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Winter 2015
Sin Boldly:
Christian Ethics for a Broken World
Ethics Lecture,
sponsored by the T. B. Maston Foundation
November 6, 2013
Paul Powell Chapel,
George W. Truett Theological Seminary
at Baylor University
Lecturer: Dr. Roger E. Olson
Foy Valentine Professor of
Christian Theology and Ethics,
George W. Truett Theological Seminary
Few movies have affected me as strongly as the 2011 film Machine Gun
Preacher, starring Gerard Butler as Sam Childers, drug addict turned Christian
missionary who takes up an AK-47 for Jesus in the Sudan. Based on Childers’ true
life story, the movie raises gut-wrenching questions about Christian ethics and,
especially, whether use of deadly force is ever justified for the Christian. As those
who have seen the movie know, Childers joined a mission trip to the Sudan and
there encountered children being slaughtered and forced to kill others by the socalled Lord’s Resistance Army. Faced with the opportunity to resist this horror with
deadly force, he reluctantly accepted it and became the Lord’s Resistance Army’s
worst nightmare. Because of his violent resistance to LRA, numerous children’s lives
were saved and many more were rescued from child soldierhood.
The movie raises the question—Put in Sam Childers’ place, what would I do?
But, of course, that’s unlikely. So it raises another, more realistic question—What
should I, as a Christian theologian and ethicist, tell others about Christian use of
force in a world of monsters whose victims include small children?
It’s easy to come away from watching that movie or reading about the
abolitionist John Brown or Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s involvement in the plot to kill Hitler
and say “Oh, yes, well, put in those positions I would probably do the same.” It’s
harder to give ethical advice that justifies Christian use of force—even in defense of
starving children or against military dictatorships that “disappear” thousands of
dissidents, such as was the case in Argentina and Chile in the 1980s.
To be sure, “Sin boldly” is an unusual theme for a talk about Christian ethics
in a seminary chapel. And yet, as I will argue, it’s worth thinking and talking about in
such a broken world as ours. Contrary to certain modern and contemporary Christian
ethicists who say an absolute “no” to all Christian use of force, I must reluctantly
say, with Luther, “Sin boldly . . . and repent more boldly still.”
Yes, “Sin boldly” is Martin Luther’s best known quote—at least among
university students. In a letter to his former Greek professor and right-hand man in
Reformation Philip Melanchthon, dated August 1, 1521, the Reformer wrote to his
friend:
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Roger E. Olson
Sin Boldly: Christian Ethics
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If you are a preacher of mercy, do not preach an imaginary but the true
mercy. . . . Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even
more boldly for He is victorious over sin, death and the world. As long as we
are here in this world we have to sin. This life is not a dwelling place of
righteousness, but, as Peter says, “we look for a new heaven and a new earth
in which righteousness dwells.” It is enough that by the riches of God’s glory
we have come to know the Lamb that takes away the sins of the world. No sin
will separate us from the Lamb . . . . Do you think that the purchase price
that was paid for the redemption of your sins is too small? Pray boldly—you
are too mighty a sinner not to!
But “sin boldly” goes against the grain of our Christian and, I might add, American
perfectionism. Isn’t it always possible to do the right thing? The perfect thing? Isn’t
that what Christian ethics is all about? To tell us what is the perfectly right thing to
do in every foreseeable situation? Isn’t being American being perfectly right?
My thesis here today is that this perfectionism is wrong; it forgets the truth of
the old maxim that “the perfect is often the enemy of the good.” On the other hand,
perfection is an impossible ideal worth striving for—with God’s help. But when
perfection proves impossible, as is so often the case in this broken world, God’s
mercy is available. The Kingdom of God is not yet and, in the meantime, this time
between the times, it is our duty as citizens of that Kingdom yet to come to
approximate it in real and living ways, and sometimes that means using the powerful
means that we have. When we must use force, coercion, however, we must avoid
baptizing it as righteous and regard it rather as a sign of our brokenness, the world’s
brokenness, and the not yetness of the Kingdom.
This talk arises from my experience of teaching a course on Christian social
ethics almost thirty times in this place—once each semester and occasionally twice in
a semester. I have chosen for my students to read and discuss four great recent and
contemporary Christian social ethicists—Walter Rauschenbusch, Reinhold
Niebuhr, Gustavo Gutierrez, and John Howard Yoder. Reading Yoder led me to
a study of Stanley Hauerwas, whose Christian ethic is strongly informed by the
Mennonite thinker. So here I will combine Yoder and Hauerwas, overlooking their
differences, and refer to their Christian perspective on social ethics as “YoderHauerwas” or, simply, “Christian perfectionism.”
