ABSTRACT
This study aims at examining the way a Christian views his/her ethical values within the context of a postmodern society characterised by a plurality of moralities and religious convictions. This investigation begins with a look at the New Testament traditions with a view to inquiring whether there is such a thing as one `Christian ethical system' that emerges from these texts which can be used as a ready-made formula for how one is to live in every given situation. The answer will be in the negative. Instead, it will show that ethics always operate in a challenging way. With this perspective in mind attention will be devoted to examining the Christian attitude toward the state and a pluralistic society. How does the Christian remain true to his/her ethical values in a pluralistic society? How do Christians interact with those who see things totally differently from themselves?
INTRODUCTION
The various human sciences -- history, cultural anthropology, sociology, psychology, etc -- all agree that there are many moralities. Even within the study of religion -- whether it be among the different religions or even within one religious tradition itself -- different moralities are evident. The clash of moralities or the values that different moralities propose are not so obvious when one is living in a homogeneous society. In the Middle Ages, for example, where everyone in Europe professed the same religion and upheld the same values stemming from that religious tradition, very little conflict was evident within the political society with regard to ethical issues and values. This was even more evident given the authoritarian nature of a society ruled by monarchs who were able to impose their own ways of acting on their subjects.
This uniformity in outlook and action ended with the rise of democracy, in which many different perspectives vie with each other for support. Ultimately democracy rests with the rule of the majority. This has serious implications for the role that morality plays within a society. The aim of this article is to investigate how differing moralities operate in the context of one society. I shall approach it specifically from my own context, that of a Christian, and more particularly as a member of the Catholic tradition. The question is: How do I remain true to my own religious convictions and values while at the same time respecting the values and convictions of someone else from another religious tradition or persuasion? This study has important implications for the present context of South African society, in which, with the adoption of a new constitution (May 1996), recognition and respect are given to the different groups, cultures and religions that make up South African society. In effect it is a celebration of and respect for the pluralistic nature of our society.
UNITY AND PLURALITY IN NEW TESTAMENT ETHICS
A radical shift: from wandering preachers to settled communities
This brief examination of the ethics of the New Testament questions whether there is such a thing as one `Christian ethical system' that emerges from these texts which can be used as a ready-made formula for how one is to live in every given situation. The intention is to see whether the New Testament traditions can provide some insight into the issue of what role Christian ethics can play in a given socio-ethical situation.
Pluralism is the hallmark of modern society -- and this appears more and more evident in the realm of religion, where different religious traditions impact on the society in ever more open ways. Against this background of the pluralistic nature of society, it is important to revisit the roots and heart of the Christian ethical tradition, namely the New Testament, to see what, if any, direction it can offer. Pluralism is no stranger to the traditions that make up our New Testament corpus. In fact the wealth of different traditions is more striking than at first imagined.
Recent studies which adopt a sociological methodological approach to the New Testament texts reveal ever more clearly the very different historical and social backgrounds from which our texts emerged (for example Horsley 1989; Pilch & Malina 1993; Neyrey 1991; Theissen 1992). These social and cultural backgrounds contribute to decidedly different understandings of the message of Jesus. A study of this material does show how the ethos and way of life of Jesus and his first followers changed radically over the subsequent decades depending on the cultural situations and contexts in which the message found its home. The New Testament texts produced no monolithic vision -- instead they are a celebration of a multifaceted way of life demonstrating how the message of Jesus is lived out in very different environments, producing great ethical diversity.
The Jesus movement started as a wandering group that had embraced a radical lifestyle whose basic ethics was counter-cultural. One of the earliest sources behind our Gospels, the Sayings Gospel Q, bears witness to the ethos of this group (Crossan 1991:429). The very call to discipleship embraced a lifestyle of homelessness. As Theissen (1992:60) says: `At the beginning discipleship was a highly practical affair. The disciples left their homes and families, their possessions and their occupations. Peter said it for them all: ``Lo, we have left everything and followed you.''' Added to this ethos of homelessness is an ethos that breaks family bonds and ties (`whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me' (Matthew 10:37--38; Luke 14:26--27)). At the same time a very specific criticism of wealth and possessions is made (for example the parable of the rich fool (Luke 12:13--21). Above all the followers of Jesus are counselled to trust in God and not to worry about material needs: `Do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing' (Luke 12:22--23; Matthew 6:25).
