Given the recent “stay at home” order here in Ohio, and the development of COVID-19 here in the States, I have been more acutely aware of what I am consuming. Karl Barth is on my nightstand, but Leslie Knope is on my TV. Workplace dramas and sitcoms have come to monopolize the TV Guide, or the Netflix queue, I suppose. Even in the most absurd instances, there is a relatability to be found in work, more so when that portrayal reflects our own work. This is particularly interesting when so many jobs are being affected by this pandemic. Fictional characters who share our occupations can be a great litmus test for the ways the world perceives our work. We long to identify with characters who share our occupations. When I was younger, I wanted to be Superman. Now, a little older: Chidi Anagonye.
As a pastor, I have seen my fair share of clerical characters and heard nearly as many jokes, but as an ethicist, this is a little harder to come by. NBC’s “The Good Place” (2016-2020) first aired while I was in the thick of my doctoral work, and its comic portrayal of ethics became a great explanation and summary of what would be my comprehensive exams. Chidi Anagonye, played brilliantly by actor William Jackson Harper, is a moral philosophy professor at St. John’s University in Sydney, Australia, before his untimely and ironic death. The running joke in the series is, of course, that everyone hates moral philosophy professors.
In his life, Chidi is crippled by indecisiveness in even the most mundane of decisions, such as where to get a drink— a decision that leaves him pacing outside his building before an air conditioner falls and kills him. This is only amplified in his afterlife as he pivots between wide systems and principles of ethics, unable to conclusively choose which framework he believes to be true or fitting, and is tortured by the idea that he might choose poorly— or worse, immorally. It did not matter that Chidi knew systems or arguments, or that he was able to parse the flow of history and thought surrounding ethics. When the chips were down, Chidi was struck impotent.
My surgeon-father scoffs at medical dramas for the absurd presentations of diagnoses seemingly chosen at random from medical textbooks. I scoff at the false sureness I have after watching through the entire “House” series, that I, a “not-that-kind-of-doctor,” could catch the signs of Nesidioblastoma. (I could not, for the record). Immersion into fictional worlds gives the viewer an incredible sense of omniscience and certitude. Chidi, on the other hand, amplifies uncertainty in a way that is all too familiar.
There is a similar phenomenon in the life of the believer as it relates to ethical decision making, or, as I prefer to call it, applied theology. More often than not, life’s circumstances do not present themselves in the detailed scenarios found in Scripture, and the believer may be found lame, ready to be crushed by the air conditioners of life in a broken world.
I believe there is a significant difference between the indictment of Israel in Judges of “everyone doing what is right in their own eyes,” and “I am doing the best I can.” The former represents the false sureness of expertise and omniscience to justify our actions as those who know best. The latter represents a more humble, likely indecisive perspective of wrestling through the options, just trying to make it through today. I believe the majority of believers in our churches are in the latter. The good news is that life rarely presents in trolley problems, and the church is not without answer.
The answer is not a binging of knowledge, but the slow and beautiful virtue formation of life in Christ. Just as multiple viewings of “House” or “Grey’s Anatomy” do not satisfy as sufficient training to work in the medical field, neither will a crash course in Christian ethics lead to a moral life or snap decision making. Everyone is a theologian, good or bad. Everyone is an ethicist, good or bad. The key to good ethics is not immersion into ethical theory, but immersion into the church and into Christ.
If you, like me, have a little extra time at home, I want to encourage you to find time with Christ. Lengthen your prayer time. Read larger portions of Scripture. Pick up some good theology and fiction. Grow in Christ. Then, if you still have time on your hands, I guess you can watch “The Good Place.”
Paul Morrison serves as lead pastor at Grantwood Community Church in suburban Cleveland, OH. He is also a co-founder and director of the Ohio Theological Institute. Paul holds a Ph.D. in Christian Ethics from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and is a member of the St. Peter Fellowship of the Center for Pastor Theologians.
