By Patrick Anderson, editor
Recently, while our managing editor, Amy, was promoting Christian Ethics Today at the iconic Wild Goose Festival in North Carolina, a woman asked her, “Isn’t ‘ethics’ an outmoded term? Do we really need ethics any longer?’” Amy reported that she did not know how to answer the question and asked what I would have said. “Nothing,” probably, I said, equally as off guard as she. Does ethics (ethikos in Greek) matter today? How else would one express a standard of conduct and moral behavior?
The shortest and best answer is, of course, moral standards and values do matter. A longer response points to how, for many people, the valuation of ethical behavior has eroded in the contemporary social, pollical, and religious environment. This is not a new phenomenon; each generation has grappled with issues of moral judgement. And in each instance we find voices calling God’s people to wake up and deal with them. From ancient times to the present, voices of prophets have sought to awaken people from the swampy wilderness of ethic-less moral standards.
One such person was Howard Thurmond, a powerful advocate for ethical values… Christian ethical values…in his generation and still. Seventy-five years ago in 1949 he first published his seminal book, Jesus and the Disinherited (1949). The theological and social impact of that book was dramatic for Black theologians and social reformers such as Martin Luther King, Jr. in the 1960s and 1970s.
I was an undergraduate, seminary, and graduate student during some of MLK’s years, but I do not recall knowing about Thurmond or his book. Apart from academic settings, I became acquainted with a few of the writings of Langston Hughes, W.E B. DuBois, James Baldwin, Malcolm X, and Frederick Douglass. I read and was greatly impacted by George Jackson’s Soledad Brother and Eldridge Cleaver’s Soul on Ice.
But I missed Howard Thurmond completely. My education had been sadly neglected. Therefore, when Dr. Lewis Brogdon and I first began to talk about the importance of Howard Thurmond, he agreed to help recruit a diverse and highly qualified group of writers to introduce Thurmond to readers of Christian Ethics Today who, like me, may have overlooked the man and his writings.
So, Dr. Brogdon and four other writers have written articles which are included in a “Special Supplement” to this issue of the journal. We offer these articles in tribute of a great man, Howard Thurmond, and with the hope that his example will inspire us and his writings will inform us.
In addition, another group of highly qualified writers have shared insights for some of the ethical issues facing our present generation…you and me. John Pierce calls us to recognize the warning flags flying all around us today; Judge Wendell Griffen gives us a first-hand reflection on the up-coming sentencing of Donald Trump; Walter Shurden reviews Chuck Poole’s latest book, Job’s Choir: Essays From the Intersection of Grief and Hope; and Pastor Ryon Price shares his very timely and inspiring sermon, On Transgenderism.
Yes, ethics matters today as much as ever. You will find stimulating and informative information in this edition of Christian Ethics Today.