Every semester, as I read these great Christian thinkers with my students, I
experience cognitive dissonance. As I read Rauschenbusch, whichever of his books
I’ve chosen that semester, I find myself agreeing with him almost completely. But
when I read Niebuhr, who harshly disagreed with Rauschenbusch about fundamental
issues, I find myself vigorously agreeing with him, too! Then, when I read Gutierrez,
even in those areas where he disagrees with Rauschenbusch and Niebuhr, I succumb
to near total agreement with him! Finally, like so many who read Yoder and
Hauerwas, I find myself agreeing with them—even where they diverge radically from
Rauschenbusch, Niebuhr and Gutierrez! Either this is a sign of mental weakness or I
am simply observing that each has a partial grasp on truth, such that what
nineteenth century theologian Horace Bushnell called “Christian comprehensiveness”
lies somewhere behind and within all of them. Of course, I prefer to think the latter
is the case.
One thing I have observed as a historical theologian is how often theologians,
and I’m sure practitioners of other disciplines, make a great name for themselves by
seeming to disagree strenuously with someone else who has a great name when, in
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Sin Boldly: Christian Ethics
for a Broken World
fact, there is truth in both perspectives and they in fact need each other for balance
and comprehensiveness. A famous example of this from the last century was the
debate between Karl Barth and his fellow Swiss “dialectical theologian” Emil Brunner
over “natural theology.” It reminds one of the old beer commercial where two
barroom friends debate about whether their favorite brew “tastes great” or is “less
filling.”
For all their differences, I believe, Rauschenbusch, Niebuhr, Gutierrez, and
Yoder-Hauerwas need each other; all have something good and right and true to
contribute to a contemporary Christian social ethic, and each corrects potential
errors in the others.
One talk is too brief to cover all the subjects these Christian ethicists deal
with, so here I am going to focus on the one relevant to the case study I began
with—the Machine Gun Preacher. Is Christian involvement in social unrest, social
struggle, the often messy, rough-and-tumble of politics, even violence ever ethically
justifiable? Should Christians engage in attempts to bring about justice in this broken
world, even if that requires participating in its brokenness? Or ought Christians to sit
on the sidelines of social conflict and beam messages of love into the fray, hoping
God will use them to bring about some modicum of peace and justice?
Is this a relevant question today? Well, anyone who is familiar with the
popularity of Hauerwas’s ethic of “the Christian colony” within the world knows it’s a
relevant question. Many Christian people, especially young people, are attracted to
Hauerwas’s approach, which even Hauerwas admits is largely inspired by the earlier
ethical writings of Yoder. Christian pacifism and perfectionism are extremely popular
today, especially among reflective young Christians who care deeply about issues of
violence, poverty, war, empire, and the threat of Constantinian theocracy. So, yes,
this is an extremely relevant issue for every concerned Christian to consider.
Before diving into it, however, I think it’s best to reveal my own approach to
Christian ethics in general and social ethics in particular. Ethics, including Christian
ethics, is no exact science; there are many perspectives on it—including differing
definitions of what ethics is. I suspect the popular, what I call “folk,” approach to
ethics, especially among conservative Christians, is learning and following rules.
Adults especially like this approach when dealing with young people always on the
verge of rebellion. “Follow the rules!” we like to say. Most of us know, however, that
rules often conflict and there are situations where no rule applies, at least not clearly
or directly, and rules need grounding, justification. Why that rule and not another
one?
This disillusionment with rules often causes especially young people at a
certain stage of moral development to rush to embrace “situation ethics,” the idea
that every situation of moral choice is unique and that rules are generally unreliable
and often just wrong. Situation ethics, popularized by radical theologian Joseph
Fletcher in his 1966 book by that name, says there are no absolutes except love. It
attempts to leave it to individuals to apply love directly, as led by intuition, without
mediating principles, to every moral dilemma “in that moment.” Of course, this
approach to ethics is overly simplistic and individualized and leads into relativism.
And yet, it was a natural reaction to the absolutism of some rule-based ethics,
especially conservative religious ones that often ignore the exigencies of unexpected
existential situations and demands for moral decision and action where the known
rules would lead one to act irresponsibly. Kierkegaard’s “teleological suspension of
the ethical” then lurks in every situation. Ethical anarchy results.
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Roger E. Olson
Sin Boldly: Christian Ethics
for a Broken World
I believe all ethics is rooted and grounded in stories, grand narratives about
reality and especially about “the good life.” Here I agree with Hauerwas, who, in The
Peaceable Kingdom, rightly argues that there are no neutral, value-free, not already
committed ethical norms. All ethical norms are tied to narratives, stories about the
meaning of life—why we are here. So let me propose this definition of ethics:
Ethics is deciding and acting in accordance with the good life, properly
understood. It is developing a character, a set of virtues, consistent with the
good life and making decisions to “do the right thing” based on the good life
and the character, virtues, consistent with it.
