Dancing with Delight, Part 1: To Dance or Not to Dance

“Baptists don’t dance.” Ever heard that one? Growing up, it was a running joke among my friends in our Baptist congregation, thrown around more like an excuse when someone’s attempts to “dance” fell into the embarrassing category. I had heard of the days when that statement was true, when dancing was strictly prohibited for those in my particular denomination, but I didn’t think that strain of legalism still existed in the 21^st century, at least not in my church—that is until I heard an elderly church member make a comment that let me know it was still alive and well.

When some friends and I started our own dance group, I quickly learned that I had to be careful, given the fact that my dad was on the ministerial staff. People could get the wrong idea, and if Baptists don’t dance, Baptist pastors especially don’t. It didn’t matter that the type of dancing our group enjoyed was about the least scandalous type of dancing you could imagine—historical dances from the nineteenth century. For some reason I could sense that there were some who would raise a stink if they knew we got together to dance as our preferred pastime.

Even though we knew there was nothing wrong with what we were doing (and in fact there was a lot right), we still had to counter the negative perception, launching into a lengthy explanation whenever we talked about what we did once a month. And that frustrated me exceedingly. Why should I have to think twice about posting photos or videos of my family dancing together? Why couldn’t dancing be evaluated on its own merits, with the acknowledgement that not all dancing is made alike? Why was the wholesome and the unwholesome all lumped together into this single category that therefore became taboo? Why were outdated, now inaccurate mindsets so entrenched? Shouldn’t we see if the Bible has anything to say about dancing before we make it a shameful thing? I say we should. So let’s look.

There are 29 verses in the Bible that mention dance/dancing: 24 in the Old Testament and 5 in the New, in the books of Exodus, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 Chronicles, Job, Psalms, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Interestingly, only 2 of these verses are prescriptive, meaning they state what someone should or shouldn’t do. The rest are descriptive, meaning they simply describe something rather than instruct. Since the descriptive verses are the large majority, let’s look at those first.

Twelve of the verses contain a historical account of someone actually dancing. These include Miriam and the Israelite women when God brought them out of Egypt (Ex. 15:20), the Israelites at the Golden Calf incident (Ex. 32:19), Jephthah’s daughter upon his return from battle (Judg. 11:34), the women of Shiloh at an annual feast of the Lord (Judg. 21:21, 23), Israelite women celebrating David’s victory over Goliath (1 Sam. 18:6), Amalekites celebrating a military victory (1 Sam. 30:16), King David when he brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem (2 Sam. 6:14, 16; 1 Chron. 15:29), and Herod’s daughter at his birthday feast (Matt. 14:6, Mark 6:22). Only the Israelites at the Golden Calf and Herod’s daughter, who ended up using her body to gain favor and to manipulate, fall into the less-than-savory category of dance. The rest were dancing in pure celebration and joy, and some were even directly praising God with their dancing.

Three other verses allude to actual dancing: 1 Samuel 21:11 and 29:5 speak of dances that the Israelites used in celebrating David’s victories, and Psalm 87:7 refers to “singers and dancers” who praise the Lord. Three more are found in parables or teachings of Jesus: the characters in the prodigal son scene dance upon his return (Luke 15:25), and figurative people do not dance in the simile Jesus uses to describe what the people of his day were like (Matt. 11:17; Luke 7:32). In Job 41:22, dancing is used in an anthropomorphic way to describe how terror reacts to the Leviathan. And Jeremiah 31 contains two verses that tie dancing to a promise of future blessing where the people will “go forth in the dance of the merrymakers” (v.4) and young women will “rejoice in the dance” (v.13).

Finally, six verses reference dancing to paint a picture or make a point: Job argues that the wicked prosper in spite of their wickedness and points to their children dancing as evidence of their prosperity (Job 21:11); Solomon asks why others should look at his beloved as they would at “a dance before two armies” (Song of Sol. 6:13); and Isaiah prophesies that “wild goats will dance” in a ruined Babylon (Is. 13:21). Others contrast mourning and dancing, with Solomon stating there is a time for each of them (Ecc. 3:4), Jeremiah bemoaning that dancing has been turned into mourning (Lam. 5:15), and David rejoicing that mourning has been turned into dancing (Ps. 30:11).

