"Slut-shaming" versus virgin-vilifying

Lots of people argue by slogan these days. There is a slogan now being used that way, "slut-shaming", and they say it like it's a bad thing for a "slut" to be ashamed. Granted, I wouldn't choose the word "slut" -- it's harsh and insulting and communicates nothing but contempt. So I wouldn't introduce such a word into the conversation myself, and will take this opportunity to say some words that are more accurate: foolish, irresponsible, using and being used, selling your future short. The feminists see this as an issue -- that men are not called to account for the exact same bad behavior -- then conclude that therefore women should behave just as badly.

Many feminists are genuinely trying to take a stand for fairness; but I wonder sometimes whether they realize that they're being played. Would it bother them to realize that "feminism" has become a tool by which the men play the women to get what they want? And the feminists are defining "success" in terms of "doing what men are doing" -- as if what men are doing is automatically smart or right or desirable. Why did that assumption pass unchallenged, especially among feminists? Does an "empowered woman" want to be a copycat of the men?

Women have traditionally been held to higher moral standards -- at least when it comes to sex -- because we're the ones who suffer the consequences of idiocy or short-sightedness. We're the ones who face the "choice" of aborting our children or raising them alone, often in hardship. The stakes of the game are far higher for us, so we were expected to play smarter.Why aren't men ashamed of lying their way into a woman's bedroom? Good question, but that doesn't make it smart for us to give them a free pass and condone it. And make no mistake, the men have played the feminist movement so that now they have women standing up for the "right" to play the game the way that men want them to.

Except conscience is a tricky thing. If, deep down, we know we have been irresponsible with our lives, our bodies, our hearts, our emotional well-being, possibly even our futures or our potential children's future -- our consciences demand that we notice. The "feminization of poverty" -- the fact that the poor are more and more likely to be women and children -- is directly because we have stopped playing smart, and started defining "success" as "imitating men at their worst". And we could be a little smarter. This is an age where people are security conscious. People wouldn't dream of giving out their ATM pin to someone they just met, or having their password that's something ridiculously easy to guess. I would suggest that most women need to change the password to their pants. "I love you" is just too easy to guess. It's a sure way to get lied to and played.

As for virgin-vilifying, it has become a recurring action in pop culture. In The Breakfast Club, there's a scene in which the most disreputable character continually insinuates that there is something wrong with anyone who isn't sleeping around. And in that conversation, it looks as though he's the only one who may be sleeping around -- but the others allow themselves to be treated as if their patience or self-control -- or waiting for the right moment -- is somehow shameful. On The Simpsons, there is an episode in which we learn that Principal Skinner is a virgin -- and the town reacts in shock and disgust as if something was badly wrong with waiting for the right person, the right moment, the right relationship, or even marriage. There have even been some feature-length movies that have as their premise that there is something wrong with you if you are past a certain age and still a virgin. It was entertaining to see this virgin-vilifying turned on its head in the movie Easy A, where the main character helped other peoples' reputations -- that is, helped the reputation of vilified virgins -- by claiming to have slept with them.

On this particular topic, the feminist movement reminds me of a scene from the play Guys and Dolls in which Adelaide sings, "Take Back Your Mink". The lyrics are all about how powerful she is and how she is taking a stand and won't be played by the men any longer -- but the actions are all about her undressing herself for men's entertainment in a strip club. When it comes to the topic of "slut-shaming", the feminist movement is taking the role of Adelaide, singing about how sleeping around is "empowerment" while the men hoot and applaud, and maybe not realizing that was exactly what the men wanted them to do, and that the men are quite firmly in control of that situation.

What's the difference between justice and revenge?

I heard a challenge question once, asking: What's the difference between justice and revenge? (I think it was on an old TV show.) The answer given was, "One is right, and the other is wrong." The answer was good for a laugh, but it doesn't exactly answer the question. Here are some thoughts towards a fuller answer.

Justice aims to restore something: to balance scales, to restore order, to limit evil, to repay a loss. Justice is meant to put things right again.

Revenge aims to harm the other person, whether through injury, or financial ruin, or lost reputation, or some other means.

We would not want to insist that "justice" never does any harm to the criminal. A thief who is ordered to repay an amount stolen -- with extra compensation -- may find himself financially ruined; but that ruin was not the goal. Restoring the loss was the goal. Justice is satisfied when things are right again. It is easy to think of cases where justice is satisfied without harm being done to the criminal. But revenge is not satisfied until some sort of harm is done.

