Gentle Shepherding

Pastoral Ethics and Leadership

Joseph Bush

• Publisher: Chalice Press
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9780827212640
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

Named "One of the Top Ten Books for Parish Clergy" for the year 2006 by the Academy of Parish Clergy! Gentle Shepherding offers a rare balance in an introduction to pastoral ethics, one that identifies deeply with the pastoral vocation and brings it into conversation with a developed body of ethical theory. The goal of the book is to equip seminarians and pastors with conceptual resources for clarifying moral responsibility in the practice of ministry. This responsibility includes three levels: the minister as a moral agent in offering care; the minister as a moral enabler in encouraging virtue in others; and the minister as a moral leader in facilitating congregational life and witness in society. Helping ministers and seminarians to think anew about their responsibilities and the moral quandaries in pastoral practice, Gentle Shepherding integrates theory with practice, providing case material for further reflection and discussion and at least one case study or exercise associated with each chapter.

1

Moral Self in Community

Introduction to the Moral Life

Ethics can be defined simply as critical reflection on the moral life, or critical reflection on morality. Morality, however, is more difficult to define. Our understandings of the moral life vary considerably. Some think about morality in terms of duties. Some think in terms of rights. Some think in terms of law. Some think in terms of grace. Some think in terms of consequences to come. Some think in terms of promises made. Some think in terms of human nature. Some think in terms of nature itself. Some think about personal virtues and vices. Some think about interpersonal relations. Some think about public policy and social justice. Some think about moral reasoning and volition. Some think about the narratives that shape us as moral agents. All of this is about morality. Ethics tries to make sense of it all.

Ethics as the study of morality draws from many resources and bridges many disciplines. It draws from philosophical schools and from theological traditions. It draws from our contemporary experience in culture and from our analyses of that experience. Each of these areas of reflection can provide a beginning point for the study of ethics. Each provides a point of entry, but each also entails limitations.

First, it has been the way of many philosophers to argue deductively from the general to the specific—to look for first principles by which further lessons can be deduced and to articulate general theory from which particular conclusions can be drawn. Second, it has been the way of many theologians, similarly, to begin with theological affirmations and draw ethical conclusions, or to begin with questions of method (e.g., questions about the authority of scripture, the nature of revelation, etc.) and assume that ethical conclusions will then dependably follow.

These two beginning points, however, represent two temptations for ethical deliberation and moral reflection. In the first case, ethics tends to devolve into epistemology. In the second case, ethics tends to devolve into hermeneutics. Epistemology and hermeneutics are important, but ethics is not contained by either of these.

I prefer to begin in the middle. Ethics becomes important as people make decisions that affect other people and as they participate in lifestyles that have implications for future generations or for the earth as a whole. The perennial questions in ethics are huge in scope, e.g., “What is the nature of the good?” In actuality, though, people often begin with more immediate questions, such as “What should I do?” Everyone at some time or other asks this latter question. Many people, conversely, try to avoid the former. It may be, that such questions concerning the nature of the good are logically prior to, “What should I do?” Even more fundamental might be questions of identity, such as, “Who am I?” or, “Who are we?” But the importance of ethics, I would suggest, appears with salience in people’s minds when we are wondering what to do, how to act, or how to respond in actual situations that have repercussions for ourselves or others. This is the middle—having to decide, to act, or to respond.

Pastoral ministers are fortunate in that we are able to encounter people in the middle. People come to us for advice or comfort in the middle of their quandaries or troubles. We frequently see people when they are in the middle of important decisions. We are not medical experts, but we visit people in hospitals as they are deciding about treatment for themselves or for their loved ones; these decisions can be matters of life or death. If death has occurred, we are with people in the midst of their grief and their struggle, with all the emotions, including guilt, that might be present.

We counsel people at pivotal points of commitment, based upon their previous experiences, and as they establish resolve for the future—moments of conversion, of baptism, of confirmation, and of renewal. Weddings also are significant beginnings that occur “in the middle” and that involve the moral resolve of persons together in family.

Even on a Sunday morning, if we preach a sermon to one hundred people, one hundred individual contexts for hearing the gospel are in the congregation that morning. Everyone will have his or her own struggles, own strengths, own relationships, own questions, own confusions, own regrets, and own hopes. As ministers, we are fortunate to be able to interact with people as they seek the grace to live their lives faithfully. For people and their pastors, ethics is not solely a matter of philosophical abstraction from life. Rather, ethics makes contact with life itself, but it does so utilizing the philosophical and theological resources that are accessible to us “in the middle.”

