Your Moral Case Study

Paul's prayer for the Philippians is a prayer for moral judgment. 'And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to test and prove what is best' (Philippians 1:9-10). He does not pray that they will be given a rule for every situation. He prays that their love will grow in knowledge and in a kind of moral perception, aisthesis, so that they can test what is best and choose it. The word for test, dokimazo, is the word used for testing metal to see whether it is genuine. A Christian who has learned to discern can put a situation to the test and see what love truly requires in it.

That has been the aim of this whole track. The opening lesson, What Christian Ethics Is, said that Christian ethics is not a list of rulings but discipleship: learning both what to do and who to become. Hebrews 5:14 says that the mature are those 'who by constant use have trained their senses to distinguish good from evil.' Training means practice. This lesson is a practice session. You will take one real question and work it through every step of the method the track has taught, so that you can do the same with the next question, and the one after that, for the rest of your ministry.

Beside your own case, we will work one composite case the whole way through, so you can see each step done. It is not a real church, but it is built from situations that are common in many countries. A rural congregation has worshipped for forty years on a plot of land that a farmer gave to the church long ago. The gift was witnessed by elders but never registered. Now a powerful man in the district, who wants the land for a business, has begun to claim it. The church's treasurer has gone to the land office to register the church's title, and an official has told him the file could take years, but that a cash payment, with no receipt, would see it done this month. The church council must decide what to do.

Before you begin, choose your own case if you have not already. It should be real, from your own church or community. It should be a question you do not already know the answer to, or one where others in your church disagree with you. It should be something you can find out the facts about. You may choose one of the cases you began in earlier lessons of this module. Do not write any person's name in your case study. Describe people by their role: the treasurer, the widow, the youth leader, the official. If the case involves a family, change details so that no reader could recognise them.

Step 1: name the question, in both its forms (What Christian Ethics Is). Write the question in one sentence as a question about action: what should we do? Then write it again as a question about character: who should we become through how we handle this? The two are not the same, and the second often shows what the first misses. In the worked example, the action question is whether the church should pay the official to register its title. The character question is what kind of church it will become, and what its members will learn, by how it protects its land: a church that trusts God and acts honestly under pressure, or one that does what everyone does.

Step 2: get the facts, and write down what you do not know (Caring for Creation, and Medicine and Biotechnology). Those lessons stressed that a good moral judgment rests on accurate facts, and that facts and judgments must be kept apart. Find out what is actually happening, from people who know. Ask what the law says. Ask what it costs. Then write a separate list of what you do not know, and do not pretend to know it. In the worked example, the council needs to know: what the law requires to register land, and what the official fee is; whether there is a legal route to speed up registration, through a lawyer, a legal aid service, a church denomination's office or a higher official; how strong the church's evidence is, such as letters, witnesses or old minutes; what the man claiming the land actually has; and whether other churches or families in the district have faced the same thing.

Step 3: hear the people, and honour each one's dignity (Human Dignity and the Image of God). List everyone affected by the decision, and especially the weakest. For each, write what they stand to gain or lose, and what they would say if they were asked. In the worked example: the congregation, who could lose their place of worship; the elderly members who remember the gift; the family of the farmer who gave it; the treasurer, who carries the risk of whatever he does; the official, who is also a person made in God's image and may be trapped in a corrupt system himself; the man claiming the land; and the other poor families in the district, who suffer most from a land office that works only for those who pay.

One safety rule overrides every step of the method. If, as you gather the facts and hear the people, you find that anyone is in danger, such as a child or woman being abused, someone threatened with violence, or someone speaking of ending their life, stop working the case as an exercise and act to protect them now. The lesson Violence Against Women in this track, and the Pastoral Care lessons Protecting the Vulnerable, Domestic Abuse and When Someone Wants to Die, say what to do. Abuse and violence are never matters on which to weigh positions; they are wrongs to be stopped and, where the law requires, reported.

