Church and Ethical Orientation

Ecumenical Review, The, July, 1999 by Werner Schwartz

(3) Cf. Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, Notre Dame IN, Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 1981, 2d ed., 1984.

(4) That Christian ethics is a community ethic is argued by, among others, Paul Lehmann, Ethics in a Christian Context, Westport CT, Greenwood, 1963; and Bruce C. Birch and Larry Rasmussen, Bible and Ethics in the Christian Life, Minneapolis, Augsburg, 1976, 2d ed., 1989.

(5) On this cf. Dietrich Ritschl, Zur Logik der Theologie: Kurze Darstellung der Zusammenhange theologischer Grundgedanken, Munich, Kaiser, 1984, pp.282-314; and Werner Schwartz, Analytische Ethik und christliche Theologie: Zur metaethischen Klarung der Grundlagen christlicher Ethik, Gottingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984, esp. pp.204-11,257-67. On the concept of "story" in general see Ingrid Schoberth, Erinnerung als Praxis des Glaubens, Munich, Kaiser, 1992.

(6) Stanley Hauerwas, A Community of Character: Toward a Constructive Christian Social Ethics, Notre Dame IN, Univ. of Notre, Dame Press, 1981.

(7) The document from the third consultation of the ecumenical ecclesiology and ethics study process takes up these considerations when it considers the role of "moral formation" in a world and churches which are increasingly determined by secularization; cf. Costly Obedience, section I.C. in Ecclesiology and Ethics, pp.56ff.

(8) Dietrich Ritschl, Vom Leben in der Kirche: Der Tageslauf der evangelischen Gemeinde, Neukirchen, Verl. d. Buchhandl. d. Erziehungsvereins, 1957, pp.96,107. If the "story"-concept he has developed contributes to describing the biblical tradition in its character of shaping a worldview and thus morality, it can help to strengthen our understanding of the moral formation of Christians. That serves both faith and life.

Werner Schwartz, whose doctorate is in the field of Christian ethics and theology, is senior pastor of a church in Frankenthal, Germany, and dean of a region of some 25 churches. He works at local and regional levels in the areas of teaching, church management and broadcasting. This paper was written to honour the 70th birthday of the German theologian Dietrich Ritschl, and has appeared in German in Okumenische Rundschau. Editorial translation from the German original by Marlin VanElderen.3