unsupported beliefs, it supports scientific
skepticism and the scientific method, rejecting authoritarianism and
extreme skepticism, and rendering faith an unacceptable basis for
action. Likewise, humanism asserts that knowledge of right and wrong is
based on our best understanding of our individual and joint interests,
rather than stemming from a transcendental or arbitrarily local source.
For the Christian who looks to the Bible as the source of
God’s revelation and authority, humanism is immoral.
Judicial Activism - In law, judicial activism (judicial
social/cultural engineering) refers to judicial decisions which do not
follow precedent or which otherwise exceed, or are perceived to exceed,
the scope of established law. The term may be used pejoratively to
describe rulings or decisions which are perceived to endorse or
implement a particular social or political agenda.
The extent to which a judge should interpret the law is a
matter of great debate. Whether a decision is characterized as judicial
activism is a matter of degree. In practice, any decision which is
beyond expectations may be labeled as an instance of judicial activism,
and judges are accused of judicial activism irrespective of their
political alignment or judicial philosophy.
Critics of judicial activism consider that when judges
create new law, they are not performing their duty as an interpreter of
the law, but may instead be ruling entirely on the basis of personal
ethics, or some other inappropriate ground. Others consider that the
term itself is loaded, as it contains an unstated premise that the
appropriate function of the judiciary is not to extend the law, or does
not admit that interpreting the law may to some extent involve the
creation of new law.
Postmodernism -
Postmodern ideology matured in the late 20th century and it
is a dominant spirit of the early 21st century in urban,
affluent, technological, and educated cultures satiated with choice.
Postmodernism is an ideological mutation that has consumed advanced
cultures, but its birth and evolution began in the late 1700’s. It
became a cultural ideology in the anti-establishment movement in the
1960’s and a theoretical discipline in the 1970’s by viewing itself as a
critical theory of the times - among academics as “the contemporary
intellectual fashion”. It manifests itself in philosophy, theology, art,
architecture, film, broadcasting, music, theatre, sociology, fashion,
technology, literature, and communications. It matured in these
disciplines with its on language.
Postmodern roots spring from the turbulence of the 1700’s and early
1800’s, out of which came Romanticism and its focus on the individual,
liberty, the subjective, the supremacy of nature, revolutionary and
radical expressions, “positivism” (the
only
authentic knowledge is scientific knowledge), and “cultural norms” - the
beginning of modern cultural relativism. Christianity could not, at this
time, answer many new questions generated by scientific inventions and
study. For instance, Darwin's On the Origin of Species was
published in 1859 and had a tremendous effect on the popular mindset.
During the 1800’s, the Spanish, Portuguese, and Turkish empires began
to crumble and the Holy Roman and Persian empires ceased. Following the
Napoleonic Wars, the British Empire became the world's leading power,
controlling one quarter of the world's population and one third of the
land area. It enforced a Pax Britannica and encouraged trade. Slavery
was greatly reduced around the world and finally abolished in the
British Empire, Russia, America, and Brazil. Electricity, steel, and
petroleum fueled a Second Industrial Revolution which enabled Germany,
Japan, and the United States to become world powers that raced to create
empires of their own. However, Russia and China failed to keep pace with
the other world powers, which led to massive social unrest in both of
those nations.
The word “modernism” in postmodernism is a word that came about in
western France about 1855. It was believed that tradition was outdated
and that it was essential to sweep it aside and reinvent culture.
Everything was re-examined to aid progress. What was new became that
which was good and beautiful. The norms of Christianity and science
supported this movement and the view that both history and civilization
were progressive was called into question. Christianity had not been
stable for some time, so it was trying to find, as it were, its place
(its cultural apologetic) in the evolution of the modern mind. It was at
this time that the Christianity of advanced societies began to formally
institutionalize, if not enshrine, cultural values.
The benefits of industrialization (the avant-garde of Modernism)
became the leading view. From 1890-1910, writers, thinkers, and artists
began to assert that it was necessary to push aside previous norms,
instead of revise them. This was the beginning of a cultural evolution
from conservatism to liberalism and the beginning of postmodern
language. Postmodern language took approximately one century (1855-1965)
to evolve.
Beginning in the late 1890’s and extending into the early 1900’s,
four thinkers quickened the evolution of the postmodern mindset. They
were Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, neurologist and father of
psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud, German philosopher Frederick Nietzsche,
and French philosopher Henri Bergson. Freud and Jung determined that
people’s impulses towards breaking social norms were essential to the
nature of human beings. The tendency was natural. Concretizing this line
of thinking was Nietzsche’s “process philosophy”. “Process” meant “will
to power” (processes and forces) was more important than facts or
things. Bergson championed, along with the aforementioned, a vital “life
force” over static conceptions of reality and a genuine societal
interest in legitimizing the occult. This was the verbalized and formal
beginning of “me” over “fact” (cultural relativism) or subjective over
objective. Subjective reality was based on drives and instincts rather
than objective reality (or special revelation). These men championed
irrational thought processes through the lens of rationality and holism
– which had been accepted as “normal” thought processes. Holism is the
idea that all the properties of a given system (biological, chemical,
social, economic, mental, linguistic, etc.) cannot be determined or
explained by the sum of its component parts alone. What this did was add
an acceptable (legitimate) nature to the development of postmodernism
language. It also made secularism and postmodernism one and the same,
where previously it had not been the same.
Between 1910 and 1930 there was increased tension in the social
order and radicality broke through in various disciplines – politics,
art, music, etc. Tradition still hindered progress, so it was thought.
Overthrowing tradition began to replace enlightenment. Rationalization
became disruption, a hallmark of postmodernism. WWI made people think
that “things were not alright as they once were”. New methods were
needed to produce new and better results. People began to see the world
changing and the notion of a “world view” was established. Continued
advancements in science and technology were embraced. Old science and
old technology were no longer adequate. These advances required people
to change. By 1930, this had become the way of life. New modernism
rebelled against old modernism – which seemed mannered, irrational, and
emotional. A movement in Switzerland added an important dimension to the
development of the postmodern mindset. Peaking from 1916 to 1920 was
Dadaism. This movement focused primarily on nihilism, deliberate
irrationality, disillusionment, cynicism, chance, randomness, and the
rejection of prevailing standards.
Between 1930 and 1945 there was increasing urbanization and the
idea that popular (pop) culture, derived from mass production ideology
(consumerism), was more important than high culture. These ideas were
used increasingly in mass communication. Fascism, the Great Depression,
and WWII radicalized this perception that a break from the past was
still necessary. New science and production of conveniences meant new
manners, a new social life, and new morals. Disruption of values and
speed of communication started becoming a way of life. Social
reorganization meant “inquiries” into sexuality and the basic bonding of
nuclear, rather than the extended, families. People had fewer children
and tensions raising them increased. “What could be” became the
practical and popular.
1945 to 1970 was a time called High Modernism because many
traditional forms and lifestyles continued to be swept away in a vast
need of rebuilding – everything had to be made new. Advanced
industrialization increased, labor poured into the cities
(urbanization), and there were vast building programs. The ideology of
the marginalized began to grow - many were oppressed and dominated by
traditional patterns of society. Traditional institutional power and
influence were critiqued. The thinking that there were systems of
domination surfaced – in politics, economy, culture, and religion.
Domination started to be questioned “offstage”. This line of thinking
surfaced on campuses in demonstrations, in a civil rights movement, and
in resistance to “wars that were not wars” – Korea and Viet Nam. There
was a collision between media driven pop culture and elitist ideas.
There was the beginning of a revolution of consciousness that was
apolitical, a new form of subjectivism. Tradition continued to be
rejected as the new pop culture tried to define itself. Freedom of
expression, experimentation, radicalism, and primitivism (spiritualism,
overt sexuality, shock, the bizarre, the unpredictable, and extreme
dissonance) became popular. “Contemporary culture” was given birth from
this bond of consumerism and radicality that continued its rejection of
traditional cultural forms. As contemporary culture became the
tradition, it lost its revolutionary nature. It was time for the birth
of postmodernism, the advanced contemporary culture.
From 1970 to the present, postmodernism has become the established
“spirit of the age”. Jean-Francois Lyotard (1924-1998), a French
philosopher and literary theorist, defined this “spirit” as incredulity.
Incredulity is doubt about the truth of something, an unwillingness to
believe, disbelief, as in “religious disbelief”. By that, he meant a
“spirit” of skepticism and unbelief toward the grand stories that
explain meaning and order for all or portions of a society or societies.
The formal word for these stories is metanarratives – the Bible being an
example.
The
postmodern institution or person has some, but not necessarily all of
the following characteristics:
.Discomfort with
value judgments
.Discomfort with customary expectations
.Denial of the “objective” existence of God & the supernatural - often
anti-Christian
.Seeks to undermine the values of God (especially if they conflict with
self interests)
.Believes the material universe is all there is (materialistic)
.Views objective truth as oppressive (subjective truth is good)
.Espouses minimalism toward beauty
.Identity is found in the mass media
.Criticizes to redeem what is perceived as right (quickly defensive)
.Dislikes history as the establishment of truth
.Rejects stable verbal meaning
.Rejects universally valid definitions
.Reinterprets (often critical of) knowledge, even if highly educated
.Culturally relative (the culture determines the highest good)
.Self-absorbed (me focused, what I need, what I want, what I require)
Postmodernism’s vocabulary includes words and phrases such as – variety,
process, new, experiential, oppression, dominate, domination, creating
space, collaboration, teamwork, inclusion, sharing rather than
conquering, community-centered, emerging, decentralization,
individualism, differences, re-analyze, creativity, re-examination,
journey, metanarrative, feminism, equality, rights, multicultural,
gender, deconstruct, politically correct, information explosion,
organized knowledge, world communications, mass communications, instant
communications, and cybernetics.
What could this mean for the Christian church in the United States?
.Deconstructing, decentralizing, and reconstructing denominations &
congregations
.Diversity in thought, word, and deed in denominations & congregations
.Toleration will be a hallmark
.New & highly creative approaches to worship and spirituality
.Church as community will replace entrepreneurial Christianity
.Flexible theology & a new Christian apologetic will develop
.More engagement with society and societies
.Another re-analysis of the Bible
.The line between clergy and lay church leadership will become less
obvious
.Authoritarian leadership will evolve into collaborative leadership and
teamwork
.Faith will be taught as a journey in life, rather than emotional events
.Traditional values as the “norm” will become shared diverse values
.Less doctrine and more mission of Christ
.Integration will become more important than duplication
.Learning will become more important than achieving
.The individual will become important in community
.Focusing on what draws people together
.Sharing will become more important than conquering or overcoming
.Acting responsibly will become more important than unrestricted
consumerism
.Movement from being building–centered to community-centered
Religious Identification - According to a 2001 study by the National
Survey of Religious Identification (NSRI) by sociology professors at
the City University of New York, Christianity was the largest religion
(76.5%) in the United States and it had grown by 5% since 1990. What
was the next largest group? - the secular/non-religious. They
had grown 110% in that same time frame.
What other religions had grown in the United States by at
least 100%: Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Native American Religion,
Baha'i, New Age, Sikhism, and Deism.
Which religious category grew the least? Agnosticism
shrunk by 16%. Agnosticism is
the philosophical view that the truth values of certain
claims—particularly theological claims regarding the existence of God,
gods, or deities—are unknown, inherently unknowable, or incoherent, and
therefore, (some agnostics may go as far to say) irrelevant to life.
Which religious category grew the most? Deism grew by 717%
in just 10 years. Deism is
defined by the view that reason, rather than revelation or tradition,
should be the basis of belief in God. Deists reject both organized and
revealed religion (the church) and maintain that reason (rather
than Jesus Christ) is the essential element in all knowledge. For a
"rational basis for religion" they refer to natural religion. Natural religion is theology based on reason
and ordinary experience. Thus, it is distinguished from revealed
theology (or revealed religion) which is based on scripture and
religious experiences.
Deists hold different views on the nature of God,
particularly on whether God intervenes in the world. The classical view
is that the universe was created by 'a' God who then makes no further
intervention in its affairs. In this view, the reason God does not
intervene in the world (via miracles) is not that God does not
care, but rather that the best of all possible worlds has already been
created and any intervention could not improve it. Historically, many
deists adhered to this view; others hold a more pantheist or pandeist
view that in creating the world, God became the world and does not
exist as a separate entity from it; while some hold that God intervenes
only as a subtle and persuasive force in the universe.
The classical view of an impersonal and abstract God has
caused many to claim that deism is "cold" and amounts to atheism.
Deists maintain that the opposite is true and that their view leads to
a feeling of awe and reverence based on the fact that personal growth
and a constant search for knowledge is required. This knowledge can be
acquired from many sources including historical and modern
interpretations found in the many varied fields of science (biology,
physics, etc.) and philosophy. Deism, like many religions, seeks to
reconcile and unify with science and "modern views" - like evolution.
Liberals and Conservatives -
Liberalism has
many definitions. There is classical liberalism, American liberalism, neoliberalism, ordoliberalism, paleoliberalism, and liberal radicalism –
even liberal conservatism. There is also political, cultural, social,
and economic, and religious liberalism.
In the US, liberalism is usually contrasted with
conservatism, and American liberals support broader tolerance and more
readily embrace multiculturalism and affirmative action.
The term "liberal" (known
as the ‘left’) derived from generally the 1700’s and 1800’s – although
the term has a very long philosophical history. Liberalism is an
ideology which strives to maximize liberty. Liberalism seeks a society
characterized by freedom of thought for individuals, limitations on the
power of government and various kinds of religious orthodoxy, the rule
of law, the free exchange of ideas, a free market economy that supports
private enterprise, a system of government that is transparent, and a
democracy with open and fair elections - where all citizens have by law
equal rights and equal opportunity. Liberalism rejected many
foundational assumptions which dominated most earlier theories of
government, such as the divine right of kings, hereditary status, and
established religion.
