With Jesus, there are only two models and two basic movements that ethically train a person. One leads from the heart of a person outwards in ever-greater distance. The other leads downwards from the heights where one stands. the first is loving, the expansion of love in all directions including the enemy. The second is descending, renouncing on one's importance, one's rank, one's power, one's dignity and one's success.
FAITH IS MORE THAN MORALITY
What would a Christian ethic look like today? Doing the good, protecting the climate and loving enemies
By Jorg Zink
[What would a Christian ethic look like today? How would Jesus act today? This ethic would not consist of an exact catalogue of rules on what is allowed and what is not allowed. In his new book “Call to Freedom,” the theologian Jorg Zink describes this ethic. This article published in the Bavarian “Sonntagsblatt,” 7/15/2007 is translated from the German on the World Wide Web,
http://www.sonntagsblatt-bayern.de/news/aktuell/2007_28_01_01.htm.]
We are accustomed to speak of values. Are there values with Jesus? Are they called virtues or behavioral models? The sociological approach in current biblical theology raises this question and concludes that with Jesus there are only two models and two basic movements that ethically train a person. One leads from the heart of a person outwards in ever greater distance. The other leads downwards from the heights where one stands.
The first is loving, the expansion of love in all directions, to loved persons, neighbors and those far away up to the enemy. The second is descending, renouncing on one’s significance, one’s rank, one’s right, one’s power, one’s dignity, one’s success, renunciation on status. Take the last place, Jesus says. Everything else that is ethically important results from these two basic movements. Jesus sees the model for this way of life in God. To him, God is the lover who descends in the lowlands of human life.
Faith, not morality, tells a person what to do. Descending on the social staircase is an idea of God. Tradition calls this humilitas, being humble or lowly. This word is related to humus, nearness to the earth. One has to remain on earth and be realistic. Both faith and morality confirm that basic values can be demanded and prescribed by a community, society, family, state or whoever. They must be observed. Still these values only exist in the free decisions of the two basic movements. Loving and descending require the free renunciation on freedom by a free person.
Neither faith nor morality provides standards for a legal order. Whoever does not want to love his enemy or descend to a suffering person cannot be punished. This is Jesus’ understanding. Punishing evil-doers was not his reason for being. Fundamental ethical conflicts can first be solved with solutions that go beyond the ethical frameworks, Jesus was convinced.
Justice is a necessary goal of all ethics though it is unattainable. Still loving and descending show the ways the unattainable becomes attainable. Whether people are able to seek peace on the way of descending from some lofty horse, high claim or know-it-all attitude, not with the help of their power or their right, decides whether peace can come somewhere. Give your love in an ever larger circle to more and more persons, to the most foreign persons and the enemy. Descend with this love. Descend ever deeper until you are at eye level with the one who needs your love. We like to speak today of solidarity. But we always encounter reality in a certain perspectivist narrowing as long as we think of solidarity from above. Reality only appears to us in its true proportions when we think of solidarity that sees eye to eye the one dependent on this solidarity.
What are our instructions for our practical conduct? Only these two: loving and descending. Everything else is free. We do not have an applicable command or behavioral model, a hierarchy of values or the fiction of an inner law called a conscience. The whole mystical tradition understood Jesus better than church dogma in this point by emphasizing the simple instruction: Love and do what you will! To complete this rule in Jesus’ sense, descend until you are at eye level with the one needing your love.
Is that a political ethic? No. For Christians, a political ethic is a free space for decisions that no one can prescribe. That truth arises or justice in the form of more acceptable effectiveness must be decided here. This was Jesus’ intention in opening up freedom. The sudden solvability of problems that cannot be solved appears here. Descending means managing without consciousness of one’s own superiority, for example thinking, speaking and acting without force. In all cases, violence separates us from the people before us. The problems we want to solve cannot be solved with violence. As long as we rely on violence, we cannot heal the conditions besetting the people of this earth. We cannot change or improve what we are fighting. Malevolence or delight in hostility is a position beyond all solvability of problems.