So what is the Christian vision of the good life? I propose two biblical texts—one
from the Hebrew Bible and one from the New Testament—that especially clearly
reveal God’s idea of the good life: Isaiah 65:17-25 and Matthew 5-7. Time prevents
me from reading all of that, so, relying on my hearers’ familiarity with Jesus’ Sermon
on the Mount, I will read only Isaiah 65:17-25:
“See, I will create
new heavens and a new earth.
The former things will not be remembered,
nor will they come to mind.
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But be glad and rejoice forever
in what I will create,
for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight
and its people a joy.
19
I will rejoice over Jerusalem
and take delight in my people;
the sound of weeping and of crying
will be heard in it no more.
20
“Never again will there be in it
an infant who lives but a few days,
or an old man who does not live out his years;
the one who dies at a hundred
will be thought a mere child;
the one who fails to reach a hundred
will be considered accursed.
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They will build houses and dwell in them;
they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
22
No longer will they build houses and others live in them,
or plant and others eat.
For as the days of a tree,
so will be the days of my people;
my chosen ones will long enjoy
the work of their hands.
23
They will not labor in vain,
nor will they bear children doomed to misfortune;
for they will be a people blessed by the LORD,
they and their descendants with them.
24
Before they call I will answer;
while they are still speaking I will hear.
25
The wolf and the lamb will feed together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox,
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Sin Boldly: Christian Ethics
for a Broken World
and dust will be the serpent’s food.
They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,”
says the LORD. (NIV)
I propose that this biblical “picture” of the good life is depicted as well as can
be in a picture in Edward Hicks’ 1833 painting “The Peaceable Kingdom.” The one
word for it is “Shalom”—meaning well-being.
In Isaiah, the focus is on peace, prosperity, and long life for all. In Jesus’
Sermon on the Mount, the focus is on self-sacrificing love for others, everyone
looking out for others’ well-being, giving, and forgiving.
This “Shalom” is the Christian vision of the good life; it is the life to come,
here on earth, as N. T. Wright rightly emphasizes in his 2008 book Surprised by
Hope. This is the story of the meaning of life the Bible gives us; it is our telos and
God’s. Christian ethics lives from this; we seek to be persons whose character is
shaped by this vision and, at our best, we try to make this world as much like that as
possible. Or we should.
But the messiness of Christian social ethics, the reason for all its troubles,
appears the moment we add something to Hicks’ beautiful picture—the Lord’s
Resistance Army enslaving and slaughtering the children. Suddenly, we are reminded
that this world is not the Kingdom of God, is not a place of Shalom. Then Christian
ethics becomes suddenly complicated, caught between its highest good, its vision of
the good life, and what Freud called “the reality principle.” What ought Christians
with power, and we all have some power, do in a world inhabited by moral
monsters?
Bear with me now as I go through the basic ideas of Rauschenbusch, Niebuhr,
Gutierrez and Yoder-Hauerwas. I choose these because they are representative of
modern and contemporary Christian social ethics and each has a distinctive
perspective on the crucial question at hand—what should Christians with power,
driven by their vision of Shalom, do in a broken world such as this one?
Walter Rauschenbusch was a Baptist. That’s the first thing we need to
know about him; he was one of us, he belonged to our tribe. He taught church
history at the oldest Baptist seminary in North America and participated in the
progressive movement that thrived in his home city of Rochester, New York, a
century ago. He was a leading spokesman for the Social Gospel—the Christian wing
of the progressive movement that sought justice for workers, children, women,
minorities, and the poor. He was a friend of John D. Rockefeller, who was also a
Baptist but also the most notorious “robber baron” of his day. And yet
Rauschenbusch wrote books harshly critical of the captains of industry and American
capitalism in general. Among them were Christianity and the Social Crisis in 1907,
Christianizing the Social Order in 1912, and A Theology for the Social Gospel in
1918.
For Rauschenbusch, the Kingdom of God, understood as benevolent
fraternity, loving brotherhood among all people, was the heart of Jesus’ message and
example. For him, a social order brought completely under the law of love as taught
by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount was the concrete outworking within history of
Shalom and was something Christians should strive for and expect to achieve to a
very high degree. He denied perfection, but argued that it would be possible to
approximate the Kingdom of God as he understood it if Christians with power would
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throw their moral weight and political influence behind the progressive movement
and democratize every corner of society.