Classical liberals do not believe in wealth transfers,
tariffs, or other trade barriers such as quotas, regulated markets,
capital controls, wage and price controls.
Modern liberalism (American liberalism) tends to deviate from the
original definition of the term "liberal" in that it espouses the use of
the power of government to achieve a variety of desirable goals, ranging
from social justice to economic equality. American liberalism is,
therefore, a political current that claims descent from classical
liberalism in terms of devotion to individual liberty.
The U.S. brand of liberalism emphasizes mutual collaboration and
consensus-building to solve political problems. A liberal in the United
States is likely to favor institutions and political procedures that
protect and empower the weak against perceived aggression by the strong
and guarantee individual freedom from restrictive social norms. Liberals
encourage progressive taxation, minimum wages laws, anti-discrimination
laws, and social programs. Liberals tend to see themselves in the
context of their fellow man and woman and assume their rights are no
greater and their privileges no greater than anyone else's, regardless
of wealth or position. Key liberal values are empathy, compassion,
trust, and cooperation. Liberalism is a philosophy that attempts to make
changes that will improve life even if those changes run contrary to
previously accepted positions. So, liberalism is open to change and
receptive to empiricism and it is incompatible with racism.
The following views are associated with American liberalism, though
many people who consider themselves liberal would accept some of these
views and reject others:
a. Support for government social programs such as welfare, medical care,
unemployment benefits, and retirement programs.
b. Support for increased funding for public education.
c. Support for trade unions, teachers' unions, and government
protections for organized labor.
d. Regulation of business - OSHA, against child labor, monopolistic
practices, etc.
e.
Support for civil rights - 1) Support laws against discrimination based
on gender, race, age, religion, sexual orientation, or disability; 2)
Support laws guaranteeing rights of women and minorities, particularly
racial and religious minorities, the disabled, and those with unorthodox
sexual orientations; 3) Support for such programs as affirmative action
and transitional multi-lingual educational programs for children whose
first language is not English; 4) Support broad voting rights; 5)
Support for reproductive rights; 6) Support for strong environmental
regulations; 7) Support for public transportation; 8) Support for
minimum wage requirements; 9) Support for government funding to
alternative energy research; 10) Opposition to the death penalty; 11)
Support for animal rights; 12) Support for gun control; and 13) Support
for a progressive tax system.
Because conservatives (known as the ‘right’) have so heavily used
"liberal" as a pejorative, many American liberals have moved to
progressivism, which is largely the contemporary state of Christian
liberal activism in the United States. This should not be confused with
the Progressive Era from 1890-1920, in which time U.S. contemporary
social activism was born.
Progressivism refers to two political phenomena: populist political
progressivism (populism) and ideological or modern left progressivism.
Modern left progressivism is a cluster of political, activist, and media
organizations ranging from left-liberal to democratic socialism. In this
category are many leaders in the women's movement, labor movement,
anti-globalization movement, civil rights movement, environmental
movement, immigrant rights movement, and sexual rights movement.
This activist movement of Modern Left Progressivism has emerged with
Christian Progressivism – which has a long history in American politics.
Christian Progressivism focuses on the biblical injunctions that God's
people live correctly, that they promote social justice and act to fight
poverty, racism, and other forms of injustice. Progressive Christians
see themselves acting in the public sphere.
A priority of justice and care for the down-trodden were present
before Christianity. These concerns were carried into the early church,
the monastic movement, the ministry of healing, the Catholic and
Protestant churches, the Progressive Movement of the 1800’s in the
United States, and in the Social Gospel movement.
Since the 1900’s, Progressive Christianity was influential in
determining what constitutes the values by which a good society is run.
It stressed fairness, justice, responsibility, and compassion, and
condemns the forms of governance that wage unjust war, rely on
corruption for continued power, deprive the poor, or exclude particular
racial or sexual groups from fair participation in national liberties.
Contemporary Progressive Christianity organizes itself under
CrossLeft. CrossLeft is the first nationwide campaign for Progressive
Christianity in the United States. CrossLeft seeks to organize
Christians interested in social and political change for social justice.
It works to introduce them to each other's events. CrossLeft maintains a
shared calendar and an aggregated RSS feed that joins headlines from
hundreds of progressive Christian bloggers, news sources, and
columnists. CrossLeft joined with Via Media and Reclaim the Blessing in
October 2005 to stage a major conference, Path to Action, at the
Episcopal National Cathedral in Washington, DC.
Examples of statements of contemporary Progressive Christian beliefs
come from The Center for Progressive Christianity (TCPC, Cambridge, MA)
and Crosswalk America (Phoenix, AZ).
TCPC has given out the Eight Points - a statement of agreement about
Christianity as a basis for tolerance and human rights. CrossWalk's
Phoenix Affirmations - include twelve points defining Christian love of
God, Christian love of neighbor, and Christian love of self.
The Center for Progressive Christianity (TCPC) was founded in 1996 by
a retired Episcopal priest, James Adams, in Cambridge, MA. It currently
represents the most liberal established Christian group within
Christianity. It is not a religious denomination. Rather it is a network
of affiliated congregations, informal groups, and individuals.
The mission of The Center for Progressive Christianity is: 1) To
reach out to those for whom organized religion has proved ineffectual,
irrelevant, or repressive, as well as to those who have given up on or
are unacquainted with it; 2) To uphold evangelism as an agent of justice
and peace; 3) To give a strong voice both in the churches and the public
arena to the advocates of progressive Christianity; and 4) To support
those who embrace the search, not certainty.
The following are a series of ideas that describe the TCPC's approach
to Christianity. It is not a statement of faith or creed. It is more a
description of how Progressive Christians approach life. They are
paraphrased for brevity and to avoid copyright conflicts:
Focus:
The teachings and life of Jesus provide them with a path to God.
Pluralism: Others follow their own paths to God, which are
equally true for them.
Communion: They view the sharing of bread and wine in Jesus' name
to represent "an ancient vision of God's feast for all peoples."
Inclusivity: All are welcome to become involved; persons of all
genders, sexual orientations, traditions, races, etc.
Reciprocity: How we treat others is the "fullest expression" of
our beliefs.
Search: They find more grace in searching for truth than in
accepting certainty.
Community: They form communities to support each other in their
quest for peace, justice, a restored environment, and to provide hope.
Cost: Following Jesus involves a personal investment in "selfless
love, conscientious resistance to evil, and renunciation of privilege."
The antithesis of Modern Left Progressivism is orthodoxy. The
differences between the two represent a cultural war in the United
States and this cultural war manifests itself in the politics of
American mainline Christian denominations. The result is unrest and
division.
The expression “cultural war” gained wide use with the 1991
publication of Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America by
James Davison Hunter. In that book, Hunter described what he saw as a
dramatic re-alignment and polarization that had transformed American
politics and culture. In short, in the Culture Wars, public morality was
to be a defining issue. This found its way into the legislation of
mainline Christian denominations.
He argued that on an increasing number of "hot-button" defining
issues—abortion, gun control, separation of church and state, privacy,
sexual orientation, censorship—there had come to be two definable
cultural polarities. Furthermore, it was not just that there were a
number of divisive issues, but that society had divided along
essentially the same lines on each of these issues, so as to constitute
two opposing groups, primarily defined not by nominal religion,
ethnicity, social class or even political affiliation, but rather by
ideological world views.
From the point of view of American academia, the 'culture wars' and
their alignments were nothing new — rather they were perceived as an
extrapolation of some conflicts that had been simmering in university
life since the 1960’s. Positions were taken on a number of issues:
feminism, sexuality as a topic in the humanities, and postmodernism –
among others. It has become very clear that this movement made its way
solidly into Christian seminaries. With seminary ideology gradually
changing and seminary graduates taking their places in Christian
denominations, the leadership and legislative landscape changed as the
21st century opened into a “new morning.”
Current debates and controversy over "hot button" culture wars issues
of the 1980’s and 1990’s seem more polarized than ever since 911.
Commentators and others were surprised by the outcome of the exit polls
on November 2, 2004, in which many voters responded that their primary
concern in that election year was "moral values."
In the years ahead, cultural and Christian moral values will be set
by the next generations. They are the Baby Boomers (1946-1964), who will
be entering elderhood, fully assuming the role of spiritual elder
stewards of society. Generation X (1961-1981) will be in midlife,
applying survival skills learned in childhood to new problems.
Generation Y (1977- 1994), also known as Generation Why?, Echo Boom,
Byte Block, iPod Generation, Internet Generation, the Babies On
Board, MySpace Generation, and Millennial Generation, will be in
rising adulthood. Generation Z (1997-2025), the Digital Generation, will
be reaching adulthood. Values will ebb and flow as these people are
shaped by their experiences and world views. How Christian denominations
will fit into this evolution is a question of leadership.
Conservativism
seek to conserve the existing social order or to reinstate a social
order from the past. Conservatism as a philosophy is much older than the
left-right division, and it can include adherents from both.
Conservatives wish to conserve heritage and they advocate the
current social climate. To a conservative, any existing value or
institution has undergone the correcting influence of past experience
and ought to be respected. Conservatives do not reject change, but they
insist that further change be organic, rather than revolutionary.
Strangely enough, in the present American cultural climate little change
for conservatives has been seen as organic.
Conservatives value tradition. Tradition does not mean simply
custom, habit or nostalgia for the past, though custom does inform
tradition and sustain it. For a conservative, tradition is composed of
standards and institutions that have proven to promote the good, and
therefore they find authority in tradition and apply it in politics.
This authority, be it a person, the church, literature or a way of life,
is rooted in the past, and thus cannot easily change. To keep tradition
alive, conservatives pass it down from generation to generation.
Conservatives accept traditional values as authoritative, and judge
the world around them by the standards they have come to trust. Many
conservatives believe in God, and believe that God is not only the
creator of the universe, but also the author of the values they espouse.
Since conservatives believe tradition is more important than the
political process, the laws and constitutions of liberal democracies or
movements that permit behavior that conflict with traditional values
causes friction.
Different forms of cultural conservatism emphasize different values,
many of them overlapping. For example:
Order over risk or chaos
Heritage over innovation
Maintenance of the status quo
Orientation toward the past
The rural (local) over the urban (national)
Unity over discord
Homogeneity over fragmentation
The natural over an artificial and/or technological order
Existence (the sure) over possibility (the emerging)
Incremental peaceful change over ‘utopian’ revolutionary change
Hierarchy over egalitarianism
Acceptance of inequality over redistribution (wealthy & poor/wealth
distribution)
Religious conservatism, rather than considering local sources of
tradition, prefers the organization of the church, which delivers
special knowledge received long ago. This means religious conservatism
does not use the word tradition quite like other conservatives. Church
tradition by definition cannot evolve because it derives from unchanging
divine acts (revelation), i.e. the Bible, evolution of church structure,
etc. This does not mean that church tradition never adapts, but that any
"changes" enacted after revelation are refinements rather than
discontinuities. St. Paul illustrates this use of tradition in First
Corinthians: "I have received from the Lord that which also I
delivered unto you." The Latin word for delivered here is
traditio.
While some conservatives may be wary of government intervention into
the private lives of citizens, even when that intervention is in support
of traditional values, Christian conservatives in general tend to
support such causes. Classical liberalism (which can have a conservative
side) would not support the intervention of government into the private
lives of citizens through laws because of its pure focus on liberty, but
American liberalism advocates cultural change through legislation in
government and the Christian church. Some say they see two Americas now,
the red and the blue (as in coloring states in elections). In fact,
there are two world views, perhaps more, in the U.S. and it permeates
the government and the Christian church.
Nationalism has an inherent conservative tendency, since the nation
itself is usually defined as a centuries-old community. Conversely, any
centuries-old community is by definition attractive to conservatives.
Nationalism, and more generally patriotism, is therefore a typical
feature of modern conservatism. Present-day nationalism is not, however,
confined to self-identified conservatives, or to the right. The
perception persists that nationalism is a remote or provincial ideology,
but it is by definition the basis of every nation-state. Liberals are
just as patriotic as conservatives, but the difference in world view
causes both to view patriotism differently.
In the U.S., conservatism and liberalism are sometimes seen as polar
opposites, yet reality is more complex. A major area of difference in
America is between social liberalism and social conservatism. Social
liberals advocate policies promoting equality and tolerance, while
social conservatives support established traditions of American society,
or norms of their previous generations. The media widely covers, and
very often exacerbates, the differences in opinion in issues such as
same-sex marriage, sex education, and the separation of church and state
- among others.
Theological conservatism does not necessarily equate to political
conservatism and the Christian Right. Some evangelicals are politically
and theologically liberal. Similarly, in many theologically conservative
African-American churches, leaders and congregants have tended to
support political liberalism, emphasizing civil rights or economic
issues.
The ‘Christian Right’ is a term collectively referring to a spectrum
of conservative Christian political and social movements and
organizations characterized by their support of social values they deem
traditional in the United States and other western countries.
The term ‘Christian Right’ is often used in a derogatory sense, to
describe people and political movements associated with ‘extreme’
conservatism. Some critics use phrases such as theocrat, religious
extremist or Christian fundamentalist to refer to the Christian Right.
This does not represent informed study. It is opinion.
In a more accurate sense, ‘Christian Right’ describes a more benign
association of individuals from a wide variety of theological beliefs,
ranging from moderately traditional movements to theologically more
conservative movements such as Evangelicalism, Pentecostalism, and
Fundamentalist Christianity. Fundamentalist Christianity and
Fundamentalism are two different things.