These are like laws of life that cannot be ignored if we want a somewhat better earth. Today everyone knows hundreds of millions of people around the globe are dying of starvation. Everyone also knows Europe is deeply buried under its mountains of butter, wheat and pigs. Everyone knows there are enough reasons why food does not come to those needing it. Everyone knows hundreds of millions of people live under conditions caused by unjust ruling classes or the indifference of authorities. Everyone suspects this will continue to the end of the world for a thousand unfortunate reasons despite ethical appeals here and there.
Everyone knows the human environment will not hold out much longer and that a rethinking must occur regarding the production of industry and the consumption of nations. Everyone knows the catastrophe will come if nothing happens. Everyone also knows nothing can happen for many reasons to prevent this. All this could be prevented if we descended to where solutions are offered.
We like to speak of justice. However no one fighting for his right can do anything for justice in the world. Justice only arises where many renounce on their right. Justice always means the right of others. We like to speak of peace but we seek our success, our great and small victories.
But whoever wants to win is in some kind of war and cannot be freed from war. Whoever wants to win cannot do anything for peace. We like to speak of truth. At the same time we want to be confirmed. Still truth is more than our know-it-all attitude. Whoever wants to prevail cannot do anything for truth. We like to speak of understanding. However we should finally recognize the law of life that is true for all human understanding: that we only understand what we love at least a little. We turn emotionally to ourselves.
When I do not love a person at least a little, I can have a thousand pieces of information without understanding him. That is also true for my enemy. When I do not turn emotionally to him, my reaction is dictated by fear or hatred. I cannot understand him at all. The war against terror today is a case in point. The demand “Love your enemy” means Take back the evil projected on the enemy. Try to understand why they think and how they think. Why do they fear? Why do they play as they play and not otherwise?
Loving the enemy so one understands him and bringing this understanding into security policy is a question of wisdom. This is the only way that leads to peace. Understanding what history has left behind in the souls of other people in traumata is indispensable, for example the history of colonialism or the history of the technicizing of life.
Loving the enemy means thinking beyond hostility. It means starting from the assumption that hostility need not remain and conflict can end. Loving the enemy means distinguishing between injustice and the person who does it. It means opposing injustice and winning the one who does injustice. There is no alternative to the love and affection toward the opposing party about which Jesus speaks. This love is the condition for the survival of humanity.
What would a Christian ethic look like today? Doing the good, protecting the climate and loving enemies
By Jorg Zink
[What would a Christian ethic look like today? How would Jesus act today? This ethic would not consist of an exact catalogue of rules on what is allowed and what is not allowed. In his new book “Call to Freedom,” the theologian Jorg Zink describes this ethic. This article published in the Bavarian “Sonntagsblatt,” 7/15/2007 is translated from the German on the World Wide Web,
http://www.sonntagsblatt-bayern.de/news/aktuell/2007_28_01_01.htm.] We are accustomed to speak of values. Are there values with Jesus? Are they called virtues or behavioral models? The sociological approach in current biblical theology raises this question and concludes that with Jesus there are only two models and two basic movements that ethically train a person. One leads from the heart of a person outwards in ever greater distance. The other leads downwards from the heights where one stands.
The first is loving, the expansion of love in all directions, to loved persons, neighbors and those far away up to the enemy. The second is descending, renouncing on one’s significance, one’s rank, one’s right, one’s power, one’s dignity, one’s success, renunciation on status. Take the last place, Jesus says. Everything else that is ethically important results from these two basic movements. Jesus sees the model for this way of life in God. To him, God is the lover who descends in the lowlands of human life.
Faith, not morality, tells a person what to do. Descending on the social staircase is an idea of God. Tradition calls this humilitas, being humble or lowly. This word is related to humus, nearness to the earth. One has to remain on earth and be realistic. Both faith and morality confirm that basic values can be demanded and prescribed by a community, society, family, state or whoever. They must be observed. Still these values only exist in the free decisions of the two basic movements. Loving and descending require the free renunciation on freedom by a free person.
Neither faith nor morality provides standards for a legal order. Whoever does not want to love his enemy or descend to a suffering person cannot be punished. This is Jesus’ understanding. Punishing evil-doers was not his reason for being. Fundamental ethical conflicts can first be solved with solutions that go beyond the ethical frameworks, Jesus was convinced.
