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.   

Rebuilding temples and undoing systematic violence against women…

“Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

                                                            -Jesus

International woman’s day is a yearly call for us to first recognize how our prevalent so

ciety inherently destroys the spiritual, emotional, physical, and mental temples of the women in its midst, and calls us to create an environment where they can be rebuilt in full. This caustic realm of sexism that has deprived women of the necessary components needed to build up the temples of their personhoods has perpetuated for thousands of years and the bitter and hard won battles of the feminist movement over the past centuries show that there is no three day miracle to be had. This does nothing but make the Spirit’s call to enter into this work even stronger and more requisite for the church.

The role of the church in the midst of this is clear. For good reason on this day when Jesus speaks of his own body the temple our lectionary points us to one of the earliest of Christian writings, the first letter of Paul to the Corinthians, where he speaks for many chapters on the role of leaders and preachers in aiding individuals in building up the temples of their being. Paul notes that

According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw – the work of each builder will become visible, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what work each has done. If what has been built on the foundation survives, the builder will receive a reward. If the work is burned up, the builder will suffer loss; the builder will be saved, but only as through fire.                                                                                       1 Cor. 3:10-15

Paul here is specifically talking about himself as a builder, in comparison to Apollos or Cephas, and how at the end of days the leaders of the church will be held responsible for the materials they gave to their followers. That, in fact, if the builders have systematically given individuals low grade materials with which to build upon the sure foundation of Christ that they will face a fire in inverse relationship to the shoddy materials they have provided. I take this reading to be very clear, that those given shoddy materials by the church will be refined to the glory they should always have been, while those who provided the shoddy materials will face a burning purgation for the atrocity they allowed to perpetuate.

I work on a campus where there are no full-time ordained female chaplains, where only a handful of ministries recognize the capacity of women to be priest and pastors to the world and openly discern towards such vocations. The full feminist voice simply is not allowed to be heard in most of the ministries with which I work alongside. As a gay man who is a fumbling profeminist I strive to create a space where all women have the freedom to discern that which the church and the world have provided them with which to build their temples, but the work to be undone and done is staggering, in both the micro pastoral care level and the macro societal injustice issues. The concept of a ministry that strives to create a safe space for all women, regardless of race, regardless of being cis or trans, regardless of sexuality, regardless of class, regardless of any other characteristic, remains a staggering one for myself and for the church in which I work. Attempting to create that space isolates my ministry in some ways and places a barrier of expectations for those who might come and visit us.

This is the same barrier, however, that creates a safer space for those vulnerable and hurt in the world. It is the same barrier that forces myself and the other men who participate in the ministry here on campus to face and process our privilege in this world. It is true that this barrier may indeed keep some out, but to remove it is to no longer require us to truly discern what materials we are giving our followers to use in the building of their temples. To remove this barrier is to begin building up our members on the false lies and expectations of patriarchy, a material of the weakest and basest sort imaginable.