However, this ethos did not become the only one to be embraced by early Christianity; nor did this ethos itself endure. The preaching of Jesus' message extended itself to new centres throughout Asia and Europe, to settled communities. An ethos that was suitable for a rural, wandering lifestyle then adapted itself to a new settled, urban environment. This started in Jerusalem itself, and was soon exported to Antioch and from there throughout Asia Minor and Europe. Christian communities sprang up in major cities such as Ephesus, Corinth, Alexandria and Rome, cities that were populated by hundreds of thousands of inhabitants.
Of immense significance in the establishment of Christian centres in these great cities was the shift that the Christian movement underwent and with it the ethical change that emerged. The ethos of primitive Christianity had now changed from the predominantly rural setting of Palestine to the urban environment of the Hellenistic cities of the Mediterranean. This transition is clearly evident in the writings of Paul as well as in the so-called Deutero-Pauline writings. Here Paul adopts an ethos that is at home within the wider reaches and structures of the society of the Roman-Greek world. He accepts these structures and conforms his understanding of Christianity and ethics to them. Different challenges also face the Christians now living in a totally new environment. The image of the body of Christ in Paul functions as the means of uniting Christians who come from different social backgrounds (Theissen 1992:179--181).
One sees how the early Christian ethos adapted the sayings of Jesus to new situations and challenges. In this encounter with the Greek world a Palestinian rural ethic was adapting itself to the urban ethos of the Hellenistic world. What occurs is something that has occurred throughout the course of the history of Christianity: the interchange between what are commonly identified as `biblical' or `New Testament' values and the values of the dominant culture. Paul demonstrates this coming together of these two sets of values in his letter to the Philippians 4:8: `Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.' In effect here Paul calls upon the Philippians to treasure and uphold the commonly accepted ancient virtues as they adhere to Jesus as Lord (Philippians 2:11). The ethical interchange of Christianity with the society of the time is clearly evident.
A distinctiveness to the Christian ethos
In the transition of the Christian message as it passed into very different settled communities a characteristic Christian ethos endured. This ethos was attributable to one value that permeates every major tradition of the New Testament, namely the commandment of love. This certainly sums up the heart of the ethics of Jesus (Warnach 1951; Spicq 1958/59).
The Synoptic traditions bear witness to the well-known form of the double commandment to love God and our neighbour (Mark 12:28--34; Matthew 22:36--40; Luke 10:25--28). Paul never quotes this double commandment fully; instead he focuses on the latter part, the commandment of love for our neighbour. `Now concerning love of brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anyone write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, and indeed you do love all the brothers and sisters throughout Macedonia' (1 Thessalonians 4:9--10). For Paul this commandment indeed sums up the entire law that the disciple of Jesus is called upon to follow: `For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, `You shall love your neighbour as yourself''' (Galatians 5:14). In the Letter to the Romans Paul goes further to spell out the role that the law of love plays in the life of the Christian: `Owe no one anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, `You shall not commit adultery; you shall not murder; you shall not steal; you shall not covet; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, `Love your neighbour as yourself.' Love does no wrong to a neighbour; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law' (Romans 13:8--10).
But the highlight of Paul's consideration on the place of love in the life of the Christian is found in the beautiful hymn on love in 1 Corinthians 13: `Love never ends ... And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.' Paul describes love in very practical terms of everyday life in which one demonstrates a love of one's neighbour.
The Johannine tradition also gives great weight to the commandment to love: `I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another' (John 13:34--35). Interestingly, the Johannine tradition never speaks of any other ethical commands -- the command to love is often identified in the plural by the phrase `the commandments' showing that it is the ethos of love which embraces the entire life of the follower of Jesus. Augustine (in his sermons on the First Letter of John) characterised the First Letter of John as a writing that spoke chiefly about love: `locutus est multa, et prope omnia de caritate.' (see Leinenweber 1989). `For this is the message you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another' (1 John 3:11).