Overall, most of the descriptions suggest that dancing is a positive, or at least neutral, thing. But there are still two verses remaining, and these are the ones which use “dance” as an imperative, i.e. a command. Psalm 149 begins, “Praise the LORD! Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise in the assembly of the godly!” (v. 1) It goes on, “Let them praise his name with dancing, making melody to him with tambourine and lyre!” (v. 3). Similarly and more blatantly imperative, Psalm 150:4a reads, “Praise him with tambourine and dance.” I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that if God commands something, we can be pretty certain that it’s not wrong.

Of course, these commands are directly tied to using dance as a means to praise God, so just as these verses do not condemn dancing neither do they say that all dancing is therefore good and right. Dancing is like money—it’s not inherently good or evil in and of itself; it all depends on how you use it. Certainly there are types of dancing that are engaged in out of a motive to stir up misdirected desires in someone else (or ourselves), to draw attention to oneself in pride or self-centeredness, or to manipulate others for our own gain, and followers of Christ are rightfully opposed to such uses of dancing. But there are other ways dancing can be used as well, ways which uplift, strengthen community, and bring a pure delight in the Lord and in His good gifts of music and movement.

When the Church blacklists all dancing, it does so without any Scriptural backing and falls into the trap of legalism. Instead, prudence can and should rule the day, whereby reason helps us see that it is abundantly possible to dance and not to sin. With this foundation laid, I’m excited to share some of the beauties I have found in dancing, how it brings delight to my life and to my relationship with the Lord.

But for that, you’ll have to stay tuned for Part 2!

Lessons from Literature: Relationships that Last (The Last Battle)

This past weekend, I had the joy of reuniting with a dear friend from childhood. We’ve known each other since we were about four years old and were pretty much inseparable until I moved away at age ten. Since then we’ve kept in contact off and on, though not as much as either of us would like, and when we see each other, we can step right back into our old familiarity. As someone who is given to fierce loyalty and hates to experience lost relationship, I treasure this friendship that has survived over two decades, multiple moves, and different stages of life. It may look different than it did when we were in elementary school, but it still exists and is a reminder of the strength of true friendship.

Someone once told me that we shouldn’t try to hold on to early relationships our entire lives. As we enter different stages of life, he said, we can’t expect friendships from one season to move into the next, and we shouldn’t be disappointed when they don’t. In some ways, I could see his point, and I have come to see the blessing of season-specific encounters. But in other ways, I find it difficult to acknowledge that friendships are not meant to last.

At the same event where I reunited with my first friend, I had a conversation with someone else about the loss of friends’ presence, whether through their moving to another state or passing away. “But we’ll all be together again in Heaven,” she said. What a beautiful thought that is. It got me thinking about Heaven and about a book I just recently finished reading, The Last Battle, by C. S. Lewis. Until the last few chapters, I had decided it wasn’t my favorite installment in the Chronicles of Narnia series, but I loved the last two chapters so much that they singlehandedly catapulted the book into my top three.  

**SPOILER ALERT**

In the last two chapters, Lewis paints a captivating picture of what he thinks Heaven and eternity will be like. When I finished the book, I didn’t spend much time analyzing why I felt so stirred by these chapters, but the experiences of this past weekend led me to identify one of the elements that connected so powerfully with me—the reunions. Peter, Edmund, and Lucy reunite with friends from every season of their Narnian adventures and with their family from Earth as well; other characters reunite with their own friends and family; and all meet those whom they had heard of but had never known. It’s beautiful.

For some reason, I often sense that we tend to minimize the relational aspect of Heaven. Of course, it’s all about being united with God and meeting Jesus face to face, but it seems that in the Church we often dismiss the human element that will be present in Heaven. It’s as if we think of Heaven solely in an individualistic way, as if it’s going to be just “me and God.” But it’s not. Everyone who is in Christ will be there. And what basis do we have for thinking that we will not know each other or that if we do we won’t be cognizant of any prior relationship with anyone?

The only thing I can think of that perhaps feeds this idea is the statement Jesus gave in response to a question from the Sadducees about whose wife a woman would be in the resurrection, since she had been married and widowed multiple times. He replied, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven” (Matthew 22:29b-30, ESV). So we know that those who are married here on earth will not be married in the afterlife, but sometimes it seems as if we have expanded this idea to the point that we think people won’t even remember that they were married. I’m not so sure that’s going to be the case.

We know that God is a relational God. Relationship is woven into the very fabric of His nature as a triune Being. We also know that He created us to be in relationship with Him and with each other. He created Eve for Adam so that Adam would not be alone. He sacrificed His own Son so that we could be restored into relationship with Him. So why wouldn’t relationships still be important once we all reach Heaven? True, they will not look just like they did when we were on earth. For starters, we won’t have our fallen natures to deal with! But I tend to think that we will remember our earthly experiences and that our joy in reuniting with those we know will bring glory to God, the One who created us and gave us each of those relationships to begin with.

