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So then, if the question of what we are precedes the question of what we
are to do, a different sort of approach to ethical questions on subjects like
abortion is dictated. Approaching abortion as a social issue, we are doomed
to failure if our concern is to locate the correct principles for dealing with the
issue. That is, if we attempt to formulate some sort of principle of the “sanc
tity of life” to which all people ought to agree, we will be stymied by the sim
ple rejection of our principle or the rejection of the principle’s application to
a fetus. If we go to the Bible to discover our principles it will quickly become
apparent that we have no means to convince society at large of the validity
of our principles. Biblical principles will only carry weight within a commu
nity for which the Bible is formative.
What we come to see is that abortion must be addressed in relation to who
we are as the people of Jesus Christ. Hauerwas maintains that historically
Christians have seen abortion as inconsistent with their character as follow
ers of Christ. In essence, the answer has often been, in relation to abortion,
“Christians don’t do that sort of thing.” And, from the point of view of a
Christian ethic of virtue, it is a good answer. However, when that self-under
standing of the Christian community is challenged from the outside it
becomes necessary for Christian ethics to exhibit what it is about being the
people of Jesus Christ that makes the practice of abortion inconsistent with
who we are.
Now we come to two issues which must be addressed. How is it that we
learn and become who we are as the Church of Jesus Christ? And, if ethical
issues are to be addressed in terms of who we are as the community of the
Church, how can the Church have anything ethical to say in the wider con
text of society? It is to these questions that I turn in the next two sections.
The Church as Story-Formed Community
Crucial to the development of the understanding of virtue ethics has been
a specific conception of how it is that human character is formed. The pri
mary concept here is that of narrative or story. As I have already indicated,
part of the confusion involved in an ethic which focuses primarily on making
difficult decisions is the failure to acknowledge that our decisions have a his
tory in the life of the individual and the individual’s community. Decisions
are made out of the context of a character that has been formed by the ongo
ing story of a life within a particular community. To describe an ethical sit
uation apart from the stories of individuals and communities is to produce a
distorted description.