The Reformation
Southwestern Journal of Theology
Volume 60, No. 1 – Fall 2017
Managing Editor: W. Madison Grace II
Christian Ethics and the Church: Ecclesial Foundations for Moral Thought and Practice. By Philip W. Turner III. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2015. 320 pages. Softcover, $27.00.
In Christian Ethics and the Church: Ecclesial Foundations for Moral Thought and Practice, Philip Turner, a retired Episcopal priest, deacon, and academic, endeavors to articulate a vision and direction for the role of the church within the context of present society. Turner presents the argument that the ethical focus of the church should be shifted away from what he sees as its present attention—on attempting to transform the culture—suggesting that the focus should be placed upon the formation of a faithful community (xii). Turner believes that the present focus of the vision of the church owes much to the legacy of Richard Niebuhr, who articulated a role for the church in transforming society. Rejecting this approach, as well as approaches that focus primarily on the personal meaning of the individual’s soul, Turner offers a vision that is indebted to the thoughts of John Howard Yoder (1927–1997) and Stanley Hauerwas, which focus the attention of the church on its common life.
Part One of the book contains the primary argument. Believing that Christian identity is the primary question for the church to answer at this time in history, Turner takes the ethics of (1) individual sanctification, (2) social redemption, and (3) communal witness as his three conceptions, and presents them through a filter to ascertain which is best for the church. Turner employs a three-question rubric to analyze the three conceptions of what should be the focus of Christian ethics. He looks at (1) What is the goal of life in Christ, (2) What is the basis of life in Christ, and (3) What is the character or shape of life in Christ? He concludes that Yoder’s ethic of communal witness is the strongest. He reaches this understanding because he sees the moral life of Christians as a witness to God’s final purposes in history in order to provide society a foretaste of the world’s destiny (42). The witness of the church is accomplished through its realization of its new life in Jesus Christ (55). It is Jesus Christ risen and victorious that points the church to strive for peace and accept suffering while following Him as her head. The church’s identification with Christ is a call to seek reconciliation and forgiveness and a renunciation of violence and a willingness to suffer as a faithful witness (52). The church should be imitators of Christ and this imitation should find its ethical expression in a love manifested in reconciliation, forgiveness, a renunciation of violence, relations based on mutual subjection, and truthful speech (56).
Part Two is a prismatic look at the epistle to the Ephesians. Turner states that the book of Ephesians adds support to this understanding because it focuses on the common life of the church.Turner concludes that the primary emphasis of Christian ethics should not be on personal holiness and social reform, but rather on the renewal of the common life of the church. Part Three is an explication of why the first two conceptions fail to hold, while Part Four articulates what a communal witness of the church will look like in different contexts, including the settings of personal sanctification, life in civil society, and life within political society.
Although I sympathize with Turner’s desire to articulate an ethical vision for the church, I do not agree with his conclusions. Turner gives too much priority to the community, in this case the church community, to the detriment of the ongoing sanctification of its people. This is a result of Turner’s postliberal theology with its overemphasis on the language and culture which is lived out within the context of a specific community. While the church community is the physical representation of Christ on earth—now that He has ascended into heaven—it develops and forms its community from the redeemed people of society at large. This means that truth and morality first require the conversion as well as the ongoing and progressive sanctification of individuals. A proper ethical vision of the church is to focus on the biblical injunction to “equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph 4:12–13). The church is called to grow its people spiritually. This is a leadership process that builds toward the sanctification of individuals within a Christlike community.
