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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 September 2014
Recent attention given to the globalization of ethics, the prospects for a common morality, as well as related issues such as inculturation, pluralism, and multiculturalism all provide a challenging context for critical reflection on how theological ethics can be done in light of some of these challenges. A concrete course on “Cross-Cultural Models of Christian Ethics,” taught regularly at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, with participants from diverse theological and cultural backgrounds is presented with a view to stimulate further reflection on both the theological issues connected with doing cross-cultural ethics in the Christian theological tradition as well as aiding concrete curricular development in this area.
1 Scanlon, Thomas M., What We Owe to Each Other (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999);Google Scholar reviewed by Blackburn, Simon in The New York Times Book Review, 02 21, 1999, p. 24.Google Scholar
2 Ibid., 153.
3 See also the thoughtful essays contained in Prospects for a Common Morality, ed. Outka, Gene and Reeder, John P. Jr., (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993).Google Scholar Contributions come from Robert Merrihew Adams, Annette C. Baier, Alan Donagan, Margaret Farley, Alan Gewirth, David Little, Gene Outka, John P. Reeder, Jr., Richard Rorty, Jeffrey Stout, and Lee H. Yearley.
4 For a discussion of some aspects of this problematic, see Bretzke, James T., “Cultural Particularity and the Globalisation of Ethics in the Light of Inculturation,” Pacifica 9 (1996): 69–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
5 Lakoff, George and Johnson, Mark, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought (New York: Basic Books, 1998);Google Scholar reviewed by Rothstein, Edward, The New York Times Book Review, 02 21, 1999, 25.Google Scholar
6 E.g., the New Testament's evidence concerning debates over circumcision, consumption of food sacrificed to idols, and the neglect of the Greek-speaking widows in the sharing of the community's resources can all be interpreted at least to a certain degree in terms of cross-cultural conflict.
7 “Inculturation” is the term used most commonly in Roman Catholic circles, while “indigenization” and/or “contextualization” are more prevalent among Protestant theologians. Broadly speaking, these terms seem essentially synonymous. I will limit myself to using the single term “inculturation” to refer to this basic dynamic. For a good overview of the genesis and development of inculturation as a theological term see Standaert, Nicholas S.J., “L'histoire d'un néologisme: Le terme ‘Inculturation’ dans les documents romains,” Nouvelle Revue Théologique 110 (1988): 555–70.Google Scholar
8 One work on comparative ethics which covers both of these approaches to a certain extent is Little, David and Twiss, Sumner B., Comparative Religious Ethics (New York: Harper & Row, 1978).Google Scholar Their work contains five chapters on “Method” and three chapters on “Application,” the latter chapters including treatment of “Religion and Morality of the Navajo,” “Religion and Morality in the Gospel of Matthew,” and “Religion and Morality in Theravada Buddhism.”
9 Hans Kung's project for the globalization of ethics is perhaps one of the most widely known. See his Global Responsibility: In Search of a New World Ethic (London: SCM, 1991).Google Scholar
10 Many authors have raised questions regarding the globalization of ethics project. For one good example, see O'Connor, June, “Does a Global Village Warrant a Global Ethic? (An Analysis of A Global Ethic, the Declaration of the 1993 Parliament of the World's Religions),” Religion 24 (1994): 155–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
11 See Wilfred, Felix, “The Language of Human Rights—An Ethical Esperanto?” Vidyajyoti 56 (1992): 194–214;Google Scholar and Ilesanmi, Simeon O., “Human Rights Discourse in Modern Africa: A Comparative Religious Ethical Perspective,” Journal of Religious Ethics 23 (1995): 293–322.Google Scholar See also the essays contained in Outka and Reeder, Prospects for a Common Morality.
12 For a discussion of how many of these cultural concepts can function in a fuller understanding of Christian ethics, see Bretzke, Cultural Particularity and the Globalization of Ethics in the Light of Inculturation.
13 Rahner's own words are worth citing here: “In order to substantiate moral precepts, proofs, often very rigorous and subtle, are adduced; and yet we gain the impression that these proofs tacitly and without reflection really assume from the outset the very conclusion at which they aim, that the conclusions are, so to speak, smuggled [hineingechmuggelt] into the premises of the argument (in good faith, of course) and that the proofs are convincing only to someone who was convinced of what was to be proved even before any proof was forthcoming” (Rahner, Karl, “On Bad Arguments in Moral Theology” in his Theological Investigations, 18 [New York: Crossroad, 1984]: 74).Google Scholar
14 Schreiter, Robert J., The New Catholicity: Theology between the Global and the Local (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1997), 28.Google Scholar This book is a revised edition of lectures given at the University of Frankfurt in 1995. See also his first chapter, “Globalization and the Contexts of Theology” for some excellent reflections on the process of globalization involved in contemporary theologies.
