Introducing Protestant Social Ethics

by Brian Matz

Despite their rich tradition of social concern, Protestants have historically struggled to articulate why, whether, and how to challenge unethical social structures. This book introduces Protestants to the biblical and historical background of Christian social ethics, inviting them to understand the basis for social action and engage with the broader tradition. It embraces and explains long-standing Christian reflection on social ethics and shows how Scripture and Christian history connect to current social justice issues. Each chapter includes learning outcomes and chapter highlights.

272 pages, Paperback

First published March 14, 2017

Reviews

[Joshua · Rating 2 out of 5]

This review was originally published in Trinity Journal, Vol. 40 No. 1 (Spring 2019): 100-102.

Brian Matz, a church historian who specializes in patristic studies, is the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet Endowed Chair in Catholic Thought at Fontbonne University. He notes that Introducing Protestant Social Ethics emerged as “the product of several years spent reflecting on and teaching principles of social ethics to students” at four different Catholic colleges and universities (ix). In the introduction, Matz outlines his goals and purposes for the book, including “to provide students the tools they need to be able to practice social ethics for themselves … [and] to highlight the distinct features of Protestant social ethics while at the same time situating Protestant social ethics within the broader history and tradition of Christian thinking on society” (xvi). He also distinguishes his approach from other ethics textbooks that emphasize social issues, preferring instead to center on ethical principles.

The book contains three parts, each of which is comprised of five chapters. Part 1 focuses on the deep roots of social ethics found in Scripture. Chapter 1 explores three socioethical themes in the Pentateuch: order, grace, and God’s love for the marginalized. Chapter 2 surveys the Ketuvim (the Old Testament’s historical, poetic, and wisdom books) and stresses these writings’ attention to God’s righteous and gracious character, as well as their repeated exhortations toward justice. Chapter 3 expounds upon the prophets’ denunciations of Israel’s past and present idolatry and injustice, and their eschatological hope for divine restoration. Chapter 4 summarizes the ways that the Gospels present Jesus as modeling the love of God, opposing the hypocrisy and obscurantism of religious leaders, and proclaiming the kingdom of God. Chapter 5 covers the rest of the New Testament and examines how the early church sought to live as a new community by crossing social boundaries, especially of ethnicity, class, and gender. In summarizing the Bible’s socioethical teachings, Matz maintains, “The Scriptures reveal a God who disrupts our notions of comfort and who seeks to meet the needs of the marginalized before meeting the needs of the ‘most,’ or majority” (68, emphasis original).

Part 2 surveys church history, analyzing how Christians have understood and practiced social ethics. Chapter 6 discusses Late Antiquity (which Matz demarcates as the church’s first six centuries), during which period the deepening Christian understanding of and commitment to charity found expression in the establishment of a social welfare safety net, in the form of hospitals, schools, and congregational giving to the poor. Chapter 7 provides an overview of the Middle Ages (sixth through fifteenth centuries), underscoring the contributions of Thomas Aquinas (who developed the natural law tradition and articulated a Christian perspective on justice) and the monastic orders (which provided an embodied and communal counter-witness to ecclesial and political corruption and greed). Chapter 8 explores the sixteenth-century Reformations (Matz emphasizes the plural, given “that there were multiple reforms developing in Europe simultaneously during this time period,” 97), particularly the theological and hamartiological differences that underlay how the Magisterial and Radical Reformers understood the relationship between church and state, as well as the nature of economics. Chapter 9 covers Protestant socioethical developments from the seventeenth century to the present. Matz argues, “Two features of this period have proved decisive in the construction of Protestant social ethics: (1) a separation of the state from the church, and (2) a promotion of scientific knowledge above theological knowledge” (115). Matz also traces the influence of Puritan and Wesleyan values (which vigorously sought to bring all of life under the gospel’s domain), and the twentieth-century divergence in approaches to social problems (between the fundamentalist stress on personal conversion and the mainline preference for structural change). Chapter 10 reviews developments in Catholic social teaching, the papal encyclicals from Leo XIII (Rerum novarum, 1891, on labor conditions and workers’ rights) to Francis (Laudato si’, 2015, on interlocking environmental and economic concerns). Matz concludes, “[Protestants] would do well to draw from the insights not only of their particular tradition but of the church universal. Indeed, it may ultimately be more helpful to think not in terms of developing Protestant (as opposed to Catholic) social ethics but rather in terms of developing Christian social ethics–social ethics that are faithful to one’s particular tradition while drawing from the wealth of resources from across the church” (154, emphasis original).