So for justice, restoration is the goal. Harm may be permissible if it is necessary to the goal and if the goal warrants it, but not otherwise. For revenge, the harm itself is the goal.

Which is why, as the old quip said, "One is right, and the other is wrong."

Ethics: What makes an action good?

A college-level course could be spent on the topic of "What makes an action good?" What I'd like to do here is give a simplified overview of the main ways that question has been answered, and then make a few follow-up comments.
Q: So: What makes an action good?

1. It fulfills or harmonizes with natural law. (Natural Law)
2. It fulfills an essential moral duty. (Deontology)
3. It will achieve a good purpose. (Consequentialism / Utilitarianism)
4. It is the outward expression of inward virtue. (Virtue Ethics)
5. It fulfills a divine command. (Divine Command Theory)

There's nothing preventing an action from being "All of the above". First, a quick survey of some potential problems of each approach:

1. Natural Law is limited in that all kinds of human actions are not necessarily associated with some sort of immutable natural law. Also, emphasis on some natural laws -- notoriously, "survival of the fittest" -- can lead to some brutal results.
2. The "essential moral duty" begs the question of how we know what that essential moral duty is, and why exactly those duties are good.
3. The utilitarians are the ones for whom "the ends justify the means". It is the only theory that bets everything on being justified by a future outcome. There is a blind spot in that we don't know the future, so the true consequences of an action are not actually known in advance. There is no safeguard against causing all kinds of actual harm in the name of good intentions and hoped-for results. Also, there is such a thing as a method that sabotages its intended goal; that risk is typically not recognized.
4. The outward expression of inward virtue begs the question of what exactly is virtue and why exactly is it good. It has nearly the opposite risk compared to the utilitarians, in that for the "virtue ethics" view, the end result is, in practice, nearly irrelevant. In its weaker moments, it tends toward narcissism; it has a self-congratulatory streak.
5. The "divine command" theory presupposes a way of knowing God and a way of knowing his will. Beyond those hurdles, it then bets everything on the character of God. If God is not actually intrinsically good, then "divine command" is not necessarily intrinsically "good" either. (This last point is not at all academic. Not all religions hold that God / the gods are always intrinsically good. According to some religions, God / the gods may not act out of goodwill or virtue.)

But it is plain that there is a lot of overlap between the different approaches:

1. Natural Law has roots in the real world around us. If we look for what harmonizes with nature, what makes the natural order grow and flourish, then working according to natural law is also working for a good end, but with better quality control over the means employed to reach those goals.
2. The "essential moral duty" could coincide with nearly any of the others. the "essential moral duty" is a blank list waiting for someone to fill it with its vision of what is moral, essential, and obligatory.
3. The utilitarians provide a useful foil for the "virtue ethics" view, insisting that we consider the results of actions.
4. Likewise the "virtue ethics" perspective is a useful check-and-balance against utilitarians, noticing that some methods are not consistent with the good intentions that are the stated goal.
5. If God is the creator, then "divine command" may largely reflect natural law, in the sense of aiming for what makes the natural order grow and flourish.

From a Christian point of view, the theories largely coincide. As a list of considerations, they are to be weighed together, not separately; any separation amongst them is a warning sign that something vital has been overlooked. In Christian ethics, all the ethical theories are bound together by Christ's teaching of the highest good: Love of God, love of neighbor; some would also say by the Genesis account of creation being inherently good. On this view, the objective reality that grounds all of our ethical decisions is the goodness of what God has made. From there, love of what God has made is the natural law, the essential moral duty, the driving force that motivates and identifies good results, the definition of real virtue, and the content of divine command.

Utopia vs Eden

I think it's hardwired into who we are, as people, to try to create a paradise. It's the ultimate imitation of God: as he creates a paradise, so we try to create a paradise. Our own efforts may be small: maybe it's a home or a classroom or a garden. Maybe it's a holiday dinner, a summer vacation, a Sabbath -- or some other temporary paradise. Maybe it's a work of art or music.

The ambitious try to create paradise on grand political scales: cities, states, nations -- even the whole world. A big, ambitious paradise can only work if everyone works together. So it quickly seeks legal authority to make people cooperate. If we agreed on what was good and right, there would be no need to force other people to conform. And so the big, ambitious schemes usually come to that point sooner or later, where they go into the business of identifying opponents to be oppressed, discredited, and neutralized. We find that the "paradise" has come with its own ruler, a kind of god (or idol), and a system of values that must not be questioned, along with the laws to promote those values. Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Castro, Mao, Pol Pot ... are there more? They were all, in their own minds, the heroes leading in the glorious new age, though history is tending to remember them as butchers. How many times did that pattern play out in the 20th century alone? In previous centuries there were other figures, both religious and anti-religious, who tried to create paradise on earth at any price, and likewise became tyrants in a reign of terror. If we can't agree on what is good, then attaining that "good" requires oppressing those with different ideas; whatever else you may call it, it will never be a paradise; there will never even be justice.