15 Since those who find themselves navigating these troubled waters are often accused of drifting toward either one or the other of these hazards, let me underscore that my proposal for cross-cultural ethics does not call into question the traditional assertion of the existence of an objective and universal moral order (repeated in any number of recent documents, such as John Paul II's Veritatis splendor). Clearly, cross-cultural ethics does not suppose a position of ethical relativism in which moral truths, goodness, norms, etc., change from right to wrong or good to bad depending solely on cultural factors. Rather, cross-cultural ethics simply highlights epistemological limitations and conditions about the knowability of the objective universal moral order. In other words, cross-cultural ethics may call into question some of our assertions about conclusions based on this order. For example, a natural law ethics, such as that used traditionally in Roman Catholic moral theology, stresses what is supposedly common to all humans in each age and place. This classic, natural law approach, however, tends to overlook or minimize the foundational aspect of the essential particularity of any and every culture. The historical and cultural aspects of the natural law have been seriously underemphasized in the way it has been presented. Our study of history reveals that at times throughout the centuries natural law arguments have been invoked to support some socalled “universal” moral norms which we now realize were actually cultural mores tied to a particular time and place.
16 Amy Gutman in the preface to Charles Taylor's Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition, rev. ed., edited and introduced by Amy Gutman; with commentary by K. Anthony Appiah, Jürgen Habermas, Steven C. Rockefeller, Michael Walzer, and Susan Wolf (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992, 1994), xiii.
17 See Geertz, Clifford, “Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture” in his The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 3–30.Google Scholar Geertz himself borrows the terms “thick” and “thin” from Gilbert Ryle, drawing on the latter's discussion of a “conspiratorial wink.” From the perspective of a “thin” description the wink could be described as a rapid contracting of the eyelids, but obviously from the “thick” perspective the wink involves a deliberate act intended for someone in particular, to impart a particular message, done according to a culturally established code (6-7). Moving to ethnography, a thick description will have to look at “a multiplicity of complex conceptual structures, many of them superimposed upon or knotted into one another, which are at once strange, irregular, and inexplicit, and which [the investigator] must contrive somehow first to grasp and then to render”(10). I assign Geertz's essay to my students in the first week of class. It is important to keep in mind, however, that “thick” is not necessarily “better” than “thin”; rather, the terms highlight the processes of investigation and subsequent modes of evaluation which will tend to result if one chooses one approach over the other.
18 Thick and thin are concepts which, even if a bit “fuzzy,” have nevertheless established themselves in the academy. See for example Walzer's, MichaelThick and Thin: Moral Arguments at Home and Abroad (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994);Google Scholar and Connors, Russell B. Jr., “Thick and Thin: An Angle on Catholic Moral Teachings,” Louvain Studies 21 (1996): 336–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Connors uses Geertz's concept of “thick” description, and the contrasting notion of “thin” description to describe and evaluate the ways in which Catholic social and sexual teachings are often presented, factors that are considered morally relevant, and the sorts of prescriptions that are laid down based on a moral calculus derived from either a “thick” or “thin” description of the moral issue. The tradition of casuistry as it relates to the notion of “intrinsically evil acts” (immoral regardless of intention and circumstances) would be a good example of a “thin description” approach to moral calculus.
19 Schreiter, , The New Catholicity, 41.Google Scholar
20 By “cross-fertilization” I mean something akin to Jeffrey Stout's notion of moral Creole, , which he develops in his Ethics after Babel: The Languages of Morals and Their Discontents (Boston: Beacon, 1988).Google Scholar
21 For an example of this sort of cross-cultural investigation see Bretzke, James T., “The Common Good in a Cross-Cultural Perspective: Insights from the Confucian Moral Community” in Donhaue, James and Moser, Theresa, ed., Religion, Ethics & the Common Good, Annual Publication of the College Theology Society, 41, (Mystic CT: Twenty-Third, 1996): 83–105.Google Scholar
22 For a recent work that does begin to address this issue, I have my students read Brackley, Dean, “A Radical Ethos,” Horizons 24 (Spring 1997): 7–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Brackley discusses the “traditional” ethos common to many of the agrarian cultures of Latin America and the “liberal” of the industrialized North, then proposes a “radical” ethos which would address many of the problematic aspects of the first two. While the article is helpful for delineating what an ethos involves and how it functions in a given culture, Brackley's proposal for a “radical” ethos is a bit underdeveloped and rather too simplified.
