The Christian Moral Life. Timothy F. Sedgwick
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Название: The Christian Moral Life
Автор: Timothy F. Sedgwick
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Религия: прочее
isbn: 9781596272040
isbn:
This account of the Christian life has developed through a variety of conversations. These conversations have been centered in the church, specifically in seminary and parish. I am thankful for 19 years at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary and St. Luke’s Parish in Evanston, Illinois. Conversations from classroom (especially a class called “The Christian Life”) to parish hall have been the birthplace of this book. I am also thankful for the opportunity to continue these conversations and complete this writing at my new home at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Virginia.
This book, though, would not have been possible apart from the extended church and especially invitations to offer earlier attempts to give an account of the moral life. I am grateful to the Rev. Mike Adams and the Church of the Ascension for the opportunity to offer the inaugural Lyle Parratt Lectures in Lafayette, Louisiana; to Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia, and especially then Dean Charles Swezey, for the invitation to give five lectures on “The Practice of the Christian Life” for the Faith Continuing Education Week; to the Rev. John Andrews and the parish of St. Gabriel-the-Archangel, Englewood, Colorado, for a further opportunity to lecture on the Christian life; and to the Rev. Ray Coulter, the Rev. Anne Bartlett, and the Parish of St. John the Baptist, Portland, Oregon, for inviting me to give the endowed Greenfield Lectures.
A number of more focused occasions have also been important in the development of this introduction to the Christian life. These include teaching in the diocesan schools of Idaho and North Dakota; offering the Rossiter Lectures at Bexley Hall, the Episcopal seminary in Rochester, New York; giving lectures and leading discussion for a clergy conference for the Diocese of Central New York; giving two keynote addresses for the National Gathering of Lay Professionals in New Orleans; and addressing preaching the Christian life for the Annual Theology Conference sponsored by the ecumenical Metro-Toledo Churches United in Toledo, Ohio. I am thankful for these opportunities
Finally, there is no such thing as the solitary scholar. Work is always born by larger communities and colleagues, in this case academic and ecclesial. I am indebted and thankful to more people than I can name. Three individuals, however, stand out. The Rev. David Fisher has been a friend and scholarly conversation partner for more than 25 years. Our bi-monthly reading together in philosophy and theology has fueled my thoughts, especially in seeing that the question of identity is the question of difference. The Rev. Philip Turner has been my other extended conversation partner for 15 years. He has made me see ever more clearly that faith begins in practices which themselves are the point of entry into faith itself. Third, the Rev. Jim Griffiss read this book in its earliest draft and helped me see what needed development.
As all things are ultimately personal, I dedicate this account to the women in my life: Martha and our two daughters, Sarah and Ellen. This is the story of our life together.
__________
1. H. Richard Niebuhr, The Purpose of the Church and Its Ministry (New York: Harper & Row, 1954).
2. H. Richard Niebuhr, “Back to Benedict?” The Christian Century 42 (July 2, 1925): 860-61.
3. Timothy F. Sedgwick, Sacramental Ethics: Paschal Identity and the Christian Life (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986).
[CHAPTER 1]
Describing the Christian Life
What needs to be done? What do I want to do? Who should I call? Who do I want to call? Our daily lives are given in the responses we make to such questions. We are most often aware of our responses in times of change. Change raises the question, “What is most important to us?” “What do we truly love and desire?”
My students often accuse me of asking “cosmic questions.” The cosmic questions, however, are simply asking what is the pattern in the answers we give to the ordinary questions of our daily lives. How often I have heard such questions as these from my two daughters during their teenage years: What should I do today? What should I wear? Do I want to be by myself or go out with friends? Should I buy some new pants? Should I stay up and study some more or go to sleep now and study in the morning? What courses should I take? What am I going to do this summer? Our responses to such questions are much like sentences in the unfolding of a larger story. One sentence leads to the next. As we look back we discern a drama marked by different scenes, characters, and conflicts.1
Deep guidance for the moral life cannot be gained by narrowly focusing on the crises of our daily lives. In asking what I should do this day, I can be helped by writing down a list of possibilities and then identifying what I like and dislike about each item. In focusing only on the decisions, however, I cannot understand what values and loves are most important to my life. Deep guidance can come only from an understanding of the stories that express the drama I see myself living. These range from my family stories to the stories given in the different cultures in which I live. In turn, I seek some story that both makes sense of my life’s stories and expresses a larger meaning and purpose to which I can give myself. What makes understanding Christian faith and the moral life difficult are the different stories of Christian faith and life that have been offered.
Often I find our situation like living in a city where I encounter fragments of stories but do not know how these fit together. For example, in joining in Christian worship I sing songs that celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus. These evoke another world, holy and full of mystery, given in silence and prayer. But making sense of prayer and this ancient language of sacrifice and blessing is something that involves deciphering. I hear in a sermon that I am baptized into a new life, and I feel something new in this community of worship. But I cannot make sense of what that means when I hear the radical demands in the gospel to sell everything and to come follow in Jesus’ way. I sense something of the Christian story as a way of life, but I don’t know how it fits with the other worlds of meaning and value in which I live — providing for children, making a living, caring for myself, giving to the community, being with others, and being with myself. Understanding the Christian moral life is then first of all a matter of understanding the story of Christian faith as making sense of our life in the world.2 The challenge of developing such an account is what I will call the problem of piety.
The word “piety” is often understood as devoutness, as religiousness, often with a pejorative sense of being narrow and judgmental. This is suggested by the phrase, “she is certainly a pious person.” The word piety, however, has a far broader meaning. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, piety originally referred to persons who habitually acted with “reverence and obedience to God” and “faithfulness in the duties owed to parents and relatives [and] superiors.”3 The Anglican Jeremy Taylor described piety as a way of life more fully in his 1650 book on The Rule and Exercise of Holy Living. He structures the book itself in terms of sobriety, justice, and religion. Sobriety means “our deportment in our personal and private capacities, the fair treating of our bodies and spirits.” Justice is a matter of “our duty to all relations to our neighbours.” Religion refers to “the offices and direct religion and intercourse with СКАЧАТЬ