Step 4: search scripture, in all the ways it speaks (The Law and the Love Command). Scripture speaks to moral questions in several ways: through direct commands, through principles, through stories and examples, and through its whole account of who God is and what he is doing. List the passages that bear on your case, and for each, write which way it speaks. If you use an Old Testament law, write how you think it binds a Christian, as that lesson discussed. And ask of every option what the love command requires: love for God with all your heart, and for your neighbour as yourself. In the worked example the passages include: the command 'Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see and twists the words of the righteous' (Exodus 23:8), a rule; the land laws and Naboth's refusal (Leviticus 25:23, 1 Kings 21), a pattern of holding land as a trust and refusing to surrender it to the powerful, from the lesson Animals and the Land; the call to 'Open your mouth for those with no voice' (Proverbs 31:8), from the lesson Justice for the Poor; and Romans 13:1-7 and Acts 5:29, on submission to authorities and its limits, from the lesson Church and State.

Step 5: hear the church, and say honestly what is settled and what is not. Ask what the historic churches have taught about this kind of question. Where there is broad agreement across Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant traditions, say so plainly, and also say who holds a minority view and why. Where faithful Christians who hold scripture's authority are genuinely divided, write out each main position as its own best defenders would state it, with their texts. That is the standard this track has followed throughout, from war and capital punishment to creation care and IVF. In the worked example, the churches agree that bribing an official to pervert justice or to obtain what you are not entitled to is a sin. They are not fully agreed about payments demanded under pressure to receive what is already yours by right. Some Christian ethicists distinguish paying a bribe, which corrupts, from yielding to extortion, which is done to you, and hold that a payment made under protest as a last resort to protect the poor may be tolerated. Others hold that every such payment feeds the system that oppresses the poor and must be refused whatever the cost. The law also differs: Britain's Bribery Act of 2010 forbids such facilitation payments, while the United States' Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, as amended in 1988, allows a narrow exception for small payments to speed up routine government actions. Both laws mainly govern companies and people from those countries, and in most countries the local law itself forbids paying an official anything beyond the published fee.

Write the strongest case for the position you are less inclined to hold before you write your own. This is the hardest discipline of the method and the most important. 'The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him' (Proverbs 18:17). If you cannot state the other side as well as its defenders would, you do not yet understand the question well enough to decide it, and you are likely to be deciding by preference rather than by discernment.

Step 6: weigh the options three ways (Rules, Results and Character, and Virtue and Character). For each option, ask three questions. What rules or duties apply: is anything forbidden or commanded? What results will follow, for whom, and how sure are you? And what does this choice express and form in the character of those who make it: courage or cowardice, honesty or deceit, justice or favouritism, faith or fear? The methods often agree, which is reassuring. When they disagree, the disagreement shows you where the real difficulty lies. In the worked example, the rule of Exodus 23:8 weighs against paying. The results are mixed: paying might save the land quickly, but it would also strengthen a corrupt practice that harms the poor, expose the treasurer and the church to legal risk and scandal, and could be used against the church later. And the question of character is pointed: what will the young people learn if they see the elders pay?

Step 7: test your conscience, and take counsel (Conscience and Discernment). Ask whether this is a disputable matter, on which believers may in good conscience differ, or a matter where the church must speak with one voice. Ask whether any option would cause a weaker brother or sister to stumble. And do not decide alone. 'Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed' (Proverbs 15:22). Bring the case to your pastor, elders or a trusted group of mature believers, set out the facts and the positions fairly, and listen. In the worked example, the council would do well to consult its denomination, other churches in the district, and a Christian lawyer if one can be found, before acting.

Step 8: look for the faithful third way, and count its cost (Corruption and Bribery, and Truth and Speech). Many hard cases seem to offer only two choices, both bad. Often there is a third way that keeps faith with every duty, though it is usually costlier and slower. Ask: is there a way to do right that no one has yet tried? In the worked example, the council might refuse the cash payment politely and truthfully, without lying about why; pay the official fee and ask for a receipt; ask in writing how long registration should take; take its documents, witnesses and old minutes to a lawyer or legal aid office; ask the family of the original donor to confirm the gift in writing; seek help from the denomination or a group of local churches who face the same official; and, if necessary, appeal to a higher office or the courts. Each of those steps costs time and possibly money, and it may fail. Jesus told those who would follow him to 'sit down and count the cost' (Luke 14:28). Write down honestly what the faithful way may cost, and who will bear it.

Step 9: look at the case in the light of the end (Ethics in the Light of the End). Ask what God will finally do about the injustice or suffering in this case, what faithful people can do now because the kingdom has come, and what must be left to God because it has not yet fully come. In the worked example, the church can trust that God sees the land office and the man who wants their land, and that 'your labor in the Lord is not in vain' (1 Corinthians 15:58) even if the case is lost. That hope does not tell the council what to do, but it frees them to do right without needing to win, and it warns against despair if the slow way takes years.

