“He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”. (Micah 6:8, NRSV)
Some followers of Jesus emphasize the ethics or social justice of Christ’s teachings. Their focus is on doing good for the sake of others. The pursuits of racial equality, eradicating gun violence, providing care to refugees, and reversing climate change are just a few examples.
Flory discovered that other Christians center their attention on one’s character. This group of Christians emphasizes the goodness or personal piety of Jesus. Christ led a virtuous life. As a member of the human race, Jesus never sinned. In the passage above, the prophet, Micah, identified the virtue or spiritual fruit of kindness as an essential element of an individual’s temperament and disposition.
The founder of the Methodist movement, John Wesley, never distinguished a separation between personal responsibility (being good) from social responsibility (doing good). One of Wesley’s most misunderstood statement cites, “The gospel of Christ knows of no religion but social; no holiness but social holiness.” Wesley’s intent was not to bifurcate personal from social responsibility. In this instance, he was insisting that persons can only become like Christ within the context of community, not in isolation.
Throughout his ministry, John Wesley taught and practiced that being good and doing good are not either/or options. As followers of Jesus, we cannot separate the goal of becoming like Jesus apart from treating our neighbors in the same ways as Jesus. To do so is to live only half of the gospel.
I will write more on this subject tomorrow. In the meantime, I encourage you to consider today how you can live out the first two of John Wesley’s General Rules:
1. Do no harm (another way of saying,
“Do not sin or be good”)
2. Do good
To read Richard Flory’s article in the Wall Street Journal, go to:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/our-many-jesuses-6c5d82f2