CASE FOR DISCUSSION: Caught in the Middle

Pastor Anne has been serving for only three weeks in her first position as a minister. Her church is in an inner city neighborhood where poverty is prevalent, though most of the members of the congregation are in the economic middle class. Nevertheless, some do struggle to be able to afford even the basics of food, clothing, and rent. Many within the community are also affected by such problems as alcoholism and drug abuse.

Anne is excited to be in pastoral ministry. She is especially excited to be serving in a neighborhood where she thinks she might be able to make a difference in people’s lives—where people’s situations seem to call out to her for ministry. This early in her ministry, she is still attempting to establish a routine and to get to know the different members of the congregation. She has been putting a lot of energy into preparation for congregational worship on Sunday mornings. Worship is one of the aspects of church life that she enjoys highly.

On this third Sunday of Anne’s pastorate, however, she is suddenly taken off guard. Just as Sunday worship is beginning, as she is seated behind the pulpit listening to the prelude and thinking about her sermon on the good Samaritan, a church usher approaches her and interrupts her meditation:

“Excuse me, Pastor, a woman here insists that she see you. She seems distraught. She says that her sister in Kansas has suffered an accident and that she needs to get to her right away. The bus leaves for Kansas in forty minutes, and she needs $70 for the fare. Do you want to see her? What should I say to her?”

Anne is not sure what to do. Should she delay the start of the service to see this person? If she chooses to see her, would she know how to respond to her request? If she chooses not to see her, is she hiding behind her robes and pulpit to avoid a neighbor in need? What ought she do?

QUESTIONS

1.How would you imagine yourself responding if you were in Anne’s position?

2.As you think about your response, what seems to carry weight in your own moral reasoning or moral inclinations? What seems to “decide this” for you? Is it a moral intuition or hunch? Is it a rational principle? Is it a sense of duty? Is it a goal or a moral objective? Is it an identification with a biblical story? Is it a sense of one’s role within the community of faith or within the neighborhood community? Is it a sense of loyalty or commitment? In other words, how do you find yourself thinking?

3.How satisfied are you with your response? Do you think you have taken into account the most morally important dimensions of this scenario? Are you relatively certain—or uncertain—that your response would be just? Do you experience a kind of moral conflict or dilemma in this situation—a kind of regret that a perfectly just solution would prove elusive? Even if you feel conflicted in this scenario, do you think you would be able, nonetheless, to justify your decision to others?

4.If you are answering these questions in the context of a class, share your responses to these questions with others. Is the reasoning of your neighbors similar or different than yours? Are you surprised by this similarity or difference? How would you describe the differences you are encountering with each other?

5.In analyzing this case, what aspects of the pastoral role become salient?

a.Does this seem to be an issue of pastoral care—needing to respond in some way, primarily to the woman who is making the request for cash?

b.Does this seem to be an issue of pastoral leadership—needing to respond in some way, primarily to the usher who is seeking guidance or direction to know how to proceed?

c.Does this seem to be an issue of worship leadership—needing to be responsive to the community gathered for prayer and praise?

Anne is experiencing moral uncertainty or moral confusion. She is uncertain about how to proceed in response to the information she is receiving from the usher. Her confusion is heightened by the timing of the incident—just prior to Sunday worship. She feels under pressure to respond, but the right response is not immediately clear to her.

Anne must, nevertheless, do something, even if only to ignore both the usher and the woman and to proceed with the worship service as planned. Anne is a “moral agent” in this situation. Drawing on her understanding of the situation and on her moral resources as a person, she must make a decision. Her decision will reflect a number of factors:

•her own personal moral character

•her understanding of herself and of her roles in relationship to others

•the institutional parameters that might be defining her authority or limiting her power

•her moral reasoning about obligation or duty

•her perception of and sensitivity to the persons making requests of her

Her decision occurs within this complex matrix of perception, emotion, commitment, and reasoning. The same complexity is present whether the decision is made spontaneously or after long and thoughtful deliberation.

In their influential book, Bible and Ethics in the Christian Life, Bruce Birch and Larry Rasmussen distinguish between “an ethics of being” and an “ethics of doing.”¹ This distinction provides one way of beginning to sort through the myriad moral factors at play in a situation such as Anne’s. By an “ethics of being,” Birch and Rasmussen are referring to matters of personal character—a person’s moral habits, her virtues and vices. How is she disposed to respond in a given situation because of who she is? What are the strengths of character that enable her to respond in one way or another? While virtues of character may be thought of as a person’s own particular moral dispositions, they develop within a person over time and through interaction with others in community.