They say that "Utopia" is the ancient Greek word for "Nowhere". It has never lasted; in many cases it has never worked at all. In stories, there are so many tales of a utopia gone wrong. In history, there are so many accounts of good intentions, good beginnings, and bad endings.

In Eden, we see some of the same themes: a paradise lost. We see how different ways of deciding "What makes something good or evil?" made the whole thing fall apart -- and involved the question of who was really in charge. But in Eden, that is told without the oppression, and without the reign of terror. There was just a sad ending: as long as there were disagreements about what is right, and what is wrong, and who is in charge -- it can't last. That wisdom has escaped us. That "tree of life" that would make it last forever remains out of reach.

Moral Gerrymandering

In politics, a district is said to be "gerrymandered" if the people drawing the district lines have made improbable twists and turns solely to favor their own position and give an outcome more favorable to their own partisan interests. Generally, there is no identifiable reason for the final results other than the electoral advantage they give to the persons who are using their legal authority to give themselves an advantage -- and to put their opponents at a disadvantage.

The same effect takes place in morality. Often, "right" and "wrong" are gerrymandered in favor of each person's perspective. "Right" -- what is "in bounds" -- may mean nothing more than "the set of goals or virtues I am pursuing"; "wrong" may mean nothing more than "the things that really bother me, or that my opponents do" -- those are out of bounds. The problem, again, is that it's self-serving and partisan. (Can anything like that possibly be genuinely moral?) It is a truly rare situation in which all the good is on one side. More typical is that each side has gerrymandered "good" and "evil".

The original "gerrymander" -- the one that inspired the name, looked a little like a salamander. When we gerrymander good and evil, what does the picture look like? The lines we draw for "good" are typically a flattering self-portrait, and our picture of "evil" becomes a caricature of our enemies -- often a malicious one.

And in that fatal move, morality loses all its power to transform us, to guide us, to heal us, or to inspire us. It loses its power to win over our opponents. Gerrymandered morality is impotent. Morality can only transform us when it is an image that is better than we are -- that is, the image of God.

Is there such a thing as "masculine" and "feminine" virtues?

I wonder where society got the idea that there is a set of "masculine" virtues and a set of "feminine" virtues. As best I can tell, the Bible has no such distinction. Everybody is called to a life of virtue, and we don't get a pass on any of them. There are no optional virtues. Courage is often considered a masculine virtue -- but women face death just like men do; it's not like we women can afford to sit that one out. In the Bible, Paul's instructions to be patient and kind, or to show gentleness and respect, don't come under the heading of responsibilities of wives; he's speaking to everyone at that point. Jesus has commanded all of us to love each other; it's not like the men can skip that one. It makes me wonder what kind of distorted personalities people would have if we tried to live up to (down to?) the recommended set of virtues for one sex.

I'm not saying men and women are the same. Vive la difference, as they say. I'm saying that the idea of "masculine virtues" and "feminine virtues" is not really how the Bible speaks about virtue.

Debater's code of ethics

I have been thinking that Christians should adopt a higher standard of morals when it comes to debate.

Consider the typical debate. There are carelessly-researched items reported as facts, distortions in how information is presented, selective use of evidence. There are questionable techniques such as character attacks, or conveniently placed displays of anger or shock that may be used tactically. Regardless of how common these things are, should a Christian engage in them?

I think Christians would do well to develop a full-fledged ethics code covering conduct during a debate. It would make debates more productive. It would lead to deepening mutual respect among Christians rather than deepening divisions and hostilities. It would also - let's not forget the big picture - keep us from sinning quite so often. We do want to behave ethically, don't we?

Here is a first shot at a debater's code of ethics.

Debater's Code of Ethics

Preface: The goal of a debate is to firmly establish which position has the most merit. Any conduct that does not live up to Christlike standards weakens the position of Christianity, regardless of which side wins the particular debate in question.

1. Nothing should be presented as fact unless the debater has personally checked the original source material and verified its accuracy.
   