23 For a decade I lived, studied, and taught in both Asia and Europe.
24 See Song, C. S., “The Seven Stages of Dialogical Conversion” in his Tell Us Our Names: Story Theology from an Asian Perspective (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1984), 121–41.Google Scholar
25 In this context I refer to Ignatius of Loyola's “Presupposition of Good Will by the Other” in which he suggests practical ways whereby one should strive to put the best possible interpretation on another's words. If a positive interpretation does not seem possible, one should seek first to ask questions for clarification. Only if this step is unsuccessful should one move finally to “correction” but always do it in the sense of familial charity. The text is found in Ignatius' Introductory Annotations for the Spiritual Exercises at §22.
26 In the past I have used instead Bujo's, BénézetAfrican Theology in Its Social Context, trans. O'Donahue, John (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1992)Google Scholar, but I changed to Magesa, Laurenti, African Religion: The Moral Traditions of Abundant Life (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1997)Google Scholar at the suggestion of one of my African students who felt the latter book presented the African traditions better. To complement Magesa's work I have the students read Achebe's, Chinua novel about African tribal life, Things Fall Apart (Garden City, NY: Anchor/Doubleday, 1959).Google Scholar Use of such literature complements the “thick” description approach to ethics. Furthermore, I argue that this novel can also be interpreted as an example of cross-cultural ethical encounter.
27 Moser, Antônio and Leer, Bernardino, Moral Theology Dead Ends and Ways Forward, trans. Burns, Paul (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1990).Google Scholar The authors write from Brazil. I chose this work primarily because it attempts a systematic treatment of Christian ethics by using a revised genre of a manual of moral theology, and thus is to a certain extent an exercise in cross-cultural ethics.
28 I have used a number of Song's, C. S. works, such as Theology from the Womb of Asia, (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1986).Google Scholar This semester I am using his latest book, The Believing Heart: An Invitation to Story Theology (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1999).Google Scholar Song is more a systematic than a moral theologian, but his works have a number of strong ethical themes and concerns. In years past I have also used Endo's, Shusaku novel, Silence, trans. Johnston, William (New York: Taplinger, 1969).Google Scholar This novel is set in seventeenth-century Japan and uses a story of Christian persecution to show some of the serious difficulties involved in trying to inculturate Christianity in Japan. Like Achebe's Things Fall Apart, the novel highlights cross-cultural dilemmas.
29 Betsworth, Roger, Social Ethics: An Examination of American Moral Traditions (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1990).Google Scholar
30 In addition to the books by these authors I incorporate added approaches and viewpoints by including articles by Dean Brackley, Leonardo Boff, Margaret Farley, Josef Fuchs, Clifford Geertz, and Jamie Phelps. The students assign an additional article or chapter to be read by the entire class in preparation for the individual student presentations (discussed below). These student-assigned readings bring in yet more views, and have helped me expand and update my syllabus of readings for subsequent renditions of the course.
31 The bamboo, for example, is a common symbol of moral rectitude in Asian art. This sort of scroll is often used not merely for “decoration” but for meditation and contemplation in the process of ongoing moral self-cultivation.
32 My methodology is based substantially on the work of the well-known ethicist James Gustafson, who in turn bases his approach on what is called by him and others the “Wesleyan Quadrilateral,” a model that is now very widely used by increasing numbers of Christian ethicists around the world. I also summarize for my students Gustafson's, helpful book, Varieties of Moral Discourse. Prophetic, Narrative, Ethical, and Policy (Grand Rapids, MI: Calvin College and Seminary, 1988)Google Scholar, in which he outlines the four types of moral discourse, and discusses the strengths and weaknesses of each. Gustafson's basic point is that no one mode of discourse is sufficient for ethics, and that all four have to be employed. This insight is particularly important for students to grasp as they move from personal commitment to ethics (which often is expressed in prophetic and narrative modes), then into theoretical analysis (the “ethical” mode) and finally on to concrete application (policy discourse). I have found that often the temptation of the students is to stay with just one or two of these modes and neglect the others.
33 For additional reflections on this point, see Vroom, Hendrik M. “Religious Hermeneutics, Culture and Narratives,” Studies in Interreligious Dialogue 4 (1994): 189–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar