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The Church as a Social EthicThere is an old cliché that states “Opinions are like feet. Everyone has them andthey all stink.” While this statement is made tongue-in-cheek, it is very easy to seediffering opinions on current social issues. For instance, go to an internet forum abouthomosexual marriages and you will find differing opinions on why people agree or disagree with homosexual marriage. The sad thing is that contemporary moral discussionhas been reduced to mere opinion. Advocates of one side of an issue will quickly dismissthe opponents argument saying that “that’s just his opinion.” In light of this moralrelativism, how does one who claims to be a follower of Christ navigate not only the pressing issues of society, but also the everyday events of his life?It is a common assumption that Christian morality is based on rules or principlesof right conduct. Decisions are made by applying the appropriate principles enabling oneto make the right decision. This approach tends to value
doing 
“the right thing”.However, there are some very serious problems with this view. What happens when principles conflict? For example, in the 2002 movie “John Q”, the protagonist takes anemergency room hostage when he cannot afford a life-saving heart transplant for his son.On the one hand, it is heroic because he is saving his son’s life which is considered agood thing. On the other hand, he is breaking the law and endangering others bythreatening violence. Based on these principles, would the protagonist be right or 
 
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wrong?What people need is not a set of principles, but a truthful narrative in order tomake sense of their lives. Principles or rules make no sense outside of a narrative. For instance, growing up in church I was told a story about a church that had a longstandingrule to always leave the back light on. One night at a business meeting, someonesuggested that they turn the light off in order to save electricity. A big argument erupted because the church had always left the light on, but most people weren’t sure why.Finally, one of the members who had been there since the beginning of the church stoodup. He told the congregation that the light had been left on because years ago, thecleaning lady came at nights. The argument was quickly solved and they turned the lightoff. The rule that the light needed to be left on made no sense without the story of thecleaning lady.A narrative gives people a role in the story and can tell them who they are inrelation to others and who they are in relation to the world. A narrative also integrates a person’s past, present, and future whereas morality based on principles is only concernedwith the present decision that needs to be made. Since principles are concerned with the present decision, it serves to sever one from ties to one’s past, but also makes each one of us an autonomous agent and gives us the illusion that morally, we are our own creation because we are the ones applying the principles and making the decisions. However,
 
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theologian Stanley Hauerwas states that “a narrative helps us understand that morally weare not our own creation, but rather our life is fundamentally a gift.”
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From the narrativeapproach, you did not create the narrative, it has been given to you. Also, your role in thenarrative was not something that you have chosen, but something you were born into. Idid not choose to be born a white, middle-class American in the late twentieth, however those things contribute to who I am and significantly impact my role in the narrative I ama part of. What if I had been born in Jerusalem in the early first century? My role in thenarrative would be drastically different than it is now. All of this emphasizes that I didnot create who I am, but rather who I am is a gift.In his book 
 After Virtue
, Alasdair MacIntyre states that “I can only answer thequestion ’What am I to do?’ if I can answer the prior question ’Of what story or stories doI find myself a part.’”
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As Christians, we find ourselves a part of God’s story of redemption through Israel and Jesus Christ as recorded in Scripture. In order to identifyour part in this story, we must identify some key components of the story. Thesecomponents are the Kingdom of God, the world, and the church.The Kingdom of God is a difficult thing to define because Jesus himself never defines it, but merely describes it. It may be easier to identify what the Kingdom of God
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Stanley Hauerwas,
The Hauerwas Reade
r, Duke University Press. Durham and London2001. p. 233
2
Alasdair MacIntyre,
 After Virtue
, Second Edition, Univeristy of Notre Dame. NotreDame, IN. 1984. p. 216.
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