Killing In The Name Of - #2

Before we get stuck into some key biblical texts to do with violence or lack thereof, Professor Hays makes some important preliminary remarks on what he calls “The Pragmatic Task”, i.e. making specific judgments regarding ethical issues. This task is the fruit of Moral vision’s first three tasks: (1) surveying the moral visions of the NT writers, (2) examining their coherence, and (3) searching for a suitable way to interpret the texts. Each task builds up to (and is in fact meaningless without) some answers to Hays’s practical question, How shall the Christian community shape its life in obedience to the witness of the New Testament?

This is a question that is not often asked by our churches, or if it is asked, it is only asked in relation to certain issues we’re relatively comfortable in dealing with. This leads Hays to tangentially but accurately state that,

One reason that appeals to the authority of Scripture often seem unconvincing is that the church has been inconsistent in shaping its life according to Scripture. For example, some voices in the church have insisted stoutly on the normative authority of a few texts dealing with sexual morality while ignoring or finessing equally clear New Testament teachings on possessions and violence. In such circumstances, is it any wonder that the church’s witness is ineffectual? If the church is to have any credibility, any integrity, we must seek to be a Scripture-shaped community in all respects, not merely on selected issues of our own preference.

In dealing with the issue of pacifism, Hays does not claim to be speaking with utmost authority, and so if you disagree with him that doesn’t necessarily mean that you are wrong. What he offers are “discernments to the church in prayerful humility”. These are his own convictions (based on Scripture, of course), which are not put forth to excommunicate anyone but rather to persuade others of the biblical grounds for his ethical stance.

This may all sound a tad relative. That’s your ethic, this is my ethic, let’s agree to disagree. But the nature of the New Testament is such that it is easier to pin some things down than it is others. Hypothetically, if two Christians disagree on whether murder is right or wrong, then it is not simply a case of them having to agree to disagree. Analysis of the New Testament leaves one in no doubt that the person who is anti-murder is in the right, and so to be Scripture-shaped is to be un-murderous. The Christian who thinks murder isn’t so bad is in need of serious change, to put it mildly. “Repentance” might be the pertinent word. But what about, say, smoking? Some Christians will argue that believers shouldn’t smoke (your body is a temple, after all), and some will argue that it is perfectly acceptable behaviour (it is not what goes into a person that makes him unclean, but what comes out of him). Which side of that divide is Scripture-shaped? Or is it simply a matter of the individual’s conscience, as eating temple meat was in Paul’s day?

The point is that ethical issues are not as black and white as they are often painted out to be. On some things we can be sure; on others, we need to be open to dialogue, trusting that the Spirit of God will lead us into truth as we wrestle with ambiguous issues.

For Hays, pacifism is not akin to smoking, a matter of mere personal conscience perhaps. He nails his colours to the wall by saying “I will argue that the normative witness of the New Testament against armed violence is powerful, virtually univocal, and integrally related to the central moral vision of the New Testament texts”. He does not present a take-it-or-leave-it ethic; not on this particular issue. For Hays, the New Testament’s stance on violence (in all shapes and forms) is a whole lot closer to that for murder than it is for something at the opposite end of the seriousness spectrum, such as the aforementioned smoking. As we work our way through his argument, you may or may not end up seeing why.