Rauschenbusch clearly and strongly believed in Christian involvement in
reforming the social order—even to the point of taking up the reins of power, if
offered them by a free electorate. He had a clear-eyed vision of the direction that
history, meaning the progressive evolution of the social order, should take—toward
the full democratization of everything, including the economy. He regarded Jesus as,
among other things, a prophet of democracy, of equality, and of equal fraternity
among all people. For Rauschenbusch, the good life, the life organized according to
love, would be a voluntary brotherhood based on cooperation rather than
competition, and it would be achieved through moral persuasion and, when
necessary, pressure, but not violence. According to him, the fullness of the Kingdom
of God, the social expression of Shalom, is “always but coming.” In other words, it is
always coming insofar as we strive for it through social and political activism for
reform, but we should not expect it to arrive in its perfection or completion until
Jesus returns.
Rauschenbusch anticipated many objections and answered them. One that
Yoder-Hauerwas followers, among others, would probably ask him is why, if Christian
participation in politics using power is the right thing to do, the Christians’ mandate,
it is nowhere commanded in the New Testament? Here is his response in The Social
Principles of Jesus (1917):
From the beginning an emancipating force resided in Christianity which was
bound to register its effects in political life. But in an age of despotism it
might have to confine its political morality to the duty of patient submission,
and content itself with offering little sanctuaries of freedom to the oppressed
in the Christian fraternities. Today, in the age of democracy, it has become
immoral to endure private ownership of government. It is no longer a
sufficient righteousness to live a good life in private. Christianity needs an
ethic of public life. (49)
In other words, given our changed social and political situation, in which Christians
have freedom to push for reforms in government and the economy and in which
Christians have social and political power, it is downright sinful to sit on the sidelines
and allow evil to prevail. This is a broken world, but it can be fixed if enough
Christians join the progressive movement for reform toward equality.
Hauerwas is right that Rauschenbusch’s Social Gospel was a social ethic for
Christians who think they own the culture. Without doubt, Rauschenbusch thought
America to be a Christian country that is only halfway Christianized. He did,
however, argue for Christian cooperation with non-Christians, especially Jews, who
share our vision of Shalom. But he did not anticipate the cultural pluralism of
contemporary America. And there was a note of triumphalism in his reforming
program. Today Christians need to grapple with the reality that neither America nor
any other country is Christian. The idea of a “Christian nation” is a myth; about that,
my friend Greg Boyd is entirely correct.
As we will see, there are other flaws in Rauschenbusch’s social ethic, ones
ably pointed out, if somewhat inflated, by Niebuhr. Nevertheless, Rauschenbusch
inspired Martin Luther King, Jr., and other later Christian and some non-Christian
social reformers. I would go so far as to argue that the fall of apartheid in South
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Africa was indirectly helped by Rauschenbusch and the Social Gospel insofar as they
pioneered modern progressive Christian social and political activism.
What advice would Rauschenbusch give to the Machine Gun Preacher? Well,
he did not believe in violence—even as a necessary evil. Yes, he permitted
confrontation and conflict, but not physical violence. That, he believed, was contrary
to the spirit of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. He would applaud the Preacher for
daring to get involved in direct ways and for seeking to emancipate the child soldiers
of the Sudan, but he would urge him to stop short of using deadly force.
But, Niebuhr might ask, how exactly do you stop the Lord’s Resistance Army
without violence?
Our next Christian social ethicist is Reinhold Niebuhr, probably the most
influential American theologian of the twentieth century. Niebuhr earned his stripes,
so to speak, while pastoring in Detroit during times of social and economic unrest in
the automobile industry. He brought union leaders to speak in his church and
preached and wrote articles against Henry Ford and other industrialists for not
providing, among other things workers needed, workers compensation for those
injured on the assembly lines. Eventually, he taught Christian ethics at Union
Theological Seminary in New York and wrote numerous books, mostly about social
ethics. His picture graced the cover of Time magazine’s twenty-fifth anniversary
issue in 1948. Several presidents, from Carter to Obama, have credited Niebuhr as
their “favorite” theologian or philosopher.
But, ironically, in spite of his progressive social and political ideas, Niebuhr
made his name by criticizing the Social Gospel! After World War I and the ensuing
turmoil in Europe and America, especially during the Great Depression, and with the
rise of Fascism in Europe, Niebuhr became disillusioned with the Social Gospel’s
optimism about the Kingdom of God and our human ability to achieve it through
love, persuasion, and patient pressure. He saw, for example, that no amount of
moral persuasion was making a dent in the great American industrialists’ oppression
of their workers. And he ridiculed the very idea that we should ask African-Americans
and other oppressed minorities simply to forgive their oppressors.
In other words, Niebuhr looked at Hicks’ picture of The Peaceable Kingdom
and saw an eschatological, utopian, impossible ideal. The real picture, the picture we
must have of this world, as it is and always will be until the end, is one of massive
injustice, oppression, and violence of the powerful against the powerless. The
Peaceable Kingdom picture of Shalom should drive us forward to purify all our
accomplishments and achievements, but we should not think it a realistic scenario
for this-worldly history. Insofar as we do, he feared, we will inevitably take some
human society, ours, for example, and lay The Peaceable Kingdom picture over it
and claim we have “almost arrived.”
