An Ethics Autobiography
An Ethics Autobiography
Written for REL 2510, Dr. Watts
January 15, 2012
It seems as though I have been thinking about ethics since the moment I entered this world. The importance of right and wrong has never escaped me; my earliest memory is of my dad instructing me how to correctly and gently give flowers to my mom after the birth of my little brother. Instructions were the fuel my little brain needed to function. A constant dose of the right/wrong dichotomy was necessary to keep my small childhood self moving along in the world without confusion.
And I was quick to highlight the importance of ethics to others as well. Justice has always flowed through my veins, although bringing with it a danger all its own. For instance, the words, “It’s not fair!” echoed daily through the halls of my house growing up, but they were words my parents did not always appreciate. Sometimes demanding justice did not work, I learned. Sometimes it alienated me from people, like my brothers when I ratted them out for every wrongdoing, something they did not welcome. And sometimes it led me to choose condemnation over grace toward others, like when a friend in high school disowned me because I told him I did not believe he was going to heaven.
I am not proud of some of those moments. In fact, I am very bothered by them. I am bothered because my good intentions and rule following betrayed me, and that is something the five-year-old in me is still confused about. But my loyalty to right ethics has shaped who I am in some big ways, and I can appreciate the good parts of that.
I can say that my views on morality and ethics have been constructed mainly by my religious belief system, and therefore by my parents and my church as well, since family and church have such a huge bearing on one’s religious beliefs. I was raised to believe the Bible in its entirety, which I did even before I knew what the Bible in its entirety actually said. I was taught to be conservative on every level: to be pro-war (as long as it was “justified”), pro-death penalty, pro-life (ironic, given the previous two), anti-homosexual, anti-drugs/alcohol/cigarettes, and anti-big government, to name a few.
I am extremely grateful for the conservativism with which I was raised, because I believe it contains a lot of truth and saved me from much theological and moral error. However, I have slowly adjusted my views on ethics as I have grown, and today they paint a much broader, less certain, less cut-and-dry picture than they used to. And the reason they have changed is because the ways I understand God have changed. For me, God and ethics are absolutely interconnected.
Today I believe very strongly in God’s love and grace through Jesus as the only way to a right standing with God. Therefore, nothing I do or fail to do affects my standing with God, and this means that my ethics, although no less formed, do not earn me the approval of the Holy. Instead, they are a way of living that grows out of a relationship with God, informed by the Bible and the traditions of the church, as well as my experience of God and knowledge of God, in all of its forms.
I do subscribe to a code of ethics that says abortion, murder, homosexuality, drugs, (most) war, death penalty and torture, lying, cheating, and stealing are wrong, to name a few hot topics. But before I say those things, think them, or argue with someone about them, I preface them with the grace of Jesus. Sin is sin, but it no longer has the power to pull me away from Christ.
That is why my views on morality (which are still almost as conservative as when I was growing up) do not translate into my views toward other people. For example, homosexuality is morally wrong. But in my views of ethics, people who practice that lifestyle are still not defined by it or excluded because of it. I suppose I could say that my ethics are comprised of more concern for the lives and dignity of human beings than the rights and wrongs of morality. Of course, morality is still a huge part of ethics, and should be. But if we take our beliefs about right and wrong, enforce them, and alienate those who contradict them, we are not creating a more just society or helping to bring God’s Kingdom to earth; we are simply punishing and rewarding based on deeds, which discludes people and encourages us to define each other by our actions.
Where ethics and politics meet, there is confusion. For me, the stickiness comes in when we start to ask ourselves what is okay to legislate and what isn’t. I believe abortion is morally and ethically wrong, but do I believe we should make it illegal? I do not know. Legislating morality only works to an extent. The government cannot guard against every form of wrongdoing, and does not want to try. But it is in some ways responsible for the lives of its citizens, protecting the vulnerable, and preventing atrocities among its population (if not among other populations). There is a fine line between protecting citizens from harm done to them by another and punishing for moral wrong, the standards of which not everyone in this country agrees upon.
But however fuzzy my ideas of politics are in their relation to ethics, it is clear that they are informed by my ethics and views on morality. If there was a hierarchy of these convictions, the top would be religious beliefs (the reason behind right and wrong), followed by ethics and morality (right and wrong), and then politics and economics (the practical applications of right and wrong).
My personal code of ethics would be too long to detail, and in fact is not solidly formed enough to relate in its entirety. It is in a changing process, unfinished, and will likely be different at the end of this semester. But what is certain, in my mind, is that ethics are a way of conforming to the character of God, for the purpose as well as the result of reuniting humanity with the Divine.