2. The debater should present facts accurately, without stretching or distorting the information.
   
3. The debater should never present facts in a way different than how they appear to him, or deny the reality of his own hesitations in order make his position seem stronger than he himself feels it to be.
   
4. The debater should honestly review all evidence and arguments, being more willing to change his views, acknowledge a mistake, or even lose a debate than to engage in dishonesty.
   
5. The debater should not smear, mock, belittle, or otherwise disparage the character of his opponent, or engage in any form of character attack.
   
6. The debater should be familiar with logical fallacies and should completely reject their use, regardless of any tactical advantage that might be gained by them.
   
7. The debater should not engage in tactical displays of anger, outrage, shock, or sorrow, or make other theatrical displays intended to play the emotions of the onlookers or distract from the lack of an adequate response.
   
8. The debater should assume the honesty, integrity, and good faith of the opponent.
   
9. If the opponent makes a mistake of fact or logic, or engages in unethical debating tactics, these are to be answered with honesty and good faith, leaving a clear conscience.
   
10. The debater should give a fair hearing to his opponent and should be willing to change his views, not allowing himself to become blinded by partisanship or ego, or prevented from taking the best course by fear of embarrassment.
    
11. The debater should develop his skills and knowledge so that he can support his position solidly, state his position clearly, and defend his position honestly.
    
12. The debater should always be civil and respectful: in victory, gracious and free of arrogance; in defeat, showing good sportsmanship and holding steadfastly to the truth.
    

What have I forgotten? Or what changes does that need?

Paul's challenge to our complacency

St Paul, as a writer, knew how to make a point. Writing to Jesus' followers in Ephesus, he gave instructions on how we should live as new creations. Watch how he draws attention to some pairs of opposite things, to make the difference plainer to us. Pardon the extra numbers added into the text here; it helps separate out his points:

And put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore each of you must:

1. put off falsehood ... and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body.
2. In your anger do not sin ... do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.
3. He who has been stealing must steal no longer ... but work, doing something with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need.
4. Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths ... but only what is helpful for building up others according to their own needs, that it may benefit those who listen.

(Ephesians 4:24-29)

Paul challenges me there. Sure, it's easy to feel good about not stealing and having one command easily accomplished. But then Paul puts stealing as part of a spectrum, a continuum, where on the low end we have stealing, in the middle ground we have self-supporting, and in the higher goals we have helping the needy. All the sudden "not stealing" is the lowest bar, not the highest.

Paul challenges again on "unwholesome talk" -- if I leave off slander and gossip, and skip character assassination and arrogant talk, and reject the use of insults and put-downs, and shun all cussing, that is now the low end. Saying things according to my needs instead of the other person's needs is challenged next; some self-promotion is (possibly) not as offensive as gossip or slander or character assassination, but self-promotion and even self-centered talk are challenged because it does nothing to build up the other person.

That whole section of Ephesians continues in the same way for awhile. Paul shows that it is one thing to avoid being bad, but after that we still have a long way to go where we can pursue being good, for the sake of others and to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

Euthyphro's dilemma: An ancient debate and the greatest commandment

There is an ancient dilemma that goes back to the days of Plato, possibly even the days of Socrates. Back in those days the ancient Greeks spoke of many gods, but asked some of the same questions that people still ask today. Here is a question on their minds, the dilemma from Plato's ancient work, Euthyphro:

Is something loved by the gods because it is pious, or is something pious because it is loved by the gods?

I'll switch over to monotheistic language for the discussion here.

Sounds like an innocent question or an interesting but academic debate, doesn't it? What makes a thing or an action good in the eyes of God? Like many good questions, there's more to it than you see at first. If you take door #1 where God loves something because that thing is good in itself, then God has recognized a standard for "good" that is separate from himself. Is God bound to recognize another standard? Who sets that standard? But if you take door #2 where the love of God causes something to be good, then what is good is arbitrary and could have been otherwise; it's not intrinsically good or right.

The usual Christian response has been that this is a false dilemma: that good traces back beyond God's approval and God's will, and has its roots deeper, in the very nature of God. There is no separation between what is good and the nature of God; they are the same thing. So there is no separate standard of good that God himself must acknowledge, and there is no other path of good that God might have decided.

While this answer has been generally accepted among Christians, it has been put forward, at times, without solid Biblical support. Does the Bible teach that right and wrong are rooted in the nature of God, or is that just a thing for the philosophers?

I'd like to offer two passages of the Bible -- already considered key passages by many Christians -- to show that this answer is deeply Biblical.