Niebuhr was allergic to optimism. His social ethic was labeled “Christian
Realism.” Some preferred to call it unchristian pessimism! But Niebuhr feared our
natural, fallen human tendency to pat ourselves on the back and baptize our social
programs and arrangements as “Christian” and fall into complacency. We aim for
love, he said, and miss justice. That’s because justice is messy and often seems
contrary to the true spirit of love, which is perfect selflessness. Justice includes the
self in its calculations of conflicting claims about rights. Justice recognizes the world
for what it is—a battlefield in which all, both righteous and evil, are infected with
egoism and have a tendency to claim too much moral rightness for themselves. In
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fact, according to Niebuhr, all our motives are tainted and all our causes and
programs are broken and all our achievements of justice are at best partial.
Because the world is so broken, Niebuhr believed, if we Christians are to be
involved and effective in bringing about even approximations of justice, partial
achievements of Shalom, we must be willing to compromise with the ungodly. Of
course, he didn’t mean “compromise” as in “capitulate” to sin; he meant looking
around for philosophies, movements, ideas that may not be rooted in revelation or
rise to biblical standards of love and join with them, use them, cooperate with them
insofar as they are imperfect tools for “making the best of” this sinful, broken, fallen
world. Niebuhr realized and admitted that such compromises would necessarily
involve Christians in sin, but, he believed, the only alternative is withdrawal from the
fight for justice and that, he believed, would be irresponsible.
For Niebuhr, in contrast to Rauschenbusch, “justice” falls far short of love.
The love Jesus taught and called for is perfect selflessness, disinterested, sacrificial
benevolence that gives whatever one has to the nearest needy neighbor without
weighing what he deserves or she will do with it. Love simply gives. Justice, on the
other hand, calculates. It weighs competing interests and needs and rights and uses
reason to establish balances of power. It seeks freedom and equality for all without
utopian illusions; it settles for modicums of freedom and equality and requires
messy, risky, struggles for them.
According to Niebuhr, love injects mercy into justice and calls it to ever higher
achievements of equality among people. But justice makes love concrete in the real,
broken world where absolute love between competing powers is impossible.
Niebuhr’s was a social ethic for people with a tragic sense of history, for those
who feel compelled to become involved in the rough-and-tumble world of politics and
social unrest toward justice, for those who are willing to risk disobedience to
perfection for the sake of establishing a more just and equitable world.
Let’s look at Martin Luther King’s civil rights movement during the 1960s and
see in it elements of both Rauschenbusch and Niebuhr. King frequently talked about
the goal of the movement as “brotherhood” and a “commonwealth of equals,” even
as “the beloved community.” That’s Rauschenbusch language. And he eschewed
violence as a means of achieving justice for the oppressed; he urged use of loving
persuasion toward enemies and oppressors. On the other hand, he engaged in
organized struggles, confrontations, and conflict, and risked violence as a
consequence of his non-violent sit-ins and marches. People died in the struggle; King
felt the burden of those deaths and sensed the ambiguities of his own power. He was
ambivalent about the social unrest he and the movement unleashed, but believed it
was worth it to achieve justice. I see in King a combination of Rauschenbusch and
Niebuhr. His high idealism and non-violent activism was partly inspired by
Rauschenbusch and the Social Gospel; his realism and willingness to use power for
confrontation risking conflict for the sake of justice was partly inspired by Niebuhr.
What advice would Niebuhr give to the Machine Gun Preacher? I think he
would congratulate him for daring to get involved in a bloody, messy struggle to
save children’s lives but warn him against overuse of violence, against vengeance,
and against ever believing his cause is wholly righteous and without sin. He would
urge him to use only what deadly force was absolutely necessary to save the lives of
innocent children and to never think of himself as innocent. He would advise him to
seek God’s forgiveness for being involved in violence even though it was thrust upon
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for a Broken World
him and he had little choice given the circumstances. He would remind him that this
is a broken world and there is no perfection and violence is always a sign of that
brokenness, even when it is necessary. He would tell him to “sin boldly and repent
more boldly still.”
Now I turn to Gustavo Gutierrez and liberation theology. Popular North
American and especially conservative Christian images of liberation theology are
distorted. Gutierrez, the “father of liberation theology,” is not a pacifist but draws
back from endorsing violence even in the most just causes. He prefers non-violent
approaches to social justice, which he defines as equality of opportunity for all people
regardless of social class or race or gender. Violence, he believes, is justified only
when it is a response to the unjust “institutionalized violence” of the oppressors—the
“first violence” that calls forth the “second violence” of the oppressed to liberate
themselves from dehumanizing uses of power, domination, and control. Many people
in North America celebrate Independence Day, the Fourth of July, even in church but
condemn other oppressed people’s revolutions—even when they are against military
dictatorships that use death squads to murder non-violent dissenters such as Jesuit
priests and nuns.