Ultimately, apart from what Scripture tells us, anything we imagine Heaven to be is purely speculation at this point. We have no way of knowing how close Lewis’s conception of the land to which we are called is to reality. But the lesson of Lewis’s description is still powerful because it is based in the very relational character of God: friendships are gifts, and they are worth cultivating and celebrating. Our sovereign God has brought people into our lives, and, whether He has them there for only a brief season or the remainder of our earthly existence, He has put them there for a reason, and it behooves us not to regard them flippantly, even if we cannot ascertain what the reason is. And who knows, maybe Lewis isn’t that far off base after all.

I’ll close with a few of my favorite passages from the final chapter of The Last Battle, because, as usual, Lewis says it best.

Then Tirian saw King Peter and King Edmund and Queen Lucy rush forward to kneel down and greet the Mouse and they all cried out “Reepicheep!” And Tirian breathed fast with the sheer wonder of it, for now he knew that he was looking at one of the great heroes of Narnia [...] (p. 203).

Everyone you had ever heard of (if you knew the history of those countries) seemed to be there. […] And there was greeting and kissing and hand-shaking and old jokes revived, (you’ve no idea how good an old joke sounds when you take it out again after a rest of five or six hundred years) and the whole company moved forward to the center of the orchard […] (p. 205-206).

About half an hour later—or it might have been half a hundred years later, for time there is not like time here—Lucy stood with her dear friend, her oldest Narnian friend, the Faun Tumnus, looking down over the wall of that garden, and seeing all Narnia spread out below (p. 206).    

And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before (p. 210-211).

Lewis, C. S. “Farewell to Shadowlands.” In The Last Battle. New York: Scholastic, 1995.

The Author’s Plan

Instead of the usual type of post this week, I’m going to step out of my comfort zone a bit and share something that I hope will be an encouragement to you.

Somewhere in the neighborhood of ten years ago, I wrote the song in the video below, little knowing how it would come to minister to my own spirit time and time again. Oddly enough, the circumstances I found myself in as I wrote the lyrics, while unexpected, were not painful or even particularly difficult. I was confused, yes, but not shaken to the core. I was perplexed, but rather happily so, when it got right down to it. But the song came, so I wrote it down, having no idea that I would need it so much more years down the road.

In the intervening decade, as time passed, the song would move to the very back of my mind as other things and other songs came to the forefront, but then another “something strange” would happen, and God would remind me of this song and of His constant goodness and His faithful plan. I didn’t know what the next ten years would hold when I wrote this song, but God knew. And as truly painful, mind-reeling, shake-me-to-the-core events became parts of my story over the years, I’ve been reminded of God’s gracious provision—even of little things like this song that He gave me years before I would really need it.

And now, I am mindful of the unexpected, confusing, even difficult things that many of my readers are facing, and I know there are so many more challenges that I know nothing of. So today, I share this song with you, feeble voice and all, praying that in the middle of whatever you are going through God will use it to remind to you of His omniscience, His perfect plan, and His strong arms that are there to hold you and give you rest.

The pages of my life had been written by the Author's pen,

but empty pages lay ahead that looked unwritten and unread.

My mind began to picture what those pages could contain.

Then something happened, something strange, that I could not explain.

I didn't know. It hurt to think. My mind was playing tricks on me.

The more I thought, the worse it got. Why couldn't I see logically?

My mind was spinning, and the unknown filled my heart with dread.

But as I asked the Author "Why?" He smiled at me and said,

"My arms are strong to hold you. Come run into my rest.

Just crawl up in my lap, child, for I'll give you the best.

I know you're tired and worried and you don't understand,

but come and rest and trust in this: My plan's the perfect plan for you.

“And even though you can't see the end, just know that I've written it, my friend.

Your story's unfolding now, just sit back and you'll see how...

"My arms are strong to hold you. Come run into my rest.

Just crawl up in my lap, child, for I'll give you the best.

I know you're tired and worried and you don't understand,

but come and rest and trust in this: My plan's the perfect plan for you.”

Music, lyrics, video recording, and photo © Olivia Eanes

Same God, New Thing

Isaiah is a wonderful book. Of course, all of God’s Word is wonderful, but Isaiah is one of my favorites. There are so many diamonds hidden among its pages just waiting to be mined. One of these gems is found in chapter 43. I vividly remember the first time Isaiah 43:18-19 lodged in my consciousness. Having read Isaiah multiple times, I had read these verses before, but it wasn’t until one day in high school, when someone shared them as ones that the Lord impressed upon her heart during a season of change, that they really stuck with me.