Consider this statement that is already considered key to understanding the nature of God:

God is love. (1 John 4:8)

Consider this statement where Jesus speaks of the nature of right and wrong:

Then one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, testing him and saying, "Master, which is the great commandment in the law?"
Jesus said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like to it, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." These two commandments are the basis for all the law and the prophets. (Matthew 22:35-40)

So according to Jesus, all the laws -- and so all that is good and pleasing to God -- depends on love of God and neighbor. And love itself is the nature of God. That is to say, what is good and pleasing to God is based on who God is: God is love.

Or to put it in a short and simple form:
1. The character of God is love.
2. The foundation of morality is love.
3. Therefore, there is no separation between the character of God and the foundation of morality.

A different perspective: ethics and arguments

Have you ever eaten a piece of fruit and looked at the seed, and thought about the possibilities before throwing it away? Have you ever looked at an orange or apple or cherry seed and thought, "If I planted this, and all the seeds that came from it, it could be a grove, an orchard, a forest"? How many trees could be grown with a seed's children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren? I have sometimes looked at a seed in a piece of fruit and imagined a whole countryside planted with its offspring, beautiful and thriving. A seed thrown away has killed a forest that might have been.

I don't think it's possible to understand the Roman Catholic views on birth control without seeing humanity in the same way: good, and thriving, and full of possibility with each new birth.

I'm not here to convince anyone of the Roman Catholic views of birth control. I'm here to say: if we haven't really listened to each other, there are thoughts we might never have. (I sometimes wonder if thoughts are the same way. The seed of an idea, given time, might produce a great many other ideas. But if we don't listen ... if we throw it away ... our hard-heartedness and habitual disrespect might cause us to miss out on a whole forest of ideas. And on a whole forest of friends, while we're on the subject.)

Beyond "bailout morality"

I had an on-line discussion once with an ex-Christian who caricatured Christianity like this: in Christianity, "we suffer because we are basically broken, bad people, and we don't follow the rules."

That's not the Christianity I know. True, we don't follow the rules (at least not as well as we should). But the rules, at the core, are to love God and neighbor. That is at risk of being belittled as some sort of unthinking authoritarian conformity rather than the greatest joy in life worthy of our wholehearted pursuit, to live it full of love.

I think many people start life with that same view of morality: there are rules to be followed. Following the rules will keep us out of trouble -- at least, out of trouble with the people who set the rules. And we are more likely to turn to the rules for help after we've gotten ourselves into another fine mess, just as we are likely to pray more often when things are bad. Bailout spirituality, bailout morality. At this stage of spiritual growth, morality may seem like a burden to be put down when it seems too heavy, a cage that traps us and is meant to be escaped.

As we see more of what happens to those who cast aside the supposed burden of morality, we gain an appreciation for how much wisdom there is in the good. Morality becomes less of a burden, more of a shield against the evil in the world, more of a foundation on which to build something good. It becomes something we may take up willingly, deliberately, thoughtfully, even gladly. This is all without any claim that we manage it perfectly; only that we begin to see that there are rules that are not at all arbitrary but are intrinsically right, and genuinely wise, and lastingly beneficial. There is delight and enthusiasm in the Psalms, how the value of enduring righteousness is greater than gold. It becomes possible to love what is good.

The rule-based morality -- what is commanded, what is forbidden -- only gets us so far. Jesus taught a huge leap forward from this type of thinking. He taught us that the highest in morality is love. Or as St Paul rephrased, "Love does no harm to our neighbor, therefore love is the fulfillment of the law." And love of God is higher still than love of neighbor.

If the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, I'm starting to wonder if the love of God is its ultimate goal.

What did we lose in the fall?

Have you ever really thought about what the fall has done to our sense of right and wrong? I'm not talking about any punishment or curse. I'm talking about the story of Eden, about the act of stretching out our hand to eat from that tree. The tree was knowledge, wasn't it? Knowledge is good, isn't it? If we had loved knowledge for its own sake, I wonder very much what would have happened; there are those who say that God would have given us that knowledge at the right time.

But we didn't want knowledge for its own sake. We had no interest in knowledge as knowledge. We wanted it for power and status, so we could be like God. As long as we want knowledge for power or status, we will never use it rightly. We already made it plain why we wanted it, what we planned to gain from it, how we will use it.