This brief examination shows that in all the major traditions of the New Testament (Synoptic, Pauline and Johannine) the command to love occupies the central position. They all agree that this is the foundation for the ethical stance of the Christian. What must be emphasised is that these are independent traditions that handed on the message of Jesus in isolation from one another: that they unanimously agree on the place and role that the command to love should hold in the life of the Christian is testimony that this is certainly the one teaching that emanates so strongly from the person of Jesus. Of everything that can be said about the message preached by the historical Jesus, the command to love must rank as the clearest and strongest message that has emanated from him, for it has been remembered by all the major traditions in the New Testament.
At the same time this centrality of the command to love brings together the different ethical codes and ways of acting expressed in the respective traditions. While there is unity in acknowledging the primacy of love, it functions within the various cultures (to which the traditions of the New Testament bear witness) in different and very distinctive ways. Each tradition has a different focus and emphasis stemming from the unique situation of the culture in which it operates. This gives rise to the distinctive character of the ethics of the New Testament -- its unity amid multiplicity.
The above investigation demonstrates that the New Testament does not bear witness to such a thing as a `Christian ethics' in the sense of a `firmly established ``system''' (Blank 1981:70). Instead, what we see is how the ethical teaching of Jesus is adapted by the various New Testament traditions according to very distinctive and separate socio-cultural situations. This does not mean that it is simply a one-way process: not at all. The role that ethics plays in a given socio-cultural situation always operates in a challenging way. Paul's 1 Corinthians is a classic example of this. Although adopting some of the thought categories and patterns of that society, Paul nevertheless is sharply critical of many of its customs and practices. This mode of operation has continued in the context of the history of Christianity. The different ethical stances of the New Testament act as a challenge to new situations and ages. Each new socio-cultural situation does not merely take over the New Testament values; a twofold direction is in operation. First, these values are adapted to the new cultural situations in which they operate. Second, they act as a challenge to the new situation where certain perspectives and values are seen to be in conflict with the overriding Christian ethos, especially concerning the demonstration of the basic commandment of `love for one another'. As Blank (1981:70) expresses it: `The task is always to confront Jesus' ethical sayings and those of the New Testament traditions/authors with changing socio-cultural circumstances and to put them in practice. However, this did not mean merely externally adapting the Christian way to a given culture. Christianity always became ethically effective by breaking open particular cultural traditions and critically altering them.'
A RADICAL SHIFT FROM MODERNISM TO POSTMODERNISM
The world today has seen a gradual, but nevertheless radical, shift in consciousness and understanding, something akin to the shift in paradigm that occurred in the early Christian communities when they transposed their message from a Judaic worldview to one that was at home in the wider Hellenistic world. The terms `modernity' and `postmodernity' are used to describe the shift between these two worldviews that has occurred in recent times. While there is no unanimity on the definitions of the terms `modernity' and `postmodernity', I would agree with Tracy (1994:103) in seeing the basic distinction as summed up in the distinction between `the subject' and `the other'. In modernity the focus of attention rested on the subject. The very core of modern thinking is expressed in the dictum of RenĊ Descartes: Cogito ergo sum. He pleads for a method which grounds itself in the individual's own self-awareness (Miller 1989:3--4). This is judged to be the same for every thinking, rational being. `The drive to clarity, the turn to the subject, the concern with method, the belief in sameness -- modern thinkers embraced and embrace all these ideals in modernity's working out of its unique history' (Tracy 1994:104). Symptomatic of the modern discourse is its grounding in the individual, in the subject who believes that all people are the same, and hence one can work toward the establishment of a universal agreement and understanding of all issues.