Ever since then, when I come across this passage reading through Isaiah, I think of that person and her testimony. But a couple of weeks ago, as I read the chapter again, the context of the verses jumped out at me, and I noticed elements of the passage I had never noticed before. Before we dig in, here’s Isaiah 43:16-21 (ESV) in full:

Thus says the LORD,
    who makes a way in the sea,
    a path in the mighty waters,
  who brings forth chariot and horse,
    army and warrior;
they lie down, they cannot rise,
    they are extinguished, quenched like a wick:
 “Remember not the former things,
    nor consider the things of old.
Behold, I am doing a new thing;
    now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
    and rivers in the desert.
The wild beasts will honor me,
    the jackals and the ostriches,
for I give water in the wilderness,
    rivers in the desert,
to give drink to my chosen people,
     the people whom I formed for myself
that they might declare my praise.”

One of the things that has stood out most to me about this passage is the admonition to “remember not.” So many times throughout the Old Testament, God tells His people to remember—remember how He brought them out of Egypt, remember the commands He gave them, remember how He led them through the wilderness and into the land He had promised them, remember how they put Him to the test. But here, He tells His people to forget. This imperative stands unique in Scripture, so it’s worth taking a closer look.

The command to remember not is not written in a vacuum. It is sandwiched between a description of what God has done and a promise of what He will do. Notice how God is described in verse 16. His covenantal name, Yahweh (LORD) is used, and this covenantal God is one “who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters” (v.16). The following verse makes it clear that the passage is alluding to the Israelites’ crossing the Red Sea on dry ground and watching as the Egyptian army was destroyed as the waters crashed down on them (v. 17). Typically, when we come across verses like this, we see God telling His people to remember this event that occurred, but instead He says, “Remember not the former things […] I am doing a new thing” (vv. 18-19). This begs the question, what new thing? So we keep reading.

On the other side of verses 18 and 19a, God promises that he “will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert” (v. 20). So this is the new thing, but do you see the parallelism between the new thing and the former thing? There is both comparison and contrast in God’s actions and in the way they are described. In verse 16, God “makes a way in the sea.” In verse 19, He “will make a way in the wilderness.” In verse 16, He creates dry ground in the midst of a massive body of water. In verse 19, He does the opposite, creating running water in the midst of a mass of parched land. Verse 16 is the “former things,” and verse 19 is the “new thing,” but both involve the same elements—water and dry ground—and both involve His making a way.

So why would God tell His people to forget the “former things” that displayed His power so mightily? Perhaps it is so that they—and we—can learn to recognize that, while God is always at work, He does not always work in the same way. Sometimes the water is the issue, and He keeps us from drowning; other times the dryness is the issue, and He keeps us from dying of thirst. Sometimes He gives us firm ground to walk on, and other times He gives us flowing rivers to be satisfied by.  Sometimes the way is to help us pass through our trial, and other times the way is to sustain us in the midst of it.

When we see God work in a given situation, we tend to hold onto that memory, cherishing the reminder of how we saw Him move. But sometimes we hold onto the memory so tightly that it clouds our vision for what else He can do, how else He can work. Then, when another trial comes, we expect Him to come through just like He did the last time. We think that because He is the same God, He will always provide in the same way, and we become disappointed at best or doubtful at worst when He doesn’t make a way in the same manner in which He did before.

But just because the way doesn’t look like it did in former situations, doesn’t mean that the way isn’t there. God is the same God, and He always makes a way; it’s just that sometimes the way comes in a form we didn’t expect. Sometimes we’re looking for a path through our circumstance and don’t even realize that what we really need is a river in the middle of it. Sometimes we are so focused on the former things that we miss seeing the new thing He is doing in our lives.

Whatever we face, God is the same today as He has always been, which means that He is working, because He is an active God. He, who knows our needs perfectly and completely, is making a way, and He is doing it all so that we, the “people whom [He] formed for [Himself], might declare [His] praise” (v. 21). He is the same God, doing a new thing. Oh that we may have the eyes to perceive it and live lives that declare His praise.

To read the Arabic translation of this post, click here.  