Look very carefully at exactly what kind of knowledge was supposed to be given: the knowledge of good and evil. That is to say, knowledge of morality, knowledge of ethics. We set out to gain "moral knowledge" in order to gain power and status. It was an intrinsically perverse action, taking up morality because we thought we could use it to gain something. The morality we gained was tainted. Our knowledge of good and evil was imprinted with our decision: the ultimate good in our eyes was not quite what it should have been. And time after time when the call for "morality" goes out, we see that we are still using morality to gain status and power.

There truly is good, and knowledge of good and evil. But so long as we take the "knowledge of good and evil" in order to use it for our own gain, we will never be able to see it. Right and wrong have to be re-thought from the foundation.

What is the Christian response to the blame game?

Earlier today I found myself googling to find a Christian response to the blame game, when accusations start to fly and fingers start to point. A group I'm involved with looks like it will soon be having a moment like that.

While I didn't find anything I really found suitable on the web, it turns out that Jesus did already explain it to us when he said, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." So if what we we want is to get fair credit for our contributions, and not to be blamed unjustly for problems beyond our control, and for everyone to pull together and find a constructive way forward ... then that's what to do for others. The first step is to resist the urge to defend by pointing the finger.

Wish me luck.

What is the Christian response to backhanded compliments?

Sometimes in our world we receive backhanded compliments. Some of them are basically "sugar-coated insults" to borrow a phrase that I found this morning. I wonder whether the deliverer would be laughing to themselves if I actually said "Thank you"; that depends on how much the insult was intended, I suppose. Receiving a backhanded compliment puts you in a situation where you have to decide, and usually right on the spot, whether to accept the "compliment" and therefore accept the insult and thank them for it. Ever find yourself in that situation? So this morning I found myself googling, "gracious response to backhanded compliment." It's something I've needed to work on for awhile.

The basic responses I found on-line were:

1. Return with another backhanded compliment (this one didn't really fill the bill, as it's not particularly gracious)
2. A polite call-out of the backhanded nature of the "compliment", for example "That's not really a good thing."
3. An acceptance with a polite call-out, for example "I'll accept your left-handed compliment with my right hand, thank you."
4. An acceptance with positive attention to the target of the implied insult, for example "Thank you! I think (x) was pretty good too / wasn't bad either!"

To me, #2 and #4 are the best approaches so far. I'd be interested in hearing how you all deal with backhanded compliments. I think there ought to be a way to apply what Jesus said about returning good for evil, so I think somewhere is a better solution than these. In the meantime, these are keepers even if just until a better way becomes clear; they're better than what I had done before.

Update with related post, roughly 2 years later: Christian response to backhanded compliments: Reprise.  

On being like God (3): creativity and righteousness

Everyone has an ethical system. Everyone makes decisions based on what they think is good and right. Even those who claim that morality and ethics are meaningless go right on every day making judgment calls based on a value system.

Every system of ethics -- every different thing we might value -- leads us to have certain role models, certain people who are living examples of what is good and right, to the best of their ability. I don't mention this to promote a person or group and designate them as having pride of place; I mention it to see what kinds of role models you might get from different ways of thinking about right and wrong. Would the most upright people be the ethics police, those who enforce and uphold the rules? How about the ethics instructors who teach the others? What about people who live ethically (by the rules) more often than others?

But on a view of walking after God, the craftsmen and skilled artists are worthy role models because they increase the objective amount of good in this world that is worthy of loving. The heroes of the Bible include skilled craftsmen; here we find records of acts of worship such as making embroidery and carvings, sculpture and incense. Writing the stories of the people of God was a holy act; writing songs for worship was a holy act. Playing a musical instrument was a holy act.

Those who recognize God as creator, and us the image of God, have gone to great lengths to devise new musical instruments, new art, new literature, new songs. When God created, he saw that it was good. One of the greatest things we do, acting in his image, is to also increase the good in this world by creating something of beauty.

---

On September 2, 1973, Professor J.R.R. Tolkien died to this world and was born to eternal life. "Memory eternal!" as they say in the East.

Jesus and the humanizing of morality

The kingdom of heaven is like a farmer. Or maybe it's like a man who had two sons. Or a woman baking bread. Or a fisherman with his nets.

Jesus' teachings are very down-to-earth - literally. Where we have some sort of expectation that a Great Teacher should transcend this world, take us elsewhere in our thoughts, Jesus resolutely refused that path. Whenever the conversation turned to great abstract principles, we could expect one thing: a parable was following. His parables did more than illustrate the lessons. He spoke as if the holy belongs in this world.

