As a previous reader of Steve Chalke and Alan Mann’s The Lost Message of Jesus, I leapt at the opportunity to review their Different Eyes: The Art of Living Beautifully for Zondervan. Chalke and Mann see the pursuit of a virtuous Christian life as categorically different from a moral existence based exclusively in rule following and different from one based in a utilitarian pursuit of the greatest good. In so doing, they come along side a slew of philosophers and theologians attempting to meld virtue ethics and Christian theology. They are among those attempting to utilize resources found in the virtue tradition of Aristotle and Aquinas within the bounds of Christian ethical reflection.
They argue that this particular ethical paradigm is rooted in an accurate envisioning of holy God. The Dame Iris Murdoch once wrote, “True vision occasions right conduct.” This is a bit of what Chalke and Mann mean. However, whereas Murdoch espoused that the true vision would be beholding something of a Platonic form of the good, Chalke and Mann have their eyes set on the God of Israel who is not only transcendent, but immanent as well. Further, they envision of God in whose image humanity is created. Envisioning God helps humanity understand for what purpose they were made. In short, humans are made to reflect the image of God in this earth through word and deed. Said another way, God’s followers are to join in and become co-narrators of the ongoing story of redemption and renewal God is currently telling.
Chalke and Mann provide a pithy introduction to the virtue ethics. Theirs is a good first step for the virtue ethics dilettante. As for further reading, the authors provide a worthy “Suggested Reading” list at the end of their work for those hoping to delve deeper into some of the many areas addressed in this book. As for further doing, this reader hopes to envisage God better and therefore act in better accord with the purpose for which I was created.
Lost and now found!
ReplyDeleteThe first wholly new interpretation for 2000 years of the Gospel and moral teachings of Christ is on the web. Redefining all primary elements including Faith, the Word, Law, Baptism, the Trinity and especially the Resurrection, this new interpretation questions the validity and origins of all Christian tradition; it overturns all natural law ethics and theory. At stake is the credibility of several thousand years of religious history and moral teaching.
This new teaching has nothing whatsoever to do with any existing religious conception known to history. It is unique in every respect. What science and religion have agreed was not possible, has now become all too inevitable.
Using a synthesis of scriptural material from the Old and New Testaments, the Apocrypha , The Dead Sea Scrolls, The Nag Hammadi Library, and some of the worlds great poetry, it describes and teaches a single moral LAW, a single moral principle, and offers the promise of its own proof; one in which the reality of God responds directly to an act of perfect faith with a individual intervention into the natural world; 'raising up the man' correcting human nature by a change in natural law, altering biology, consciousness and human ethical perception beyond all natural evolutionary boundaries. Intended to be understood metaphorically, where 'death' is ignorance and 'Life' is knowledge, this experience, personal encounter of transcendent power and moral purpose is the 'Resurrection', and justification for faith. Here is where true morality and perfect virtue, called righteousness begins.
Here then is the first ever viable religious conception capable of leading reason, by faith, to observable consequences which can be tested and judged. This new teaching delivers the first ever religious claim of insight into the human condition, that meets the Enlightenment criteria of verifiable and 'extraordinary' evidence based truth embodied in action. For the first time in history, however unexpected, the world must now measure for itself, the reality of a new claim to revealed truth, a moral tenet not of human intellectual origin, offering access by faith, to absolute proof, an objective basis for moral principle and a fully rationally justifiable belief!
This is 'religion' without any of the conventional trappings of tradition. An individual, virtue-ethical conception, independent of all cultural perception in a single moral command, and the single Law finds it's expression of obedience within a new covenant of marriage. It requires no institutional framework or hierarchy, no churches or priest craft, no scholastic theological rational, dogma or doctrine and ‘worship’ requires only conviction, faith and the necessary measure of self discipline to accomplish a new, single, categorical moral imperative and the integrity and fidelity to the new reality.
If confirmed, this will represent a paradigm change in the moral and intellectual potential of human nature itself; untangling the greatest questions of human existence: consciousness, meaning, suffering, free will and evil. And at the same time addressing the most profound problems of our age.
Trials of this new teaching are open to all and under way in many countries. For those individuals who will question their own prejudices, who can imagine outside the historical cultural box, with the moral courage to learn something new, and test this for themselves, to stand against the stream of fashionable thought and spin, an intellectual and moral revolution is already under way, where the 'impossible' becomes inevitable, with the most potent Non Violent Direct Action any human being can take to advance peace, justice, change and progress.
Published [at the moment] only on the web, a typeset manuscript of this new teaching is available as a free [1.4meg] PDF download from a variety of sites including:
[www].energon.org.uk