Gutierrez, like Rauschenbusch and Niebuhr, is driven by the vision of
Shalom—peace, justice, and prosperity for all. In A Theology of Liberation, he urges
utopianism—a vision of just such a Kingdom of God on earth—as a means of social
progress towards equality. However, what he adds to Rauschenbusch and Niebuhr,
although it may be implicit in them, is the principle of “preferential option for the
poor.” Christian love, he argues, requires solidarity with the poor and by “poor” he
does not just mean materially poor; he means powerless. For Gutierrez, justice is
what happens when the poor are lifted up and empowered to live self-determining,
human lives—lives where they have opportunity to achieve at least a modicum of
their human potential.
Again, I see a hybrid of Rauschenbusch and Niebuhr in Gutierrez. I’m not
arguing that he consciously, intentionally combined them, although there is evidence
that he read both. He was more influenced by the “political theology” of European
theologians Joannes Metz and Jürgen Moltmann. However, there are echoes of both
Rauschenbusch and Niebuhr in Gutierrez’s liberation theology.
In complete congeniality with Rauschenbusch, Gutierrez regards the poor as
special objects of Christian love. Also with Rauschenbusch, the Peruvian theologian is
unapologetically utopian—calling Christians especially to hope and plan for the
Kingdom of God on earth and to settle for nothing less than peace, prosperity, and
justice for all. But he goes beyond Rauschenbusch in seeing differentiating wealth as
always a sign of the brokenness of this world. And he agrees with Niebuhr that
Christian use of political power, even violence, is sometimes necessary to move a
society closer to justice. Where he disagrees with Niebuhr, however, is in regarding
the conflict and social unrest necessary to establish justice as sinful and requiring
repentance. While he doesn’t regard it as something to celebrate, neither does he
think the appropriate response to the overthrow of an oppressive regime is sackcloth
and ashes.
Gutierrez’s is a social ethic for revolutionaries. Not necessarily for guerrilla
fighters (he urged his friend Camillo Torres not to join a group of guerrillas) but for
Christians and others who are impatient with the slow pace of justice and feel called
to enter into the conflicts of history on the side of the oppressed.
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Ironically, many people who hold up Dietrich Bonhoeffer as a saint and martyr
criticize liberation theology. I think Gutierrez would remind them that the German
pastor and theologian joined a revolutionary cell and volunteered to pull the trigger
on Hitler. They turned him down and used him in other ways, but he knew he was
complicit in their plot and that the blood of Hitler and anyone else who might be
killed in the coup would be on his hands as much as on anyone’s. 1
Now, because some question this, I want to diverge from the main line of my
talk for a moment and insert a "sidebar" about Bonhoeffer and violence.
According to his student and biographer Eberhard Bethge, Bonhoeffer asked,
paraphrasing here, what is the duty of a Christian who sees a madman driving a car
into a crowd of people? To go behind the car picking up the wounded and giving
them first aid? Or, if possible, to get the madman out from behind the wheel of the
car?
Some fans of Bonhoeffer have recently questioned whether the German
pastor, committed to pacifism as he was, really became involved in a plot to kill
Hitler. Mennonite theologian Mark Thiessen Nation and two scholars recently
published a book entitled Bonhoeffer the Assassin? with the thesis that the author of
The Cost of Discipleship and Ethics did not participate in any conspiracy involving
assassination. However, this is flatly contradicted, as they admit, by Bethge. Bethge
leaves no doubt about Bonhoeffer's knowledge of and support for the plot to kill
Hitler. However, this was, he says, a "boundary situation," not a matter of principle.
Bethge reports that as early as 1932 Bonhoeffer hinted at the future and what
it might require of Christians. In a sermon preached that year, the German
pastor-theologian suggested that "times would come again when martyrdom would
be called for."2 Speaking prophetically, Bonhoeffer said about the coming
martyrdoms that "this blood . . . will not be so innocent and clear as that of the first
who testified. On our blood a great guilt would lie: that of the useless servant who is
cast into the outer darkness."3 This is a hard saying, but Bonhoeffer left us many
hard sayings to reflect on. Bethge clearly interpreted it as meaning not that the new
martyrs would go to hell but that they could not count on innocence in necessity.
Bethge, a theologian in his own right, recorded about Bonhoeffer's decision to join
the conspiracy against Hitler, which he knew very well included a plot to kill the
dictator, "Thus, the 'boundary situation' led Bonhoeffer to abandon all outward and
inward security. By entering into that kind of conspiracy, he forsook command,
applause, and commonly held opinion."4
End of Bonhoeffer sidebar and back to the main body of my talk.