According to centuries upon centuries of Christian teaching, this is the ultimate meaning of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection: that the holy belongs in this world. Holiness is not meant to be an abstract. It is not meant to be an otherworldly thing. It is not located uniquely in monasteries or other outposts of rejecting this world. It is located firmly within this world. There is nothing important about holiness that cannot be described in terms of growing seed, vineyards, and wedding feasts.

Some see the parables as a kind of mystery. But the parables also seem to be instances of incarnation: in a parable, a general principle takes on reality, takes on flesh and blood, and walks in this world in a recognizable form. So the direction of Christ's teaching is not to take this world as raw material that needs to be turned into the finished product of an abstraction. The direction of Christ's teaching is the opposite: to take the raw material of abstraction and turn it into the finished product of a God-filled reality. The ultimate understanding of God's truth does not take the form of a properly-classified entry in our theological system; it touches our world.

When an expert in the Law of Moses tested Jesus, asking after the most important commandment, he got his answer: Love the Lord your God, and the second like it: love your neighbor as yourself. But when the lawyer asked who was his neighbor, he found out the truth about that great commandment. That great commandment was not great because it could take a leading place in the catalog in the law-books. It was great because it was the one that could live in us and move us to help the traveler we meet along the way. It is a great commandment because it takes the vital core of the image of God -- that is, love -- and places it back inside us. Love is the nature of God. For this reason, love is the greatest of the virtues, and love is the greatest of the commandments. When we love our neighbor, the word of God is incarnated in us and our actions. When Jesus repeats his refrain, "The kingdom of God is like ...", every down-to-earth story he tells invites us to fill in the rest of the story with our own lives, our own children, and our own neighbors, to see it all as part of the kingdom of heaven.

Is Puritanism immoral?

The Puritan movement had a reputation for rigidly, scrupulously upright morality -- that is, for strict and unwavering adherence to certain rules. The Puritan life was full of a certain kind of conscientious, deliberate discipline. The dress code from old artwork seems simple and plain to the point of austerity. Many forms of enjoyment were seen as too worldly. And lately I have found myself wondering if this bleak and rigid society was among the most immoral of all forms of godliness.

To be sure, the pendulum has swung too far the other direction these days. Rudeness and lewdness are commonplace. "Irreverent" is used as a compliment. Mockery and cynicism are seen as humorous, though the laughs are joyless. Patience, courtesy, and all kinds of decency are portrayed as old-fashioned. It is easy to recognize the excesses around us as immoral. That makes us just that much more susceptible to thinking of morality in Puritan terms.

But what is the basis for morality? What is the basis for thinking about right and wrong? If we start with a set of laws like the Ten Commandments, then the Puritans make sense. But what if the true foundation is much more basic than that? What if the foundation of morality is when God looked at creation and declared that it was good? What if a love of the good is the foundation of morality? What if the two greatest commandments -- love of God and love of neighbor -- are meant to remind us of that? In that light, the rigid, joyless austerity of Puritanism is an insult to the goodness of all that is. If morality is not, in its most basic form, strict and unwavering adherence to rules but rather a thankful celebration of goodness, then a joyless and loveless approach to life is an affront to goodness.

Unswerving rules have a rightful place: they keep us from trampling on the good. In our eagerness to enjoy a thing, they keep us from destroying it or ourselves. But the rules were never the point; they were always a means to preserve what is good so that it could be enjoyed.

The Jekyll and Hyde syndrome

Have you ever noticed how many people show two noticeably different personalities? There is a kind and friendly disposition -- it's typically reserved for those on the "approved" list. Then there is the other side. I think one reason people avoid discussing politics and religion in public is the number of people who have their Mr. Hyde button pushed by those topics, or by being in the presence of those who disagree with them on those topics.

I was recently around someone whose Mr. Hyde button had been pushed -- though I suspect another person around was trying very hard to push that button. (I saw this same thing happen with more than one set of people today.) I also suspect, if I'm reading cues right, that at least one of our Mr. Hydes very much enjoyed having his button pushed. Maybe some people suppose venting releases the dark side rather than simply exercising it. When someone pushes our buttons, I think that our inner Mr. Hyde is more like an athlete who has just had some strenuous exercise: he may rest well for awhile with a satisfied glow, but he becomes stronger and more accustomed to the exercise with each opportunity we give.

I wonder if people appreciate the extent to which hatred is corrosive and incendiary, the extent to which "provocative" conversations are throwing verbal Molotov cocktails. At what level of heat does conversation stop working? Once someone's Mr. Hyde button has been pushed on a topic, am I just imagining it, or does it take ever less provocation to switch over to Mr. Hyde the next time? Is there a threshold at which someone can't discuss a topic rationally again without some sort of intervention or healing?

