Becoming the Kind of Person Who – The Church and the Formation of Character

Becoming the Kind of Person Who…The Church and the Formation of Character
by N. Larry Baker

• The Nature of Character
• The Church`s Concern for Character
• Shaping the Church`s Approach to Character Formation
• The Roles of the Church and Minister in Character Formation
• Implications for the Life and Work of the Church and Minister
• Endnotes
• Conclusion

Dr. Baker is pastor of the First Baptist Church of Pineville, Louisiana.

In a world "characterized above all by unrelated episodes" a person needs "some core" in life, says a character in Tom Toperoff`s novel, The Democrat.

Toperoff`s novel tells the story of Hamlin Knutsen, an ambitious Nebraska politician during the Kennedy Era. At one point, Knutsen`s friend and mentor, Professor Minor, says:

"I do have a serious piece of advice….It`s about professional life in Washington….It`s a manic place, characterized above all by unrelated episodes. Yes, episodes. Fragments, things broken off and other things picked up. There`s probably some subterranean continuity, but I`ve never discovered it. So, Knutsen, you must have something else, some core in your life to overcome living through those episodes."1

The much-needed core to which Professor Minor pointed might be named "character." This reality, located inside the person, helps one live with some measure of continuity, direction, intention, and consistency. Character helps a person wend, not wander, through the episodes, fragments, and broken pieces of life. This reality called character is the package of internal moral elements that leads one to make certain decisions and take certain actions consistently in a morally good way.

Character is a major concern in many sectors of American society today: Alan Ehrenhart in the Congressional Quarterly in 1995 pointed to this development:

"I am not so reckless as to argue that the character of individual Americans has turned around and headed upward in the first half of the 1990s. But the word and the idea behind it are making a comeback."2

A survey of American life during the 90s reveals a host of books, conferences, journal and magazine articles, and organizations devoted to character. Additionally, one can see many programs of character education across the country in public and private schools alike.

Many during the 1990s demonstrate a renewed conviction that the common life of the nation and the character of its people are related. However, in answer to its question, "Does Character Count?", the U.S News and World Report answered, "Yes, but not as much as Dole hopes and not the way Clinton fears."3

Accurate, perhaps, but take a look at developments in Louisiana. The Bayou State is home to a high roller, high stakes gambler, former governor, Edwin Edwards; a White Supremacist-Klan Supporting politician, David Duke; and a womanizing, profligate TV evangelist, Jimmy Swaggart. In other days, such public figures and their antics often met with carefree laughter, a wink, and a shrug of the shoulders. Now, however, as this century ends, many Louisianians are beginning to deal with character issues with new thoughtfulness. In 1996, many other Americans are also giving significant attention to character, character education, and character formation.

But, attention to character isn`t new. Concern with character has a distinguished history. Philosophers, educators and political theorists throughout history have focused on it. Social scientists and personality theorists have also studied character seriously.

Concern with character is hardly new to the life of the church and the discipline of Christian Ethics. The "catechesis" of the second and third centuries included moral nurture as a dimension of learning the Christian story. Monasticism and other spiritual disciplines attempted to cultivate Christian character and a life of virtue. John Wesley`s "societies" worked toward the same goal. Jonathan Edwards described the "religious affections" and "the nature of true virtue" at length and Horace Bushnell cast the Christian life in terms of "nurture." Likewise, Catholic moral theology has a long history of work related to character and character issues.

Baptists, however, have given little attention to character as such. We have focused primarily on applied ethics, biblical ethics (often developed topically or systematically), and decision making. We have often called for doing while giving little attention to being. We have often given less attention to our moral selves than to our moral actions.

Almost thirty years ago, concern with character re-emerged in contemporary American Protestant ethics in the work of James Gustafson, James T. Laney, and Stanley Hauerwas. The latter has continued to work in this area and has contributed a significant body of material to the study.

Much of the recent attention to character formation, however, has drawn upon work in cognitive and developmental psychology, especially theories which posit distinct stages of human development. In the twentieth century, William Damon, Carol Gilligan, Laurence Kohlberg, and Jean Piaget have focused careful attention on character and have produced substantial works dealing with the subject.