On the other hand, postmodernity makes the radical shift from the subject to the other. As Tracy (1994:108) expresses it:
It is that turn (to the other), above all, that defines the intellectual as well as the ethical meaning of postmodernity. The other and the different come forward now as central intellectual categories across all the major disciplines, including theology. The others and the different -- both those from other cultures and those others not accounted for by the grand narrative of the dominant culture -- return with full force to unmask the social evolutionary narrative of modernity as ultimately an alibi-story, not a plausible reading of our human history together.
Characteristic of postmodernity, then, is the realisation that the other is different (which is the exact opposite of the dogma extended by modernity that the other is the same). Not only is the other now accepted as different, but that otherness is celebrated.
The debate has now shifted irrevocably. Modernity lost sight of the fact that it was attempting to produce a universal `sameness' among people. In doing so modernists were unconsciously demonstrating an arrogance that promoted one culture (a Eurocentric Christian culture) as the only `true' culture. In this way they show a side of themselves of which they are not aware, namely their racial Eurocentric prejudices. Now the debate centres on the centrality of the other as different (and not as the same).
The importance given to `the other' is a basic Christian insight. The example from the Gospels that emerges of Jesus is one where the importance of the other, the one who is marginalised, the poor, the sick, the outcasts of society, is stressed and they are given special concern and attention. The parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25--37) is a prime example of taking others into account. By reaching out for one who had been attacked, the Good Samaritan shows the value of the other, and in the eyes of the audience, the one who reaches out is one who is despised by the society of the day, one who was considered a nonentity, a Samaritan. In this unique parable Jesus shows the worth of the other, and the concern that one should demonstrate for the other: truly characteristic features of the postmodern frame of reference.
THE CHRISTIAN ATTITUDE IN THE PLURALISTIC SOCIETY
The way in which the New Testament communities interacted with their world becomes a paradigm for the way in which successive generations of Christians interacted with their culture. This is very evident today. The New Testament provides a pointer for the Christian today on how to interact with society. It has been demonstrated above that there is no such thing as a firmly established ethical Christian system that emerges from the New Testament. Each New Testament community struggled in its own right to discover its Christian vision in interaction with its own society. There is no hard and fast paradigm that one can immediately apply to any society to ensure that it conforms to the Christian vision. The question that arises is: How does the Christian continue to remain true to the message of Jesus in a postmodern world where many different perspectives exist alongside the Christian vision? In particular the dilemma is twofold: how to remain true to your convictions and beliefs, and at the same time uphold the worth and value of the other who may have views that are totally opposed to your own beliefs.
The function of the state
South Africa has just emerged from the modern world where previously the ethos of society was dominantly Christian. In an authoritarian state it was judged that the values of the rulers were to be the values of the state. That is why such things as the sanctity of the sabbath were so highly stressed: no business dealings on Sundays, no sport on Sundays; and gambling and pornography were other important vices that the state sought to outlaw. While these things began to lose ground towards the end of apartheid rule, in its heyday they were the pillars of the Christian state. Even Christian National Education was the order of the day, whereby the state saw to it that the education of its people was to be conducted according to strong Christian values. Now in a democratic South Africa with a new constitution the situation has changed. As in any democracy, Christian values have to compete with values held by other religious groups as well as by people of no specific persuasion.
A clear distinction between the function and role of the state and the church needs to be made if conflict and false expectations are to be avoided. The responsibility of government is with the here-and-now, not with the hereafter. This means that the task of the state is not with the salvation of the soul, but with providing the means for protecting life here and now. In a sense this conforms to the vision that the Gospels project of Jesus in the dispute about paying taxes to Caesar, where Jesus acknowledged the role of allegiance to the human authority as distinct from an allegiance to God (Matthew 22:15--22; Mark 12:13--17; Luke 20:19--26).
The state's task is to take care of the natural man, while it is the job of individuals and religious associations to take care of the spiritual man. These two aims must be kept separate. When they are intermingled, problems arise. Take a case in point: pornography. If the society as a whole shares it as a moral value to outlaw pornography, then it is right that the society outlaws it. But it is not the function of government to adopt a preconceived attitude to pornography. The way in which religious forces function within the society will ultimately produce the objections to pornography and will lead the state to reject it, because the majority of the individuals within the state want it to be banned. So, the state does not operate with some preconceived idea of the moral rightness or wrongness of pornography -- it is the will of the majority that leads the state to outlaw it.