The part that concerns me is this: how close are we, as a society, to the threshold at which rational discussion breaks down except among people who are already like-minded? What would that mean for democracy?

A Question of Ethics: The Media and Disaster Preparation

This past Friday evening as I was putting the finishing touches on my hurricane preparations, I made one last check of my email before packing up my computer and moving it to a safer spot. With Ike a mere few hours away, I found this lead article on AOL (see picture). Is it sensationalist? Definitely. Is it misleading to place the picture of the fellow standing in the spray of the Galveston seawall adjacent to a caption about a wall of water hitting Texas? Probably. You could tell the man was on the seawall if you know the Galveston seawall like most of us on the coast, or if you moused-over the picture and then it mentioned that it was a man on the seawall with the pre-storm waves splashing up, and not exactly a wall of water as referenced in the accompanying headline ... if you moused over the picture instead of, say, reading the headline.

I do not want to single out this AOL article as if it were the only sensationalist piece of hype I'd seen during my preparations for the hurricane. For the record, even the vast majority of those who rode out Ike on Galveston Island survived so they did not, after all, face certain death. Ike was repeatedly referred to in media reports as enormous, monstrous, and a variety of other adjectives playing up its impressive size and strength. Honestly, folks, it was a Category 2 storm in a zone where most things are rated Category 3 (though obviously not our power infrastructure). I do not mean to minimize the menace that was Ike, or the long night we all spent Friday night and into Saturday as the storm barreled through, or the hardships of days without power or any way to replace supplies of water or food or fuel -- which is still the situation in some places though in increasingly isolated pockets as the days go by. There were even a number of deaths, a few from the storm and possibly as many or more from misuse of generators / candles / power tools etc. afterwards. The deaths from the actual strike of Ike are still less than the deaths from the mass evacuation (note: not the storm but the evacuation) three years ago for Rita.

My point is this: panic, desperation, lack of information and poor planning have been responsible for more hurricane deaths around here than the actual hurricanes. To what extent is the media responsible for fueling that most deadly part of a disaster, namely panic, with its hysterical headlines? If someone went into a crowded movie house and yelled "Fire" hysterically rather than with rational instructions about proceeding calmly to the nearest exit, would that announcer be morally responsible if there were a trampling death during the panic?

My concern is this: the media have a theoretical job of passing along information. However, this is often eclipsed by the desire for ratings. Hype creates ratings, therefore the media creates hype. At what point do they (did they) cross the line to generating fear to rake in a bigger profit? In a dangerous situation, is the fearmongering-for-profit dynamic ethical?

Dr Seuss and the baptized imagination

Recently Ben Myers' blog mentioned a new book on Dr. Seuss' works as parables. This is not a review of that book, which I hope to read sometime; instead, here are my thoughts on how Dr. Seuss is easily distorted when people try to take a "deeper meaning" than joy and delight from his books.

Dr. Seuss' works definitely reflect his Christian faith. And he certainly wrote some books which were thinly-disguised morality works. Yertle the Turtle was one; Seuss' Lorax is probably the only environmentalist book that many people have ever read. How the Grinch Stole Christmas has a not-too-disguised look at how "Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more." Grinch is probably the only of Seuss' moralistic books that is well-loved, and I suspect that is because the moralizing was less preachy.

It was a few months ago that I talked to a Very Earnest, Very Pious Christian woman on the subject of children's books; I brought up Dr. Seuss. When I told her about the Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham, I could see her turning up her nose. Did Seuss, she asked, ever write anything substantial? The implication was plain: the sheer gladness of life reflected in his other books was considered less Christian (in her view) than moralizing. I submit to you that moralizing is not only a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal in most peoples' ears, but that there is only one thing that can redeem moralizing from being just that: behind any true sense of good and evil is a much deeper kind of good: the good of the type found in Eden, not the good of rules but the good of existence and wonder, the delight in creation. This is what Seuss captured best of all. His odd creatures would have been at home in Eden. And any sense of right and wrong that is not to be a power-play must ultimately rest on the deeper and more profound type of good that is the goodness of life, the love of creation.

To Seuss, joy and delight are exactly what is substantial. Wonder and gladness are precisely the deeper meaning of those books, and those who look for Thou Shalts and Thou Shalt Nots as deeper and more profound than joy have forgotten what Eden looked like.