On Ethics: A Conversation with Jason Glen

Today I’m excited to invite you into a conversation with another professor of mine from my college days. Currently, Jason Glen works at Regent University, is adjunct faculty at Liberty University, and is earning a Ph.D. in Ethics & Systematic Theology from Evangelische Theologische Faculteit in Leuven, Belgium. He also has founded Sacra Domus, “an urban Christian ministry tasked with equipping followers of Christ, investing in community, and exploring hard questions with seekers.” 

I met Jason at Bryan College where he served as the Director of Worldview Formation and as Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Culture. I had the privilege of learning under his teaching in several courses including Introduction to Ethical Thinking. His willingness to meet any topic head on, to help us young adults wrestle through difficult questions, and to welcome students into his family’s life quickly endeared him to the student body. One night he stayed late after an evening class to talk with me about an issue that was troubling my heart and mind, and that’s just the kind of thing that characterizes his ministry. His passion for discipleship, for Scripture, for hospitality, and for helping others think well has positively influenced countless lives, and I’m so grateful that you now have the opportunity to be influenced by him as well.

Olivia: How did you become interested in ethics?

Jason: My interest in Ethics began with the dual interests of expediency and discipleship. I had just finished up my bachelor’s degree, which took me 10 years to complete from the time I started it in 1994, and I had no desire to pursue the long Master of Divinity degree while working full time and helping Ashlee raise our daughters. So I started looking around for shorter degrees that my interests resonated with. I didn’t really have a desire to be a full-time head pastor or youth minister, but I loved discipleship and college students. So I began looking into degrees that were 48 credit hours that focused more on discipleship.

I considered going back to Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth to do a M.A. in Theology, but ultimately decided against it and started more intensely looking at the M.A. degrees at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. I remember looking into the M.A. in Christian Ethics for the first time and thinking, “Wow, I’ve been talking to young men about sexuality, war, and race relations for several years now, and this degree hits all of those areas!” Once I started the degree, I recognized that this was what my soul was bent toward, what the Spirit had been nurturing me for years to be passionate about.

Olivia: What is the difference between ethics and morality?

Jason: This is a good question, and is often a source for confusion. There’s disagreement in how to approach the differences. I even disagree with how the current textbook for my Ethics class for Liberty University addresses the difference between the two. But for me, the clearest difference is in category and scope. The discipline of ethics is concerned with systems and the mechanics of how people engage moral decision making. It asks questions like: “Where do moral inclinations come from,” “Is morality universal,” and “What should be the motivating factor in how we make moral decisions?” To use a football analogy, it’s like stating the difference between ‘sports’ and ‘off-sides.’

Morality gets into the thick of the matter. Moral guidelines do not have to adhere to a clear ethical system, but most ethical systems tend to try and categorize how to objectify and manage moral inclinations. Morality addresses issues like whether it’s ok to lie if your life is threatened, do children have to obey their parents, and is it morally acceptable to steal if you are starving. Ethics would then categorize, systematize, and give arguments about how to approach stealing, and lying in general. Like a worldview, ethical ideas can affect moral convictions, and moral convictions can affect one’s belief in an ethical system. As a Christian I’d suggest that the imago Dei, which all humans carry and which is obscured in us, gives us all general moral inclinations within community that are at once clear and yet covered up. Our fallen propensities towards selfishness, violence, and lust make it hard to discern whether the voice in our soul is the imago Dei or the fallen self.

Olivia: Why should Christians be concerned with understanding ethics?

Jason: Christians should be concerned with following Christ, and following Christ means relating to him, each other, and our environment in a way that reflects him and who he intends us to be. In a nutshell, that’s what ethics is concerned with. The study of ethics provides us a universally recognized avenue to talk about our faith in Christ, our obedience to the Father, our attentiveness to the Spirit, and our respect for his creation. It gives us a clear path to discuss what we believe true love and flourishing are. Reflectively speaking, ethical thinking helps us flesh out the ways that our sin has affected the world and our own life. It allows us to engage the complexity of our lives with humility and yet also with some form of consistency grounded in our view of what is true and good.

Olivia: What are some of the questions you ask about any given situation when trying to evaluate the ethics of it?

Jason: How you approach a situation, within an ethical context, depends on the ethical system that you consciously or unconsciously hold to. Many people have different systems for different circumstances, which in-itself is a form of Utilitarianism. I attempt to approach life from an ethical worldview built around my relationship with God. My approach is informed by God’s revelation to us through the biblical scriptures and through general revelation, otherwise known as creation. So when I approach a circumstance that begs an ethical decision, I reference my knowledge of the Bible to discern whether God’s commands or character have anything to say about the circumstances I’m in or approaching.