Step 10: decide, act and review. Discernment ends in a decision, not in endless reflection. Write down what you, or your church, will do, who will do it, and by when. Write down what you will do if it fails. Then set a date, a month or three months ahead, to look back. On that date, write what actually happened, what you learned, and what you would do differently. That review is how senses are trained 'by constant use' (Hebrews 5:14). In the worked example, the council might decide to refuse the cash payment, pay only the official fee with a receipt, engage legal help within two weeks, and meet again in a month to review, with the treasurer supported by the whole council rather than left to carry the risk alone. A council persuaded by the other position in step 5 might reach a different decision later, if every lawful route had failed and the church stood to lose its land; what the method asks is that any such decision be reached openly and together, with the law and the cost honestly counted, not quietly by one member under pressure.

Sometimes a church council works through every step honestly and still does not agree. That is not a failure of the method; it is what happens when faithful people weigh hard things. The Jerusalem council in Acts 15 shows a way through: the leaders heard the testimony, searched the scriptures, debated openly, and then reached a decision they could own together, written so that others could read their reasons. Where a council cannot agree, it can still agree on what it will do for now, who will carry it out, and when it will look again, and it can protect the member who dissents from being shamed for his conscience. Where the matter is one of clear sin, such as abuse, theft or bribery to pervert justice, the council must not hide behind its disagreement; it must act, even if some members object.

Two warnings before you write your own case. First, do not pretend a question is harder than it is. Some cases, when you look closely, are not dilemmas at all; the right thing is clear, and the difficulty is only that it is costly. Do not use the method as a way to delay doing what you already know to be right. Second, do not pretend a question is easier than it is. Where faithful Christians genuinely disagree, your conclusion may be right, but you must hold it with humility and treat those who disagree as brothers and sisters, not enemies. 'One person regards a certain day above the others, while someone else considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind' (Romans 14:5).

Copy what follows into the front of your notebook, or keep it on your phone, and use it whenever you face a hard moral question in your life or ministry. It is the whole track in ten lines. If a line is missing, go back to it before you decide.

1. Question. I have written the question in one sentence as a question about action, and again as a question about who we should become.

2. Facts. I have found out what is actually happening from people who know, kept the facts apart from my judgments, and written down what I still do not know.

3. People. I have listed everyone affected, especially the weakest, and honoured the dignity of each, including those I disagree with. If anyone is in danger, I have acted to protect them first.

4. Scripture. I have found the passages that bear on the case, noted whether each speaks as a command, a principle, a pattern or part of the big story, and asked what the love command requires.

5. The church. I have said plainly what the historic churches agree on, named the minority view honestly, and, where Christians are divided, written each position as its own defenders would.

6. Weighing. I have weighed each option by its rules, its results and what it forms in our character, and I have noted where the methods disagree.

7. Counsel. I have tested my conscience, asked whether this is a disputable matter, and taken the case to mature believers before deciding.

8. Third way. I have looked for a faithful way that no one has tried, and counted honestly what it may cost and who will bear it.

9. Hope. I have asked what God will finally do, what we can do now, and what we must leave to him.

10. Decision and review. I have written what we will do, who will do it and by when, what we will do if it fails, and the date on which we will look back.

When you write your case study out in full, give it a short title that names the question, and follow the ten lines in order, one heading for each, so that a pastor or elder reading it can see your reasoning step by step and test it. Keep each step short and plain: a page or two in all is enough for most cases. Quote the scripture you rely on with its reference, name the Christian positions and who holds them, and mark clearly which statements are facts you have checked and which are your judgments. A case study written this way can be read, questioned and improved by others, which is the point. It is how the church has always trained its teachers: not by handing them answers, but by showing its working.

Your practical step now. Work your own case through all ten steps over the coming week or two, writing your answer to each step on the double page you started in the inquiry. Write no one's name. When it is finished, read it through and write one paragraph at the end summarising your conclusion and the strongest argument against it. Then, if it is a question your church actually faces, take it to your pastor or elders, show them the work, and ask them to discuss it with you. This written case study is the fruit of the whole track. It will not be the last hard question you face, but it is the first you will have worked from beginning to end, with a love that has learned to test and prove what is best.