Ship of Fools: Should Christians Be Moral Police

Thread: Should Christians Be Moral Police Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

Here is the article suggesting that the answer is no: from a website that is new to me.
Even if this is true, it seems to be an irresistible impulse among Christians, from Hester with her scarlet letter to today inspecting transgender people in restrooms. It is certainly why the term 'evangelical' has been ruined in our lifetimes.

Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on :

The thing is, she's not really suggesting that Christians stop exerting moral pressure on society. She's suggesting that Christians accommodate to secular sexual mores, which is a much more limited project.

If Christians were to completely abandon moral policing, that would mean an end to "speaking truth to power"--and Relevant Magazine would be shuttered. It would mean withdrawing our opposition to murder, theft, human trafficking, political corruption, and all the other evils that (I hope, at least) our religion bids us oppose.

The argument can certainly be made that the Church's view of sexuality is only binding on its members. An argument can also be made that abandoning a clear proclamation of Christian sexual ethics is a betrayal of our calling. I think that's something we have to figure out for ourselves.

Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on :

Relevant Magazine seems something of an oxymoron, and that article doesn't seem to me to be saying anything specific about anything at all.

Moral Police is an unfortunate term to be using, and I think it has unpleasant undertones when those in power are propped up by religious busybodies.

To me the whole idea of "speaking truth to power" is undermined when you actually have most or all of the power and you're using it to push your own agenda which nobody else agrees with.

Toilets/restrooms seems like a particularly ridiculous place to try to enforce morals on other people, even if one disagrees with the idea that gender can be changed. I was just reading this morning about a bar that had rearranged cubicals into a unisex formation with a row of individually-enclosed urinals on one side and a row of WCs on the other. It makes sense to me that people ought to be able to make their own decisions about the shape of porcelain they need to use, and with a bit of imagination we don't even need to know how any individual person defines themselves before they are used.

Indeed, with the decline of publicly accessible toilets in many places, a real public service could be undertaken by churches in providing clean unisex facilities - without any impact on any "speaking truth" that a church might want to be doing on the topic. It speaks volumes that so many want to do the latter without doing the former.

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
The thing is, she's not really suggesting that Christians stop exerting moral pressure on society.

No, which I guess is why she argues against being being the "Morality Police", not against being morality scolds. Police usually exert pressure through the enforcement of legal strictures, something a lot of Christians seem to think is a good idea for their moral code as well.

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

The church these days is not known for Christ. It is known for bashing gay people, inspecting folks at toilets, oppressive and vicious abortion policing (exceptionally nasty example here), and a passionate fascination with what other people do in the bedroom. I can quite see why nobody wants to become a Christian any more.

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

"Relevant Magazine" is a title asking to fail.

I think before Christians start asking whether they should be moral guardians in any sense, we should sort out the morals within the church.

Currently, the church - the body seen as representing Christians whether they like it or not - has absolutely no place to be criticising the morality of the rest of society. This is not to say that the message of Christianity does not have anything to say to our society, just that there is no platform from which to say it, at the moment.

And the ongoing problem is that even individuals should not be acting as Moral Police, but listening and talking to people. In a different place, this might include moral judgement, but (as a whole), I don't think most individuals are that immoral. Or I don't think that individual Christians are more moral than individual non-Christians.

Posted by justlooking (# 12079) on :

I agree with with every word SC has posted above. The whole 'moral police' idea isn't even Christian.

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

At one point in the past Christians actually wielded this authority, and did good with it. The shining example here is slavery. A genuine good was achieved, that Christ and all His angels surely approved. Alas, we have entirely pissed away the value of that triumph in an endless series of pointless combats.
And now it's essentially over. If we are ever to do any great good again we'll have to earn the trust of the world back.

Posted by justlooking (# 12079) on :

Most of the slave owners and slave traders were Christians. Both Christian slave owners and abolitionists used the Bible to support their views.

