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A letter to the newspaper caught my eye. In it the writer was quite
adamant that there was a difference between what he called “the world” and
“Christian ethics”. As far as I could understand, he was saying there was
such a wide gulf between what was commonly known as ‘Christian’ morals, and
the sort of morals which everyone else lived by. He did not want his society,
the mass of unbelievers of which he was a part, to be engulfed by the horror of
Christian ethics. He saw this as a nightmarish spectre, a sort of ‘death by
religion’.
It is true that there are some stereotypes of Christianity, either foul
or fair, which history has preserved, and which seem, to the uncritical
observer, caricatures of the “faith once delivered”. The worst of course is
the cult leader, who raves on about his ‘cause’ and mingles theology with
insanity. Thankfully there are not many people about like this, otherwise the
world would be a lot more dangerous.
Coming down the scale we arrive at the over-enthusiastic
Christians who ignore common sense and make themselves into anti-social
nuisances. They distribute tracts to the detriment of the city’s appearance,
they hound people with dynamic arguments, and they intrude their beliefs into
every conversation. For them there is nothing more important than ‘the
cause’ and the harder they strive to win souls, the less inclined people are
to listen. They combine ignorance with tactlessness, and are sometimes terribly
arrogant as well.
Further down the scale we come to people who, in the past, have given
Christianity a certain ‘image’, such as the Quakers, or Pilgrim fathers, or
the well-spoke Victorian Christians who lived a life of perfect modesty and
prudence – so we are led to believe. Or perhaps the drum-pounding Salvation
Army recruit, or the suffragette, or the Temperance Alliance leader shouting
about alcohol as if it was the very elixir of Hell. They all have rather
well-defined images, but they seem quite unrelated to today’s ‘modern’
world. Despite this they are often admired by even the hardened atheist. These
people have an image which also often evokes a longing for the ‘good old
days’ when black was black and white was white. The days of Dickens, and steam
engines, and rural harmony.
But through all these different versions or models of Christianity there
runs the same theme – a solid moral backbone. Even the raving cult leader has
it. He is fanatical about honesty and personal integrity. He is ready to die for
truth. The Salvation Army has it – obviously. The Victorian Christian is so
upright she blushes at the sight of an ankle.
And this is exactly where the non-Christian stumbles, because there is a
fairly general assumption that Christians have a monopoly on all the best
morals, while the world is wicked and immoral, and utterly consumed in darkness.
But is this really so?
Let us look at the list of virtues in Galatians chapter 6. The fruit of
the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
meekness, temperance. Other translations use other words, like kindness, and
self-control and faithfulness.
Do Christians have a monopoly over these virtues? Hardly. Just a single
visit to the city by bus will demonstrate that all these virtues are operating
freely in all of society all the time.
If you are fortunate, you will see the driver wait patiently at the stop
until a late customer catches up, and you will see him considerately lift the
poor woman’s heavy bag to her seat, and then someone will give up their seat
so she may sit down. Later on you will see someone pick up and give back her
purse, which she accidentally dropped. When you leave the bus you will see
people holding hands, obviously in love, and a child will shout with happiness
as his mother buys him a wonderful toy. In the shops you will see people waiting
patiently in line, a man with a parrot gently tickling its breast, an old man
walking very slowly across the street while a line of cars waits and the drivers
smile at him, and further down the street you see a shopkeeper giving more than
required to a customer who has very little money.
After a couple of hours you head home again, content in the knowledge
that you have seen people showing love, being joyful, enjoying peace in the
midst of noise and business, patiently waiting, being gentle, showing goodness,
working faithfully, not answering back, obeying meekly, showing respect, and
many of the people you saw were very self-controlled. The strange thing is, you
saw not one Christian in all this crowd, or perhaps you did, but how would you
ever know the difference, since all the people you passed were practicing the
same morals.
Obviously Christian ethics are not a specific domain of the Christian.
But perhaps, someone may counter, Christian ethics are common to the
Western world because Christianity has had such an influence over the last few
hundred years. The Reformation in England may have introduced Christian ethics
into a population which was not formerly Christian in any way, shape or form.
What would we find if we went back to pre-Reformation times?
Pre-Reformation England was still influenced by the church, in this case
mainly the Roman church, so we shall have to go back to Roman times, because the
Romans were very pagan, having many gods and goddesses to worship and thank and
pray to. Let us look at about 55 BC, when Rome made its first hesitant steps
into Britain. The ambitious Julius Caesar landed with an army and began to
explore this uncharted island around the north. He wrote of the Britons:
“The population is exceedingly large and the cattle very numerous. Tin
is found inland and small quantities of iron near the coast. There is timber of
every kind, except beech. Most of the tribes of the interior do not grow corn,
but live on milk and meat and wear skins. All the Britons dye their bodies with
woad, which makes them a blue colour, and this gives them a terrifying
appearance in battle”.