Part 3 explicates five principles for Protestant social ethics; again, Matz explains that these “adhere closely to principles and themes found in Catholic social teaching” (151). In each chapter, he defines the principle, notes its canonical and historical sources, and offers brief contemporary illustrations of the principle in practice. Chapter 11 addresses human dignity, which “may be considered a why principle in social ethics” (157), and is defined as “the status held by humans entitling them to respect from the moment life begins to the time of natural death” (158). Chapter 12 unfolds the common good, another why principle, framed as “the set of conditions within society that enables everyone to have the opportunity to flourish” (171). Chapter 13 explores justice, which “expresses the what of social ethics” (183). Matz holds a broadly Thomistic understanding of justice (“the virtue of giving people what is due them as a consequence of their God-given dignity,” 184). Chapter 14 covers solidarity, “the how of social ethics…. Solidarity challenges us to ask whether the social organizations of which we are a part strengthen the bonds of human friendship, especially the bonds between those with and those without sufficient resources” (193). Chapter 15 investigates subsidiarity, another how principle, which Matz understands to mean that “problems within a social organization ought to be solved at the lowest possible level of that social organization” (205). He concludes, “Subsidiarity reminds people of their responsibility (1) to take care of oneself and then (2) to care for others whose problems are too great for them to handle alone” (216).

The strength of the book lies in its accessibility. Its structural parallelism, along with its summaries of each chapter and part, should prove useful as a textbook for college students or a primer for interested laypeople. Furthermore, its historical rootedness makes possible the articulation of multiple trajectories, and its winsome ecumenism calls Protestants to rediscover socioethical gems from other traditions.

At the same time, this ecclesial broadness risks undercutting one of Matz’s own stated aims. There is very little here that is distinctly Protestant, beyond a vague “commitment to work from a biblically centered view of society” and the two-kingdoms theory of church and state relations (xv). As a result, the title is somewhat misleading; Introducing Christian Social Ethics would have more accurately conveyed the book’s contents (a point which Matz himself seems to concede at the end of Part 2). This confusion is only compounded by the presence of glib biblical claims that are either easily refutable (“lament psalms end invariably on a hopeful note,” 18) or extremely contestable (“In Rom. 9 he argues that being a physical descendent of Abraham means little,” 60). Surprising errors, whether historical (John Wesley, not his brother Charles, was the founder of Methodism who spent time with Anabaptists, 108), pictorial (mixing up William Wilberforce and – again – John Wesley in an illustration, 124), or spelling (“strickly” for “strictly”, 68) also somewhat undercut its effectiveness.

[Chase Coleman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was just objectively bad, a slugfest to get through it. Felt like it was mainly a church history book with a sprinkle of ethics in it.

The third part of this book has broad social categories that he covers, but used very precise examples. The examples were problems in American society (lack of universal healthcare, global warming, taxes). He doesn’t explicitly say that these are injustices in society but it easy to see what he is trying to do. He tries to describe these social situations objectively but is very subjective in his presentation. This review was just mentally taxing. Bleh

[Austin Hood · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is important for the Christian not only to remember his relationship with God and his neighbor, but with society at large. Individuals have a chance to make a great impact on the culture, but this volume overviews how the Protestant denominations prefer to lob stones from afar rather than eat engaged in improving the society they exist in. The “wall of eternal separation” may be due to cone down

[Tim Bayer · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Good: Historical survey and discussion of foundational issues when approaching social ethics.

The Ugly: Virtually every time he discusses the Bible. His exegesis is overly simplistic and devoid of the gospel.