If you don't believe in the Ten Commandments, what is your moral rubric? • /r/Christianity

Published by Ronald Steed,

One of the places I like to "hang" is Reddit’s Christianity sub-reddit, /r/Christianity.  It is an interesting online community, and for me, not a bad place to "proclaim the gospel".  All kinds of people come there with all kinds of questions.  Of course, the majority of participants are Christians of all varieties, but there is a lively group of Atheists and Agnostics there as well.  I get the sense that the vast majority of people there are fairly young… high school, college, and young adults.  People on my end of the age-scale seem to be few, but it’s hard to tell… there is not much personal information shared in that forum.  In fact, I’m one of the few who uses a personal name there.  I’ve wrestled with whether I really want to put a personal name out there in a forum like this, but I decided that it WAS more personal and since I have nothing to hide in this department… I set up my user name as /u/ronaldsteed. 
The question in the title of this post is a pretty typical one and I’ve posted my response below.  You can read the entire thread here.  My responses tend to be longer than most and just marginally popular!  (alas) But, I find that writing in this way has helped me to sharpen my own thinking and has caused me to go searching for some better answers when mine have not been so good.  In the end, my hope is that this sort of "ministry" will get some folks thinking more deeply than they might...

So I'm going to take a stab at this that might not answer the question directly... but addresses the principal behind such an answer. The issue here is morality... the question of what we should DO.

I would say that Jesus taught that the "summary" of the law was to be found in two statements:

  • You should love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength;
  • You should love your neighbor as yourself.

He went on to say that on these two, "hang all the law and the prophets". Jesus even "intensified" the law in some of his discussions about the law in the Sermon on the Mount, and those intensifications were based on the principals of the law above and not just on the "ruleset" of the law.

Which brings another important point: it does not seem that Christian morality is rule-based, so much as it is principal or virtue-based. I think this is frustrating to Christians and non-Christians alike who are looking for and expect to find a concrete set of rules to live their lives. I just don't think there IS such a thing. Rather, in addition to the summary of the law above, Christian morality seems to hang (as in crucifixion?) on three related ideas:

  • Christian morality is going to be "cross-shaped"... we can expect that doing the right thing (whatever that might mean) is going to involve some suffering. Indeed, the suffering seems to be part of what brings the "powers and principalities" to bay.
  • Christianity is going to be resurrection-shaped... our work in the world is going to be focused on healing, reconciliation, and restoration.... "ressurection-in-action"...
  • Christianity is going to be spirit-led... The Holy Spirit... the advocate within all of us... to the degree that we cooperate with her is going to work on giving us "hearts of flesh" rather than "hearts of stone".

Further, Paul seems to put a high stock on two moral areas (which are themselves the working out of what it means to be "in Christ".... to be cross/resurrection-shaped and spirit-led):

  • That Christian community is to be open to all, regardless of male or female, slave or free (rich or poor from the modern perspective), jew or gentile, etc. It is a new community that is NOT formed around ethnic, cultural, or economic boundaries (note: gender boundaries are a sort of new thing, but the basic theology is based on the PRINCIPAL of non-exclusion of these other areas... it is a resurrection-shaped theology).
  • That Christians should subvert privilege or "rights" for the sake of community unity.

(I'll just note the obvious... we don't do either of these well it seems).

Finally, I would say that "consistency is NOT a Christian virtue" (Wm Stringfellow). Thus, two Christians might be living fully within the spirit of their faith, and listening to the spirit's work within them (the "call" they seem to be getting) and still act in seemingly incompatible ways. For example, two people working for an employer who abuses them... one might be getting a legitimate call to leave the job in protest, while another might be getting an equally legitimate call to stay and change from the inside. Both might really be getting a call to soften the stone heart of the employer by different methods according to their spirit-given talents.

Just to pile onto a recent "current event", I'm open to the possibility that The KY clerk who is denying gay marriage licenses might be getting a legitimate call for her position WHILE at the SAME TIME, gay partners are getting a call to marriage. I'm NOT saying this IS the case (it's hard to make a case that this would embody healing, reconciliation, and restoration for instance, though it seems to abound in suffering)... that takes discernment by Christian communities... just that radical inconsistency and paradox may be part of the moral package that Christians have to live with.

In the end, this is going to seem ridiculous to outsiders and a "scandal" to others. Paul nailed that one... there is a different "wisdom" at work in Christian morality...


https://www.reddit.com/r/Christianity/comments/3m8xo1/if_you_dont_believe_in_the_ten_commandments_what/