Justice is a necessary goal of all ethics though it is unattainable. Still loving and descending show the ways the unattainable becomes attainable. Whether people are able to seek peace on the way of descending from some lofty horse, high claim or know-it-all attitude, not with the help of their power or their right, decides whether peace can come somewhere. Give your love in an ever larger circle to more and more persons, to the most foreign persons and the enemy. Descend with this love. Descend ever deeper until you are at eye level with the one who needs your love. We like to speak today of solidarity. But we always encounter reality in a certain perspectivist narrowing as long as we think of solidarity from above. Reality only appears to us in its true proportions when we think of solidarity that sees eye to eye the one dependent on this solidarity.
What are our instructions for our practical conduct? Only these two: loving and descending. Everything else is free. We do not have an applicable command or behavioral model, a hierarchy of values or the fiction of an inner law called a conscience. The whole mystical tradition understood Jesus better than church dogma in this point by emphasizing the simple instruction: Love and do what you will! To complete this rule in Jesus’ sense, descend until you are at eye level with the one needing your love.
Is that a political ethic? No. For Christians, a political ethic is a free space for decisions that no one can prescribe. That truth arises or justice in the form of more acceptable effectiveness must be decided here. This was Jesus’ intention in opening up freedom. The sudden solvability of problems that cannot be solved appears here. Descending means managing without consciousness of one’s own superiority, for example thinking, speaking and acting without force. In all cases, violence separates us from the people before us. The problems we want to solve cannot be solved with violence. As long as we rely on violence, we cannot heal the conditions besetting the people of this earth. We cannot change or improve what we are fighting. Malevolence or delight in hostility is a position beyond all solvability of problems.
These are like laws of life that cannot be ignored if we want a somewhat better earth. Today everyone knows hundreds of millions of people around the globe are dying of starvation. Everyone also knows Europe is deeply buried under its mountains of butter, wheat and pigs. Everyone knows there are enough reasons why food does not come to those needing it. Everyone knows hundreds of millions of people live under conditions caused by unjust ruling classes or the indifference of authorities. Everyone suspects this will continue to the end of the world for a thousand unfortunate reasons despite ethical appeals here and there.
Everyone knows the human environment will not hold out much longer and that a rethinking must occur regarding the production of industry and the consumption of nations. Everyone knows the catastrophe will come if nothing happens. Everyone also knows nothing can happen for many reasons to prevent this. All this could be prevented if we descended to where solutions are offered.
We like to speak of justice. However no one fighting for his right can do anything for justice in the world. Justice only arises where many renounce on their right. Justice always means the right of others. We like to speak of peace but we seek our success, our great and small victories.
But whoever wants to win is in some kind of war and cannot be freed from war. Whoever wants to win cannot do anything for peace. We like to speak of truth. At the same time we want to be confirmed. Still truth is more than our know-it-all attitude. Whoever wants to prevail cannot do anything for truth. We like to speak of understanding. However we should finally recognize the law of life that is true for all human understanding: that we only understand what we love at least a little. We turn emotionally to ourselves.
When I do not love a person at least a little, I can have a thousand pieces of information without understanding him. That is also true for my enemy. When I do not turn emotionally to him, my reaction is dictated by fear or hatred. I cannot understand him at all. The war against terror today is a case in point. The demand “Love your enemy” means Take back the evil projected on the enemy. Try to understand why they think and how they think. Why do they fear? Why do they play as they play and not otherwise?
Loving the enemy so one understands him and bringing this understanding into security policy is a question of wisdom. This is the only way that leads to peace. Understanding what history has left behind in the souls of other people in traumata is indispensable, for example the history of colonialism or the history of the technicizing of life.
Loving the enemy means thinking beyond hostility. It means starting from the assumption that hostility need not remain and conflict can end. Loving the enemy means distinguishing between injustice and the person who does it. It means opposing injustice and winning the one who does injustice. There is no alternative to the love and affection toward the opposing party about which Jesus speaks. This love is the condition for the survival of humanity.
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