The Return of Virtue?

Even an atheist can see something's missing.

Sunrise in St. Mary, Montana, 2013. Personal photo.

This post is the follow-up to Can Our Politics Be Raised From the Dead? There, I pointed out how the words church and gospel each carried political meaning in the first century.

For the time being, the midweek posts will continue with the 40 Days of Psalms theme. The weekend delivery (when I can squeeze it in) will focus on a different topic, as you see here.

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An Atheist and a Psychologist Walk Into a Bar

Jordan Peterson and Jonathan Rauch don’t have a lot in common.

One is a celebrity psychologist who rose to fame for refusing to use “preferred pronouns.” The other is less well-known, a soft-spoken journalist who describes himself as a “gay Jewish atheist.”

And yet despite their stark differences, both hope for Christianity to renew our culture and politics. Here’s Rauch recently:

In 2003, I wrote. . .the dumbest thing I ever wrote. It was a tribute to apatheism, which was a play on, of course, theism and apathy. And it said, it's a wonderful thing that American society is secularizing. We're turning into Scandinavia. And since religion is a source of conflict and superstition, having less of it will make us less fraught and more happy. And boy was I wrong.

Also critical of religion in the past, Jordan Peterson has been influenced by the mystical psychologist Carl Jung. This enables him to see universal patterns that span cultures and their meaning-making stories. And yet, as recently as 2018, he said he didn’t believe in God. Whether or not that conviction is shifting, he’s clear-eyed about the corrosive effects of godlessness on our culture:

In the West, we have been withdrawing from our tradition-, religion- and even nation-centered cultures, partly to decrease the danger of group conflict. But we are increasingly falling prey to the desperation of meaninglessness, and that is no improvement at all.

Both Rauch and Peterson recognize that with the decline of Christianity, a void has opened up in our culture. The shared moral framework that once kept our society sane is gone.

Virtue and Christian Leaders

Central to what we’ve lost is a yearning for virtue.

The idea is ancient. Virtue includes moral goodness, as well as the idea of excellence, or the full realization of a person’s potential. Three centuries before Jesus, Aristotle wrote about areté, the Greek word for virtue. The term is used in the New Testament, both as a description of God’s character and as a quality believers need to develop.

The idea is reflected in the list of qualifications for church leaders. Called “overseers” in this translation, Christian traditions may refer to them as bishops, priests, elders, or pastors:

An overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil. (1 Timothy 3:2-7)

Notice how almost everything mentioned in this list is a character quality. Overwhelmingly, it’s a collection of virtues. Of course, few will be surprised that church leaders should have such qualities.

The Virtuous King

What’s startling is that the Bible requires essentially the same virtues of political leaders. This list from the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy describes the requirements for kings:

When you come to the land that the Lord your God is giving you. . .you may indeed set a king over you whom the Lord your God will choose. . .Only he must not acquire many horses for himself . . .And he shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold. . .

. . .He shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law. . .and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them, that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children, in Israel. (Deuteronomy 17:14-20)

The requirements for Israel’s kings line up very closely with the qualifications for local church elders. Both must be:

Free from greed and excessive material means of security

• You may indeed set a king over you. . .only he must not acquire many horses for himself. . .nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold (Deuteronomy 17:15-17).

• An overseer must be. . .not a lover of money (1 Timothy 3:2-3).

Faithful to one woman

• [A king] shall not acquire many wives for himself (Deuteronomy 17:17).

• An overseer must be. . .the husband of one wife (1 Timothy 3:2).

Familiar with the Word of God

• He shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law. . .and it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life (Deuteronomy 17:18-19).

• An overseer must be. . .able to teach [the Scripture] (1 Timothy 3:2).

Self-controlled

• . . .that [the king] may learn to fear the Lord his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them (Deuteronomy 17:19).

• An overseer must be. . .self-controlled (1 Timothy 3:2).

God-Given Virtue for All of Life

Today most Americans, Christian or not, have given up hope for virtue in our political leaders. But this is just another sad symptom of the decline of the church in our country. To repurpose Jordan Peterson’s quote: “We are increasingly falling prey to the desperation of meaninglessness.”

What can snap us out of that? As believers, we have to begin with the “city hall” that we do oversee: the church. If you read last week’s post, you’ll recall that ekklesia, the word we translate church, originally referred to a political or civic assembly. Peter Leithart even claims that:

Calling the church in Ephesus an ekklesia is analogous to naming a church “First City Hall of Gardendale, Alabama.”

For God’s civic community, the church, we need leaders and members who truly reflect the character of Christ. This is only possible because of the Lord’s gift of grace. One prayer, one psalm, one sermon at a time, God is renewing us. He is drawing us together in worship, at the communion table, and in our communities. The Lord reminds us of our everlasting destination, even as he cultivates virtue within us for the here-and-now. He gives us the courage to protect the vulnerable (Psalm 82:3-4) and to challenge the mighty and morally corrupt (Mark 6:18).

The Bible doesn’t offer a clean, clear line between political and private morality. Jesus is, after all, a King. He died for our sins, rose from the grave, and ascended to the highest throne. And we, his servants, get to surrender our lives to the good news of his reign. We also get to announce this gospel to all.

This is where the church offers something that a Jordan Peterson or a Jonathan Rauch can’t—at least not yet. “Christian” virtue disconnected from belief in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus could hold some value. It might be able to slow the decay of a nation.

But it can’t raise one from the dead.

And right now we need nothing less.