Spirituality Page

Today is the first Sunday of 2009. Sincere and mediocre Christians alike go to church to find community with fellow believers as well as for them to feel good and safe as they face economic and sociopolitical realities throughout the year. Some would say that they seek God in the Christian church that makes me wonder how and where did Jesus Christ seek his God but that's another story.

I do not go to church often, and in fact, I decided early on this morning not to attend a worship service today. I have doubts in Christian theological tradition and not just in theology but also in practice - not to mention, of course, the evils that Christianity brought to the world. But I seriously think with care that the bible is a sacred text because communities of faith regarded it to be so.

I believe that sacred texts such as the bible or Koran can be a source for ethical reflection. Should there be no ethical appropriation religion remains to be an organized crime that plagued humanity and an opium to society as Karl Marx would say that critics of Christianity would tritely cite.

I consider myself a sympathizer of Christianity, although I was born and raised into a Christian family, culture and environment, because I can see the potential of the Christian religion to form, sustain, and cohere communities - communities that nurture, care, and protect the rights and dignity of individuals. Thus, for me, Christian religion revolves around the ethics of care, of love, of justice, of compassion, and of service to God and to fellow human beings.

Christians use the bible as they are confronted with tough ethical decisions to be made that makes me think and ponder about the use of religious texts in ethics.

The whole question of the use of the bible in Christian ethical reflection rests on the normativity of a collection of ancient texts. Though some of current moral dilemmas may have been encountered and struggled with during the ancient biblical times, there are still questions that arise out of the curiosity and suspicion of the effectivity of sacred literatures in ethics amidst modern scientific developments.

In dealing with the use of sacred texts in ethical reflection, there are two steps that we have to consider - namely interpretation and appropriation, and these are the basic things we need to assume in understanding the relationship and/or dialectic between text and existence.

There are limitations as to how the bible is interpreted and appropriated in ethics such as the diversity of worldviews, theologies, geographical scope, historical distance, and cultural differences. One cannot use the bible in an overarching way that it becomes the ultimate criterion for ethical reflection. Certainly, when we examine the narratives of the bible, there are different ethical problems and violations of human rights (as we understand human rights today) such as genocides, lies and murders that are claimed to be divinely commanded.

The question now is, how are we to use sacred texts as norm for ethical judgment? We may look for ethical prescriptions as we are told by our priests and ministers, or we may look for the ethical principles from the biblical materials, but before doing that we have to understand the scripture in its own context as well as we have to have a critical look at our own context.

It requires us to do serious hermeneutical analysis before appropriating a text to a certain moral dilemma. The first approach would be to look for commands prescribe for a moral problem; the second is to look for principles or ideals that would serve as bases for judgment; and lastly, to understand the context of a particular scriptural passage before applying it in a specific contemporary ethical issue. In interpreting the biblical text, we need a historical-critical exegesis which assumes that the bible is always culture-bound, diverse, in a certain context, with different genres, with varied use of texts and contexts, requiring a suspicion, and full of controversial and contentious issues.

We have to carefully consider biblical scholarship as well as theological speculation in treating the seriousness of the issues imposed by the text and the issues we the contemporary readers impose. Appropriating the wisdom of the ancient texts to our present issues requires a dialogue between our context and the context by which religious texts were written, it means that we come to the text to be transformed as well as we come into the text with all our concerns in life.

To look at the bible as a book of law for contemporary ethics is akin to believing this text to be directly dictated by God – a book of law that transcends the limits of time, geography and context. But to see it as expositor of divine ideals is also a betrayal of the narratives the bible presents to us – narratives that pose serious ethical problems. And when we consider the bible as source of ethical analogies that will form and transform our ethical character and behavior, we may get some benefits from it.

However, we have to be selective of the passages to use. That’s why we have to seriously engage in biblical hermeneutics assuming that the bible is a collection of diverse materials destined to become classic literature decided upon by the different communities of faith.

Catholic scholar Tom Deidun proposed a more creative use of sacred literature in reflecting on ethical problems. He said, “[A] relaxed and imaginative approach to the Bible – such as refrains from burdening it with our preoccupations, and especially our preoccupation with ‘authority’ – might be endlessly enriching.”

A creative and imaginative hermeneutics will help us understand the issues that the bible is addressing and how do we appropriate ancient wisdom to certain moral dilemmas we are facing today.

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