Of Graces, Virtues, and Values

By A.B. Caneday

Each year during this season of the year, as Christmas approaches, animosity toward Christ, toward Christianity, and toward Christians invariably seems to escalate. Many atheists and secularists, alleging constitutional authority to keep church and state separate, are determined to squeeze every vestige of Christ out of the public square, especially at Christmas. For such atheists and secularists sight of a nativity scene situated in a public place triggers Dracula-like reactions upon sight of a cross. The drama has become quite banal. Equally commonplace are responses from Christians who protest the loss of “Christian values and morals that have made our nation so great.” This quote from a pastor unwittingly expresses a subtle but significant worldview shift that many Christians have uncritically embraced during the culture wars of recent decades as they have sued for acceptance in the public square. Pushed to the background is the fact that blasphemy against Christ Jesus done with humor is still blasphemy, as in a recent Saturday Night Live skit, while animosity toward Christians dominates complaints among outspoken Christians.

As we approach Christmas, recent protestations and rallies that decry the loss of “Christian values” within American culture and society call to memory a portion of a forthcoming essay in Christian Contours: How A Biblical Worldview Shapes the Mind and Heart, an essay titled, “How Can I Live the Biblical Worldview in a Culture that Does Not Share It?”. The premise of the essay is that as Christians called by the gospel to engage in a struggle that is not against flesh and blood but against spiritual forces of evil in high places (Eph. 6:12), we must engage the conflict wary of the stratagems Satan and his allies employ against Christ and his people (cf. 2 Cor. 2:11). Because every one of us have thinking that has been tainted to some degree by the prevailing worldviews that oppose the biblical worldview, we need to ponder pluralism’s prominent rules of engagement that counterfeit the graces of the gospel, if we would honor Christ Jesus and his gospel. One of these counterfeits is the supplanting of grace/virtue with values.

Values: Pluralism’s Self-Defined Morality

Shortly after the presidential election of November 2008, Christianity Today’s Politics Blog posted the full text of Cathleen Falsani’s interview with Barack Obama that had taken place on March 27, 2004 when he was still an Illinois state senator.^[1] Of many captivating elements within the interview, one exchange stands out. Falsani asks, “What is sin?” State Senator Obama responds by affirming that sin is “Being out of alignment with my values.” Falsani followed by asking, “What happens if you have sin in your life?” State Senator Obama explains, “I think it’s the same thing as the question about heaven. In the same way that if I’m true to myself and my faith that that is its own reward, when I’m not true to it, it’s its own punishment.” This brief verbal exchange reflects the profound depth of change that philosophical and religious pluralism has brought to American society and culture. Sin is no longer defined as a violation of an inflexible moral standard outside ourselves, whether received as revealed by God or acknowledged by society consisting of humans who know right from wrong because they are made in the image of God. Now sin is defined as “being out of alignment with my values,” self-derived values, of course, reflecting one’s own preferences. This succinctly epitomizes the radical moral and worldview revolution that has come to Western cultures within the past few decades.

From ancient Greek and Roman times until the recent era, people frequently spoke and wrote openly of virtues versus vices.² Though the virtues and vices lists of ancient Greco-Roman writers were not identical to the catalogs of graces and depravities listed in the New Testament and by later Christian writers, something significant was held in common concerning all virtues and vices, namely, that there is a fixed, universal moral standard by which all people everywhere at all times would be judged as good or evil.³ Now, however, thanks largely to nihilist philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1820-1869) and sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920), the term values substitutes for the term virtues if not also for the term ideals, terms one rarely hears anymore.⁴

The substitution of values for virtues and graces signals no mere lexical change but a cultural revolution, a massive worldview shift. Gertrude Himmelfarb observes, “One cannot say of virtues what one can say of values, that anyone’s virtues are as good as anyone else’s, or that everyone has a right to his own virtues. This shift from virtues to values represents the true moral revolution of our time.”⁵ At one time, while Western societies regularly disagreed concerning what virtue might require of a person in a given circumstance, because they held a common understanding of good and evil, they were able to reason together as they aimed for the common good of humanity. This is not so anymore. Philosophical and religious pluralism’s “moral education” has substituted values for graces and virtues by using the “values clarification” technique.⁶ The technique calls for students to discover their own values by exploring their preferences, what they like and dislike, and their feelings, as if preferences and feelings determine morality.⁷ Hence, whereas the church (and even the general society) formerly recognized and condemned obvious misconduct as sinful (wrong) and shameful, now, if the behavior is too offensive to fall under the umbrella category of “alternative life style,” both church and society barely muster the moral courage to label the behavior inappropriate or perhaps unhealthy, but surely without the slightest whisper of sin or of shame.⁸