Positions labeled Christian Right, but sometimes held by only a
minority of those commonly considered Christian Right include: the
Pro-Life movement, opposition to euthanasia, opposition to same-sex
marriage, regulation and restriction of some applications of
biotechnology, support for the presence of Christianity in the public
sphere, opposition to the presence of other religions in the public
sphere, reducing restrictions on government funding for religious
charities and schools, promotion of conservative Christian moral values,
regulation and restriction of the publication and public exhibition of
explicitly sexual content and pornography, opposition to sex education
classes in public schools, support for home and private schooling
(generally as an alternative to secular education), promotion of the
teaching of creationism and intelligent design in public schools as
alternatives, or along with, the theory of evolution, and opposition to
judicial activism.
The conservative world view refers to the framework through which
conservative individuals or conservative organizations interpret the
world and interact in it. Liberals have their own world view. When both
increasingly take definitive positions, then major cultural differences
begin to exist. If they are exacerbated in organizations, such as the
government and/or in the Christian church, then the condition of
‘cultural war’ exists in the history of that culture. This condition is
historical in the sense that intense differences in cultural values have
existed and have been recorded for centuries. It is one of the ways
history becomes history.
Moral
Relativism - This is
the position that moral propositions do not reflect absolute truths but
instead are relative to social, cultural, historical or personal
references, and that there is no single standard by which to assess an
ethical truth.
Relativistic positions often see moral values as
applicable only within certain cultural boundaries or the context of
individual preferences.
Moral relativism contends that opposing moral positions
have no truth value, and that there is no preferred standard of
reference by which to judge them.
Pluralism
- There is a good side and a bad side to pluralism. The good
side is when pluralism is a fact of life. The bad side is when
pluralism is an ideology.
Good pluralism is a key factor of progress in science,
society and economic development. In the social sciences, pluralism is
a framework of interaction in which groups show sufficient respect and
tolerance of each other, that they fruitfully coexist and interact
without conflict or assimilation. In an authoritarian society, power is
concentrated and decisions are made by few members. By contrast, in a
pluralistic society, power and decision-making are more diffused. This
results in more widespread participation and a greater feeling of
commitment from society members, and therefore better outcomes.
Religious pluralism implies freedom and the right of
individuals and religions to determine universal truths for themselves.
Religious pluralism is also the peaceful coexistence of
different religions or denominations without one of them having a
position of domination over the other religions or denominations.
The existence of religious pluralism depends on the
existence of freedom of (not from) religion. Freedom of religion exists
when different religions possess the same rights of worship and public
expression. Freedom of religion is restrained or prohibited in some
countries where the public practice of certain religions is forbidden.
Pluralism as an ideology is when there can no longer be a
generally approved pattern of belief or conduct within a social or
religious institution. This bad pluralism is pluralism as domination
and fear. Pluralism as domination and fear in Christianity is seen in
forced toleration of a wide range of values that do not represent the
Christian religion. Common practices of pluralism as domination and
fear affecting Christianity are syncretism (blending values) and forced
inclusion of conflicting values. The casualties of pluralism (Peter C.
Moore, 2003) in Christianity are: 1) when Biblical truth becomes
relative; 2) when cultural values replace Biblical moral codes; 3) when
faith and reason become mutually exclusive; 4) when choice becomes the
only absolute; 5) when the highest virtue is choice; and 5) when the
Great Commission is seen as imperialism.
Pluralistic ideology has brought conflict into
Christianity and misrepresents the good intent of pluralism itself.
Pluralistic ideology is, therefore, a historical misrepresentation seen
in contemporary moral relativism, narcissistic hedonism, scientific
reductionism, and autonomous individualism.
Secular
Humanism - Secular humanism is that branch of late philosophy
that advocates the use of reason, compassion, scientific inquiry, ethics, justice and
equality in addressing issues of a worldview centered upon human
beings. The term was originally coined in the 1900’s to make a clear
distinction from Christian humanism.
Secular humanism is distinguished from the broader
category of humanism
in that the secular humanist prefers free inquiry over dogmatic wisdom—upholding
the scientific
method for inquiry, while rejecting revealed knowledge
and theistic
morality,
though not necessarily faith.
Secular humanism has appeal to atheists, agnostics, freethinkers,
rationalists,
skeptics,
and materialists.
Its basic tenets may be simplified as: 1) humans have
value and can solve human problems; 2) science, free speech,
rational thought, democracy, and freedom in the arts go together; and
3) there is nothing supernatural.
Secularism
- The word "secular" is derived from the Latin word saeculum
(age), and originally meant "happening once in an age." Secular in its
most common meaning, means "outside of religion" and can have the
connotation of a dismissive conviction regarding religious matters. In
current respectable political and philosophical discourse, it refers to
a government obeying civil laws
independently from any religion, and not favoring any particular religion.
Secularism also includes the priority of the civil laws over any
religious legislation. All major religions accept this, except for
schools of religious fundamentalists (mostly Christian and Muslim),
which promote just the opposite.
Antagonism between secular and Christian activists is an
invention of British citizenry and a creation of the 19th
and 20th centuries.
Robert Owen (May 14, 1771 – November 17, 1858) was a Welsh social
reformer. He is considered the "Father" of the cooperative
movement – the earliest form of the modern secularism. He went out of
his way at a large meeting in London to declare his hostility to all
the received forms of religion because religion was doing nothing to
improve the social ills of society. The chief points in his philosophy
were that man's character is made not by him but for him; that it has
been formed by circumstances over which he had no control; that he is
not a proper subject either of praise or blame - these principles
leading up to the practical conclusion that the great secret in the
right formation of man's character is to place him under the proper
influences - physical, moral and social - from his earliest years.
George Jacob Holyoake (April 13, 1817 - 1906), born
in Birmingham,
England, became an Owenite and
invented the inoffensive term secularism as
descriptive of social reform opinions. Because he was jailed by
Christians for his outspokenness, this became the beginning of modern
secular and Christian antagonism. Holyoake held that secularism should
take no interest at all in religious questions (as they were
irrelevant), and was thus to be distinguished from militant free thought
and atheism. In this he disagreed with Charles Bradlaugh,
and the disagreement split the secularist movement between those who
argued that anti-religious propaganda and activism was not necessary or
desirable and those who argued that it was.
It became more intense when Charles Bradlaugh (26 September 1833 - 30 January 1891) of
London became a political activist and one of the most famous English atheists of
the 19th
century. He is the actual father of secular activism as it
relates to ‘rights’ rather than social reform. He was a reforming (and
infamous) member of the British House of Parliament in the late 1800’s.
This is, therefore, the root of present day antagonism and the actual
beginning of the ‘rights movement’, so prevalent today.
It should be remembered that originally there was no
antagonism between the philosophy of secularism and the theology of
Christians. Present day antagonism between the two is caused, stirred,
and allowed to continue – even promoted - by liberal activists and
conservative activists. Extreme philosophy and extreme Christianity are
both unreasonable and not helpful to the healthy development of any
institution.
Because secularism is the social ideology (worldview) in
which religion
and supernatural
beliefs are not seen as the key to understanding the world and are
instead segregated from matters of governance, the ontology (origins)
of secularism was a reaction to the deplorable social, political, and
religious conditions of earlier centuries and the resulting freedom,
called the Enlightenment.
Since the Enlightenment, in many, but not all, societies
are recognized as secular if there is a freedom of (not from) religion,
a religion does not dictate political decisions, religious influence is
minimized in the public square, and religion becomes increasingly
humanist.
In history, theocracy did not work and still does not work
because of excesses in greed and the need for control. From this, one
can see the rise of political/religious terrorism and sadly, the lack
of civility among Christians and religions in the creative development
of post-modern social issues.
Secularism and Contemporary Theology - The late Dr. Langdon
Gilkey (2004), former professor of theology at the University of
Chicago Divinity School reflected in his writings that in the last half
of the 20th century that the peculiar character of the
current theological situation lies in the fact that it is dominated by
a massive influence of secularism. Here secularism means an attitude
that emphasizes the here and now, the tangible, the manipulatable, the
sensible, the relative and the this-worldly - a viewpoint synonymous
with the contemporary mind. This ‘mind’ has been expressed with
progressive radicality in a wide variety of philosophies evolving since
the late 1700’s in empiricism, Kantian criticism, Hegelianism,
evolutionism, process thought, pragmatic naturalism, and most recently
– existentialism and positivism. The new radical secularity has thus
appeared with no sense of ultimate order or meaning.
This translates into a concentration solely on immediate
knowledge or value and asserts either the meaninglessness of ultimate
metaphysical or religious questions (positivism), or the complete
absence or irrelevance of ultimate answers (existentialism). Man is
alone and alien in the flux of reality and quite autonomous with regard
to meaning and value. Value becomes any value.
This mood brought with it an emphasis on religion as of
value for this life only and on ethics as having relevance only for
one’s concern for his neighbor’s welfare (an inversion of the Great
Commandment). In the 1800’s this mentality formed the secularization
(or de-sacralizing) of traditional theology (metaphysical ultimacy).
The resulting evolution of Christian theology became a Neo-orthodoxy
contenting itself with existential analysis of man and a relativized
Holy Scripture of experienced “word-events”. The effects of God’s
activity could be spoken of (in history, documents, and experience),
but not the activity itself.
At this point, a “religionless Christianity” appeared
powerfully as a religion that seeks to understand itself in some terms
other than mankind’s dependence upon God, and to realize itself totally
in the “secular”, in the service to the neighbor (Christian humanism)
in the world.
The divine became elusive and people began to wonder if
what was traditional referred more to hope than experienced reality – a
challenge for any pulpit today! Questioning the authority of the Bible
as the actual and revealed Word of God (rather than just a historical
document) is becoming a philosophical/political pastime in Christian
activism.
Preachers and Christian teachers alike will have to
wrestle with the climate of the Word being heard simply as a “word
event” or as a life changing experience over against secular
consciousness. Practical preaching and teaching must reach into the
natural, temporal, and communal mind of contemporary society to be
effective. This ‘reach’ will itself change that which is secular into
that which is divine and reveal the meaningless of secular language to
explain reality. This is not only the 21st century challenge
to the development of Christianity, it has been since Christ gave the
Great Commission. It is nothing new, except mankind trying once again
to explain ultimate matters with new philosophical languages.
Secularization
-
Secularization is a contentious term because the concept can be
confused with secularism.
Most people understand that this is a reference both to the cultural
shifts in society following the emergence of rationality
and the development of science as a
substitute for religion. This has reduced the authority of Christian
denominational hierarchy as custodians of revealed knowledge, and, as
the responsibility for education
has moved from the family and community to the state, two
consequences have arisen: 1) the collective (community) conscience has
been diminished and the individual conscience has been elevated and; 2)
through the fragmentation of communal activities, religion has become
more a matter of individual choice rather than observed/participatory
social obligation. In the 21st century, this is seen when a
person sees himself or herself as a Christian, but has no particular
need or loyalty to a local church (as a church family), pastor, or
denomination – except in passing.
The secularization of the West was a response to
intra-Christian tensions (wars) between Catholicism
and Protestantism.
Some have therefore argued that Western secularization is radically
different because it deals with autonomy from
religious regulation and control. This is a mistake. Both
considerations of tolerance and autonomy are relevant to any secular
state, though perhaps not always in the same proportions.
Liberal theorists consider traditional religious values to
be obstacles to modernization. However, the very idea of
‘secularization’ would not exist except for the place Christianity
holds in the transformative and evolutionary processes that led to modernity and
relativism.
In this, Christianity (and other religions) may legitimize
modernization by adaptation or polarize by engaging in fundamentalism.
This will be a challenge to Christianity in the 21st
century. In many ways Christianity must realize what it did in the
Middle Ages to help create secularization by subjugating the populace,
spending its time building a treasury, burning people at the stake, and
making war with those who disagreed. Christianity has the ability to
rise to a higher rationality in this new century and, for it to be
credible, it has to do so. Otherwise, its future will be to wallow in a
morass of defensive apologetics, self-analysis, and self-absorption.
Here are some ways to understand
secularization (Sommerville, 1989):
a. When discussing macro social structures, secularization refers to
differentiation: a process in which the various aspects of society
(economics, politics, law, and morality) become increasingly discrete
in relation to each other.
b. When discussing individual institutions, secularization refers to
the transformation of a religious into a secular institution. An
example would be the evolution of Harvard University
from a predominantly religious institution into a secular institution
(with a divinity school now housing the religious element illustrating
differentiation).
c. When discussing activities, secularization refers to the transfer of
activities from religious to secular institutions. In most Western
countries, government, the not-for-profit sector and the private sector
have taken over the provision of social welfare functions. This is a
result of the failure of the church in the pre-Enlightenment era as
society filled the vacuum.
d. When discussing mentalities, secularization refers to the transition
from ultimate (cosmological) concerns to proximate
(immediate/practical) concerns.
e. When discussing populations, secularization refers to broad patterns
of societal decline in levels of religiosity as opposed to the
individual-level (mentalities) secularization. A way to understand is
that the religion of the community and become the religion of the
individual.
f. When discussing religion, secularization is used unambiguously to
refer to religion in a generic sense. For example, a reference to Christianity
is not clear unless one specifies exactly which denomination of
Christianity is being discussed.
Situation Ethics - This refers
to a particular view of ethics from the 1960's (Joseph Fletcher) that
states that the morality of an act is a function of the state of the
system at the time it is performed. This is frequently confused with
moral relativism, which states that there is no universal moral truth,
that there are only beliefs and perspectives, none more valid than
another. Situational ethics by itself does not say whether there are
universal truths or not; it only says that the state of the system at
the time of an act must be included in consideration of the act.