Christ has authority, the gospel has authority, in some circumstances the Church in its various forms has authority. But I can't think of any time in the past where simply being defined as Christian has given anyone authority to wield, except inside their own heads.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

In the case of slavery, the fact that it was Christians talking to Christians probably helped in the long run, since they had a common source of authority. Wilberforce and Woolman were able to capitalize on that commonality in making their arguments. Much more difficult in a more pluralistic society-- and will rely more on example than words, particularly if our words are just spouting Bible verses.

Posted by simontoad (# 18096) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
At one point in the past Christians actually wielded this authority, and did good with it. The shining example here is slavery. A genuine good was achieved, that Christ and all His angels surely approved. Alas, we have entirely pissed away the value of that triumph in an endless series of pointless combats.
And now it's essentially over. If we are ever to do any great good again we'll have to earn the trust of the world back.

Christians do heaps of good, protesting injustice attending to the sick, the poor, the lonely. We do great good by attending to small goods. I have many examples.

It might feel different in America, but here the good we do is not drowned out by the evil we also do as a body of Christ. And man, that evil is HUGE. I was going to say that the evil of our sexual judgements pale in the face of our abuse of our children, but I think that's probably wrong. I don't think you can compare the hurt of an abused child with the hurt of a single mother who had her child removed from her.

Anyway, what I wanted to say was that the little stuff counts, so much little stuff that it allows us still to pierce the shadows and feel the light. I acknowledge that this is an individual's response, and I grieve with our victims.

I think I'm going to make this a Ps 131 matter.

I agree with the rest of the stuff you posted here Brenda.

Posted by jacobsen (# 14998) on :

Simontoad has it right,IMO. Most of the time all we can address is the little stuff. And as far as witness goes, if we fail in the small observable things, we have no credibility when it comes to the big stuff.

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
In the case of slavery, the fact that it was Christians talking to Christians probably helped in the long run, since they had a common source of authority. Wilberforce and Woolman were able to capitalize on that commonality in making their arguments. Much more difficult in a more pluralistic society -- and will rely more on example than words, particularly if our words are just spouting Bible verses.

That's not even true in a largely Christian society. Take the American example, for instance.

quote:
The dispute [over slavery] wasn’t resolved by exegesis or by theological argument. It was, rather, as Mark Noll wrote, “left to those consummate theologians, the Reverend Doctors Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman, to decide what in fact the Bible actually meant.”

Despite being a largely Christian nation, white Christians in the nineteenth century United States were unable to come to a unified position on the question of whether slavery was immoral or not despite extensive debate on exactly this point, much of it scripturally based.

At any rate when I hear the term "morality police" I think of these guys, which is definitely not something that should be replicated in Christian form.

What cliffdweller says about "authority" seems closer to what's being argued here. Most Western Christians don't want to be the morality police, using the legal power of the state to enforce their code of behavior on everyone else (though some do want this). They're more interested in being the commonly-accepted moral arbiters, the ones who frame the moral debate and determine what's in and what's out. Most of the recent outrage by conservative Christians isn't that the wider public is rejecting their moral code, it's that their moral authority is being rejected.

quote:
This makes for a new and fundamentally different argument. For decades, the religious right has been arguing that their purchase on the moral high ground ought to result in their political triumph. The political opposition to that used to be a form of “yes, but …” — yes, these political preachers are correct about morality and immorality, but other factors need to be considered, or other complications have to be accounted for, etc.

Opposition to the religious right’s agenda on Tuesday did not take the form of this “yes, but …” argument. It was simply, “No.”

It was not a disagreement about the political implications of the preachers’ righteous moral claims, but a denial of those claims, of their righteousness and of their morality. No, these political preachers are incorrect about morality and immorality. No, pretending that some “biblical definition of marriage” is a pretext for denying people their rights or delegitimizing their families is not good or decent or right. No, legal coercion compelling rape victims to bear the offspring of their attackers is not good or decent or right.

And that cuts to the core of the matter. That isn’t just a single defeat in a single election, but a fundamental rejection of the entire basis for why anyone, anywhere should ever listen to the religious right.

The religious right can no longer simply assert and assume that it has the moral high ground. If it wants to make that claim, it will have to argue for it, will have to explain why its absolute opposition to legal abortion and to civil rights for LGBT people is right or true or good.