Formerly, even people who did not identify themselves as Christians acknowledged that virtue, as a fixed moral standard, derives from outside oneself, from God. Now, however, whether in the church or not, people are willing to abandon the very notion of a moral standard and are wary of rendering any judgment upon the values of others. Instead, the only acceptable form of judgment is the condemnation of intolerance. This substitution of values in the place of virtues and graces is so deeply embedded in our vocabulary and sensibilities that intolerance itself is viewed (even by some who profess to be Christians) as a greater sin than many other moral failings.⁹

Have we succumbed to the worldview revolution so that we buy into the displacement of virtues and graces with mere values? Everywhere, individuals, institutions, and even churches have been uncritically caught up with speaking of and even publishing their values.¹⁰ Why do we no longer speak confidently of universal graces or virtues? We must take inventory and make necessary corrections in our own worldview including vocabulary, bringing it ever closer to the biblical worldview, so that we can engage others effectively with the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ, who is the universal standard of grace and virtue. We must not accommodate worldviews that compromise the gospel message’s uniqueness, and we must be aware that many in our culture live by their own values, which amount to little more than their cherry-picked preferences. The idea that sin is the violation of a universal standard of right and wrong—especially God’s standard of good and evil—is foreign to the children of this pluralistic age. Hence, our conversations must be guided with this knowledge.

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¹ See Steve Waldman, “Obama’s Fascinating Interview with Cathleen Falsani” (November 11, 2008, http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctpolitics/2008/11/obamas_fascinat.html).

² See, for example, Abraham J. Malherbe, Moral Exhortation: A Greco-Roman Sourcebook, Library of Early Christianity 5, ed. Wayne A. Meeks (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986).

³ For New Testament lists of graces (also called “virtues”), see 2 Cor. 6:6-8; Gal. 5:22-23; Eph. 4:32; 5:9; Phil. 4:8; Col. 3:12; 1 Tim. 4:12; 6:11; 2 Tim. 2:22; 3:10; James 3:17 1 Peter 3:8; 2 Peter 1:5-7. For lists of sins (also called “vices”), see Matt. 15:19; Mark 7:21-22; Rom. 1:29-31; 12:12; 1 Cor. 5:10-11; 6:9-10; 2 Cor. 6:9-10; 12:20-21; Gal. 5:19-21; Eph. 4:31; 5:3-5; Col. 3:5, 8; 1 Tim. 1:9-10; 2 Tim. 3:2-5; Titus 3:3; James 3:15; 1 Peter 2:1; 4:3, 15; Rev. 9:21; 21:8; 22:15. Consult J. D. Charles, “Virtue and Vice Lists,” in Dictionary of New Testament Background: A Compendium of Contemporary Biblical Scholarship, ed. Stanley E. Porter and Craig A. Evans (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 1252-57.

⁴ On the influence of Nietzsche and Weber, see Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987), 142-43, 153-54, 194-216.

⁵ See “Learning from Victorian Virtues—Interview: Gertrude Himmelfarb,” Religion & Liberty, 5:5 (July-August, 1995): 4.

⁶ See esp. Sidney B. Simon, Leland Howe, and Howard Kirschenbaum, Values Clarification: A Handbook of Practical Strategies for Teachers and Students (New York: Hart, 1972).

⁷ See Gertrude Himmelfarb, The De-Moralizaation of Society: From Victorian Virtues to Modern Values (New York: Vintage, 1996). For a succinct digest of Himmelfarb’s thesis, see “Learning from Victorian Virtues—Interview: Gertrude Himmelfarb,” Religion & Liberty, 5:5 (July-August, 1995): 1-5.

⁸ On the loss of shame, see James B. Twitchell, For Shame: The Loss of Common Decency in American Culture (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997).

⁹ For a popular presentation, see Katherine A. Kersten, “‘Values’ Have Replaced ‘Virtues,’ and Our Nation Is the Poorer for It,” reprinted from the Star Tribune (December 6, 1995), in Close to Home: Celebrations and Critiques of America’s Experiment in Freedom (Minneapolis: MSP Books, 2000), 1-4.

¹⁰ Note, for example, that American evangelicals uncritically get on board the political bandwagon to push for “family values” without realizing that this in some significant way surrenders the distinctiveness of the biblical worldview they claim to hold.

 Ardel Caneday (Ph.D., Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) is Professor of New Testament Studies and Biblical Studies at Northwestern College in St. Paul, Minnesota. He has served churches in various pastoral roles, including senior pastor. He has authored numerous journal articles, many essays in books, and has co-authored with Thomas Schreiner the book The Race Set Before Us: A Biblical Theology of Perseverance and Assurance (Inter-Varsity, 2001).

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