The term 'situational ethics' has been broadened in the
late 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century to include
numerous situations in which a code of ethics is 'designed' to suit the
needs of the situation.
Substituting Evil For Good - This is very old
immorality and it goes back to the times of the great prophets of the
Old Testament, especially Isaiah. It has become a defensive mechanism
by those involved in it when offering their own 'apologetic' for being
Christian and, at the same time, participating in calling evil good.
This is done by giving attractive names to practices the Bible calls
evil. Examples are:
Affair
(fornication, adultery, illicit sex)
Alternate lifestyle (immoral sexuality)
Abortion (taking the life of an unborn baby)
Becoming a Man/Woman (giving away one's virginity)
Sexually Active (promiscuous, sexually immoral)
Pro-choice (pro-abortion)
Adult Entertainment (pornography, strip joints)
Adult Videos (pornographic videos)
New Age (Eastern philosophies)
Old Fashioned (adhering to Biblical standards of
morality)
Rigid, Inflexible, Intolerant (sticking to one's
opinion, especially on Biblical moral issues)
Justifying sin that God plainly calls abhorrent is immoral. To be a
professing and practicing Christian and justify evil behavior by calling
it good, is highly immoral.
The
Biblical Model of Ethics - The Bible gives an ethics model
consisting of three moral codes. They are the Ten Commandments (given
by Moses) in the Old Testament, the Beatitudes (given by Jesus) in the
New Testament, and the moral teachings of St. Paul - also given in the
New Testament.
There are three elements to the moral code of St. Paul's
theology: 1) freedom in Christ means the freedom to be moral; 2)
standards of Christian morality are introduced by the power of the Holy
Spirit working in the believer; and 3) Christian life should be lived
by trusting Jesus.
PATRIOTISM
TOP
War - War is
immoral. We have, however, a responsibility to protect this country and
its democracy - perhaps selfishly to enjoy freedom of (not from)
religion.
It is plainly repugnant and immoral to 1) make war without a just
reason; 2) make war to dominate others; 3) manipulate the public by
making an excuse for war to protect or improve business interests in the
name of freedom; and 4) maintain a war by borrowing money from others
nations to pay for the war, thereby making them a moral contributor
to violence and death.
Just War - Participation in war can be morally
'acceptable' under certain conditions. This is called the 'just war
theory'. War is justifiable when it is undertaken in self-defense and
when one has been the target of aggression, like terrorism when the enemy had no
country. War is
sometimes regrettably necessary to maintain security and justice within
one's borders.
War is justifiable under seven conditions. One, the war
must be prompted by a just cause, defined as a defensive war.
Unprovoked aggression is immoral. Two, the war must have a just
intention, which is to secure a fair peace for all parties involved.
Wars of national revenge, economic exploitation, and ethnic cleansing
are immoral. Three, the war must be a last resort and diplomatic
efforts must be exhausted. Four, the war must be initiated with a
formal declaration by the highest authorities in the government. Five,
the war must be characterized by limited objectives. The purpose of war
is the restoration of peace, not total annihilation, unconditional
surrender, or wholesale destruction of a nation's infrastructure and
ability to rebuild following war. That is immoral. Six, the amount of
force used in the war must be proportionate to the threat. Total
destruction is immoral. Seven, the war must respect noncombatant
immunity. It is immoral to purposefully target/disrespect non-hostile
civilians, wounded soldiers, and prisoners of war.
Nationalism & Patriotism - Nationalism is the
sense of loyalty and devotion one has for a nation. It is a devotion to the ideals and principles upon
which the nation was founded and it is a devotion to holding one's
nation accountable to the standards created by those ideals. Devotion
to one's nation should go only so far as that nation embodies those
ideals, otherwise the good becomes extremism. For instance, sovereignty
should aim at being a just and open society, respecting the rights of
minorities, anticipating peace with other nations, and not being
identified as the highest good. God is the highest good. A nation
should not exist merely to preserve a culture but it should exist also
for justice, equality, and human rights. The danger to a healthy
nationalism is to treat it as an intermediate and passing phase on the
way to cosmopolitan universalism and dispassionate civic responsibility.
Patriotism denotes positive attitudes by a person to their nation - its
culture, its members, and to its interests. There are three forms of
patriotism. One is personal patriotism, which is emotional and
voluntary. The patriot in this sense adheres to certain patriotic
values, such as respect for the flag and those who have given their
lives for the country's values. When the entire population of a nation
shares adherence to such worthy values, it is called ideological
patriotism. The third is official patriotism, which is the promotion of
a nation by its leaders, which is highly symbolic and ceremonial in
content, and derives its legitimacy from being the expression of the
nation - which may or may not be accurate at any given time in the
nation's history.
Presidential Ethics - The President of the United
States should be a model of high moral behavior.
WORSHIP
TOP
Historical Changes in the BCP - There has always
been consternation among Episcopalians when one BCP replaces another
BCP. That goes on to this day. At present, there is planning to remove
some masculine language from the BCP - liturgies, psalms, and
lectionary.
Studies began a few years ago
to make available the Revised Common Lectionary readings for Sundays
and Holy Days, in addition to the traditional (Book of Common Prayer)
lections. The General Convention which authorized the trial use of the
Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) actually modified the RCL (which is
taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible) slightly to
conform to Episcopal worship needs. Currently, individual churches,
under the guidance of the rector, and with the permission of their
bishop, may use the trial Revised Common Lectionary in place of the
Book of Common Prayer lections. You may wish to visit the site of the
Office of Liturgy and Music of the Episcopal Church to learn more. The
asset of the RCL is the greater use of the Old Testament.
The
Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music did a major survey of
congregational liturgical usage in the year 2000. 1145 congregations
responded to the questionnaire, which asked, among other things, what
lectionaries are in use on Sunday. 83% reported always using the Prayer
Book Lectionary. 17% reported always using the RCL. 22% reported often
using the RCL and 30% report occasional use of the RCL.
Immorality is possible in two ways. One, if the changes in
the Psalms do not conform to the original texts, then the changes are
not scholarly (accurate). In that case, the changes would be political
and immoral because 1) they would be a misrepresentation and 2)
Biblical commandments plainly state the Word should not be changed and
3) there is a consequence for those who do change it. Two, the NRSV
(1990) is a politicized translation of the Bible that lies somewhere
between the RSV and the NIV in accuracy. It is not 'fully' accurate,
when held up to scholarly biblical criticism. With the RCL using that
translation, Episcopalians are not being offered the most exacting
standards in the use of the Bible in public worship.
In the Episcopal Church an overwhelming majority of the
people do not know anything about these changes. Therefore, these
changes will eventually become permanent, as cultural language
evolutionizes the language of Episcopal worship practices.
Inclusive
Language - With the publication of the Revised Standard
Version (1952) of the Bible, there is very little need to change
anything in the text involving gender issues of language. It clarified
most gender issues, although it did not make many traditional biblical
students happy.
The NRSV (1990) is another story. It has taken gender to a new
level. It modernizes and
simplifies the language of the RSV even more in the interest of
"gender-inclusiveness." In general, the translation is less literal
than the RSV, but more literal than the New International Version. The
NRSV is a 'politicized' Bible, that is, quite frankly, not that easy to
publically read (lectoring). The inclusive language alterations in
the NRSV are very thorough, involving thousands of alterations designed
to erase many of the Bible's generic masculine pronouns and other
usages offensive to feminists.
The NRSV was quickly adopted as a replacement of the RSV
in the liberal denominations associated with the National Council of
Churches. It has also been favored by liberal university professors,
for use as a text in "religion" courses. Two study editions have
appeared: The New Oxford Annotated Bible (1991), edited by
Bruce Metzger and Roland Murphy; and the Harper Collins Study Bible
(1993) edited by Wayne Meeks and others. In both of these editions, the
introductions and annotations are decidedly liberal.
Obviously, there is little chance of the NRSV becoming
popular outside of the shrinking "mainline" churches for whom it was
executed. Indeed, it may be wondered whether any considerable attention
will given to it even within these churches, in which the exegetical
study of the Bible has practically ceased.
Christian
scholars should continue textual research of the Bible in order to
produce an increasingly accurate and helpful text for worship and study
needs. Where textual variances are discovered, they should be compared
and contrasted for original accuracy.
It has never been the purpose of God's Word, which has evolved for
over thousands of years, to have personal or political self interest
(especially by Christian denominations) change it. That is immoral, but
that seems to be what is happening as 'cultural'
Bibles are produced.
Same Sex Liturgies - There are several
Christian denominations ‘debating’ the development of same-sex church
liturgies (rituals). Same-sex rituals (in one form or another) have
been ‘tolerated’ in societies since the thirteenth century, but they
have not been tolerated in Western society.
Within the last two decades, there are several Christian
denominations in Western society which are positioning their
constituency to condone and create these rituals. What will ultimately
happen will depend on the ethical positions of clergy and laity meeting
in legislative sessions and what advanced planning that has (or has
not) been done for or against same-sex rituals by each
denomination.
The Christian Bible is the main source of authority for
Christians and such rituals, services, and liturgies developed and
practiced by any Christian denomination would break the commandments.
The development and practice of same-sex rituals, services, liturgies
in the Christian religion is, therefore, disobedience to God and a
clear challenge to God as an issue of moral authority (ethics).
In the New Testament, Jesus affirms Biblical authority by
saying:
“If you
keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as
I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his
love.” (John 15.10)
“By
this we may be sure that we know him, if we keep his commandments.”
(I John 2.3)
“All
who keep his commandments abide in him, and he in them. And by
this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit which he has given
us.” (I John 3.24)
“For
this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments…” (I
John 5.3)
God’s commandments, however, are not the guiding authority
of state government and activists within several Christian
denominations are following court decisions in the development of
same-sex rituals.
Same-sex unions unfold historically in 1) the pre-modern
antecedents of Western (European) culture; 2) Native American, African,
and Asian cultures prior to Westernization; and 3) the modern period,
in which Western culture has dominated the world. In the modern period,
same-sex marriage has been suppressed, but it has recently emerged in
the West in legal challenges and decisions.
In the early 1970s,
same-sex couples applied for marriage licenses, asked courts to allow
one partner to adopt the other, and took other steps to legally cement
their relationships. Many of these efforts failed. By the mid 1980s,
same-sex couples were seeking domestic partnership recognition from
cities and private companies. This effort continued with increasing
strength in the 1990s and on into the early 21st century. In recent
years, same-sex couples have made enormous strides toward equal
(rights) recognition of their ‘families’.
In response to a Supreme Court mandate, the Vermont
legislature passed the Vermont Civil Union law, which went into effect
on July 1, 2000. While this law doesn't legalize same-sex marriages, it
does provide gay and lesbian couples with many of the same advantages,
including:
-
rights
under family laws such as annulment, divorce, child custody, child
support, alimony, domestic violence, adoption, and property division
-
rights
to sue for wrongful death, loss of consortium, and under any other tort
or law concerning spousal relationships
-
medical
rights such as hospital visitation, notification, and durable power of
attorney
-
family
leave benefits
-
joint
state tax filing, and
-
property
inheritance when one partner dies without a will.
These rights apply only to couples living in
Vermont. But even for Vermont residents this new civil union law
does not give same-sex couples the rights and benefits federal law
provides to male-female married couples. Same-sex couples are not
eligible for Social Security benefits, immigration privileges, or the
marriage exemption to federal estate tax. Vermont also permits
reciprocal beneficiaries relationships, which provide the same health
care decision-making rights available to spouses and couples in civil
unions.
In 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Court held that
the state law barring same-sex marriage was unconstitutional under the
Massachusetts constitution and ordered the legislature to remedy the
discrimination within six months (Goodridge v. Department of Public
Health). In February 2004, the court ruled that offering civil
unions instead of civil marriage would not meet the requirements set
forth in Goodridge. As a result, same-sex couples in
Massachusetts can enter into civil marriages, and a few thousand of
them have done so already. The Massachusetts legislature has been
considering an amendment to the state constitution to forbid marriage
between same-sex couples, but the soonest such an amendment could take
effect is 2006.
On February 12, 2004 the San Francisco mayor ordered city
clerks to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Since
then numerous other U.S. cities have followed this lead, and the entire
country's attention has been drawn to the debate. The California
Supreme Court eventually voided all of the marriages performed in 2004;
court cases in Oregon had the same result. But lawsuits in San
Francisco and elsewhere, challenging restrictions on same-sex
marriage, are making their way through the courts.
In April 2005, the Connecticut legislature passed a civil
union law giving couples who enter into civil unions all of the same
rights and responsibilities as spouses under state law. Hawaii's
Reciprocal Beneficiaries law provides some marriage-like benefits.
Maine recently enacted a domestic partnership law offering some limited
benefits to registered partners. New Jersey's new domestic partner law,
passed in January 2004, applies to same-sex couples and to opposite-sex
couples in which one partner is 62 or older. In California, the updated
domestic partner law gives broad new rights and places extensive new
responsibilities on registered partners. As of January 1, 2005,
registered domestic partners in California have many of the same rights
and obligations as legally married spouses under state law, including
community property rights and the right to receive support from one's
partner after a separation. Superior courts will have
jurisdiction over termination of domestic partnerships, unless the
relationship was of short duration and there are no children and no
jointly owned property. There has been significant backlash against the
new law, but all challenges to it have failed so far.
Although the U.S. Constitution requires each state to give
“full faith and credit” to the laws of other states, the federal
Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), passed in 1996, expressly undercuts the
full faith and credit requirement in the case of same-sex marriages.