Long before the church as we experience it and the discipline of Christian Ethics as we know it, the Bible expressed concern with matters related to character. Although the Bible does not use the term character, or talk about character formation, it is concerned about those realities. The Christian scriptures, in both Old and New Testaments alike, are concerned with character, with the moral agent as well as the moral action. The Old Testament calls God`s people to be holy while living among people who are morally contaminated; the New Testament calls God`s people to be different from the world of darkness around them and describes the character of the God-like person. Throughout the New Testament, one sees the contrast between the old person and the new, the old being and the new being.

Nevertheless, something happened to the concern with character on the way to the 1990s. James T. Laney blames the demise on an understanding of "education as careerism." Michael Sandel traces the loss to the development of a "procedural republic." Laura Schlessinger lays responsibility at the door of the psychological establishment which, she charges, has no judgment and little challenge in its approach to life. Christina Sommers points to a collegiate shift from ethics courses to the social sciences and from philosophical ethics to applied and dilemma ethics. Stanley Hauerwas believes that "we have underwritten a voluntaristic conception of the Christian faith which presupposes that a person can become a Christian without training." Others point to radical individualism as the culprit that chased character out of the classroom of life.

The Nature of Character

How, then, does one define or describe this reality that is now in the spotlight? First, character is "the sort of person" one is. Someone identified character as operative values. A person values certain realities and internalizes them. They become virtues. In turn, those virtues become operative in one`s life. Thus, one has a package of internal moral elements that causes that person to act in certain ways and to make certain decisions consistently in a morally good way. That, then, becomes the sort of person one is.

Consider: We say that a woman is trustworthy. We make that judgment because we have known her for more than twenty years. We have observed her, listened to her words, and watched her actions. We have known her in public and in private. We have watched her deal with individuals and with groups. We have seen her work on a day-to-day basis and we have observed her in stressful and strenuous situations. Through all of that we have seen continuity. Thus, we say, "She is trustworthy", and we are pointing to the sort of person she is.

Second, character is formed. No one comes into the world with character. Persons develop character; it is formed and shaped in individuals and not quickly acquired. Chuck Swindoll observed that "Great character is not a mail-order commodity, shipped by overnight express. We can`t expect it to arrive at our doorstep, neatly packaged with no assembly required." Character is formed primarily through habits and practices, through repeated activities that shape the kind of person one becomes. Aristotle said, "We are what we repeatedly do." As persons identify with various social forms that bestow meaning on our society and its participants, those forms shape character.

Furthermore, character is clarified. Character is clarified informally and formally. Character is clarified as one interacts with people in a "casual, everyday" manner. For example, an individual does not decide every morning that he is going to be honest. Rather, in the give-and-take of life, he chooses to be.

Sometimes, one clarifies character because of life situations. Clarification often comes through adversity. Character "is developed and proven in the crucibles of pain and difficulty," declares Chuck Swindoll. "The reason is," he contends, "that hardship, not comfort, tempers strong characters." William Damon agrees in Greater Expectations, a book in which the author describes the difference between growing up easy and growing up hard or in tough times and tough situations. For many, character is clarified in the crucible of adversity. Thus, Goethe wrote, "A talent is formed in stillness, a character in the world`s torrent."

Character is also refined through reflection. An individual stops, steps back, and looks at circumstances and situations. Through reflection that person evaluates attitudes, thoughts, reasoning, and actions. During this process, the person reflects, evaluates and clarifies what is important and what kind of person one wants to be.

Likewise, character is lived out. Some would say that character is lived out "naturally," that is one demonstrates character, almost without mental analysis, in the push-and-shove of daily living. When I was a college student a popular piece of wisdom said, "Being a Christian is not a way of doing certain things. It is a certain way of doing everything." One`s character shapes the way one sees, molds the way one feels, gives direction to the way one thinks, and all of that becomes his/her "natural" state. Thus, character is the way one negotiates the journey of life faithfully according to the purpose for which he/she has been created and redeemed.

The discipline of Christian Ethics in America during the past three decades has failed to a great degree at one point: it has focused on dilemma ethics to the neglect of character. While everyone faces from time to time significant moral dilemmas, these are relatively few and far between compared to the everyday habits and activities that both form and reflect character and make up the great bulk of one`s moral life. The character ethicists have reminded believers that morality is not an isolated part of life, limited to those moments that call for difficult decisions. Rather, ethics concerns the way one lives life as a whole; ethics has to do with character.

