The action of holiness works two effects—it puts off the “glittering vices” of the world and puts on the eternal virtues of Christ.[1] Aristotle posited that every good virtue that man could be or attain lies between two vices as a golden mean.[2] In essence, both the virtue in deficiency and in excess are a detriment to the character of the virtuous.
These virtues are formed and honed through disciplined habits. Seldom, if ever, does a person stumble into virtue. Rather, the virtuous must acquaint themselves with truth before committing themselves to its beauty. For the Christian, the fullness of virtue is found in the character of God. This ethic is bound up in the echo of Leviticus 19:2, as God declares, “be holy, for I am holy.” The virtuous is only such to the degree it reflects the fullness of God’s character.
Christian virtue is more than a set of rules or duties, in general and in its application to issues of race. Commands can inform and direct, but the desired end is a transformed character—Christlikeness. Humility, faith, and certainly justice each have a definitive role to play in the task of holiness and virtuous living in the community of faith and in the race issue. But love is unique among the virtues as it relates to the task of integration. Integration, unlike desegregation, is more than an issue of law or barriers. It is where, “elbows are together and hearts are apart.”[3] Integration requires a transformation of the heart. If love is to serve as the vehicle for integration, it must move carefully to avoid the vices of deficiency and excess on either side.
The first vice is a deficiency of love which could be more specifically called apathy. Compassion counters the status quo of apathy. There exists in Christ a regard for the full body, not just hands for other hands or feet for other feet, but fullness and diversity joined. Awareness of apathy calls for the individual to step out of their circle of comfort and into the shoes of others through empathetic action. This is in conversation, relationship, repentance when necessary, and intentional engagement with people of different backgrounds, especially in the immediate community.
The second vice is in an excess of the principle which could be more specifically called paternalism. Paternalism is an overstepping of compassion which goes to shelter and infantilize the receiving party to a detriment of their independence and responsibility. It is an excess of compassion which actually undercuts compassion’s desired result of the recipient’s wellbeing. Overstepping compassion to become savior of the marginalized does more harm than good.[4] Compassion is not charity in that it would pity the inferior. It is to recognize the deficiencies of the self and its egoism and reach out to value a brother or sister as an equal.
Jesus’ great illustration of compassion falls within the bounds of prejudice and race. Describing the Jewish traveler beaten and robbed, Jesus describes his rescuer, “But a Samaritan on his journey came up to him, and when he saw the man, he had compassion,” (Luke 10:33). This story shows the deficiency of compassion in those who passed the man by and it avoided an excess as the man’s compassion was selfless, and it did so for his neighbor rather than looking at the division between them. Virtuous love, over against apathetic or paternalistic love, seeks to embody the love of Christ. This is a love that, in part, sacrifices self in order to seek the good of another.
In virtuous love, the individual addresses first the vices of their own heart, but then moves also to the outworking of social effect. As the image bearers reflect the person of Christ in their awareness and action, they move in the formation of the virtuous. They embody the moral action of Christ, empowered by the Spirit of Christ, to become more like the person of Christ. This is revealed both in the individual heart and character as well as the social expressions and functions in which the person resides.
This movement is caused and typified in the person of Christ, who integrates every tribe, nation, and tongue into a single body through his own sacrificial love. In participation in Christ’s virtue, the individual and the church are enabled to root out racial prejudice in their hearts and pasts and work towards the ideal of the integrated church. To embody love in its virtuous mean is to demonstrate the great well of forgiveness and compassion that reconditions affections and regard to love as Christ loves. Apartness is not an eternal state, but it need not be a temporal state either.
This resource is part of the series More than Imago Dei: Theological Explorations on Race.
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Notes:
[1] “Glittering vices” from the Latin Phrase “Virtutes paganorum splendida vitia,” often wrongly attributed to Augustine, expresses the worldly standards of virtue which are at odds with those revealed by God. See Søren Kierkegaard, Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Alastair Hannay, and Bruce H. Kirmmse, Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks: Volume 11: Part 1, Loose Papers, 1830-1843, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019), 564-565.
[2] Aristotle, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, ed. Hippocrates G. Apostle (Grinnell, IA: Peripatetic Press, 1984), 26-29.
[3] Martin Luther King, Jr., ed. James M. Washington, A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1986), 118.
[4] See, for example, critiques on such works as Robin DiAngelo’s New York Times best-seller, White Fragility. John McWhorter, “The Dehumanizing Condescension of White Fragility,” The Atlantic, July 15, 2020. https://amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/614146/.
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 PhD in Christian Ethics from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and is a member of the St. Peter Fellowship of the Center for Pastor Theologians.