In order to operate mines, and work with timber, farm and milk cows,
build houses and so on, a certain amount of consideration, self-control and
honesty must be built into the population, otherwise it would lapse into
anarchy. It looks as if Christian ethics were alive and well in pre-Roman as
well as pre-Reformation times.
The point is, Christian ethics are neither new or original, and they do
not represent a sweeping revolution in moral codes. There is hardly anything new
or different at all about Christian ethics. They have been around since Adam and
Eve were created, and they are common to every civilization and tribe which has
ever lived. And, lest anyone raises the question, the Ten Commandments were not
the first appearance of a moral code either, because long before Moses ascended
Mount Sinai, the peoples of the world practised or broke every precept of the
Decalogue.
From Ancient Egyptian writings:
“I have not slain men”,
“Terrify not men or God will terrify thee”
“I have not brought misery upon my fellows. I have not made the
beginning of every day laborious in the sight of him who worked for me”
“I have not been grasping”
“Love thy wife studiously. Gladden her heart all thy life long”
“I was a staff by my Father’s side . . . I went in and out at his
command”
From Ancient Norse writings:
“In hell (Nastrond) . . . I saw murderers”
“Man is man’s delight”
From Ancient Hindu writings:
“He who is cruel and calumnious has the character of a cat”
“He who is asked for alms should always give”
“Your father is an image of the Lord of Creation, your mother an image
of the Earth. For him who fails to honour them, every work of piety is in vain.
This is the first duty”
“Children, old men, the poor, and the sick, should be considered as the
lords of the atmosphere”
From Ancient Babylonian writings:
“Slander not”
“Has he . . . driven an honest man from his family? Broken up a
well-cemented clan?”
“Speak kindness . . . show good will”
“Has he insulted his older sister?”
“Has he despised Father and Mother?”
From Ancient Chinese writings:
“Never do to others what you would not like them to do to you”
“He whose heart is in the smallest degree set upon goodness will
dislike no-one”
“When the people have multiplied, what next should be done for them?
The Master said, Enrich them. Jan Ch’iu said, When one has enriched them, what
next should be done for them? The aster said, Instruct them”
“Surely proper behaviour to parents and elder brothers is the trunk of
goodness”
“If a ruler . . . compassed the salvation of the whole state, surely
you would call him Good? The Master said, It would no longer be a matter of
“Good”. He would without doubt be a Divine Sage”
“When proper respect towards the dead is shown at the end and continued
after they are far away, the moral force of a people has reached its highest
point”
From Ancient Roman writings:
“Nature urges that a man should wish human society to exist and should
wish to enter it”
“Men were brought into existence for the sake of men that they might do
one another good”
“What good man regards any misfortune as no concern of his?”
“I am a man; nothing human is alien to me”
“Part of us is claimed by our country, part of us by our parents, part
by our friends”
These and many more quotes could be added, from other nations of the
past, but the evidence is already clear that all these past nations were already
practising the basics of Christian ethics long before Christianity ever
appeared. It is therefore nonsense to consider Christian moral behaviour as
being any different from the best moral behaviour of any other person. It also
shows us that our neighbour, for all his faults, and that shopkeeper we see
every week, and the Prime Minister and the children at the local school – all
of them are moral to a certain extent, and their morality is similar in many
ways to the best morality which the best Christian lives by.
But this is exactly what we should expect to find. Genesis tells us that
Mankind came straight from the creative word of God, therefore Mankind bears a
likeness to the Creator. God is pure and moral, therefore Mankind shows some of
this likeness, despite sin. Romans tells us that the Gentiles (the non-Jews who
do not have the aw of God to refer to) “show the work of the law written in
their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness . . .”(Rom.2:15) Morals
are built into the human race, and have been there since the first humans, and
thence to their children, and outwards into all the nations. (All the nations in
the world represent only one nation which has subdivided)
So, if all people display Christian ethics, what is so different
about Christians? The answer: They are the only people who have admitted that
they do not always live up to the moral standards which God requires. They have
come to the cross and admitted that they deserve to die for their sins. They
have accepted Jesus as their Saviour. And they alone have decided to turn away
from immorality for the sake of Jesus.
When it comes to moral or ethical differences between Christians and
unbelievers (I am sorry to say) there is sometimes very little difference, in
fact some Christians are put to shame by the moral uprightness of unbelievers.
But moral uprightness is not the
criterion by which people may gain heaven. If it were I too would be a long way
down the queue.
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
For the historical quotations in this article I am indebted to C.S.Lewis’ book ‘The Abolition of Man’ pages 49-59