The Church`s Concern for Character

A careful look at the church`s book of faith, the Bible, points to the concern of the church for character. First, the mission of the church is to develop people who embody the values and life of the kingdom in their lives. The church is not in the world to make it smell better, but to change it. The church is called not to dress up the world, but to re-dress it. The church is set on mission not to shape up the world, but to reshape it. Thus, the mission of the church as it relates to individuals is to develop people who embody the values and the life of the kingdom of God in their lives.

When the church works to develop people morally, it has three goals. The church wants people to know the good, to love the good, and to do the good in accordance with the kingdom of God. The task of the church is to develop people who embody the values and the life of the kingdom of God in their lives.

Second, although certain desirable qualities of character can be developed outside of faith, the Christian faith is concerned with a character that has unique features. One of Paul`s letters demonstrates. "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." (Phil. 2:5) is coupled with "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise think on these things" (Phil. 4:8). There, in a single letter, one sees both dimensions.

Here is insight akin to Systematic Theology and the discussion of general and specific revelation. Historically, Thomas Aquinas and the moral virtue tradition of the Roman church yoked the classical virtues and the distinctively Christian virtues. The church is concerned both with character not uniquely Christian and that which is distinctive.

Third, the people with whom we minister are persons of potential. What is can become what ought to be. People embody the possibility for change or conversion. The church must always remember this truth because many believe that after one reaches a certain point in life character cannot be changed or can be changed only minimally. There are also many who believe that the Christian faith does not make a great deal of difference in the shaping of character; these folk say that religious faith makes good people better and bad people worse.

When the church takes the New Testament call to faith and discipleship seriously, it believes that people can be transformed. When the church takes seriously the stories of the people reported in the Bible, it believes that people can be changed. When the church takes seriously the God of the Bible and his dream for the world, it believes that people are persons of potential.

Fourth, the development of character, especially Christian character, does not occur overnight or automatically. Read the stories of Simon Peter, Saul of Tarsus/Paul the Apostle, John Mark, and others in the pages of the New Testament. One sees them at the beginning of faith`s journey and one catches glimpses of them as they step into Jordan`s cold stream. They are the same, but they are different. They have grown and developed. Throughout the journey, they have remained open to the shaping power of God`s Spirit and the character of the Lord is more fully reflected in their own lives than they and others dreamed possible. No stage of life`s journey is without potential for character development and none is ever without the need for further formation. Paul`s word about himself near the end of life is one for the church to hold up both for its ministry and for its people: "I have [not] already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me" (Phil. 3:12).

Fifth, the church has the resources of the Bible, theology, and the church itself to bring to the task of character formation. The church learns from every discipline and incorporates those insights into its ministry; however, the church is not social scientist, psychological theorist, or political thinker. The church has the understandings of the Christian faith, the life of the church, the resources of the Spirit, and its calling to bring to the enterprise.

James Gustafson thinks that Christianity influences ethics primarily through its impact on character. As he sees it, symbols like grace, gratitude, and repentance contribute to the formation of character. The church has the gospel and the gospels which affect one`s attitudes, disposition, and basic orientation toward the world. Furthermore, the church has the New Testament concept of sanctification as well as the church itself, a community of moral concern and moral shaping.

Especially does the church have the Bible as resource. The stories of God insert themselves into believer`s accustomed ways of doing business and challenge people to change. The Bible forms, informs, reforms, challenges, an changes believers. "The Word is our first offense and our last defense," declares Will Campbell, and that word is a very special resource for shaping character. Here in these realities one finds a magnificent stockpile of resources to be employed in the task of character formation.

Shaping the Church`s Approach to Character Formation

How, then, shall the church go about its task of character formation? First, the church`s approach to character formation will be intentional. Unfortunately, ministers and churches often operate without intentionality, without the end in mind, without a plan for reaching the goal of exemplary Christian character.

In terms of character, Baptists have often assumed two things: (1) that everyone knows what is right and wrong; and (2) that everyone will pursue what is right and abhor what is wrong. Furthermore, Baptists appear to have assumed that individuals become persons of character by osmosis.

However, none of the three assumptions is valid. The Christian church works in a world with many value systems and conflicting views of right and wrong. Furthermore, the value systems and social order place unrelenting pressure on Christians as well as those who are not believers. Thus, the church must pursue the development of character intentionally, consistently, and systematically.