The same is true of the debate on abortion that rages so forcefully in some countries, such as the United States. Here we see the forces at work: there are the religious sensitivities of those groups that hold for the value of the woman to have the right to make a choice over her body (the pro-choice movement), and there are the religious sensitivities of the group that regards the right to life of an unborn child as being the dominant right (the pro-life movement). The values of each group cause them to defend their positions and make them heard. Ultimately the state will adopt the voice of the majority. The task of the state is not to make the virtues for its own citizens -- the task of the citizens is to lobby for the virtues that they hold to be enshrined in law. That is the way in which a democracy works.
This shows the difference between a democracy and an authoritarian state. In an authoritarian state the authorities decide what the virtues of the society are to be. In the Middle Ages through the divine right of kings, the kings were the ones who enforced their particular understanding of value, virtue and morality on the people. To a large extent, where the majority of the citizens were Christian, it was the Christian ethos that dominated.
As long as one is in agreement with the majority view, things are fine. But what happens when one does not agree with the majority? If, for example, one is staunchly pro-choice in the abortion debate, and the majority in the society are pro-life, the only alternative one has is to lobby strenuously for one's own position, and to challenge others with one's own perspective, while respecting the right of the majority to have their views legislated into law.
The state can only provide for the virtues of its own people in so far as it gives expression to the virtues of its own people. If the people do not possess a particular virtue, the state cannot impose it on them (Scalia 1996:87). In fact the government in itself is neutral on moral issues. It is the citizens who are to bring out their morality, which is then reflected through the government. So, for example, if the majority of the citizens are Christian (or any other morality), they will bring out their Christian morality (or whatever morality they subscribe to) in such a way that it is then reflected in the laws they lobby for in the government. The role of a Christian in a democratic institution is to convert the democratic society, which in turn will have an effect on the government.
Toward an ethic of compromise
Democratic politics are characterised by pluralism in values, beliefs and attitudes. William Connolly (1969:3--4) gives one of the best descriptions of pluralism in the context of society. He says that pluralism:
... portrays the system as a balance of power among overlapping economic, religious, ethic, and geographic groupings. Each `group' has some voice in shaping socially binding decisions; and all major groups share a broad system of beliefs and values which encourage conflict to proceed within established channels and allows initial disagreements to dissolve into compromise solutions ...
In short, pluralism has been justified as a system which develops individual capacities, protects individual rights and freedoms, identifies important social problems, and promotes a politics of incremental change while maintaining a long-term stability on consent.
Choices have to be made and sometimes they can be described as `tragic choices' (Cohen 1978). When a society is faced with more needs than it can respond to, choices have to be made. Obviously democracy brings with it competing voices as to how these choices are to be made. This is where pluralism is most evident. For politicians it means that they must remain true to their own moral judgments while at the same honouring the views and commitments of others. There will be times when they will have to accept the view of the majority, which may be different from their own. This ultimately means that compromise rules the day.
In any form of compromise it is important to recognise that we are dealing with two sets of values, where one value is chosen at the expense of the other. However, in choosing one set of values the attempt is made to admit some importance to the other set of values, without discrediting them totally.
There are times, however, when the choices that are made or the compromises that one has to make stem from compromises with what one judges to be evil. For example, in voting for a political official one may agree with much of what he or she stands for, but there may be one serious issue with which one disagrees. He or she may, for example, be someone who supports abortion, which may be against one's own religious ethic. However, given the overall stance of this politician (for example, his or her commitment to social justice and concern for the betterment of the quality of life) one may make the decision to vote for him or her, despite his or her attitude towards one position, with which one disagrees. It is not an easy decision to make, but it is a compromise that is necessary, because one is not living in a perfect world. As McCormick (1978:194--195) says:
Theological compromise with evil has always been an uneasy, fragile thing: for Christians know deep in their hearts and down their pulses that their Lord and Master did not hesitate to demand of them that they swim upstream, that their world view, profoundly stamped by the proleptic presence of the eschatological kingdom, be countercultural, that they suffer at times in dumb, uncomprehending silence and trust. It is a risky venture, therefore, for a Christian to deliberate about the evil he may rightfully do as he attempts to shape his life in love of Christ and the neighbor God's Christ redeemed. But that is precisely what that discussion is all about. How do we come to terms with unavoidable evil?