So what would Gutierrez’s advice be to the Machine Gun Preacher? Well,
that’s fairly obvious: Use only deadly force that is absolutely necessary to stop the
Lord’s Resistance Army from carrying out its maniacal slaughtering of entire villages
and kidnapping and murdering of innocent children. Don’t rejoice in the bloodshed,
1
These claims are based on Eberhard Bethge's "Section Two: Conspiracy" in Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, trans., Eric Mosbacher, et al. (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), 626-702.
2
Eberhard Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 700.
3
Ibid.
4
Ibid.
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Roger E. Olson
Sin Boldly: Christian Ethics
for a Broken World
but don’t feel guilty about it, either. Do what you have to do out of love—for the
innocents and for those who are threatening them.
Finally I come to the real purpose of this talk—the Yoder-Hauerwas
challenge to all of the above—to Rauschenbusch, Niebuhr, and Gutierrez.
Over the past two to three decades, numerous well-intentioned, smart,
caring, and thoughtful young Christians have jumped on the Yoder-Hauerwas
pacifist, perfectionist bandwagon and reminded all of us that obedience to Jesus is
the first principle of social ethics and that the church is not a launching pad for social
revolution but the city set on a hill to show the world its true self and the better way
of life God wants for it.
Perhaps the Yoder-Hauerwas approach is best summed up in the Duke
Divinity School theologian’s phrase that “the church is the Christian’s social ethic.”
Jesus did not come to overthrow unjust, even oppressive social systems; he
came to establish an alternative social order within this broken world. The focus of
Christian social ethics should not be on reform or revolution of the world but on
being the church as God intends it to be, following the Kingdom principles of Shalom
laid out in the Sermon on the Mount.
Christians who become involved in social struggles using political power,
coercion, and deadly force are usurping God’s role; God has not called us, his people,
to be managers of history but to leave that to him and organize ourselves in the
“upside down Kingdom” of Jesus. Within the church, love and justice are never
forced into opposition or even dialectic; obedience does not have to be sacrificed for
effectiveness. The church, as the “community of the beloved” can change the world
through example, if God uses it for that purpose. But that is ultimately up to him; we
are called only to be that community. Yes, to be sure, we can speak truth to power
from within it. Or, better put, the community of Christ can speak truth prophetically
to power. But Christians, individually or organizationally, must not take up the reins
of worldly power to attempt to bring in the Kingdom of God by using ungodly means.
“Sin boldly” is the path to perdition; compromise with evil is the door to disobedience
and ultimately dissolution—of God’s plan and purpose for the church.
For Christians, according to Yoder and Hauerwas, the cross unites love and
justice. That’s true of Jesus’ cross and ours. Self-sacrificial service and voluntary
subordination are the way to the Shalom that Jesus revealed.
The Yoder-Hauerwas social ethic is one for perfectionists. And I don’t mean
that in a pejorative way; it’s a social ethic for Christians with high ideals and
determination to be obedient to the way of Jesus even if that requires ineffectiveness
in worldly terms. It is a social ethic for those who really believe in the brokenness of
the world and trust God to heal it, if he chooses, by using the church’s wholeness as
a witness to his healing power.
Yoder and Hauerwas and their followers target especially Niebuhr for his
alleged compromises with worldly power and for leading his followers down the
primrose path away from Jesus and toward Constantine. Niebuhr, of course, were he
here to argue with Hauerwas, would no doubt respond that the path he trod did not
lead toward Constantine or away from Jesus but toward a better, more just world
and away from withdrawal and abdication of responsibility. And so the argument
goes on—between the Yoder-Hauerwasians and the Niebuhrians today.
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www.tbmaston.org
Roger E. Olson
Sin Boldly: Christian Ethics
for a Broken World
What advice would Yoder and Hauerwas give to the Machine Gun preacher?
Well, that also, as in the case of Gutierrez, seems fairly obvious: Put down your
machine gun and other weapons, and work with the churches of the Sudan and
Uganda and America and elsewhere to provide a safe sanctuary for victims of
violence and oppression. And prepare to die just as Jesus did. The servant is not
greater than his master and should not use means his master would not use.
