Baptists and Christian Ethics: Miles to Go

by Kristopher Norris
Ph.D. candidate, Univ. of Virginia, in Theology, Ethics, and Culture;
and 2011 recipient of T. B. Maston Foundation Scholarship

I recall my discomfort watching the stars and stripes waving on the screen behind the pulpit. The voice-over on the video cited verses of scripture referencing divine election and purpose. It was my first Sunday as pastor of a new church, and my time with this rural Baptist congregation initiated the next step of my academic journey. Witnessing the consumerism, patriotism, and complacency to which most all churches contribute, I decided to study with the hopes of then teaching fledgling ministers and congregants what it means to be the church and what it means to live as disciples. The heightened and divisive tones of nationalism, the idolatry of materialism, the persistence of racism, the deafening silence of apathy all plague Baptist congregations today - among others, of course - and threaten Baptist ecclesiology. The task T. B. Maston began over 50 years ago is not yet complete; we still have miles to go.

I am the only Baptist Ph.D. student in the Christian Ethics area at my school. With limited Baptist higher education opportunities, Baptist contributions to fields such as Christian Ethics remain limited. The pioneering Maston brought the field into view for Baptists, and yet the field is undeveloped, malleable - and exciting. Baptists, with our intense focus on both discipleship and scripture, have much to contribute to this discipline and are capable of shaping it in the years to come. And this is exciting news for the church! I believe Christian ethics must impact the church in the world simply because there is no demarcation of ecclesiology from ethics. The study of ethics is the study of society, politics, theology, scripture, and the church. In short, ethics is discipleship. Ethics is to be for, with, and in the church.

I used to tell students in my Christian Ethics course at Mercer that Christian Ethics at its most basic means to think Christian first: in other words, to allow the narrative of scripture and the event of Christ to shape the way you view the world, interact with others, and be the church. By emphasizing ethics as a distinctly ecclesial practice, as discipleship - whether performed in the lecture halls of the academy or the Bible study in a living room - professors and pastors alike train congregations to see ethics as something they do, in which they participate; it is not some esoteric academic discourse. I hope to contribute to this through my work in my Ph.D. program and then by serving both in the academy as an ethics professor in seminaries or divinity schools and directly in the church as a parish minister. I hope to continue the humble work I've begun as a pastor, educator, and author to make the discipline of ethics something congregations see as their own.

The church can change the world, but it requires seeing the church as more than a Sunday service, or a club, or a therapy session. It requires forming congregations into communities of disciples who break through the dividing walls of race, ethnicity, economic status, and nationalism. It requires making the church the locus of Christian action that seeks to permeate and forever alter the world. The task T. B. Maston began is not yet complete; we have miles to go on this pilgrimage. But together, as churches, as seminaries, as disciples - as the Church - we can make a difference in the world.