When people disagree on issues in society, two things are to be observed: tolerance and respect for the views of the other, and faithful witness to one's own perspective. This does not mean throwing up one's hands in defeat: one works actively for one's own position, but in the framework of a respect for the views of the other.
The need for tolerance
While it is true that the will of the majority and its values will dominate in a democracy, there is also a need to be aware that there are minorities who see and judge things differently and that one should be wary of political coercion. At the basis of this retreat from coercion is a very practical self-interest. I may be part of the political dominant majority today, but tomorrow I may find myself as part of the minority -- that is the nature of democracy. The former governor of New York State, Mario Cuomo (1984:13) expressed this well when addressing fellow Catholics at Notre Dame University, he said:
The Catholic public official lives the political truth ... that to assure our freedom we must allow others the same freedom, even if it occasionally produces conduct by them which we would hold to be sinful. I project my right to be a Catholic by preserving your right to believe as Jew, a Protestant or non-believer, or as anything else you choose. We know that the price of seeking to enforce our beliefs on others is that they might some day force theirs on us.
Witness to one's own perspective
Faithful witness to one's own perspective requires the Christian to embrace the value of love as the dominant value as the New Testament demands. It too must act as a challenge to the values dominant within a society. One does not simply take over the values that the majority endorse within the society, one tests them according to the ethos of love that the New Testament endorses.
Pluralism inevitably brings into focus the issue of compromise as values conflict in the context of a democracy. Reason and reflection are of assistance to help the individual to see whether the compromise envisaged does still conform to moral standards. The art of compromise is illustrated in the attention given to the two poles of the continuum: respect for the convictions of others, and remaining true to one's own basic beliefs (Griffin 1990:352).
CONCLUSION
A survey of the New Testament demonstrated that there was no one `Christian ethical system'. Instead, the way in which the different New Testament communities interacted with the world and culture of their own time offers a paradigm for all successive communities of Christians. They remained open to their immediate environment, while continuing to be faithful to the central ethos of love for the other. In a postmodern world and society the plurality of moralities provides a challenge for the Christian to remain true to her/his own perspectives while at the same time being open (as were the early Christians) to new insights and moral appreciations.
It has been argued that harmony in society is preserved by valuing one's own convictions and living according to them, while at the same time respecting the convictions and values of another. Tolerance within a society is the hallmark of the interaction among people who have different moral values. It has been further shown that, as in the New Testament world, the function of ethics was to provide a challenging role within a given socio-cultural situation. The basic ethical command of loving one's neighbour becomes the keynote value that challenges every new social and cultural situation. Just as it functioned in the world of Paul as a challenge to the values of his own society, so it functions today. The challenge must always remain that of confronting the ethics of Jesus, particularly the love commandment, with new and changing socio-cultural circumstances.
There are many who would throw up their hands in horror at the proposal that I am supporting, namely that religion should exert itself more forcefully into the political sphere. I recognise that there are dangers inherent in this proposal, stemming particularly from certain approaches of religious groups, but the problem is not that of religion itself in its involvement in the political realm, but the attitudes and approaches of certain religious groups. Professor Glendon (1990:10) noted this recently when she wrote: Academics and others who express dismay at the prospect of a great role for religious voices in political life seem to believe that because some religious adherents have committed atrocities in the name of their beliefs, there must be something wrong with religion itself. The dismal record reflects, however, (to paraphrase Chesterton), not that religion has been tried and found wanting, but that it has been tried and found hard. If the fears of proponents of [a 'neutral' politics] are terror, intolerance, and oppression, the historical evidence reveals that the excesses of the Crusades, the Inquisition, or the Iranian revolution pale before those of the thoroughly secular regimes of Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot. On the whole, the world's religions and their followers (however fallen, misguided, or inept) have probably done more to moderate the worst human impulses than to call them forth.
