Christ the Savior, and the Church his Body

God made man, who is an agent of salvation. Jesus Christ came into the world to save it; and comes as light to chase away the darkness and ignorance in which the world is plunged.

The church, is the body of Christ. In it, Christ is present and operative, transforming the world into the image of God. This is the full mission of the Church. Where ever it exist, it carries God's call and challenge: to render present and effective Christ the Saviour of the World. The body of Christ should strive to discern this call and to answer fully. And I believe this is something worth thinking about.

Special Moral Concerns.
There are so many issues in the general area of moral concerns that it is possible here to refer to only a few persistent and highly significant ones. There are, how¬ever, some principles, grounded in the Scriptures, that are applic¬able, in varying degrees, to most contemporary moral issues. Among these principles are:
1. Life is a creation of God and should be considered sacred.

2. The individual will be held ac¬countable by God for his or her decisions (Gal. 6:7-8).
3. One’s body belongs to the Lord, is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and should be dedicated to the purposes of God (1 Cot. 6:12-20; Rom. 12:1).
4. Right for the Christian is determined not only by what he or she thinks is right but also by what others think and by the effect of what is done on the lives of others (Rom. 14:1-23; 1 Cot. 8:1-13).
5. The strong should serve the weak (tom. 15:1-3).
6. Whatever the Christian does should be for the benefit of others, for th good of the church, and for the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:24, 3 1-33).
7. We who have been recipients of the grace of God should be instruments of his grace, letting our Father reach out through us to those who have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Gal. 6:1-2).
On the basis of these and related principles, the hunger of any human being anywhere should be the concern of Christians everywhere (Mart. 25:35-40); and efforts to relieve the hunger of the world should include ways to increase production of food and to reduce its consump¬tion in countries where over consumption is a serious health problem, including the responsible limitation of population growth. We should also be concerned about crime and should work for a more enlightened and effective penal system where the emphasis is primarily remedial or custodial rather than merely punitive. There should be no place for capital punishment in a remedially oriented penal system because capital punishment is discriminatory in that most persons put to death are the very poor and the underprivileged from minority groups and because there is no clear evidence that capital punishment is a deterrent to crime. Christians should be deeply concerned about the lack of integrity in much of business, government, and society in general. Law and order, on the one hand, and justice, on the other, must be kept in proper balance if we are to have a healthy society. Christians should be careful not to become defenders of regimes that maintain order at the expense of justice for the people. Freedom of the press is constitutionally guaranteed in some countries; but there is no absolute freedom and no freedom without responsibility. Christians should support efforts to limit the pub¬lication and distribution of pornographic literature and the fla¬grant portrayal of sex, violence, alcohol abuse, and materialism in television programming. Pollution of water and air is a problem of major proportions in our society. Also, total abstinence from gambling, smoking, and alcohol and other harmful drugs is a preferable position for a Christian in our culture today. On the other hand, Christians should have a concern and compassion for the victims of these and other destructive habits. Some perplexing moral problems in the contemporary world are in the bio¬medical area. Among these are abortion, euthanasia, organ trans¬plants, and generic engineering and experimentation. There are moral as well as legal aspects of these problems. Christian doc¬tors, scientists, and others should ask, “Is this right?” as well as “Is this legal?” One thing that will help in relation to many issues or cases will be a respect for life in general and human life in par¬ticular. In regard to abortion, euthanasia, and organ transplants, the decision at times is in the in-between area where the choice may be between the lesser of two evils. Christians generally believe, for example, that an abortion is justified only under very se¬rious conditions: when there is a clear threat to the health or life of the mother or possibly in the case of a pregnancy as a result of incest or rape or manifest deformity of the fetus—cases that are extremely rare. Iris important that the pregnant person should have competent Christian counseling with an opportunity to weigh her options, viewing abortion in moral and spiritual as well as physical terms. A distinction should be made between positive and negative euthanasia, with possible acceptance of the latter when it simply means the withholding of artificial means to keep a terminally ill person alive. In contrast, positive euthanasia, the actual raking of life, is wrong. Genetic engineering is potentially very dangerous. There is no reason to condemn organ transplants as long as there is proper regard for the donor as well as the recipient. Another moral issue is the health, including the mental health, of all the peoples of the world. The Christian ideal is that adequate medical service should be available to all.

Human work is the key to the solution… of the whole "social question." To consider work is of decisive importance when trying to make life "more human."

We must consequently continue to study the situation of the worker. There is a need for solidarity movements among and with the workers. The church is firmly committed to this cause, in fidelity to Christ, and to be truly the "church of the poor."

There lingers among many people the en¬tirely fallacious idea, sometimes referred to as racism, that some races are by nature inferior while others are superior. God, how¬ever, has made no innately inferior or superior races. All races have been created in the image of God. All belong to one family (Acts 17:26). This means that racial prej udice is to have no place in the life of a Christian or a Christian church. Our heavenly Father is no respecter of persons (Job 34:19; Acts. 10:34; 1 Per. 1:17); and his children should not be. We are “all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). If we cannot pray “Our Father” (Mart. 6:9) with fellow believers of different colors and cultures, there is something wrong with our relation to their Father and our Father. One expression of prejudice that we should avoid is stereotyping. We should never be guilty of saying, “All whites are...,” ‘All blacks are...,” “All Hispanics are.” There may be vol¬untary separation of races in our churches and society but there should be no involuntary segregation, maintained by law or social pressure. We may be of many classes and colors in our churches, but we are “one body in Christ” (Rom. 12:5; I Cot. 12:12), with Christ as the head (Eph. 5:23). Human distinctions such as male and female, white and black are transcended in him. He will break down the walls of prejudice that separate us if we will let him (Eph. 2:14; Col. 3:11).

A church that is “the church of God” (1 Cot. 1:2; 2 Cot. 1:1) cannot close its doors or its membership to anyone because of his or her race. Racial prejudice is expressed most strongly regarding mixed marriages. While there are some valid practical arguments against mixed marriages in some cultures, there is no scriptural teaching directly against such marriages. Old Testament passages frequently used against mixed marriages were religiously rather than racially motivated (Exod. 34:11-16; Deut. 7:1-5; Ezra 9:1-2). When such marriages take place churches should accept and seek to minister to the ones in¬volved. Christians and churches are obligated to do what they can to eliminate expressions of prejudice in housing and in jobs.

Housing is one of the most basic but difficult problems in the whole area of race relations. Many other problems stem from or are related to housing. Christians from any majority group, how¬ever, should not succumb to prejudice and scare tactics to be a part of the racially motivated exodus from an area into which minority peoples have moved. Christians should support efforts to see that apartments and houses are available for rent or sale re¬gardless of race. Also, we should do what we can to prohibit dis¬crimination in employment or discrimination regarding upgrad¬ing on the job on the basis of race. The ideal, in the area of education, should be that every child regardless of racial origin, would have an opportunity for the best possible education. Every indi¬vidual should have an opportunity to receive adequate education helpful in his or her daily work.

Our faith challenges us to reach out to those in need, to take on the global status quo, and to resist the immorality of isolationism. Pope John Paul II reminds us that a turn to "selfish isolation" would not only be a "betrayal of humanity's legitimate expectations…but also a real desertion of a moral obligation."

The obligation to earn one's bread by the sweat of one's brow presumes the right to do so. A society in which this right is systematically denied, in which economic policies do not allow workers to reach satisfactory levels of employment, cannot be justified from an ethical point of view, nor can that society attain social peace.