A Process for Moral Discernment in Complex Times

What do we do for the person who needs help, and isn't sure how to ask for it? Should we ask this person to serve in this role or not? What do we do with our friend who has violated our trust? The moral questions we face are often complex and challenging. How does a Christian community actually approach these tricky situations?

I've faced them as a pastor and I've faced them as an ethicist. In both roles, one of my sustaining hopes for the church is that it is a God-created community that lives the dynamics of a world being made new by God. That means, of course, that we'll need ways of dealing with the challenges that come our way. Our times are complex and there is no shortage of ways on offer of how we should handle tricky situations.

Christian communities would rightly look to Scripture when looking for a pathway of moral discernment, but what do we do when there isn't a hand-in-glove answer to this situation in Scripture?

These are the basic steps for moral discernment I work out in more detail in my book Christian Ethics, part of the Wesleyan Theology Series from The Foundry Publishing. I've also talked over these at PALCON and some other clergy trainings, but thought I'd open it up to others here. The book also offers discernment guides on contemporary moral challenges like politics, race, sex, economics, biomedical decisions, and more.

Of course, discernment is different from debate. Debate is when one person seeks to win the argument. Discernment is when a community seeks to be faithful. I hope these steps will help you do just that.

1) Begin with prayer, asking for wisdom and humility. Pray the Lord’s Prayer, with a reminder that we too have trespassed. We don't occupy morally flawless ground when we discern, especially when another has trespassed against us. Remind and recall God’s redemptive activity in the world. Remind the group we are joining this situation to God’s redemptive work.

2) Have someone in the group provide a written account of the situation. Ask the group if it is a faithful account. Differentiate between fact and conjecture. Once the account is clear, listen to it be read again.

3) Take time for the group to recall and tell stories about Jesus that remind them of this situation. It won't be a perfect fit to your situation, but as you consider your situation, what are the stories that lead you to say, “This reminds me of when Jesus…”

4) Ask the group to share what they've heard in these stories. What themes emerge what Jesus says or does? What did you hearing him calling the community to in those stories? Then ask, “What does the way of Jesus look like in this situation?”

Then, friends, it's time to act. Every ethical challenge calls for action at some point or another, and we don't always have the luxury of acting with complete assurance that our decision will be flawless. That's why we are invited to look back and continue asking, was that course of action faithful to Jesus? If not, what do we need to change to make it so?