I think this cuts to the core of the issue. The kinds of Christians most inclined to want to be the morality police or moral arbiters are the ones who most resent having to explain and justify their claims of superior morality. They much prefer to have it simply assumed.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
In the case of slavery, the fact that it was Christians talking to Christians probably helped in the long run, since they had a common source of authority. Wilberforce and Woolman were able to capitalize on that commonality in making their arguments. Much more difficult in a more pluralistic society -- and will rely more on example than words, particularly if our words are just spouting Bible verses.
That's not even true in a largely Christian society. Take the American example, for instance.

quote:
The dispute [over slavery] wasn’t resolved by exegesis or by theological argument. It was, rather, as Mark Noll wrote, “left to those consummate theologians, the Reverend Doctors Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman, to decide what in fact the Bible actually meant.”
Despite being a largely Christian nation, white Christians in the nineteenth century United States were unable to come to a unified position on the question of whether slavery was immoral or not despite extensive debate on exactly this point, much of it scripturally based.

I actually was thinking precisely of Noll's work when I wrote my post. Noll's book is excellent, I'm not sure the slactivist article really fully reflects what Noll is saying, which is a broader point than "do you use Scripture or don't you.". Here's another quote from Noll's book that I think better represents his position:

quote:
"Nuanced biblical attacks on American slavery faced rough going precisely because they were nuanced. This position could not simply be read out of any one biblical text; it could not be lifted directly out of the page. Rather, it needed patient reflection on the entirety of the Scriptures; it required expert knowledge of the historical circumstances of ancient Near Eastern and Roman slave systems… and it demanded that sophisticated interpretive practice replace a commonsensical literal approach to the sacred text."

Woolman and other American abolitionists definitely did use Scripture to argue their point-- they just did so differently than the pro-slavery camp.

Noll's is definitely arguing that the debate was difficult precisely because of the differences in the way the two sides were using Scripture-- that's his main point. But the underlying assumption was that they DID need to use Scripture in order to make their point.

My point was simply that Christians need to argue differently when we are debating other Christians than when we're debating non-Christians.

But yes, to your point-- the relevance of our own example is significant in Christian contexts as well as non-Christian. That was very much the case with Woolman, who's work involved both-- including some Elijah-ish "enacted prophesy" type actions (e.g. refusing to write a will that bequeathed a slave; paying a slave who served him when dining at a friend's house).

[ 30. May 2016, 14:38: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]

Posted by moonlitdoor (# 11707) on :

Apart from extreme libertarians, almost everyone wants to see some of their moral beliefs enshrined in law. The variation is more in what those moral beliefs are.

Consider the idea that discrimination should be prevented by law rather than relying on a good choice by the individual. Or the idea that redistribution of wealth should be done by taxation of the rich rather than voluntary donation by them.

Such ideas are not the preserve of the religious right.

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

It gives me hope, because when you look at history, you can indeed see that we have changed. You can go back and fish up those pro-slavery sermons, the ones arguing that black people are descendants of Ham and doomed by God to perpetual servitude. Or, a similar set of sermons arguing that because of their role in Christ's crucifixion Jews should always be shunned. Even Aquinas did some of those. Or, a third bookcase of sermons in that Hellish theology department, the ones pointing out that women should ever be second to men, pregnant and dependent and keeping their big mouths shut. (St. Paul, take a bow!)

We read those things now, and feel only horror. We have changed. We are clearly better. It may have taken horrific bloodshed (the Civil War in the case of slavery, and the Holocaust in the case of Jews) but we can't preach those sermons any more. They stink of blood and terror. We can't believe it; we can't fit back into those mindsets. May our great-grandchildren look at some of the sermons being preached today and shudder at what we are assuring each other that God wants. Because they will have become better.

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Woolman and other American abolitionists definitely did use Scripture to argue their point -- they just did so differently than the pro-slavery camp.

Noll's is definitely arguing that the debate was difficult precisely because of the differences in the way the two sides were using Scripture -- that's his main point. But the underlying assumption was that they DID need to use Scripture in order to make their point.