Many states have also passed DOMA laws, specifically barring
same-sex marriages in that state. Because of the apparent conflict
between the federal DOMA and the U.S. Constitution, as well as all the
other uncertainties in this area, equal rights advocates - and their
opponents - are eager to have the U.S. Supreme Court decide the issue
of same-sex marriage.
Since same-sex marriages are illegal in most states in the
United States, they are also obviously illegal for Christians in those
states. A clear moral issue for Christian denominations considering
development of same-sex liturgies would be to do so knowing that
same-sex marriages are illegal in most states. Therefore, the
development by Christian denominational leaders of such liturgies in
those situations is misleading their constituency because such
liturgical development is immoral on more than religious grounds.
Interestingly, the resolutions to develop same-sex
liturgies in some Christian denominations does not mention
homosexuality, gay or lesbian, or sex. The resolutions call for
liturgies to support all couples living in life-long committed
relationships of mutuality and fidelity outside the
relationship of marriage. This, in itself, represents the
legitimization of promiscuity which also violates Biblical commandments.
Liberal activists in support of same-sex liturgies often
view any opposition as cruel and homophobic. Conservatives activists,
in turn, often view the actions of liberal activists as heterophobic,
ethically uninformed (using identity ‘rights’ for sex agenda), and
acting contrary to the commandments of God.
Same-sex liturgical planning has been going on since the
mid 1970’s by hard working liberal revisionists,
also known as neo-isolationists. The same-sex liturgical movement has
steady momentum and it is scoring progressive victories against
conservatives in several Christian denominations. Where same-sex
liturgies become standard in traditionally liturgical (catholic)
denominations, those denominations will become smaller denominations of
congregationalists. Congregationalism is church government placing
final authority in the assembly of the local congregation. The
evolution of congregationalism in global denominations will first come
through division and then separatism, creating nationalistic
denominations with secular agenda.
Same-sex rituals in Christian denominations are immoral
for more reasons than breaking the commandments and creating assemblies
of congregationalists. The rituals will also destroy long standing
ecumenical relationships and divide Christians – locally and globally.
Christian denominations that have seen themselves as ‘one, holy,
catholic, and apostolic’ in their creedal statements will no longer be
able to claim this theological posture. Because of division, they will
no longer be one and catholic in their unity (theology and fellowship).
Because same-sex rituals are contrary to the commandments, they will
not be considered by the ecumenical councils of the church as holy and
because of congregationalism, they will cease being apostolic. There
could be a permanent and severe loss of Christian heritage. Those who
legislate should think long and hard about what they are doing in this
matter.
Worship As Enterprise - Richard Halverson, former
U.S. Senate Chaplain,
once said, "Christianity started out in Palestine as a fellowship; then
it moved to Greece and became a philosophy; from there it went to Rome
and became an institution; after that it went to Europe and became a
government. Finally, it came to America where it has been made into an
enterprise." This is clear in Christian worship in many parts
of the world where Christian worship is more closely identified with
performing arts centers, secular marketing, and real estate ventures.
Christian community in worship, the vision of the New Testament, has in
an increasing number of Christian denominations become entrepreneurial
capitalism. This is immoral.
RELIGION
TOP
Biblical Interpretation - In the words of Brian
Knowles, God chose three languages in which to preserve his revelation
to mankind: Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. To understand the meaning of the
Bible, it is necessary that someone knows intimately the languages of
Scripture and is able to interpret them for the rest of us. The process
of interpreting Scripture – that is, drawing out of the text its
meaning – is called exegesis.
Languages have rules. When one violates the rules of
language, the end product is gibberish and confusion. Much Bible
interpretation today is subjective and intuitive, agenda driven, and
otherwise politicized. Because the text as it stands does not naturally
yield a meaning that serves the interests of certain groups,
theologians representing these groups often perform eisogesis (reading
into the text what one wants it to mean) rather than exegesis. Doing
editorial violence to the text of Scripture denigrates the Bible’s
authority. If the writing down of those thoughts that eventually became
Scripture was an inspired process, then robbing them of their intended
meaning and imposing upon them a false meaning is an act of defiance
against the God that inspired them. This is to be expected of a
natural, unconverted mind. It should not be expected of the mind
yielded to God.
Before one can determine what a given text might mean, one
must establish what it meant for its original audience. The process of
exegesis has standard rules. Generally, they are:
Rule 1: Establish the text
Rule 2: Confirm the text limits
Rule 3: Become acquainted with the text
Rule 4: Survey the historical context
Rule 5: Analyze sentence structures
Rule 6: Analyze the grammar
Rule 7: Analyze significant words
Rule 8: Survey the cultural context
Rule 9. Consider the biblical/theological contexts Rule 10: Consult
secondary literature
Rule 11: Make an interpretation
The goal of an exegete
of Scripture should be to allow the passage being examined to yield its
intended meaning, not to impose meaning upon it. Imposing truth upon
interpretation of the Bible that is uninformed personal opinion is
immoral.
Recommended Reading: New Testament Exegesis by Gordon D. Fee,
Westminster/John Knox Press, Louisville, KY, Revised edition, 1993.
Biblical
Literacy - Originally,
the oral tradition of passing along the acts of God was translated and
written in Syriac, Old Latin, and Coptic (Egyptian). From these
languages the Bible was later written in Hebrew (including some
Aramaic) and Hellenistic Greek (the common language). Then the Bible
was later translated into other languages. The word ‘Bible’ comes from
‘biblia’ (papyrus rolls), which means ‘the books’ – which became ‘the
Books’, and then ‘the Book’. The Bible began as God acted in human
history and it was ‘remembered’ from one generation to another in oral
stories.
These oral stories were put on the earliest writing
mediums - clay tablets, papyrus scrolls, stone (Ten Commandments),
leather, parchment, wood and wax, and metal – which were all common
from 700-900 B.C. As papyrus (rough animal skins) turned into parchment
(smooth animal skins) and parchment into paper, the production of
modern Bibles as books became common. Paper was invented in China in
105 A.D. and it did not make it to Europe until the 1100's.
The Old Testament was ‘together’ by 400 B.C. and the New
Testament was written between 50 - 100 A.D. The Septuagint of 200 B.C.
was a Hebrew text translated into Greek and it was the only Bible of
the early Christian church. All of the original autographs of the NT
perished, so we have only handmade copies from some 5300 Greek
manuscripts, the best copies dating from 200 – 400 A.D.
In 384 A.D. Jerome translated the Gospels and the OT from
Hebrew and Old Latin into Latin. This was the Latin Vulgate, the bible
of Western Europe for 1000 years and the first official bible of the
Roman Catholic Church. Other languages translated from the Latin
Vulgate.
Although the NT manuscripts had traditional titles and
many more chapters for each book, it was not until the 1200’s that the
Bible was first set into chapters as we know them today by Parisian
theologian Stephen Langston. It was not until 1551 that the bible was
set into verses, although Caedmon had set some stories into
verse by 600 A.D. In 1881 the NT in original Greek was published by
Westcott and Hort. Interestingly, it was not until 1896-1897 that the
oldest known manuscripts of the NT were discovered. Westcott and Hort,
however, state that only a thousandth part of the Greek NT represents
substantial variation, and even here not a single principle of faith or
divine command is involved.
The books of the Bible were authoritative long before
there were Councils of the church, so the Bible owes its authority to
no individual or group, no matter how scholarly. No Christian
denomination controls the canon, because the canon controls the
Christian Church. For instance, by the time of Jesus, the OT canon was
fixed and called “Scripture.”
The first English version from the Latin was printed by
John Wycliffe in 1382. In 1525 William Tyndale created an English NT
from a translation of the original Greek. In 1530, he completed the
Penteteuch. He was burned at the stake for this in 1536. In 1539 the
Great Bible was printed and this was the first time English bibles were
authorized to be read in churches and copies were allowed in churches.
In 1611 the Authorized Version (KJV) was printed and its revision was
printed in 1885 as the English Revised Version. In 1952 the Revised
Standard Version was printed, taking into allowance new manuscript
discoveries and correction of textual variations to the AV and the ERV.
In 1990 the New Revised Standard Version was printed altering paragraph
structure, reducing additional archaisms, and eliminating masculine
language when references were made to both men and women. The RSV of
1952, however, remains the most accurate translation of the Bible.
The
final authority of Christian beliefs is the Bible, the sixty-six books
of the Old and New Testaments. The Bible was uniquely, verbally, and
fully inspired by the Holy Spirit, without variance in the faith
stories in the original manuscripts. There is a huge difference in saying there are
no errors in the faith stories and saying there are no errors in the
text of the original languages, because they are periodically
discovered by archeologists and corrected by biblical language scholars
in modern translations. Therefore, the error argument is not
"either/or", which is a common misconceived debate in contemporary
society. The Bible has always been literally true by faith.
Church Growth - According to Dr. Thom S. Rainer of the
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, there are presently seven
characteristics of growing churches. They are:
1. A clear message and a conviction of doctrine.
2. Preaching is primary.
3. Evangelism is intentional: bringing the un-churched and unconverted
to Christ.
4. Prayer is pervasive.
5. Membership expectations are high.
6. Emphasis on small groups.
7. Receptivity to change: meeting the needs of the Kingdom rather than
personal needs and preferences.
Creation/Evolution/Intelligent Design - The Christian west held
authoritative sway over interpretation of creation for centuries
because scientific instruments and methodologies were not developed. With the growth of scientific observation and
experimentation, there began to appear from about the middle of the
16th century glimpses of the theory of evolution that emerged in the
mid 19th century.
The transition from the medieval to the modern world was
foreshadowed by economic expansion, political centralization, and
secularization. A money economy weakened serfdom and an inquiring
spirit stimulated the age of science. Banking, the bourgeois class, and
secular ideals flourished in the growing towns and lent support to the
expanding monarchies. The church was weakened by internal conflicts as
well as by quarrels between church and state. As feudal strength was
sapped, there emerged in France and England the modern nation state. A
forerunner of intellectual modernity was the new humanism of the
Renaissance.
Finally, the great medieval unity of Christianity was
shattered by the religious theories that culminated in the Protestant
Reformation. The long and short of it is that the church became its own
worst enemy, the scientific world emerged under pluralism and humanism,
and the church was left behind in dialogue between religion and
science. So, any 'dialogue' would be recent and healthy. Science and
Christianity should fit together like a hand and glove, but as of late
they do not because of the continuing divisive nature of philosophers,
theologians, and empiricists who cannot agree about the commonality of
their disciplines. They have effectively divided the public into
political dialogue, whose bottom line has essentially become greed and
a hard uncivil nature.
Some today believe in Biblical creation, others believe in
Intelligent Design, others believe in
evolution - and many believe in nothing. It would, and hopefully will,
be helpful for similar but divergent disciplines to support one another
in the creation dialogue. The reason they cannot do that is intolerance
of differing world views.
The Biblical story of creation is a theological means of describing
a scientific event and the marriage of the two is reasonable. It is the
human condition to be empirical because that condition is limited. What
theology can explain, empiricism cannot. For instance, in the universe
there are between 120-150 billion galaxies and empiricism cannot account
for the existence of even one. Galaxies revolve around black holes with
singularity. This is beyond empiricism. The universe is 13.7
billion years old, according to the 2003 data from the Wilkinson
Microwave Anisotropy Probe. Empiricism cannot explain that or what is beyond the
beginning of it. The nearest galaxy is 50 million light years away.
Empirically, we can't even figure out how to live on our own moon and
we've only set foot on it several times. We seek to go to Mars and the
human body cannot survive even that "small" trip. Our own galaxy would
take 100,000 years to cross at light speed (299,792,458 meters per
second).
Empiricism needs to learn that it will never ultimately be able
to explain what the Bible (God's Word) explained long before empiricism
existed. As Stanford University physicist Leonard Susskind said in 2006,
"We, and all we can see, are at most a tiny dot in an unimaginably large
sea of space and time." Empirically, we would think we are masters of
our space and time. However, sin creates such pride and no one knows we
are even here except God - who created and put us here for His loving
purpose.
Spiritual
Development - The spiritual development of an individual begins
with God and continues with their socialization.
For a Christian, development is influenced by reason (the
development of the heart and mind by Holy Scripture and tradition),
Holy Scripture (the Word of God), and tradition (worship) and it is
'dynamic' throughout life.
It begins with experienced faith and then may move through
affiliative, searching, and owned faith. The conversion process,
therefore, takes place as faith given, faith questioned, and faith
rooted. An individual's faith is unique to that person and different
from all other people because of the unique influences upon that
person's life.
It is a Christian tradition not to be judgmental about a
person's faith because they are 'who they are' and 'where they are' in
their walk with God. The only one who has a patent on whether or not a
person was saved, is saved, or will be saved is God and we are not
called to be God.
Spiritual Syncretism - The creation of a new
religion or denomination by blending the values of culture into the
values of a religion or denomination, thereby creating a new 'ethic' in
that religion or denomination.
The Old Testament is almost entirely written showing God's
tremendous displeasure with what continues to be a contemporary
practice.
In Christian church history, this has been a major source
of division, death, religious war, hatred, and prejudice.
Legislatively, it is a major source of present day division in
Christian denominations.
Church Politics -
This is not only a human side of the life of the church, it a normal
and theological side. It means we are 'sometimes' in conversation with
one another. It is the working out of the democratic process in the
life and affairs of the church and it is very important to our
stability, progress, and growth. It is best to claim it, even if at
times it is not lived to one's satisfaction.
Occult/Cults - Christians consider them
unorthodox. Most are extreme in nature and dangerous for human
development.
