Christian Ethics

In this article originally published by Christianity and Crisis on March 18, 1946, Charles W. Gilkey warns Americans not to worry that helping people abroad will make them “suckers.”

“A Christian knows, or ought to know, that an adequate Christian political ethic is not established merely by conceiving the most ideal possible solution for a political problem. He must, in all humility, deal with the realities of human nature, as well as the ideal possibilities.”

Imperfect justice is the best we can hope for in this life because we are not promised more than this. Until the reign of righteousness is brought about, we must be satisfied with this all-too-imperfect justice, looking forward to the day when all justice will be brought to judgment.

It is childish to demand the real world conform to one’s fancy; it is childlike to learn about the real world by playing in an imaginary one. Both the idealist and the cynical realist are childish. The Christian realist, by contrast, should be childlike.

It is not our task, fellow churchmen, to offer programs for the ordering of human life today. It is our function to present to those concerned with the secular order those theological presuppositions which are the indispensable basis of national and international health.

Repentance, like faith, must be individual.

Quoting Romans 12:20, the message to feed and help the enemy is simple, but oftentimes the simplest command can be the hardest to fulfill. So the reminder is always timely in every age.

The sad and lamentable truth is that indeed this is who we are, for it was members of our own body-politic who did this, and we cannot heal if we do not confront the uncomfortable facts as they are. It was sedition.

To reject civility is to reject politics. The alternative to politics is not war, but barbarism.