The church`s approach to character development must also be realistic. Contrast the approach to character formation portrayed in Larry Donnithorne`s The West Point Way of Leadership with that of the church. At West Point, the Academy sets the standards for admission and selects the participants on the basis of factors such as GPA, ACT score, an eighteen-year track record, and physical and mental abilities. Additionally, the Academy has a narrowly defined goal–the production of military officers who are "leaders with character." Cadets live in a controlled atmosphere and have a rigidly structured schedule. Cadet contact with the outside world is limited. The Academy has a system of rewards and punishments, a powerful peer pressure system, and all the resources of the institution and the federal government to help them produce leaders with character.

In contrast, the church has no similar stockpile of assets working for it. The church has a minuscule amount of a person`s time. The church has few resources comparable to those of the Academy. The church has a "long hill to climb" in order to carry out its task of character formation. The church must be realistic in its approach to character development.

The church`s approach to character development will also be contextual. Character is shaped in and acted out in a particular environment. Character does not function in a vacuum; it functions in a social environment, and the church must pay attention to the impact of environment. Furthermore, the church is challenged to provide a moral environment that accents good values and keeps them in the forefront of everyone`s consciousness.

Consider three aspects of the church`s environment in the United States at century`s end. First, this society is marked by polarization. In its June 29, 1996 issue, Newsweek, declared that "The slogan of the year is my way or no way." Post-modernism is also the order of the day and this is a time noted for The Death of Truth. Third, according to Robert Bly, we live in The Sibling Society, a social order in which the vertical principles of authority, hierarchy, obligation, and tradition have all given way.

Nevertheless, much that previously contributed to the formation of character is now gone. Thus, three analysts of contemporary life–Hoge, Johnson, and Luidens, Vanishing Boundaries: The Religion of Mainline Protestant Baby Boomers–indict the church. They argue that the mainline church suffers from an erosion of belief and an abandonment of the disciplines of Christian piety. They believe further that: (1) church members no longer learn much from their ministers about the historic affirmations of the faith; and (2) the distinguishing pieties of Protestantism have now largely disappeared from the mainline churches. As it pursues its task of character formation, the church must understand the context in which it works and create an environment that encourages high Christian character and, thus, equips believers to live effectively in the larger, alien context.

The Bible calls God`s people to be in the world but not of the world. God wants believers to be "blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life" (Phil. 2:15-16). In its approach to character formation, the church`s approach will be contextual, as it was in the Early Church.

In its approach to character formation, the approach of the church will also be positive. Gordon Allport long ago proposed that human beings are more drawn than driven. Steven Covey more recently wrote, "It is easy to say no when there is a deeper yes burning inside." One approach to ethical theory is teleological, an approach that focuses on goals rather than duty and obligation.

The positive approach to character formation may be illustrated with an anecdote from George Hunter, The Church for the Unchurched. "Several years ago…Lawrence Lacour and his wife, Mildred, came through Lexington and invited my wife, Ella Fay, and me to spend an evening with them. Lawrence Lacour is a splendid senior Methodist evangelist and professor, who, among his many other virtues, is charming, suave, debonair, and sophisticated. It was a serious mistake to let my wife meet him. She started asking me, `Why aren`t you charming, suave, debonair, and sophisticated like Lawrence Lacour?` One day I finally replied: `Because his wife brings out the best that is in him.`"4

The God of the Bible is like Mildred Lacour. God works to bring out the best in us. That is also a good image to guide the work of the church in character formation. The church is involved in bringing out the best in people and, thus, its approach to character formation will be positive.

The Roles of the Church and Minister in Character Formation

In its approach to character formation, the church has at least four roles. First, the church will build character education into its educational philosophy and curricula. Let the church take some cues from advocates of character education such as Thomas Lickona, Educating for Character, William Kilpatrick, Why Johnny Can`t Tell Right from Wrong, and William Damon, Greater Expectations. These authors set forth programs and practical strategies designed to develop character in children. These authors believe that the concern for character needs to be woven into the fabric of the educational process and should not be seen as something separate and apart from the remainder of the educational enterprise. Like so, the church should weave character formation into its curricula and its ongoing life.

Second, the church will assist parents with character education tasks. Children are born with a natural disposition and adaptation for learning, but not with character formed. Parents take on the tasks of nurture, guidance, encouragement, and the formation of character; but, parents need the help of others in fulfilling their assignment. Such has forever been the case.