It’s critical to grow in one’s understanding of hermeneutics in order to approach the scriptures appropriately. If you can’t tell the difference between allegorical and historical, descriptive and prescriptive, then it will be difficult to discern what God is seeking to communicate to you in a given moral dilemma. How do I avoid harming a person and yet responsibly protect my family from an attacker if I’m supposed to “turn the other cheek?” I struggled with this for several years before some professors in grad school helped me understand the contextual limitations to certain passages of scripture I was struggling to reconcile with other biblical principles I knew to be binding.

I’m sure this ethical system is not unique, but I became convicted through all my research and struggles that the appropriate ethical system for me is a hierarchical relational ethic. It is very similar to a deontological (duty based) ethic, but it’s deeper and broader than simply having a duty to obey a set of rules because they come from God. Some of the ideas of my relational ethic look similar to virtue ethics as well. Our relationship with God, as communicated through the various forms of revelation and the imago Dei, should inform our other relationships. His character is communicated to our soul, and it informs our covenants and sense of obligation. We recognize that we have a general obligation to our family first because they are our ‘first’ neighbors. We recognize from scripture and experience that to hate our neighbor is to hate God, because God loves us and our neighbor. We recognize from scripture and experience that thoughtless violence towards creation dishonors the creator.

All these things, and more, are centered on and flow out from our relationship with God. Some things are more important than others, and their weight is weighed via their proximity to the heart of God. My covenant of marriage to my wife is extremely close to the heart of God. My devotion and love for my wife is one of the clearest manifestations of the love of God within me. Therefore, I prioritize my relationship with my wife in relationship to my duty to my other neighbors. Our relationship with our children is very near to the heart of God, and thus we prioritize our children above other neighbors. I’ve gotten fairly philosophical here, but it really is what drives my ethical thinking. Relational priorities tend to steer our ethical decision making. They’re just not always rightly prioritized.

Some other qualities to consider that are related to the primary one of relational hierarchy are the qualities of proximity, reasonableness, and contractual responsibility. Am I close enough to the circumstance to be responsible to engage it? Is it reasonable for me to engage the situation based on my ability and knowledge? Did I agree to be responsible for the situation at hand? Again, these qualities must flow out of our relationship with God or they can become false gods in our lives. They must be informed by revelation from God, or they’ll be informed by the fallen thoughts of humanity. As it is written, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death” (Proverbs 14:12, ESV).

Olivia: What are some resources you would recommend for those who want to learn more?

Jason: There are a lot of great books out there that can supplement and help inform one’s reading of the Bible in an attempt to inform one’s ethical system. One of my favorite introductory books on ethics is one written by my doctoral advisor, Patrick Nullens. It is called The Matrix of Christian Ethics. It does a good job of engaging ethics from a Christian worldview, but in a way that is contemporarily relevant. Another excellent book on ethical concerns related to the human body is Nancy Pearcey’s Love Thy Body. It fleshes out (no pun intended) how we need to honor God’s intentionality for us as holistic beings. We are not simply embodied spirits, trapped in a gnostic world where we look to escape the confines of our flesh.  Our ethics need to address the fact that we are to love God through a right understanding, use, and treatment of our bodies. My thesis advisor for my graduate degree also wrote a very thorough assessment on sexual ethics called True Sexual Morality. It’s extensive and hard to wade through at times, but it is a great reference book for researching how sexual deviancy has played out in different cultures at different moments in history. There are countless other books I could suggest on various topics of ethical discourse, but I’ll limit it to a short list below of some other books that have blessed me over the years.

-          Technology: Habits of the High Tech Heart by Quentin Schultze

-          Sexuality and Culture: Sex and the iWorld by Dale Kuehne

-          War: War and Christian Ethics, edited by Arthur Holmes

-          Racism, Ethnocentrism, and Prejudice: Exclusion and Embrace by Miroslav Volf

-          General Christian Ethical Theory: Ethics by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

-          General Christian Ethical Theory: An Interpretation of Christian Ethics by Reinhold Niebuhr

-          Christian Anthropology: Man in Revolt by Emil Brunner

-          General Ethical Theory/Racism: A Testament of Hope by Martin Luther King, Jr., edited by James Washington

-          Christian Political Engagement: The Kingdom of Christ by Russell Moore

-          Christianity and Cultural Engagement: Christ and Culture by Richard Niebuhr

I hope this conversation has led you to consider how we can thoughtfully approach our decisions and how we interact with those around us to the glory of God. If you’re interested in learning more about Jason’s ministry Sacra Domus, visit https://www.facebook.com/sacradomus/, and to hear more of his thoughts on ethics and other matters, check out his blog, Thoughts from the Glen.