Ecumenical Discussions-
We are called to work in harmony and love with our brothers and sisters
in different denominations. It is immoral to compete with other
Christian denominations.
ENVIRONMENT
TOP
Global Warming - Global
warming describes an increase in the average temperature of the Earth's
atmosphere and oceans. The terms global warming or anthropogenic global
warming are also used to describe the theory that increasing
temperatures are the result of a strengthening greenhouse effect caused
primarily by man-made increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse
gases.
The United States is
the leading global contributor of heat-trapping greenhouse gases (16%)
and has ruled out joining any U.N.-led talks in coming years on ways to
rein in rising temperatures.
The
scientific opinion on climate change, as expressed by the UN
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is that the average global
temperature has risen 0.6 ± 0.2 °C since the late 1800’s,
and that "most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is
attributable to human activities", mostly the emission of greenhouse
gases such as carbon dioxide and methane. A small minority of qualified
scientists contest the view that humanity's actions have played a
significant role in increasing recent temperatures. Uncertainties do
exist regarding how much climate change should be expected in the
future, and a hotly contested political and public debate exists over
what actions, if any, should be taken in light of global warming.
Based on the climate models referenced by the IPCC,
temperatures may increase by 1.4 to 5.8 degrees (C) between 1990 and
2100. This is expected to result in other climate changes including
rises in sea level and changes in the amount and pattern of
precipitation. Such changes may increase extreme weather events such as
floods, droughts, heat waves, hurricanes, change agricultural yields,
or contribute to biological extinctions. Although warming is expected
to affect the frequency and magnitude of these events, it is very
difficult to connect any particular event to global warming.
Pollution
- Pollution
is the release of harmful contaminants into the environment. Generally,
the process results from human activity to be regarded as pollution.
Pollution can take two major forms - local pollution and global
pollution. Awareness of both kinds of pollution has led to the
environmental movement, which seeks to limit the human impact on the
environment.
Traditional forms of pollution include air pollution,
water pollution, and radioactive contamination while a broader
interpretation of the word has led to the idea of many other types of
pollution.
We all have a responsibility to be environmentally
friendly to protect God’s creation, which he has entrusted to us. A
good learning resource is the Environmental Protection Agency.
WELFARE
& THE FAMILY
TOP
Adoption - Adoption is
the legal act of permanently placing a child with a parent or parents
other than the birth parents. Adoption results in the severing of the
parental responsibilities and rights of the biological parents and the
placing of those responsibilities and rights with the adoptive parents.
After the finalization of an adoption, there is little or no legal
difference between biological and adopted children.
Different jurisdictions have varying laws on adoption and
post-adoption. Some practice confidential or closed adoption,
preventing further contact between the adopted person and the
biological parents, while others have varying degrees of open adoption,
which may allow such contact. An underreported fact is that open
adoptions are not legally enforceable agreements in many jurisdictions.
Adoptions occur for many reasons. Many children are placed
for adoption as a result of the biological parents' decision that they
are unable to adequately care for a child. In some countries, where
single motherhood may be considered scandalous and unacceptable, some
women in this situation make an adoption plan for their infants. In
some cases, they abandon their children at or near an orphanage, so
that they can be adopted.
Some biological parents involuntarily lose their parental
rights. This usually occurs when the children are placed in foster care
because they were abused, neglected or abandoned. Eventually, if the
parents cannot resolve the problems that caused or contributed to the
harm caused to their children (such as alcohol or drug abuse), a court
may terminate their parental rights and the children may then be
adopted.
Only a small percentage of adopted children are those
orphaned because of the death of their biological parents.
The main reason for adopting varies from one country to
the next, depending largely on social and legal structures. The
inability to reproduce biologically is a common reason. The most
prevalent obstacle to producing a biological child is infertility.
Another obstacle is the lack of a partner of the opposite sex or a lack
of desire to use a surrogate or sperm donor. Single people and same-sex
couples often adopt for this reason. In many Western countries,
step-parent adoption is the most common form of adoption as people
choose to cement a new family following divorce or death of one parent.
Some couples or individuals adopt children even though
they are fertile. Some may choose to do this in order to avoid
contributing to perceived overpopulation, or out of the belief that it
is more responsible to care for otherwise parent-less children than to
reproduce. Others may do so to avoid passing on diseases or out of
health concerns relating to pregnancy and childbirth. Others believe
that it is an equally valid form of family building, neither better
than nor worse than biology.
A 2004 report from the Pew Commission on Children in
Foster Care has shown that the number of children waiting in foster
care to be adopted doubled since the 1980s and now remains steady at
about a half-million a year.
Obviously, there are many good reasons to adopt a child.
Civil
Unions & Partnerships - A civil
union is one of several terms for a civil status similar to
marriage, typically created for the purposes of allowing same-sex
couples access to the benefits enjoyed by married opposite-sex couples.
It can also be used by opposite-sex couples who do not prefer to enter
into the legal institution of marriage but who would rather be in a
union more similar to a common-law marriage. Jurisdictions that have
passed civil unions include Vermont (2000) and Connecticut (2005).
Many different types of civil unions exist. Some are
identical to marriage in nearly every respect except name; some have
many but not all of the rights accorded to married couples (sometimes
called registered partnerships); some are simple registries (also
called domestic partnerships.)
A registered partnership is one of several terms
for a civil status similar to marriage, typically created for the
purposes of allowing same-sex couples access to the legal and social
benefits of traditional marriage. Many countries have enacted a
Registered Partnership Act to allow for registered partnership.
A domestic partner or domestic partnership
identifies the personal relationship between individuals who are living
together and sharing a common domestic life together but are not joined
in any type of legal partnership, marriage or civil union. Some
legal jurisdictions recognize that individuals who live together after
a long period of time, while not entitled to common-law marriage status
may be entitled to some protection under the legal concept of domestic
partnership. In some places parties that live together enter into
domestic partnership agreements in order to contractually agree to
certain issues between them in relation to joint property ownership,
support obligations and similar issues to that found in marriage. Some
jurisdictions have instituted domestic partnerships as a way to
recognize same-sex unions.
On September 4, 2003 the California legislature passed an
expanded domestic partnership bill, extending nearly all the legal
rights of married couples to people in same-sex partnerships. This
effectively transformed California domestic partnerships into civil
unions. Potentially serious legal issues arise from the conflict
between state domestic partnership and same-sex-marriage laws, and the
structure of U.S. Federal law, which, under the Defense of Marriage
Act, explicitly does not extend Federal law recognition to those
unions. This means that, for example, though they may essentially be
"married" under the law of some states, partners would not be entitled
to spousal "collateral" rights to Social Security and will not be
treated as "spouses" for purposes of any Federal tax law.
The church recognizes only the marriage between a man and
woman. The church also recognizes the civil union between a man and a
woman by blessing that union, provided the couple is living a lifestyle
in accordance with Holy Scripture. Cohabitation is not seen by the
church as moral.
Divorce
-
Divorce or dissolution of marriage is the ending of a marriage before
the death of either spouse. In many developed countries, divorce rates
have increased markedly during the twentieth century. Among the states
in which divorce has become commonplace are the United States, Korea
and members of the European Union. In U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom
and some other developed Commonwealth countries, this boom in divorce
developed in the last half of the twentieth century. In addition,
acceptance of the single-parent family has resulted in many women
deciding to have children outside marriage as there is little remaining
social stigma attached to unwed mothers due to the cultural
liberalization of moral values. The price has been staggering for the
American culture.
A divorce is through a court of law, as a legal action is
needed to dissolve the prior legal act of marriage. The terms of the
divorce are also determined by the court, though they may take into
account prenuptial agreements, or simply ratify terms that the spouses
have agreed on privately. Often, however, the spouses disagree about
the terms of the divorce, which can lead to stressful and expensive
litigation. A less adversarial approach to divorce settlements has also
emerged in recent years, known as family mediation, an attempt to
negotiate mutually acceptable resolution to conflicts.
In the United States, in 2003 there were 7.5 marriages per
1000 people and 3.8 divorces per 1000 according to the U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services. In other words, there were half as many
divorces as marriages that year. Statistics like these are frequently
interpreted to mean that half of all marriages end in divorce. That
conclusion, strictly speaking, does not follow from those data, but
other government surveys of marriages over time have found similar
percentages of marriages ultimately ending in divorce. A study
[Bramlett 2001] based on a 1995 survey, found that 43 percent of first
marriages ended in separation or divorce within 15 years, with 1 in 3
ending within 10 years and 1 in 5 ending within 5 years.
According to [Brinig 2000], women currently file slightly
more than two-thirds of divorce cases in the US. There is some
variation among states, and the numbers have also varied over time,
with about 60% of filings by women in most of the 19th century, and
over 70% by women in some states just after no-fault divorce was
introduced, according to the paper.
Is divorce costly? States in the US handle billions of
dollars in alimony and child support arrangements, which commonly
result from divorces. According to a 2003 U.S. census report, 43.7
percent of custodial mothers and 56.2 percent of custodial fathers, are
divorced or separated. A 2005 Census Bureau Report found that in 2002,
$40 billion had been paid in support arrangements by 7.8 million
payers, 84% of whom were men. States also collected federal incentives
to collect support payments, with a potential incentive pool of up to
$454 million in fiscal 2004. The National Child Support Enforcement
Association, a child support advocacy group, claims that 60,000
professionals work to administer and enforce child support
arrangements.
Divorce is very costly - physically, financially,
emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. The scars last a lifetime and
it often takes years to heal – and some never heal. The best place a
marriage can start or re-start is in the church and doing things God’s
way. By staying in the church and close to God, couples can maintain
the stability they need for a strong and loving relationship throughout
their life.
Orphans - An orphan is
a child who has lost one (child who had a single surviving spouse) or
both parents. Today, in the First World, most orphaned children are
placed in foster care and then adopted by a permanent family as soon as
possible.
In the past and in much of the Third World, orphans often
lived homeless as "street urchins", or received care in almshouses,
orphanages, or occasionally monasteries. Orphans living in almshouses
often shared space with the adult homeless and the (sometimes
dangerously) mentally ill in an age when many mental illnesses were
incurable.
In some nations, faced with war and AIDS, a significant
proportion of the young population is orphaned, which is a major
humanitarian crisis. In China, infant daughters are often abandoned due
to the one child policy, which also creates a significant number of
orphans.
Orphans typically suffer from adjustment problems related
to identity, according to studies.
SOS Children’s Villages are the world's largest
non-governmental, non-denominational child welfare organizations
providing stable homes and loving families for orphaned or abandoned
children around the world since 1949. The largest existing orphanage in
the United States is the Bethesda Home For Boys, founded in 1740 by
George Whitefield. Another famous American orphanage is Girls and Boys
Town, located outside Omaha, Nebraska. The term "orphanage" has been
largely replaced by "group home" in the 21st century. Many
orphanages are run by religious organizations.
Pre-Nuptial
Agreements - A prenuptial
agreement or ante-nuptial agreement, commonly abbreviated to pre-nup,
is a contract entered into by two people prior to marriage or civil
union. The content of a prenuptial agreement can vary widely, but
commonly includes provisions for the division of property should the
couple divorce and any rights to spousal support during or after the
dissolution of marriage. There are two types of pre-nups – a marriage
contract for people who are married or about to be married and
cohabitation agreements for unmarried couples.
Cohabitation is not a Christian witness, but it does not
mean a couple is sexually (physically) active. Elderly retired, for
instance, sometimes live together so each can survive and have a
quality of life that is not at the poverty level. In those cases, a
pre-nup is very warranted.
This can be a good thing and it can be something that is
not good. For the majority of young couple’s without substantial
assets, it is not necessary. For a person with substantial assets it is
wise – regardless of age. Assets often cause many to depend less on
each other or God for the maturing of a marriage and many have had
their assets ruined by an immature or greedy spouse. This is especially
true among the elderly, retired, and among the young who have, or stand
to have, a substantial inheritance.
Many widows and widowers have been financially ruined
because a pre-nup was not in place prior to a marriage. This is because
of improper management of wills.
Pre-nuptial agreements are good for some and not helpful
for others. Following a divorce or death of a spouse and remarriage,
where there are assets that need protection, they are essential for
personal health, family stability, and financial safety.
Workfare
& Welfare - Workfare is an alternative
model to conventional social welfare systems. Traditional welfare
benefits are available with little required of the recipient, save
their continued search for employment. Under workfare, recipients
commonly have to attend special training programs or are simply forced
into the work force.
What are the
arguments
supporting workfare programs?
1.
Reduced government spending due to the removal of people from the
welfare rolls.
2.
Moving welfare recipients into the workforce, even in entry level
positions, has the potential to lead to future mobility. Collecting
welfare, however, only prepares the recipient to continue to collect
welfare.
3.
There is evidence that workfare is a more effective means of
alleviating poverty than traditional welfare.
4.
In some communities, particularly in rural areas, living on public
assistance becomes a way of life with little opportunity for
improvement.
What are the arguments supporting welfare programs?
1.
Often, the skills employers are looking for include literacy and
familiarity with modern information technology that recipients do not
have. Workfare training programs offer little (or no) literacy or
skills training.
2.
Since many systems of workfare continue to pay only welfare benefits
and not a decent hourly wage/salary during the first several months of
employment, the workfare programs are often characterized as
implementing a modern-day equivalent of slave labor - since the jobs
are often menial or labor-intensive.
3.
Workfare programs are viewed by the recipient as demeaning and add to
the stigma that welfare recipients are lazy, unmotivated, and would do
nothing unless the government intervened.
4.
If there are simply no jobs available (such as in a recession), the
extra expense of administering workfare programs is not offset by the
reduced costs of 'removing' people from the welfare rolls.