Helping children develop good character, while never easy, is a more demanding assignment for parents today. Many parents are single and attempt the task of parenting alone. In such circumstances, the mother or father finds the demands of parenting to be multiplied, not doubled. Additionally, both parents in many families work in the marketplace. In both scenarios, parents have a minimal amount of time and limited opportunity to interact with their children. The situation is complicated by the fact that many in this culture seem to think that the only world that matters is the world that is in one`s head, and, thus, parental guidance is suspect. Hence, many parents are both frustrated and frightened by the task of character education. One of the church`s opportunities and challenges is to help parents with the task of character formation and with the parent`s roles in it.

Third, the church will act in behalf of character education programs in the schools. Throughout the United States, a growing number of school districts are working with character education–with topics such as respect and responsibility, compassion and caring, for example. Educators understand that these qualities of character give strength to society and its institutions. They also understand that the formation of such character calls for school, family, community, and church to work together.

The church can act in support of character education programs in the schools and help the schools fulfill an important task in society. However, the church must not operate with the assumption that the schools must embody everything that the church attempts. Rather, the church must see itself as partner in developing respectful and responsible student citizens who will become adult citizens who are respectful and responsible. If the church does this, it will have a base upon which it can build in doing the other tasks to which it is called to do.

Fourth, the church will underscore the place of "church" in the formation of character. View the various functions of the church, a gathered community, as means to develop character. The Bible is somehow formative and normative for Christian character. The Christian faith expresses itself in the life of the church in a wide range of forms, activities and actions, and interacts with participants. Thus, the church is involved in the formation of character.

However, the church in America is getting less time from its members than it once did. Believers and their families are investing less of themselves and their energies in the ongoing life of the church. At a time when believers and their families need the church to have a more prominent place and role in their lives, the church is getting less. Underscore the place of the church in the formation of character.

A half-dozen roles define the work of the minister in the formation of character. First, the minister will recognize the assortment of resources available for the ministry of character formation. The minister is not without resources, tools, and methods that can be used in the tasks of character formation. The minister has, for example, the life of the church with its multiple opportunities for preaching, teaching, nurture, instruction, worship, and discipline. The minister also has the people who compose the church and the Christian scriptures. Likewise, the minister has the history and tradition of the church. Richard Mouw says, "I am convinced that we Protestants have to find better ways of drawing strength from the examples of…holy people in our collective past by keeping their stories alive. Additionally, Mouw observes that "one very important ministry the saints can perform for us is to expand our imaginations and enrich our supply of examples of how Jesus can be loved and served.

One fact in The West Point Way of Leadership is striking: the Academy has done its work of building leaders with character since 1802. The school has a history and a heritage; a long gray line stretches across the decades. Thus, the 1996 cadet can say, "I can do it because they did it." The church has its own long gray line or, if one prefers a different image, a long bloodline. Let the minister take advantage of the church`s heritage in the formation of character.

Second, the minister will utilize a range of actions in carrying out the ministry of character formation. Think, first, of the many roles assigned to the minister: teaching, preaching, evangelism, counseling, administration, worship leadership, guiding church organization and process, leadership in the community, modeling and mentoring–the list could go on. The minister has more avenues of action open than any other member of the church. Think, in turn, of the ways in which each of those roles can be pressed into service in the formation of character. The minister has more access to the congregation and a wider range of entry points into the lives of people than any other member. When the minister thinks in terms of the ministry of character formation, the counsel is clear: use everything at one`s disposal.

Third, the minister will reintroduce the theology of "sin" and "sins" into the work of preaching and teaching. The Bible blesses and applauds certain attitudes, virtues, and actions while it rejects and devalues others or pronounces them wrong. Nevertheless, much of American Christianity has neglected the Bible`s concern with "sin" and "sins." Perhaps contemporary Baptists have fallen into the trap of moving away from the biblical concepts because of some misuse of those truths in some sectors of the church. Or Baptists today may simply have fallen captive to the relativism and permissiveness of the age.

Three books can help one rethink, reclaim, and reintroduce sin into the working vocabulary of character formation. Read and learn from Ted Peters, Sin: Radical Evil in Soul and Society. Let Cornelius Plantinga, Jr., Not the Way It`s Supposed to Be be your teacher. Work through Henry Fairlie, Seven Deadly Sins for insight.

Fourth, the minister will recapture the prophetic role that belongs to God`s servant. "The task of the prophetic ministry," according to Walter Brueggeman, "Is to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us." The minister who is concerned about the formation of character will take seriously the prophetic role.

