Excerpt

Hope

Adrift and uncertain, a moral haze descends over life in the 21st century as inclusive meaning and purpose disappear in favor of short-term goals, immediate self-gratification, and pretentious religious groups asserting their superiority over others. Today is reminiscent of a period shortly after the Civil War when a tide of centralization and standardization swept America’s industries and schools. During this time an extraordinary amount of energy was expended by America to defend its dominate religious, moral, and political creeds.

Our time mirrors those days: politics is deeply divided between blue states and red states, ultra-conservative religious leaders have set about trying to rewrite American history to fit their lopsided conservative religious agendas, and our schools are a mass of standardized reading and math programs serving no one accept the political pundits who have devised these programs to fit their political agenda, and the test and text book manufacturers who are reaping the financial rewards.

But these programs and the slide toward rewriting our history are not a solution to the demize of meaning and purpose in our society. We don’t passively experience reality, we actively shape it. Our faith is not a immobile sanitization of society, but a provisional, ever-evolving relationship between us and God and us, and the consequences of our choices. Faith seeking action entails the role of humanity in God’s redemptive work. It is the cooperative work of humans with God in the service of mankind.

Paul’s paradigm of “faith, hope, and charity” reflects this cooperative message. Hope, in the sense that Paul used the word, provides this model. It is faith seeking moral action; it is people changing things—hoping that their actions are making ethical renewal possible for others. The narrow view of God and humans, spoken in terms of sin and salvation and through ancient myth and ritual is a view that excludes and claims superior knowledge of spiritual purpose. A more holistic vision is needed, one that advocates the continuous activity of God with people, and just not Christians, but all people. Paul was seeking to motivate and change the churches he had assisted throughout the Mediterrean world. His personal “faith seeking action” model was itself a means for revitalizing their energy and growth.

Hope offers a positive, constructive, and affirmative vision of Christian living. Its promise is to relieve us from our contextualized entrapment and subsequent domestication by custom and tradition. Hope challenges us to transform ourselves into active practitioners of the Christian faith capable of expressing our ethical commitments in the context of contemporary life, and help others care about one another in a much more effective way. We know that caring produces cooperative rather than conflicting homes, workplaces, and churches. Also, the energy required to serve others in a caring environment is much less than an environment where people are working against each other. Ethical deficiency results in a crisis of meaning and loss of hope, which affects our homes and schools in negative ways. Thomas L. Friedman, in writing about the American spirit after the 9/11/2001 tragedy, reminds us that hope flows from a “deep spiritual source—a respect for the individual, a spirit of tolerance for differences of faith or politics, a respect for freedom of thought as the necessary foundation for all creativity, and a spirit of unity that encompasses all kind of differences.

Relationships: The Sounds of Integrity

The experiences that we have and share with each other are how we reveal ourselves and give meaning to our lives. Sharing authenticates our lives and those with whom we share. Relationships are the way we think; they connect life to life and are the foundation of ethics. When important relationships break down, it is normal to feel that something is missing in our lives. There is emptiness. Therefore, each day we must act as if other people matter, because personal meaning is achieved through dialogue, through others.

We may have been born with a different skin color and speak a different language than the majority in our society, but inside we’re all alike—created in a divine image, possessed by a living soul, and included in a humanity with intrinsic value. In a word, an ethical life is a life that does not denigrate others. It is a life lived unselfishly and perhaps selflessly, and possesses a servant’s heart. Herein rests the real meaning of our common spirituality—we extend our immortality through the love we give to each other.

These are essential theological motifs of a Christian ethic. Even though we assert that the foundation of Christian ethics lies in our faith, the teachings of Jesus, and the vast theological and ecclesiastical tradition of Western Civilization, we also acknowledge this reality as this-worldly, distinctly human, and contingent on human choice and understanding. When we grasp this idea, our moral integrity becomes energized and our inner moral sense finds its purpose. All of us want honesty, responsibility, and fair play from our friends and colleagues. We relish their respect. If these are the qualities we desire in others, then we must display them. Life is held together with the sensitivity that others are a part of us.

Stephen Carter writes that “integrity” is “the faculty that enables us to discern right and wrong,” and observes that integrity “is a guide to being guided. It does not so much tell us right and wrong as it helps us to see the truth of right and wrong. And at the center of that integrity is a willingness to be open in our discernment of the right.” Carter concludes, “The life that is lived with integrity is a life of striving toward the good and the true.”

Moral integrity compels us to become a positive force that incorporates within itself quality, value, and self-awareness. Integrity means giving to both great and small the gift of dignity and respect. Honest dialogue that is open and inviting makes public our own moral worth as it acknowledges the moral worth of others.