5.
Work requirements for welfare funds can put a strain on families with
young children, especially when the families are headed by single
mothers. Some, however, have countered this argument by positing that
there is a benefit to children of having a parental role model who is
working, even when left at home alone for most of their free time.
What is needed is a balance between both of these arguments, instead of
partisan bickering. The wealthy have time for debate. The poor only
have time to survive.
LAW & CRIMINAL
JUSTICE
TOP
Capital Punishment - There are six
reasons why capital punishment is immoral. One, the death penalty
undermines the dignity of persons made in the image of God and cheapens
human life. Two, mistakes in criminal justice for a person wrongly
convicted are irreversible. Three, reform becomes impossible. Four,
death sentences are usually accompanied by long and expensive appeals.
Five, the way the death penalty is applied has inequities for
minorities (particularly blacks) and the poor. Rarely do middle to
upper class whites or the wealthy receive the death penalty. Six, the
demand for justice is inconsistent with Jesus' ethic of forgiveness and
redemption. Life imprisonment without parole is more reasonable than
willfully killing another human being.
Gambling - Gambling (or
betting) is any behavior involving risking money or property (making a
wager or placing a stake) on the outcome of a game, contest, or other
event in which the outcome of that activity depends partially or
totally upon chance or upon one's ability to win.
In extended usage, gambling may also refer to engaging in
any high-risk behavior in which decisions occur based upon incomplete
knowledge - for example, high-risk stock investments, difficult and
potentially costly business or non-business ventures, or even personal
relationships. Because of the negative connotations of the word
"gambling", casinos and race tracks often use the euphemism "gaming" to
describe the recreational gambling activities they offer.
Gambling games predate recorded history, with examples
recorded in virtually all ancient civilizations. Though many
participate in gambling as a form of recreation or even as a means to
gain an income, gambling can become a psychologically addictive and
harmful behavior in some people.
Gamblers Anonymous states that if a person answers “yes”
to seven (7) of the following questions, they are addicted to gambling:
- Did you ever lose time from work or
school due to gambling?
- Has gambling ever made your home life
unhappy?
- Did gambling affect your reputation?
- Have you ever felt remorse after
gambling?
- Did you ever gamble to get money with
which to pay debts or otherwise solve financial difficulties?
- Did gambling cause a decrease in your
ambition or efficiency?
- After losing did you feel you must
return as soon as possible and win back your losses?
- After a win did you have a strong urge
to return and win more?
- Did you often gamble until your last
dollar was gone?
- Did you ever borrow to finance your
gambling?
- Have you ever sold anything to finance
gambling?
- Were you reluctant to use "gambling
money" for normal expenditures?
- Did gambling make you careless of the
welfare of yourself or your family?
- Did you ever gamble longer than you had
planned?
- Have you ever gambled to escape worry or
trouble?
- Have you ever committed, or considered
committing, an illegal act to finance gambling?
- Did gambling cause you to have
difficulty in sleeping?
- Do arguments, disappointments or
frustrations create within you an urge to gamble?
- Did you ever have an urge to celebrate
any good fortune by a few hours of gambling?
- Have you ever considered self
destruction or suicide as a result of your gambling?
Gambling can be as innocent as investing in the stock or real estate
market, a home card game, or a recreational visit to a casino type
entertainment center. When it becomes addictive, a person hurts
themselves and those around them. In particular, it hurts their
relationship with God, who does not desire for a person to suffer from
the loss of business, family, and friends. When gambling becomes an
addictive behavior, it is immoral. A word to the wise is stay away from
anything that 'might' be addictive.
Human Trafficking - Trafficking
in human beings is very common and it includes recruiting, harboring,
obtaining, and transporting persons by use of force, fraud, or coercion
for the purpose of subjecting them to involuntary acts, such as
commercial sexual exploitation (including prostitution) or involuntary
labor, i.e., enslaving them.
Human trafficking is the trade of human beings and their
use by criminals to make money. This often means forcing or tricking
people into prostitution, begging, or labor in sweatshops, domestic
servitude and manual labor. Children are often forced to be child
soldiers by transporting narcotics. Women and children are sold on the
international market for forms of slavery - marriage, adoption, and
ultra-low wage factory and agricultural work. In most cases both are
subjected to degradation and servitude for the remainder of their
lives.
Traffickers use coercive tactics including deception,
fraud, intimidation, isolation, threat and use of physical force, debt
bondage or even force-feeding with drugs of abuse to control their
victims. Women are typically recruited with promises of good jobs in
other countries or provinces, and, lacking better options at home,
agree to migrate. Through agents and brokers who arrange the travel and
job placements, women are escorted to their destinations and delivered
to the employers. Upon reaching their destinations, some women learn
that they have been deceived about the nature of the work they will do;
most have been lied to about the financial arrangements and conditions
of their employment; and all find themselves in coercive and abusive
situations from which escape is both difficult and dangerous. Men are
also at risk of being trafficked for unskilled work predominantly
involving hard labor.
A US Government report published in 2003, estimates that
800,000-900,000 people worldwide are trafficked across borders each
year. This figure does not include those who are trafficked internally.
Up to 20,000 people are trafficked into the United States each year.
Between 80% and 90% of victims trafficked across
international borders are female and the majority of those are women
and girls are trafficked for sexual exploitation, forced into
prostitution. The 1996 report of the United Nations Special Report on
the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography
estimates that about one million children in Asia alone are victims of
the sex trade. Human trafficking is so common now that it is the third
most profitable criminal activity in the world after illegal drugs and
arms trafficking. Globally, forced labor - which includes sexual
exploitation - generates $31 billion, half of it in the industrialized
world, and a tenth in transition countries. (International Labor
Organization, 11 May 2005).
Unlike drugs or arms, women and children can be "sold"
several times. The trafficking in human beings is not new. But it is a
rapidly growing problem. A number of factors have led to its expansion,
such as the easy profits made from exploitation; growing deprivation
and marginalization of the poor; discrimination against women;
restrictive migration laws; a lack of information about the realities
and dangers of trafficking and insufficient penalties against
traffickers.
The United States has taken a firm stance against human
trafficking both within its borders and beyond. Domestically, human
trafficking is prosecuted through the Civil Rights Division, Criminal
Section of the United States Department of Justice. Older statutes used
to protect 13th Amendment Rights within United States Borders are Title
18 U.S.C., Sections 1581 and 1584. Section 1584 makes it a crime to
force a person to work against his or her will. This compulsion can be
effected by use of force, threat of force, threat of legal coercion or
by "a climate of fear", that is, an environment where an individual
believes they may be harmed by leaving or refusing to work. Section
1581 similarly makes it illegal to force a person to work through "debt
servitude". New laws were passed under the Victims of Trafficking and
Violence Protection Act of 2000. See Human Trafficking.Org, Coalition
Against Trafficking in Women, or Amnesty USA.
Legislated
Morality - An oxymoron is a
concept that is made of contradictory or incongruous elements.
"Legislated morality" is an oxymoron. In a democracy, moral behavior
deemed right or wrong in/by that society is made law for all citizens
by legislation.
We live in a society of pluralism, which means there are a
wide variety of moral beliefs/intents and worldviews competing for
influence. Pluralism and tolerance are two hands on the same body of
thought, so with the idea of 'making' certain morals law, one has to
remember that there are many points of view and toleration is the
mantra.
Today, pluralism has changed. It has evolved into an
acceptance of all world views as equally valid. Moving from toleration
of world views formerly viewed as mistaken to acceptance of them as
valid is a significant shift in the United States. Our state of affairs
is that the founding fathers would never have imagined an American
society in which the state would be neutral or hostile toward religion
in general - "freedom of religion" is evolving into "freedom from
religion" as pluralism increasingly becomes the tolerated "voice of
America." This is the reason "legislated morality" should and has to
be important to a Christian. If the Christian voice is not part of the
answer to balancing pluralism in determining what is legally right and
wrong, then it will become part of the problem to an overwhelming
pluralistic local/state/national voice.
Pluralism seems to be increasingly uncivil and hostile to
Christians. This is due to the general apathy and laziness of
Christians in the arena of "law making" over decades. Unwittingly,
Christians have assumed things were 'okay' like they were in the "good
old days" while many moral laws once deemed unacceptable by society
have changed in front of them in the almost imperceptible drone of
toleration in the name of justice, fairness, and equality - everything
is just, everything is fair, and everything is equal. In pluralism, if
it is not, then one is a victim. This evolution is a post-modern
revolution.
There are remedies. One, legislating morality should be
actively pursued by Christians for all people, not just Christians.
Two, legislating morality should continue to be embraced as an
acceptable means of regulating behavior. Three, Christian churches
should live by the morals they espouse. Today's society knows that it
is common place for Christian churches to 'wink' at many sins, which
are acceptable behaviors among pluralists - a clear double standard
creating lost credibility. Four, Christians should become dedicated to
the democratic process by voting in elections. This means knowing the
moral positions of candidates, promoting those who hold reasonable
Biblical views, and then actually voting for them. Five, Christians who
hold the pluralistic moral view and want Biblical moral views to
prevail in this society will be disappointed unless they embrace the
Biblical view of morality. Six, Christian denominational leaders will
fail their constituency and denigrate Christianity itself without
representing the Biblical view of morality. A denomination that adopts
all world views will become a denomination of world values and cease
being Christian. Seven, churches should clarify on what basis some
forms of immorality should be made illegal and others should not.
Eight, Christians should get over their fear of being responsible about
Biblical morals.
Nine, the church should be distinct, not only in its message, but also
in the manner and style with which it attempts to influence American
society.
Minorities
- It is important for Christians to make a place for its minority
members.
Racism - Christians should have no place for
racism. It stands against everything God in Christ represents.
Racial prejudice was the cause of more than half of the
7,649 hate crimes reported to the FBI in 2004. The number of race-based
incidents rose to 4,042 from 3,844, a 5% increase. The FBI reports that
prejudice against blacks made up 2,731 of those hate crimes.
SEXUALITY
TOP
Sexual Victimization - Sexual victimization
and intimidation (abuse) are sexual relations and behaviors between two
or more parties which are considered criminally and/or morally
offensive. Different types of sexual abuse involve: 1) non-consensual,
forced physical sexual behavior such as rape or sexual assault; 2)
psychological forms of abuse, such as verbal sexual behavior or
stalking.
Spousal abuse is the term applied to the specific form of
domestic violence, where physical or sexual abuse is perpetuated by one
spouse upon another. This is typically perpetuated by a male upon a
female in a heterosexual relationship, although those of the same
gender also inflict sexual abuse.
Students are sometimes victims of sexual exploitation by
teachers and professors. Even if the sexual contact is consented to (or
even initiated) by the student, it may be considered a form of abuse on
the presumption that the teacher or professor is apt to exploit his or
her position of authority in a subtle form of psychological coercion.
Patients of psychotherapists are another common category
of sexual exploitation.
Sadly, the same is true of laity and clergy in various
religions. Abuse by clergy in the Roman Catholic Church, for instance,
has been at crisis proportions. Therapists, church laity, and clergy
who sexually victimize others should be immediately removed from their
positions and legally prosecuted.
Sex between a minor child/prepubescent teen and an adult
is child sexual abuse. Sex between a minor adolescent/teen/youth and an
adult is statutory rape. Sex between two people who are married, but
not to each other, is adultery. Sex between two adults of the same
gender is sodomy.
According to some state laws in the U.S., if two or more
minors under the age of consent engage in sex with each other, they may
both be classified as victims of sexual abuse. Cases in
which both participants are minors have historically not been
prosecuted, although a shift in the direction of prosecuting minors for
consensual sex with other minors seems to have occurred in the last
several decades.
Sexually victimizing another person, whether physically,
emotionally, and/or mentally is highly immoral.
Positive
Sexuality - This includes sexual lifestyles that are condoned
by God in Holy Scripture. They are condoned because they are helpful in
one's relationship with God. They include purity, faithfulness in
marriage, modesty, and self control.
Negative Sexuality - This includes
sexual lifestyles that are prohibited by God in Holy Scripture. They
are prohibited because they are detrimental in one's relationship with
God. They include adultery, sodomy, consensual sexual intercourse between two persons not married
to each other, impurity,
indulgence in sensuality, orgies, lust, polygamy, lewdness, and
filthiness.
Sexual Offenders - In 1990,
Washington State in the United States became the first state to require
the registration and community notification of the release of sex
offenders from incarceration. Later, in 1994, a federal statute based
on a set of New Jersey Laws called "Megan's Laws" were enacted
requiring notification and registration across the United States. Many
jurisdictions have passed laws requiring sex offenders, especially
child sex offenders, to register with the police. They report where
they live when they leave prison or become convicted of a crime. This
requirement is often in addition to the offender's legal sentence
(punishment) and other restrictions, such as not allowing contact with
children and not living within certain distances from schools or parks.
The exact provisions vary with each locality. The purpose of such
registration and restrictions are to encourage the protection of
children and society by increasing the awareness of the community about
the recidivism risk that some offenders may present on release. Policy
makers and the public who support this intervention also hope that
community awareness will assist in preventing future sex offenses.
Child molesters are often notorious for recidivism,
although broad recidivism rates for sex offenders are lower than most
other types of crimes. In some localities, the lists of sex offenders
are made available to the public: for example, through the internet.
However, in other localities, the lists are not available to the
general public but are known to the police. In the United States
offenders are often classified in three categories: Level 1 offenders
which are at low risk to re-offend; Level II offenders which are at
moderate risk to re-offend; and Level III offenders which are at high
risk to re-offend. Information is usually accessible related to that
risk. There are penalties for failure to register as required.
