Clergy/Leaders’ Mail-list No. 1-117

ETHICS (1)

From ‘Sunrise Sunset’ (HarperCollins/Harper San Francisco), Rowland Croucher’s book of daily meditations. Feel free to use or adapt it.

The faith that you have, have as your own conviction before God. Romans 14:22.

In 1932 Aldous Huxley wrote about a Brave New World in which human embryos underwent a ‘series of arrests of development’ until ‘standard men and women are created in uniform batches’. That was science fiction. Human cloning is now possible. Which raises very serious ethical issues.

Ethics is the study of human values and conduct. Ethics asks what sorts of things have ultimate value, and what is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ for humans living in various cultures. The 17th century philosopher Thomas Hobbes said that without ethics, society becomes a war of each against each.

Once the churches had clear guidelines for moral behaviour: now they are not so sure about many things. The answer is not to be too simplistic or too permissive. Fundamentalists, who inhabit ‘simplicity this side of complexity’ absolutize relatives; liberals, living in ‘complexity the other side of simplicity’ relativize absolutes.

Rather we should leave behind childish ways of thinking, wrestle with the tough questions, and move to simplicity the other side of complexity.

Lord, life is getting more complicated, and I am sometimes lost in the maze of conflicting opinions. I can’t know everything about everything, but I can know a fair bit about something – and help change this world for the better. Help me not to give up simply because the problems seem too big. Amen.