And this argument gets everything backwards. Pro- and anti-slavery Christians didn't hold their differing positions on slavery because of the way they read scripture, they read scripture differently because they had different positions on slavery! This would seem to be the main reason no consensus was reachable between the two factions, because they had each deliberately chosen a hermeneutic specifically designed to support their position.

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
My point was simply that Christians need to argue differently when we are debating other Christians than when we're debating non-Christians.

Why? The given example seems to indicate the futility of achieving consensus through a process of discussion and argumentation. Certainly more and more complicated theological discussions were unable to unify the positions of white American Christians regarding slavery.

quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
It gives me hope, because when you look at history, you can indeed see that we have changed. You can go back and fish up those pro-slavery sermons, the ones arguing that black people are descendants of Ham and doomed by God to perpetual servitude. Or, a similar set of sermons arguing that because of their role in Christ's crucifixion Jews should always be shunned. Even Aquinas did some of those. Or, a third bookcase of sermons in that Hellish theology department, the ones pointing out that women should ever be second to men, pregnant and dependent and keeping their big mouths shut. (St. Paul, take a bow!)

We read those things now, and feel only horror. We have changed. We are clearly better. It may have taken horrific bloodshed (the Civil War in the case of slavery, and the Holocaust in the case of Jews) but we can't preach those sermons any more. They stink of blood and terror. We can't believe it; we can't fit back into those mindsets.

This seems to be the more accurate picture of the changes involved. We shun pro-slavery and anti-semitic sermons and theology not because of the theological basis of the arguments but because "[t]hey stink of blood and terror". What's most interesting to me is that the sectarian descendants of pro-slavery Christians seem to adhere to the exact same hermeneutic as their intellectual forebears (wooden literalism applied to context-free proof texts). If asked they'll (mostly) concede slavery is contrary to scipture but can't really explain why it is so.

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

In other words, the minds did not change. God heard our prayers, and changed hearts from stone into flesh. Alleluia, keep it up, God! Do it again!

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

Can't see anything there I'd disagree with Croesos and Brenda. I think what Noll describes as "nuanced biblical arguments" provided/s the bridge that's necessary for any theological conservative to switch sides on an issue. But whether it's a motivating factor for or an after-the-fact chosen justification is harder to say.

Posted by simontoad (# 18096) on :

I reckon those Saudi Arabian (and Iranian for that matter) moral police took their cue from our Spanish Christian model in the wake of the reconquisda. I saw a show recently by Simon Sebag Montefiore. In that time, we were policing not just outward Christian belief and practice, but people's inner faith. Like, locking people up and torturing them for years until they confessed error or the dungeon got full.

And the moral police is not just in our dim dark and slightly woggy catholic past. Not on your nelly. We all remember the Puritans, right? No Christmas please, we're Christian.

An then all the way up to the late 1970's in Victoria the coppers, who were all sectarian Protestants (the Catholics had the Fire Brigade) were locking up poor bastards for buggery and other sexual deviance.

Point is, the Muzzies were not there first, and while they are pretty bad, I don't think they hold the title for 'worst morality police ever'.

What I was going to say is that perhaps we need a better grasp of our own collective history and our own personal sinfulness before we start getting bolshie about the problems of others.

Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :

simontoad--

Good post! And interesting about the religious divisions among police and firefighters. In some places in the US, Irish cops have been very common (and most likely Catholic)--particularly in Boston, NY, and Chicago. I don't know about Protestants, though I suspect Catholics were often kept out of things, across the board, in some areas.

Your info also may give me some perspective on the Australian "Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries" TV series on PBS.
[Smile]

Posted by M. (# 3291) on :

Brenda Clough, I take your point but remember that with regard to the abolition of slavery, it was a gradual thing in the UK and Empire, from 1770s to 1840s, so not a bloodbath but a lot of hard work and changing of minds.

It still stinks of blood and terror but perhaps there's some hope that we don't always need one cataclysmic bloodbath for God to change our minds.

I am not trying to minimise the awfulness of it but just saying that things work differently in different times and places.

M.

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