Ethics
They had been talking for a while, before she asked the question she wanted to ask.
“So, what do you think, pastor? Should I leave my teaching job and pursue my doctorate or not?”
After a few moments of silence, the pastor responded, “Does getting your doctorate helps you do what you love?”
“What do you mean?”
“If you love teaching children, if that’s what makes your heart sing, then it’s worth considering that if you get your doctorate you will probably never teach children again. If you simply love teaching and want to help train a generation of teachers to love their class the way you love your class, then pursuing a doctorate makes a world of sense.”
There were plenty of reasons to stay in the classroom. She loved teaching. She had a fairly stable life and her job was absolutely secure. Ultimately, she decided to pursue the doctorate because for her what mattered was raising up a generation of teachers who loved their students.
Whether we always realize it in the moment or not, whenever we make a decision, we draw on a set of beliefs that help define who we are, how we relate to the world around us and what is important to us. Those beliefs, those ethics, shape who we are and how we live and act in the world.
While each individual’s ethics will be different, as you talk with your neighbors it is possible to discover how the lived-experiences of your community are shaping the ethics of your community. You can use the following questions to explore to help you unearth the ethics that exists in your community. As you talk with your neighbors, give them space to reflect on their experience of your community, listen for ways that their experience may be different than your own, and consider whether the culture of your community might be shaping the members of your community.
Reflection by Pastor John Wertz, Jr.
Reflection Questions for Ethics
The list of questions is adapted from The Church as Movement, pg. 193-194.
- Does the pace of life in this context aid or hinder people’s ability to engage in solitude, silence and reflection?
- Does the built environment (design of the city, neighborhood) help people to be fully human, or does it make it more difficult?
- Does the art scene help people in the neighborhood and city to consider the important questions they ought to address, or does it add to their stress?
- How do the primary modes of transportation shape people’s sense of being?
- Who promotes and hinders justice in this context?
- How does the city shape people’s conception of the good life?
- Do the laws and law enforcement agencies help each person of the city, no matter their class or ethnicity, feel like a person made in the image of God?
- Does this context’s description of the “good life” cause people to consider others more important than themselves or to look out for number one?
- Which behaviors are rewarded and which are punished?
- How does the city government’s budget reflect its understanding of success?