What is Your Fruitiness Factor? The basis of ethics and morals.

Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.
                                                John 15:5-6

A recurring theme, for many, in the realm of morals and ethics is a code of actions, some good but many bad, to which we need a disciplinarian. This is a reoccurring theme in many cultures, Christian ones as oft as any other if not more so. Which is odd because Paul specifically marks that Christians are not to be subject to a disciplinarian. (Gal. 3:25) Perchance this is a verse many have chosen to ignore in the text but for me it is always a rather prominent one.

There is a tendency to hold that a lack of a disciplinary rule leads only to the concept of outright hedonism, “do what you will shall be the whole of the law’. It is the absurd idea that the only reason Christians are good is that they have a stern disciplinarian who will burn them eternally if they do not do what is unnatural and inherently problematic, follow the disciplinarians rule book. It is the absurd idea that those who do not have the carrot of eternal paradise would, for some reason, become hedonistic, self-serving, perpetrators of evil if the carrot disappeared. The only reason for “goodness” is a God with a rod.

There might be a worse place to start a foundation for ethics and morals but an entire doctrine based on shame and threats of violence is decidedly not one of them. Shame never teaches any one anything, at best it halts problematic behavior for a short while but it never changes underlying behavioral norms. Violence, or threats of violence, is an equally bad teacher, as it does not prompt any internal change from within but forces complacency for the sake of survival.

Which is why in one of the earliest surviving Christian texts we have Paul clearly repeating a known truth of the Jewish scripture, now made fully known in Christ, that the point of the law is not that of a shaming and violent disciplinarian and that, indeed, in Christ there is no more need for any disciplinarian. Without a disciplinarian, in Christ, we should recognize that “the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’”. (Gal 5:14) What we should recognize, as Christians, is that abandonment of disciplinary law is not a call to hedonism of self but a mutual call to fullness of self and other in love. Indeed, disciplinary law must be given up because of how readily it prevents us from entering into this mutual call.

If not upon a disciplinary law with shame and violence than on what should be base our morals and ethics. Does this mutual call motif have any form of litmus test? I believe that intrinsically it does and that the scale by which we gauge it is fruitiness, specifically seeking a high fruitiness factor. John notes that Jesus came so that we might have life, and have it abundantly… and that such life in Christ will bear fruit while life away from Christ will be barren. So the questions of morality and ethics are answered by looking at a situation’s fruitiness factor. 

To be clear, as one must, fruitiness factor is not hedonism. It is not about feeling good, being ephemerally happy, having what one wants, material possessions, etc.. Fruitiness factor, abundant life, is about a life that is centered and grounded, a life that leads a person to be aware of their own dignity and the dignity of others, a life with trials and pain but inherently growth and joy as well. It is a life built on mutuality with each other in the love of Christ. When we find that mutuality of living into the whole of the law we encounter Christ’s fruit in the world. When we do not find it we encounter the dried up reality that is life without the love Christ’s has brought to us all.

This is the nature of grace, this fruitiness, a grace that abounds across creation on account of Jesus’ actions. This grace is not contained to those who have been baptized, or had a moment of being saved, or can profess a certain creed, but is a great remaking of the underlying fabric of reality by the Word of God. It is by the work of this Grace, this love that triumphed beyond our warped conceptualizations of morality based on a violent and shameful disciplinary law, that is the foundation of Christian ethics.

So when we look at a situation we no longer ask, does it fit into the laws of the disciplinarians rulebook. We should indeed look at the rulebook, for the rules there are supposed to point us towards the summary of the law, but that is only a place to gauge what is often the case of a situation. The true ask is wether or not there is fruitiness in the situation or bareness. The true ask is does the situation bring a person to a grounded and centered place where they encounter love in Christ, or does the situation bring a person to a place where they feel shame, an absence of God, and the threat of violence unless they conform. We have to put aside what we think makes a grounded and centered place where a person can encounter God's love and actually survey wether or not such is being experienced by the person and those around them. It is only when we allow that mutuality of discernment and recognition of dignity in the others that we truly recognize the Grace of the Word of God in the world and those around us and abandon the rulebook to which we cling in our idolatry of the god of the rod.