I began by admitting my own cognitive dissonance when reading these
theologians and social ethicists. I agree with all of them! And I disagree with all of
them! While reading Rauschenbusch, I find myself inspired and energized to go
forth and reform the world by using persuasion and pressure, with Shalom always in
view as the goal. While reading Niebuhr, I find myself comforted and encouraged to
rely wholly on God’s grace, mercy, and forgiveness when I must fall short of the high
and, perhaps, impossible standards set by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. And, in
Niebuhr, I find a realistic account of the world and a ringing call to responsibility for
it. While reading Gutierrez, I find myself fired up to fight for the poor, the
powerless, and the oppressed, to go forth into the halls of power prophetically to
challenge the privileged and the systems that support them and keep the
disadvantaged pressed down. While reading Yoder and Hauerwas, I find myself
called to commitment to the church of Jesus Christ and to work together with others
of like mind to make it the locus of Shalom in this broken world, to help it be the
witness Jesus was to those around him of God’s love and mercy and transforming
power. Also, to make it a sanctuary for the helpless, hurting, and oppressed.
From Rauschenbusch, I receive the vision of a human fraternity of equals,
organized according to loving service without domination or oppression. From
Niebuhr, I receive the realism of the inevitability of sin even within Christian
community and the call to social transformation without illusions of righteousness.
From Gutierrez, I receive the ideal of the preferential option for the poor and the
call to solidarity with them. From Yoder and Hauerwas, I receive the reminder that
the church is my main social ethic and to avoid all triumphalism, including especially
Constantinianism.
So where to go from there? Where do I come down and what advice do I
give—with regard to those areas of incommensurability between these four
approaches to Christian social ethics? While there is no perfect hybrid of all four, I do
think they are capable of combination with adjustments none of them would want.
But here goes, anyway.
First, I agree with Yoder and Hauerwas that the church is the Christian’s
primary social ethic. Our first duty, calling, is to help the church be the witness of
Shalom to the world God intends it to be. But that means investing primary interest
and energy in it. And it means avoiding all entanglements of the church with the
state after the Constantinian pattern. The church is not called to be a launching pad
for revolution but a community of love, the community of the beloved. The church
should never take up arms for any cause; the church is the family of God,
dysfunctional as it is in its own brokenness, that lives from self-sacrificial service
each to every other.
Second, however, I agree with Niebuhr and Gutierrez that Christians, that
I, must be open to the call of God to take up power, even deadly force if necessary,
to defend the weak, the helpless, and the oppressed. With Niebuhr, I agree that
such use of coercive force for any cause is less than perfect, is even sinful, and never
something to be celebrated or boasted of. With them, I agree that Christians should
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Roger E. Olson
Sin Boldly: Christian Ethics
for a Broken World
not abandon government to pagans but lovingly, for the sake of the poor, the
powerless, and the oppressed, risk sinning boldly by daring to get involved in the
messy world of secular statescraft, shaping public policy and, even occasionally,
fighting for the lives and rights of especially the helpless.
John Stackhouse, an evangelical theologian at Regent College in Vancouver,
Canada, expresses this sentiment very articulately in his book Making the Best of It:
Following Christ in the Real World:
Most of the time . . . we know what to do and must simply do it. Sometimes,
however, the politician has to hold his nose and make a deal. The chaplain
has to encourage his fellow soldiers in a war he deeply regrets. The professor
has to teach fairly a theory or philosophy she doesn’t think is true. The police
officer has to subdue a criminal with deadly force. We are on a slippery slope
indeed—and one shrouded in darkness, with the ground not only slippery but
shifting under our feet. So we hold on to God’s hand, and each other’s, and
make the best of it. (288)
Whenever I am tempted too strongly toward the Yoder-Hauerwas ethic of love
perfectionism, absolute non-violence, including refusal of all coercion and force, I
think of the Christian abolitionists of the first half of the nineteenth century. William
Wilberforce accomplished much good by arguing forcefully, with much political
negotiation and more than a little pressure in the House of Commons, for abolition of
the slave trade. In America, many Christians, including revivalist Charles Finney and
his Oberlin students, practiced civil disobedience and even, occasionally, violence to
rescue slaves from bondage and help them escape to Canada along the
“underground railroad.”
For African slaves, Shalom meant freedom from kidnapping, bondage, torture,
family separation, degradation of their humanity. For those who dared to take up the
reins of power to fight for their Shalom, it meant sinning boldly by political
compromise, sometimes deceit and subterfuge, civil disobedience, and even
occasionally open rebellion against unjust laws.
Who is to say that’s all in the past and now we can settle back comfortably in
our Christian communities and disengage from the struggles for justice that still
surround us?
With great reluctance and admission that repentance is called for, were I in
the Machine Gun Preacher’s shoes, I hope I would have the courage to do the same
as he. And I hope I would remember that even such a just cause is fraught with
ambiguity and unrighteousness and requires grace, mercy, and forgiveness.
Nineteenth century theologian-pastor Theodore Parker first said “The arc of
the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” I am here arguing that
sometimes we have to help it bend. May God grant us the courage, faith, humility,
and repentant hearts as we take the risk of helping it bend.
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