لقراءة الترجمة العربية لهذا المنشور إضغط هنا

Rethinking the Right to Life

Abortion has been in the national limelight more than usual lately with New York’s passage of the Reproductive Health Act, which legalized “abortions after 24 weeks in cases where there is an ‘absence of foetal [sic] viability, or the abortion is necessary to protect the patient’s life or health.’”[1] This legislative action came right on the heels of the annual March for Life and Sanctity of Human Life Day in January and in the midst of other abortion-related legislation being proposed or adjudicated in other states such as Vermont, Virginia, and Iowa.

Heightening the emotional impact of the New York law, is a particularly strong irony that came in the governor’s celebratory act of lighting One World Trade Center in pink. While the new World Trade Center was lit in celebration of the potential for ending unborn lives, the memorial at the old World Trade Center site lists the unborn among those killed in 2001. The contrast is beyond chilling. Also chilling is a recent video showing a Virginia state representative blank-facedly admitting that her proposed bill would allow abortions to take place even up to the moment of birth. Thankfully, that bill was defeated.

The issue of abortion raises incredibly strong feelings on all sides. However, my intent with this post is not to go into the medical arguments against the presuppositions in these laws; others have shared their expertise to show that while delivery might be necessary to save a mother’s life, abortion is not. Neither is my intent to answer the myriad of arguments that self-proclaimed “pro-choice” individuals offer up to rationalize abortion, nor to delve into the scientific and technological advancements that increasingly support the claim that life begins at conception. Instead, my purpose is to share how I have come to rethink what is referred to as the “right to life” and to call us all to expand our view of what we are truly dealing with when we make the argument for the protection of the unborn.

Oftentimes in the Right to Life movement, the persuasive arguments center around the unborn themselves: babies (fetuses) are alive, and they have the right to live; extinguishing their lives before they are born robs them of the opportunity to live, to love, and to experience love outside the womb; taking their lives removes their choice for what they want to do with their lives. All of these statements are true, but are they really the fundamental reason why abortion is wrong? In other words, is killing others wrong because they deserve the chance to live and thrive?

Our Declaration of Independence asserts that all of humanity has a right to life. But where does this right come from? Is it a right we give to ourselves? Is it something our Founding Fathers just came up with? As the Declaration acknowledges, the right to life comes from our Creator, i.e. God. There is nothing we bring to the table in and of ourselves that makes us deserving of life. What makes us deserving is not who we are but Who our Creator is. He has made us and, in doing so, has imparted His image to us. That’s what makes us valuable, i.e. worthy of living. So because He is the One who gives us life and who imputes value to us, He is the only One who has the right to take our lives away. Let that sink in for a moment. God is the only One who has the legitimate authority to end a human life.[2]

So when it comes to abortion, while it can be emotionally persuasive to talk about the unborn, to make us feel empathy for their utterly defenseless condition, to horrify us at the callousness it takes to cause a defenseless person pain and then to extinguish their life, I have come to see that these are not the most important reasons we should stand against it.

What is? Just this: to end the life of an unborn human is fundamentally about usurping the power and authority of the almighty God of the universe. And that is a profoundly dangerous thing to do. Look at the consequences of those who tried to become like God--Satan, who incurred eternal damnation, and Adam and Eve, who ensured that they and the entirety of their descendants would be unable to have a relationship with God were it not for God’s intervention through Jesus, are the ones that immediately come to mind. Bottom-line, trying to be like God is not something to mess around with. God is the only all-powerful being and the only all-wise being, so to attempt to assert our own “power” and “wisdom” over His is incredibly foolish. The point, when it comes to abortion, is not so much that the unborn have a right to live as it is that we do not have the right to kill them.

Of course, this is a less palatable point to raise, because it heightens the onus placed on those consenting to and performing the abortion. If we’re not careful, making such a point can be interpreted as heaping guilt on an already struggling individual. And in a pro-life culture that has admittedly done a less-than-acceptable job of showing compassionate care and real tangible and emotional support to mothers and families contemplating abortion, it can be scary to argue for life from this perspective.

That is why we must learn how to simultaneously hold onto the appropriately big view of God, including the thoroughly inherent rights He has by nature of Who He is, and to practically demonstrate His love for women who are carrying the lives He has created. We don’t have a right to take a human life, because that right only belongs to God, but we also don’t have a right to devalue those whom He has created in His image, which includes not only the unborn but also the teens and adults connected to them.

