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Narrative ( 'liaractor of C hristian Social Ktlius
When we so limit ethics and politics, the scripture, particularly in its
narrative mode, cannot but appear as a “problem. ” For the narrative requires
a corresponding community who are capable of remembering and for whom
active reinterpreting remains the key to continuing a distinctive way of life.
But when one begins to look to an ethic sufficient for guiding the wider
society, the narrative aspects of scripture have to be ignored. Such an ethic,
though often claimed to be biblically “ inspired” or “ informed,” must be
freed from the narratives of scripture if it is to be the basis for judging or
making common cause with those who do not share those narratives in their
own history. So what is presented as the “biblical ethic” has been made over
into a universal ethic that does not depend on memory for its significance but
turns on “ reason” or “nature.”
As a result, we could easily forget that a biblical ethic requires the
existence of a community capable of remembering in the present, no less than
it did in the past. Where such a community does not exist the most sophisti
cated scholarly and hermeneutical skills cannot make scripture morally rele
vant. What John Yoder describes as the free church understanding of the
significance of community is necessary for any appreciation of the moral
significance of scripture. He points out that the
bridge between the words of Jesus or of the apostolic writings and the
present is not a strictly conceptual operation, which could be carried out
by a single scholar in an office, needing only an adequate dictionary and
an adequate description of the available action options. The promise of
the presence of Christ to actualize a definition of his will in a given
future circumstance was given not to professional exegetes but to the
community which would be gathered in his name (Mt. 18:19) with the
specific purpose of “binding and loosing” (Mt. 18:18). Classical Protes
tantism tended to deny the place of this conversational process, in favor
of its insistence on the perspicuity and objectivity of the words of
Scripture. Catholicism before that has provoked that extreme Protestant
answer by making of this hermeneutical mandate a blank check which
the holders of ecclesiastical office could use with relative independence.
The free church alternative to both recognizes the inadequacies of the
text of Scripture standing alone uninterpreted and appropriates the
promise of the guidance of the spirit throughout the ages, but locates the
fulfillment of that promise in the assembly of those who gather around
Scripture in the face of a given real moral challenge. Any description of
the substance of ethical decision-making criteria is incomplete if this
aspect of its communitarian and contemporary form is omitted.2
Failure to appreciate how the biblical narratives have and continue to
form a polity is part of the reason that the ethical significance of scripture