Fifth, the minister will reclaim the New Testament image of conversion. The insights of Alasdair MacIntyre, who takes issue with the approach of modernity, are insightful. MacIntyre argues that the moral good is not available to any intelligent person no matter what his or her point of view. Rather, in order to be moral, to acquire knowledge about what is true and good, a person has to be made into a particular kind of person. According to MacIntyre, one must be transformed in order to be moral at all. Thus, no account of the moral life is intelligible that does not involve some account of conversion.

The New Testament rings with the call to conversion and pictures the character and lifestyle of the converted person. "Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven" is the ringing declaration of Jesus (Matt. 18:3). "Repent ye therefore, and be converted" is the call of the church (Acts 3:19). Conversion admits one to the Kingdom and launches a person onto the path toward Christian character and Godlikeness. Conversion is laden with ethical and moral implications and the minister dare not limit its meaning to a salvation understood narrowly as a private "spiritual" transaction between God and the believer.

Sixth, the minister will remember that she/he is a "significant other" whose character can–and should–help to shape the character of those to whom she/he ministers. The minister will refuse to set her/himself up as a god in human form, but the minister will also acknowledge that one`s character is significant in the formation of another`s character. Contemporary leadership studies underline the importance of the leader`s embodiment of the values to which she/he points. Thus, the minister`s character, disposition, attitudes, and values are part of the process of character formation.

Paul understood this. The apostle, who pointed to himself as an example, exhorted two young colleagues to be examples of the gospel they preached and the life they advocated. Paul admonished Timothy: "…But be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity" (1 Tim. 4:12). To Titus, the apostle said, "…In all things show[ing] thyself a pattern of good works" (Titus 2:7). 1 Peter sounded a similar note with the words, "neither as being Lords over God`s heritage, but being examples to the flock" (1 Peter 5:3). Someone summed up the truth with the words, "You can only lead other where you yourself are willing to go."

Implications for the Life and Work of the Church and Minister

The understandings set forth throughout these paragraphs carry at least three significant implications for the life and work of the minister and church. First, the life and work of the minister and church must be seen as more than functional in nature. The church and its ministers must be concerned with being as well as doing, with character as well as competence, with self as well as service.

Second, the church`s concern for discipleship must include an emphasis on character and the moral life. Concern for bringing people to faith must be coupled with concern for helping them to know and do the good. Concern for care must couple attention to felt needs with attention to the needs of character.

Third, ministers must engage in the processes that can help them to develop more fully the character of Christ in themselves. The practice of the spiritual disciplines will continually pull the minister into the presence of God who fashions people into his likeness. Practice of the disciplines keeps the minister in touch with the truth at the heart of his/her calling. The minister will be inspired and healed by the vision of God that is crafted through the practice of the spiritual disciplines. The practice of the spiritual disciplines coupled with moral reflection will help the minister to "grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ," and the minister`s character will become increasingly Godlike.

Conclusion

Consider two scenes. The first is a Giovanni Bernini sculpture housed in Rome`s Borghese Gallery–a work that freezes in marble the flight of Aeneas from the burning city of Troy. On his bent back Aeneas carries his old, frail father and by the hand he leads his toddling son. In this piece Bernini portrayed not a man, but man. Arrest the movement of the human race at any time and this is the essence of the moment: man is both fleeing and seeking. Man in transition, man between peril and uncertainty, carries on his back the blessings and burdens of the past, while at his feet trot the infant promises and threats of the future.

That sculpture is an image of what all human beings face. One might interpret Bernini`s work as a symbol of dilemma ethics. But, one could view it differently and say that Aeneas will make a decision about what he does on the basis of what is inside of him–on the basis of his character.

The second scene is portrayed by the novelist, Dick Francis. In The Decider, the main character asks: "Why did I go?" Then, he answers his own question: "I don`t know. I doubt if there is such a thing as a wholly free choice, because one`s choices are rooted in one`s personality. I choose what I choose because I am what I am…."5

Endnotes

1 Sam Toperoff. The Democrat.

2 Alan Ehrenhart, "Character Making American Comeback," The American Daily Town Talk, July 10, 1996.

3 "Does Character Count?" U.S. News and World Report, June 24, 1996, 35.

4 George G. Hunter III. Church for the Unchurched. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996, 54.

5 Dick Francis. The Decider.

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