An “ethics of doing” attends less to the person as a moral agent and more to action itself and to the options for responding that may be present in a given situation. While an ethics of being focuses more inwardly on a moral agent’s personal character, an ethics of doing focuses more outwardly on the kind of action that might be called for and the kinds of moral principles that might function as guides for decision-making. In real life, of course, both “being” and “doing” are constantly related.² The distinction is a conceptual one that allows a person to explore the moral life, first from one angle and then from another.

Most of this book will center on the “ethics of doing” for persons engaged in congregational leadership and ministry. In the body of the book, each chapter will highlight a particular principle for moral action as it might apply in pastoral practice, e.g., nonmaleficence (not causing harm), veracity (truth-telling), and confidentiality. At the same time, though, an “ethics of being” will never be far away. To act in a way consistent with any of the principles suggested in this book would require the strength of character to discern one’s duty in a particular situation and to respond with virtues such as compassion and courage. Nevertheless, the primary focus in the chapters to follow will be on the “ethics of doing” for pastors and congregational leaders.

This chapter, however, will continue with a discussion about an “ethics of being” and, in particular, how personal virtue might be seen to be related to one’s culture and community. Culture and community, it will be seen, give shape to personal virtue. This is both empowering and delimiting. On one hand, culture provides us with the moral resources for virtue; on the other, it also limits and constrains virtue.

Character in Context

Character refers to our personal capacity to will good and to do good (or to will and do evil, as the case may be). In classical moral theory, a strength of character is referred to as a virtue (from the Latin virtus), and a weakness of character is referred to as a vice. In the above case, Pastor Anne seems to be presented as a person of good moral character. She is a person of good will in that she wants to do the right thing. She seems to display the virtues of compassion for people in need, diligence in the exercise of ministry, sociability in wanting to get to know others, and reverence in the practice of worship.

At the same time, Anne is aware of other, perhaps less virtuous inclinations. She is guarding against the vice of cowardice (concerned that she might be hiding behind her robes and pulpit) and the vice of indecisiveness (concerned that even if she meets with the woman she still might not know what to do). On balance, though, Anne appears to have sufficient strength of character to help her respond to the moral quandary she is facing. These are her personal moral resources, her capacities for moral action.

However, the same personal quality that appears as a strength or virtue can, in an extreme form, appear instead as a weakness or vice. For instance, Anne’s virtue of compassion, in extreme form, might become codependency—her own need to be needed. Her diligence, in an extreme form, could appear to be a vice of overworking if she does not rest or take care of herself. Likewise, her sociability might appear to be a vice if she were uncomfortable being alone and so was always looking for a party. Even her reverence might be thought of as a vice if Anne appeared overly pious or self-righteous in her piety.

On the other hand, those qualities mentioned in the above paragraph as vices might, in more moderate form, provide the strength Anne needs to face her current challenge. Rather than being cowardly or indecisive, Anne might be demonstrating a necessary and prudent caution—especially if she is responding to a person who might represent a danger or threat to herself or to her congregation. Thomas Aquinas, following Aristotle, has suggested that for the most part virtue follows the mean rather than the extreme.³ It is a matter of developing the right balance of personal disposition that enables one to respond appropriately in a given situation.

This discussion about virtue following the mean points to the potential for virtue theory to take cultural variability into account. To find a mean or to strike a balance between virtue and vice would seem to depend on cues from one’s cultural context. Given the rich diversity of virtues encouraged by different cultures and the various kinds of strengths required of people in different circumstances, one would expect cultural influence to enter into our thinking about human virtue. One would think, furthermore, that moral character would be shaped by one’s social location and the ways in which one experiences oppression or privilege in society. In other words, one might inquire about the kinds of social conditions that have challenged a person to develop particular moral strengths, and one might inquire as w...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Halftitle Page
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• 1 Moral Self in Community: Introduction to the Moral Life
• 2 Working Gently: Nonmaleficence in Ministry
• 3 Permission for Mission: Informed Consent in Pastoral Ministry
• 4 Keeping Faith I: Veracity as Not Lying
• 5 Keeping Faith II: Veracity as Truth-telling
• 6 Confidentiality in Care
• 7 Vocation I: Creation and Community
• 8 Vocation II: Church and Ministry
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Index