The vast majority of sex offenders registered are men. The
vast majority of offenders also victimize individuals who are known,
related or intimate to the victim - contrary to media depictions of
stranger assaults or child molesters who kidnap children unknown to
them.
There are also laws - usually called mandated reporting
laws - requiring in many cases certain professionals responsible for
child care (teachers, school counselors, etc.) to report suspected
child abuse, which in some cases may be sexual abuse, to the
authorities.
For State of Florida sexual offenders and predators, see
Florida Department of Law Enforcement. As of December
2005, FDLE listed 988 sexual offenders in Polk County and among those
were 59 sexual predators. In the City of Lakeland, there were 375
sexual offenders and 23 sexual predators.
Teenage Pregnancy - In 2004 in
American society, 1.5 million babies (36% of all babies born) were born
to unwed mothers. Most of the mothers were in their twenties and 24% of
these births were to teenage girls, the majority being economically
disadvantaged. Rates of teenage
childbearing in the U.S. are the highest in the developed world.
America is in
the middle of a single-mom baby boom and fewer children are being
raised by a mother and a father. The National
Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancies found federal data that shows
two-thirds of girls ages 15-19 agree it is morally right for an unwed
woman to have a child.
An extensive review of marriage research in 2005
by the Brookings Institution and Princeton found that children fare
best when raised by their married, biological parents. Still, more
couples are cohabiting. Some recent good news
is that fewer teenage mothers choose to place their children up for
adoption and teenage abortion rates are declining.
For the Christian, it is morally wrong to have
promiscuous sexual intercourse. Therefore, one should ask
questions, such as - Where and how do children learn that promiscuity is
morally right?; where do children learn that promiscuity is morally
wrong?; and what will the generational impact
be on American culture as it continues to embrace promiscuity?"
Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD) -Sexually
transmitted diseases (STDs) affect men and women of all backgrounds and
economic levels. Despite the fact that a great deal of progress has
been made in STD prevention over the past four decades, the United
States has the highest rates of STDs in the industrialized world. The
rates of STDs are 50-100 times higher in the US than in other
industrial nations. In the United States alone, an estimated 15.3
million new cases of STDs are reported each year.
Despite the fact that STDs are extremely widespread and
add billions of dollars to the nation's healthcare costs each year,
most people in the United States remain unaware of the risk and
consequences of all but the most prominent STD—HIV, the virus that
causes AIDS.
Many other STDs affect millions of men and women each
year. Many of these STDs initially cause no symptoms, especially in
women. Symptoms, when they do develop, may be confused with those of
other diseases that are not transmitted through sexual contact. STDs
can still be transmitted person to person even if they do not show
symptoms. Also, health problems caused by STDs tend to be more severe
for women than for men.
Sexually transmitted
diseases/conditions include, but are not limited to, AIDS, Chancroid
("SHAN-kroid"), Chlamydial ("kla-MID-ee-uhl"), Trichomoniasis,
Bacterial Vaginosis, Cytomegalovirus Infections, Scabies, and Pubic
Lice.
STDs affect men and women of
all backgrounds and economic levels. However, STDs disproportionately
affect women, infants, young people, and minorities. STDs are most
prevalent among teens and young adults with nearly two-thirds of all
STDs occurring in people under age 25. Some contributing factors in the
rise of STDs include the facts that young people have become sexually
active earlier, divorce is more common, and sexually active people are
more likely to have multiple sex partners.
STDs can result in irreparable lifetime damage, including
blindness, bone deformities, mental retardation, and death for infants
infected by their mothers during gestation or birth. In women, STDs can
lead to pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), infertility, potentially
fatal ectopic pregnancies, and cancer of the reproductive tract.
Prevention—biomedical,
behavioral, and moral—is the best hope for reducing STDs. They will
never be eliminated.
HIV/AIDS - AIDS is an acronym for
Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, a transmissible disorder of the
immune system that is caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and
hastened by ignorance, prejudice, denial, negligent political
leadership, and the freedoms of the sexual revolution. HIV attacks the body's defense against disease, eventually leaving the
infected individual vulnerable to malignancies and infections which
cause death. AIDS is the final stage of HIV infection, during which
time these diseases arise.
The first cases in the US of AIDS were among five young actively
homosexual men identified in June 5,1981 in Los
Angeles, CA. By December 1996, there had been more than 8,000,000 cases
of AIDS worldwide, resulting in 6,000,000 deaths. By 2005 (only nine
years later) 25,000,000 people had died of AIDS (in 26 years). There
are now 40,000,000 people world-wide infected with the HIV virus.
More than 90 percent of HIV infections occur in developing
countries. Sub-Saharan Africa accounted for more than 60 percent
of all infections by 1996, in some areas almost one-third of the
inhabitants were infected. More than
8,000 people die every day from AIDS-related
conditions and 2,000,000 people will die of AIDS this year in Africa alone. In 2005, there were
26,000,000 cases of AIDS and 12,000,000 AIDS orphans in Africa. In many parts of
Africa, the life expectancy is only 30 years. AIDS could also kill 31
million people in India and 18 million people in China.
HIV is contracted mainly through exposure to blood, semen
and other genital secretions, and breast milk. Although it is a
transmittable virus, it is not contagious and it cannot be spread
through coughing, sneezing, or casual physical contact. The major
mode of transmission worldwide - which accounts for 70 percent of all
HIV infections - is sexual intercourse. Many individuals,
including a number of hemophiliacs, were infected from contaminated
blood and blood products before screening procedures were introduced in
the late 1980's.
AIDS is the worst human pandemic in the history of the
world and it clearly has the potential in the years ahead to collapse
governments, make wastelands out of continents, and cause
pandemonium in the world - not to mention the exponential loss of life
in the tens of millions.
It is very important to respond to this global crisis now,
while there is time, resources, and enough peace to do it.
EDUCATION
TOP
Religion & Schooling - Religious
education teaches the doctrines of a religion and its usual purpose is
to teach children the basics of a particular religion. A less common
purpose is to teach new adherents of a religion.
Some people oppose religious education in public schools
on various grounds. One is that it constitutes a state sponsorship or
establishment of whatever religious beliefs are taught. Others argue
that if a particular religion is taught in school, children who do not
belong to that religion will either feel pressure to conform or be
excluded from their peers. Proponents argue that religious beliefs have
historically socialized people's behavior and morality. They feel that
teaching religion in school is necessary to encourage children to be
responsible, spiritually sound adults.
A parochial school is a type of school which engages in
religious education in addition to conventional education. Parochial
schools are typically grammar schools or high schools run by churches
or parishes. In the U.S. this is a type of private school. Private
schools, or independent schools, are schools not administered by local
or national government, which retain the right to select their student
body and are funded in whole or in part by charging their students
tuition rather than with public funds.
Religion, as a subject, may be taught in public schools as
part of an overall understanding of religions in general, but it is
unlikely one particular religion will be taught in public education
because of laws prohibiting it. If parents desire for their children to
learn a particular religion as part of their conventional education,
they should enroll them in a parochial school that supports that
particular religion.
Parochial schools that claim to be Christian are not
necessarily Christian. This is true when a parochial school 1) has
no minority students, including the economically disadvantaged; 2) when
there are no specific classes on Christianity; 3) when Christ is not
taught as the Messiah; 4) when classes on Christianity are seen as
minor courses not required for graduation or passing; 5) when there are
no students guidelines for Christian behavior; 6) when there are no
requirements for minority members being on the governing Board; 7) when
there is no required Christian worship; and 8) where there are no
classes on the Bible. It is very easy to claim to be a Christian school
and not be one - all in the name of unspoken exclusivity. Because of
such immorality, by many supposedly Christian schools, and the desire
not to have children socialized in public schools, many parents turn to
home schooling and raising their children in church.
In the United States, home schooling is the focus of a
substantial movement among parents who wish to provide their children
with a custom or more complete education, which they feel is
unattainable in most private/parochial schools or the public schools.
While millions of families in the U.S. are educating their children at
home, tens of millions of families still prefer public schools for
their children.
Sex
Education in Schools - In public schools, there has been - and still is - debate
about sex education. Should it be taught? What should be taught? Should
an abstinence only program be taught? There is little likelihood that
secular values and Christian values on this subject will find common
ground in the public arena, since the differences in values are so
different.
For the Christian, sex education should not break down
pre-existing notions of modesty and encourage acceptance of practices
that are immoral. It is for that reason that parents need to decide on
public schooling, private schooling, parochial schooling, or home
schooling.
Home schooling allows a parent complete control of what is
taught, but for the vast number of working parents that is not an
option. If a parent decides on a public, private, or parochial school
for their child or children, they should be very concerned and
inquisitive about any sex education that is taught - or being
considered.
The goal of Christian sex education should be
abstinence-based and it should include human development, peer and
group relationships, personal skills, sexual behavior, sexual health,
and society and culture – all based as nearly as possible on God’s
commandments in the Bible.
School Prayer -
Public schools should allow children a moment of silent prayer to
emphasize the importance this country holds for religion in personal
development. Schools having a Christian affiliation should have
Christian prayer as a hallmark of the school's daily life. If a school
is a Christian school, then its spiritual life should revolve around
Jesus Christ and the Bible.
MEDIA
TOP
Electronic Colonialism - This may may
or may not be a moral issue, but with media plainly shaping values, it
is worth noting.
Wikipedia features an article on electronic colonialism, a
form of cultural imperialism and empire building by the media
conglomerates.
Electronic colonialism theory was created by Tom McPhail,
a Canadian. McPhail wrote a book entitled Electronic Colonialism in the
early 1980s. The theory concern is the impact on the mind of repeated
mass media messages, including commercials, on audiences.
Multimedia corporations seek to capture the mind of
viewers, readers, and listeners. Disney, MTV, Blockbuster, Hollywood,
CNN, BBC, FOX, Google, the Internet, and others - all seek to influence
the public by packaging media to attract large audiences.
The theory is that media conglomerates will impact more
people and small media businesses to become more 'similar', as
indigenous media become marginalized (less effective and less
influential) by high quality, mass produced, and instantly communicated
media message systems. In other words, fewer people will shape audience
values.
Thus, a new global empire will be media conglomerates who
will collectively influence the minds, attitudes, values, and languages
of nations - becoming single sources of moral formation. EC is an
electronic mass media revolution, expanding the moral frontiers of the
multi-national communication firms.
An example of electronic colonialism is the new initiative
of Google to digitalize the works of major libraries. Google will help
define the future of knowledge with its vast network and its global
platform. The wealth of other libraries will be marginalized, thus
Google will represent a major (and only one) challenge to the academic,
cultural, and linguistic life of nations and institutions. People and
students will no longer use library stacks and cubicles. They'll stay
home or in their dorm room and get what they want. With electronic
globalization, dusty library shelves will become relics of history as
servers in remote locations replace them.
There is a great responsibility for those who disseminate
information for public consumption. The business ethics of the media
are quickly becoming more global ethics and less local ethics.
It is very clear the media uses print, broadcast, and
other electronic systems to influence values as that 'industry'
continues to move from objectivism to subjectivism.
As this new electronic worldview unfolds, it will be
interesting to study the shaping of values. The ethical questions are,
"Whose values? what values? and for what purposes?"
Violence
in the Media - The debate over media
violence has eluded definitive answers for more than three decades. At
first blush, the debate is dominated by one question—whether or not
media violence actually causes real-life violence. But closer
examination reveals a political battle. On the one hand, there are
those who blame media violence for societal violence and want to censor
violent content. On the other hand are those who see regulation as the
slippery slope to censorship or a smokescreen hiding the root causes of
violence in society. One thing is certain: the issue of media violence
is not going away.
Violence in America has been inextricably linked to
economic changes. The economic hardships of the 1930s and the late
1970s resulted in the highest homicide levels in the 20th century. This
relation persists today. The basis for a breakdown in family values is
a material condition. It corresponds to the ongoing deindustrialization
of American society, moving jobs overseas (outsourcing), the creation of underclasses, and less ability to be upwardly mobile. Rates of criminal
violence have dropped significantly over the past 10 years, except
among the young, the part of the population most affected by the
nationwide squeeze on jobs, income, and opportunity.
Americans would hardly be surprised to learn that we lead
the industrialized world in rates of murder, violent crime, juvenile
crime, imprisonment, divorce, single-parent households, numbers of teen
suicide, cocaine consumption, per capita consumption of all drugs, and
pornography production.
Increasingly the debate is focusing on our "culture of
violence," and on our normalization of aggression and the resulting
lack of empathy in our society. An example of this would be the
marketing of violence against women and the subjugation of women in the
media for the sake of profit.
Our culture has an appetite for shock and the sale of
shock. Attention by media is increasingly gained by being louder,
incrementally uglier, bolder in pushing the limits of decency, and
exaggeration. Although what gets attention is more profitable, it is
not the producers who are entirely at fault. The disease of indecency
lies at the heart of every consuming American who relishes it, pays for
it, and has never been taught any difference. The blame is the American
appetite for secular values, acceptance of societal ‘conditioning’ by
those values, and the ultimate embrace of violence and indecency as a
civil right. Biblically, the old term "concupiscience" is descriptive for this
spiritual state. It is to be so lost that one knows neither right nor
wrong.
The escalation and exploitation of violence and indecency
for personal, business interests, and civil rights is immoral because
it breeds behavior that is harmful to people and weakens the American
character and government.
Sources:
Applying Ethics, 1996
Christian Ethics in Plain Language, 2005
Dictionary of Christian Ethics, 1967
Genetic Engineering, 1982
Moral Choices, 2000
Moral Dilemmas, 1998
Wikipedia
USA Today
World Bank
Center for Disease Control
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