Ethics is a lost art. . .

As a Lutheran I am both proud and blessed to count the noted ethicist Gilbert Meilaender  as one of us.  While ethics has never been my particular forte, I have deeply appreciated the wisdom and approach of Dr. Meilaender.  His contributions to First Things were always my first look upon receiving that journal.  His distinguished career at UVA, Oberlin, and Valpo is something to admire (back when Valpo was an institution of character).  I also know the name of Robert Benne.  I have read some of this work but am not nearly as familiar with him as I am Meilaender.  Unfortunately, I am unable to name another Lutheran ethicist or really any others worth reading.  That is a problem.

We are entering an era in which ethical choices and decisions of great magnitude are facing Christians of all stripes regularly.  The world around us has left us with vexing issues of value and worth for us as people.  We have technological abilities that have far exceeded our consideration of their goodness or benefit over the long haul.  The very nature of our identities as male and female have become questions rather than answers.  Life has become cheap and easy and reproductive technology has allowed us to fully separate children from marriage, sex from love, and procreation from sex.  The approaching specter of artificial intelligence is a threat as well as possible blessing but who knows how to thread the needle of what is right and good from what is wrong and destructive.  We have shown how we can take something like the internet and turn it into a forum of hate and division.  How do we sort through all of these issues?  I wish I could say we have time but we do not.  The days of thoughtful consideration have long ago given way to an urgent need to figure out what is good, right, true, and beautiful and what is not.  While this is certainly true whether or not you are a Christian, it is of paramount importance to Christians.  Where is our faith in the midst of all of these choices and challenges?

Every day our people are facing decisions that come with ethical considerations that surpass a simple answer.  What about end of life issues?  How much treatment must or should be done for diseases that will prove fatal?  What about stem cell research, testing, and medical experimentation?  We already learned that what once defined something as a vaccine has been redefined in the wake of COVID and the supposed COVID vaccines (which do not prevent anything).  More and more of these kinds of vaccines are being promoted and with less testing and certainty about side effects.  Can we trust our doctors?  How much diagnosing and prescribing can be done online?  What about the cost of all these new meds advertised on TV?  Hardly any of this has much to do with sex or gender and yet our people are begging for help sorting out what to believe and what to do.

We need more people the caliber of Gilbert Meilaender.  We need strong and confident voices to help our people sort out the way through all of these questions now and the new ones which are sure to come.  None of this is optional and most all of it goes to the heart and core of what it means to be human, what is the meaning and purpose of life itself, and what diminishes that life and ennobles that life.  Ethics in college was a class I had to take but hated.  Ethics in Seminary was there only in bits and pieces.  I regret now that we did not have the benefit of a good ethicist and the value of a solid Christian ethical foundation when I was in college and Seminary long ago.  Without Gilbert Meilaender I would be lost knowing whose voice is reliable in a world filled with voices insisting they know the way through.  For the Christian, ethics is not just a discipline but the very application of the Law and the Gospel to these profound and urgent questions of everyday life.