It is true that atrocities have been committed in the name of religion, but these must be counterbalanced with the good that religion has also contributed to the political discussion. Think of the role that the churches played in South Africa in the dismantling of apartheid. It was through the moral values that impinged on the lives of many that drove them to work for the dismantling of a political system that denied the basic human rights of freedom of speech, association and the very dignity of the human person to the vast majority of the population of South Africa. What was most noticeable of all was the plurality of religious (and non-religious) visions that united in the effort to overcome the evils of apartheid. The best way of dealing with oppressive ideologies, whether they be political or religious, is to take them head on, to challenge them and to expose the ideologies for what they truly are. The exposure of their evil nature is all the more obvious, the more diverse the groups are that stand up to challenge them.
WORKS CONSULTED
- Blank, J 1981.
- Unity and plurality in New Testament ethics. In J Pohier, & D Mieth, (eds), Christian ethics: uniformity, universality, pluralism. New York: Seabury.
- Burnham, F B 1989.
- Postmodern theology: Christian faith in a pluralist World. San Francisco: Harper.
- Cohen, R E 1978.
- Misjudging the ethical boundaries. In Guido Calabresi & Philip Bobbitt, Tragic Choices. New York: Norton.
- Connolly, W 1969.
- The challenge to pluralist theory. In W Connolly (ed), The bias of pluralism. New York: Atherton.
- Crossan, J D 1991.
- The historical Jesus: the life of a Mediterranean Jewish peasant. San Francisco: Harper.
- Curran, C E (ed) 1990.
- Moral theology: challenges for the future: essays in honor of Richard A McCormick, SJ. New York: Paulist.
- Cuomo, M 1984.
- Religious belief and public morality: a Catholic governor's perspective, Ethics and Public Policy 1 (1984):13.
- Glendon, M A 1990.
- Notes on the culture struggle: Dr [Martin Luther] King in the law schools. First Things, 1990:10.
- Griffin, L 1990.
- The church, morality, and public policy. In C E Curran (ed), Moral theology: challenges for the future: essays in honor of Richard A McCormick, SJ. Paulist: New York:334--354.
- Horsley, R A 1989.
- Sociology and the Jesus Movement. New York: Crossroad.
- Leinenweber, J 1989.
- St Augustine's homilies on the First Letter of John. San Francisco: Harper & Row.
- McCormick, R & Ramsey, P 1978.
- Doing evil to achieve good. Chicago: Loyola.
- Neyrey, J 1991.
- The social world of Luke-Acts: models for interpretation. Peabody: Hendrickson.
- Perry, M L 1991.
- Love and power: the role of religion and morality in American politics. New York: Oxford University Press.
- Pilch, J J & Malina, B J 1993.
- Biblical social values and their meaning: a handbook. Peabody: Hendrikson.
- Pohier, J & Mieth, D (eds) 1981.
- Christian ethics: uniformity, universality, pluralism. New York: Seabury.
- Scalia, A 1996.
- Of democracy, morality and the majority. Origins: CNS documentary service 26 (6):81--90.
- Spicq, C 1958/59.
- Agape dans le Nouveau Testament: analyse des textes. 3 vols. Paris: Gabalda.
- Theissen, G 1992.
- Social reality and the early Christians: theology, ethics and the world of the New Testament. Minneapolis: Fortress.
- Tracy, D 1994.
- Theology and the many faces of postmodernity. Theology Today 51 (1):104--114.
- Warnach, V 1951.
- Agape. Die Liebe als Grundmotiv der neutestamentlichen Theologie. Dusseldorf: Patmos.
Prof P J Hartin
Religious Studies Department
Gonzaga University
PO Box 57
Spohane WA 99258--0001
United States of America.