Written for REL 2510, Dr. Watts
January 15, 2012
It seems as though I have been thinking about ethics since the moment I entered this world. The importance of right and wrong has never escaped me; my earliest memory is of my dad instructing me how to correctly and gently give flowers to my mom after the birth of my little brother. Instructions were the fuel my little brain needed to function. A constant dose of the right/wrong dichotomy was necessary to keep my small childhood self moving along in the world without confusion.
And I was quick to highlight the importance of ethics to others as well. Justice has always flowed through my veins, although bringing with it a danger all its own. For instance, the words, “It’s not fair!” echoed daily through the halls of my house growing up, but they were words my parents did not always appreciate. Sometimes demanding justice did not work, I learned. Sometimes it alienated me from people, like my brothers when I ratted them out for every wrongdoing, something they did not welcome. And sometimes it led me to choose condemnation over grace toward others, like when a friend in high school disowned me because I told him I did not believe he was going to heaven.
I am not proud of some of those moments. In fact, I am very bothered by them. I am bothered because my good intentions and rule following betrayed me, and that is something the five-year-old in me is still confused about. But my loyalty to right ethics has shaped who I am in some big ways, and I can appreciate the good parts of that.
I can say that my views on morality and ethics have been constructed mainly by my religious belief system, and therefore by my parents and my church as well, since family and church have such a huge bearing on one’s religious beliefs. I was raised to believe the Bible in its entirety, which I did even before I knew what the Bible in its entirety actually said. I was taught to be conservative on every level: to be pro-war (as long as it was “justified”), pro-death penalty, pro-life (ironic, given the previous two), anti-homosexual, anti-drugs/alcohol/cigarettes, and anti-big government, to name a few.
I am extremely grateful for the conservativism with which I was raised, because I believe it contains a lot of truth and saved me from much theological and moral error. However, I have slowly adjusted my views on ethics as I have grown, and today they paint a much broader, less certain, less cut-and-dry picture than they used to. And the reason they have changed is because the ways I understand God have changed. For me, God and ethics are absolutely interconnected.
Today I believe very strongly in God’s love and grace through Jesus as the only way to a right standing with God. Therefore, nothing I do or fail to do affects my standing with God, and this means that my ethics, although no less formed, do not earn me the approval of the Holy. Instead, they are a way of living that grows out of a relationship with God, informed by the Bible and the traditions of the church, as well as my experience of God and knowledge of God, in all of its forms.
I do subscribe to a code of ethics that says abortion, murder, homosexuality, drugs, (most) war, death penalty and torture, lying, cheating, and stealing are wrong, to name a few hot topics. But before I say those things, think them, or argue with someone about them, I preface them with the grace of Jesus. Sin is sin, but it no longer has the power to pull me away from Christ.
That is why my views on morality (which are still almost as conservative as when I was growing up) do not translate into my views toward other people. For example, homosexuality is morally wrong. But in my views of ethics, people who practice that lifestyle are still not defined by it or excluded because of it. I suppose I could say that my ethics are comprised of more concern for the lives and dignity of human beings than the rights and wrongs of morality. Of course, morality is still a huge part of ethics, and should be. But if we take our beliefs about right and wrong, enforce them, and alienate those who contradict them, we are not creating a more just society or helping to bring God’s Kingdom to earth; we are simply punishing and rewarding based on deeds, which discludes people and encourages us to define each other by our actions.
Where ethics and politics meet, there is confusion. For me, the stickiness comes in when we start to ask ourselves what is okay to legislate and what isn’t. I believe abortion is morally and ethically wrong, but do I believe we should make it illegal? I do not know. Legislating morality only works to an extent. The government cannot guard against every form of wrongdoing, and does not want to try. But it is in some ways responsible for the lives of its citizens, protecting the vulnerable, and preventing atrocities among its population (if not among other populations). There is a fine line between protecting citizens from harm done to them by another and punishing for moral wrong, the standards of which not everyone in this country agrees upon.
But however fuzzy my ideas of politics are in their relation to ethics, it is clear that they are informed by my ethics and views on morality. If there was a hierarchy of these convictions, the top would be religious beliefs (the reason behind right and wrong), followed by ethics and morality (right and wrong), and then politics and economics (the practical applications of right and wrong).
My personal code of ethics would be too long to detail, and in fact is not solidly formed enough to relate in its entirety. It is in a changing process, unfinished, and will likely be different at the end of this semester. But what is certain, in my mind, is that ethics are a way of conforming to the character of God, for the purpose as well as the result of reuniting humanity with the Divine.
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