The Ethics of Christian Witness

I was recently involved in a Facebook discussion concerning a quote of Stanley Hauerwas regarding his commitment to pacifism, or specifically non-violence. 

His quote, particularly in the context of his theological understanding of the church, raises for me an important evangelistic question: what is the story the church tells with its life in and before the world? And critically in this case, must it be a story of commitment to non-violence? Must it be a story in which the church witnesses to God’s redemption by its refusal to align itself with the powers and principalities of the world manifest in violence, not merely at play in the national political life, but the underlying value placed on violence and the instrumental use of humanity? Indeed a story of refusing to be entangled with the national political life, to live as "resident aliens" in a nation whose civil religion is opposed to Christian values. 

I think there is a problem with the story of refusal to become entangled with the inevitably violent national narrative. But it isn't that those of us who are living the story of non-violence must wrestle with the ethical dilemma of watching evil people do evil things. That is, as Hauerwas points out, an inevitable part of any serious moral position. We aren’t gods, we can’t resolve the impossible contradictions in which every choice involves doing evil or letting it be done. 

The problem with the story of refusal to engage in violence is that it may be incomprehensible and unbelievable as a witness to God’s redeeming work in Jesus Christ. The same could be said of the refusal, or at the least reticence, of the church to be involved in the national political life. The church, and individual Christians, have neither time nor opportunity to offer an interpretation of the story they are living out. So choosing to watch while children are dragged from their parents on the border, or civilians are bombed by Russian aircraft in Syria may be no different from standing in the marketplace in Athens preaching in Chinese, or insisting that the Chinese learn to read Greek (or at least Latin) before they can read the Bible. 

Non-violence is a language of moral action. Is it a language that witnesses to Jesus Christ so that the world will acknowledge his Reign? Speaking that language, telling that story, isn't just based on it being a moral imperative, it must also be an evangelistic imperative, because the fundamental task of the church isn't merely to be moral, but to witness to Jesus Christ. 

For this reason neither a Christian theology nor a Christian ethic can be worked out in the cloistered setting of an American (or Western) university or even the wider setting of the American (or Western) church. Nor can it be informed only by a critical hermeneutic of the New Testament accounts of Jesus’ ministry and that of the apostles, even if the apostolic witness is extended beyond the New Testament through the formation of the creeds. It certainly can’t be worked out in conversation only with others who are part of the Western academic theological tradition. 

If we are going to insist on the language of non-violence, or learn to speak it, we must learn with those whose lives are most directly impacted by violence and oppression. Because the language of moral action is no more universal than English grammar or German nouns. 

I don't know Hauerwas's conversation partners apart from the bibliographies of his books, so let's leave him aside for a more general observation: after twenty of living outside the United States I no longer find a theological position compelling unless it emerges from an engagement with the voices of Christians globally who both experience the Spirit of Christ in their lives and are directly afflicted by the death dealing powers of the world; and in particular those Christians who live amidst powers unconstrained by rational structures of human governance. 

Nor can I find it compelling unless it is directly engaged in a dialogue with those who do not know the story of God’s redemption of the world and thus may find non-violence deeply immoral. 

When I first learned Malay, and was asked to preach in Malay, the most important part of my work (as also when I was involved in translation of the Bible) was checking with those who spoke Malay to make sure I was getting it right. This history of both translation and contextualization is littered with examples of well-meaning efforts that were incomprehensible because they never touched ground with the intended audience. 

The credibility of theology doesn’t derive from it intellectual coherence alone, or even the integrity of its place within the living community of faith and its book, the Bible. Because theology exists to serve the evangelistic mission of the church its its comprehensibility, depends on the conversation partners with whom it has engaged, and the breadth of their experience of being both human and Christian in the world. Those experiences include not merely moral actors, but the experience of those people upon whom evil is visited. It isn't just the experience of knowing that innocents suffer because of a moral conviction, but of being the innocent sufferers because of the moral convictions of others. 

So I wonder, when academic theologians put forward their ethical theories, whether those experiences and voices have been part of the conversation. But then a credible theology of Christian witness need not account for itself to me, or indeed anyone living in the relative safety of American society. It must account for itself to those pleading to be saved, whom the church in the name of its confidence in God's redemption allows to perish.