So as we think about the issue of abortion in the coming days and years, let us consider the greatness of God and our own smallness in comparison. Let us acknowledge that we cannot rightfully end another human’s life, because that right only belongs to Him. He is the one who numbers our days and who allots our time in His perfect design (see Psalm 139:16). Let us not presume to know better than He. And in contemplating His greatness, may we also be overcome by His goodness such that we are filled with compassion for those who are hurting, for those who are conflicted, and for those who are convinced. At the end of our earthly lives, when we stand before God to give an account, may we be able to say, “I stood for preserving your gift of life, and I showed your love to all.”     

Image source

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[1] Pierpont, George, BBC News, “New York abortion law: Why are so many people talking about it?” accessed 29 January 2019. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46994583

[2]  In some cases, e.g. when humans kill other humans in cold blood, God has delegated this authority, but in the case of the unborn, He has not done so.

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.

Lessons from Literature: A Cautionary Tale for the Difficult Path (The Silver Chair)

Before the craziness of the new semester starts, I decided to enjoy a fast and easy read. There’s something about quickly getting a book in the “finished” column that helps to start the new year off in a positive frame of mind. My selection in 2019 has been C. S. Lewis’s The Silver Chair, the sixth book in his well-known Chronicles of Narnia series (or fourth, depending on which order you adhere to), and I’m almost half-way through (So no spoiler alerts! It’s my first time reading it—and, yes, I am well aware I’m woefully late to the game).

What I love about Lewis is his way of illuminating realities of the human condition and experience of which we only become conscious once we read his words. It’s as if his statement in The Four Loves about friendship could be applied to the relationship between him and us his readers when we exclaim, “What? You too? I thought I was the only one” (p. 65). Having not even made it to the midway point of the book, I’ve already marveled at his insight on several occasions. One particularly thought-provoking passage comes near the end of chapter six. . . .

Eustace and Jill are making their way through giant’s country with their new acquaintance Puddleglum in search of the lost prince of Narnia. It has been a long, difficult journey with little in the way of physical comforts, and after crossing an unexpected bridge, they meet two figures on horseback—a silent knight and a lady. The woman tells them of Harfang, a city of supposedly Gentle Giants where they can find food and comfortable shelter, before bidding them adieu. Lewis then describes the aftermath of their encounter with the woman:

They could think about nothing but beds and baths and hot meals and how lovely it would be to get indoors. They never talked about Aslan or even about the lost prince, now. And Jill gave up her habit of repeating the signs over to herself every night and morning. She said to herself, at first, that she was too tired, but she soon forgot all about it. And though you might have expected that the idea of having a good time at Harfang would have made them more cheerful, it really made them more sorry for themselves and more grumpy and snappy with each other and with Puddleglum. (pp. 92-93) 

In this short paragraph, Lewis masterfully does what allegorists do best. Disarming us with a compelling story, he hits us with a gut punch of truth about our own tendencies to misapply our focus and the negative consequences of doing so. Line by line, we see warnings of what we can succumb to when faced with trying, uncomfortable situations.

We so easily can become obsessed with the physical to the neglect of the spiritual, just as Jill and Eustace did. We can fixate on what we don’t have, as they did, instead of being thankful for what we do have. Getting wrapped up in our temporal condition, we can cease setting our minds on God, just as the children stopped talking about Aslan. We can forsake the cultivation of spiritual disciplines and the practice of meditating on Scripture, just as Jill forgot to meditate on the signs that Aslan had told her to remember. We can wallow in self-pity instead of counting our blessings, and we can become cross with others, even those who are closest to us, just as the children did.

The scenario described in this scene is reminiscent of another of Lewis’s works, The Screwtape Letters, in which the demons use temporal cares to distract the human from more meaningful, eternal concerns. And just like The Screwtape Letters, this passage from The Silver Chair is a literary gift, reminding us to be watchful for the enemy’s snares and to be diligent in consciously choosing to focus on the spiritual blessings we have in Christ (Eph. 1:3) instead of on how distressing and challenging our immediate circumstances may be or on how supposedly verdant the grass on the other side of the proverbial fence is.

In 2019, let’s learn from Lewis’s cautionary tale and catch ourselves when our attitudes start drifting toward griping and dissatisfaction. Let’s consistently cultivate our relationship with God, show care in our relationships with others, and live in the difficult, beautiful, sanctifying present with contentment and joy. Because no matter what discomforts we face, we have the hope that never fails, the eternal love and grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Happy New Year!

Lewis, C. S. The Four Loves. Orlando: Harcourt, 1991.

Lewis, C. S. The Screwtape Letters. New York: HarperCollins, 2001.

Lewis, C. S. “The Wild Waste Lands of the North.” In The Silver Chair. New York: Scholastic, 1995.