Vertical & Horizontal Morality and the mission of the church, Part 2
Do we further the will of God by killing people? That’s extreme, and we could perhaps say, “No, we should obviously never further the will of God by killing people.” When would we even have the opportunity to further the will of God by killing people?
There have been plenty of such opportunities throughout history. The Crusades in the middle ages are a primary example. During the Crusades, Christians from Europe invaded the Holy Land with the purpose of destroying the Muslims who occupied it. Those Christians reasoned, “Certainly God’s will would be to get Muslims out of the Holy Land, so therefore use war, including killing Muslims to do so.”
If all we’re going on is vertical morality, then we can make a case for the Crusades. A bad case, for sure.
But the Crusades were so long ago, and we’ve learned since then, haven’t we?
More recently, the bombing of abortion clinics and murder of abortion doctors in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. The people who killed the doctors and bombed the clinics reasoned, “Certainly God’s will is to stop abortion, so therefore we will stop abortion, no matter the cost.”
Using the principles of vertical morality led many to do killing in God’s name.
But killing is extreme. Are their other behaviors based on vertical morality that are not so extreme?
Consider the numerous “big name” pastors who have behaved very poorly, including using anger and sexuality manipulatively, who then got caught. Instead of their church boards publicly dealing with the sin, they sometimes swept the horrific behavior under a rug because they were afraid it would be detrimental to the forward progress of the ministry. Those pastors and boards reasoned, “Certainly God’s will is to keep the church moving forward, so let’s hide the truth.” That’s vertical morality at work.
Think about how this can occur on a smaller scale, in your own life. One way is through the use of outrage. Like a few of my students, as I mentioned in the previous post. Some Christians believe that if Christianity is being threatened, it is needed and good to express outrage in order to remove the threat. Outrage has become common in our culture. Especially on social media. So much so that Christians can feel justified in using outrage.
Christian proponents of outrage might point to Jesus cleansing the temple. Wasn’t he outraged? Do his actions in the temple not give us license to behave the same? To that, it is assuming quite a lot to suggest that we can express anger in a righteous way, as Jesus did. When we feel anger, it is all too easy for us to express it in a sinful way, because the ends justify the means.
That is all vertical morality. Justifying sinful behavior because it will help God’s cause.
Let me contrast vertical morality with horizontal morality. Horizontal morality says that what is most important is how we treat humans.
April Ajoy writes, “Horizontal morality prioritizes the well-being of our neighbors, communities and personal relationships. We act in ways that cause the least amount of harm to those around us, regardless of beliefs.”
This, too, we see in Jesus’ teaching and life. In fact, horizontal morality is also grounded in the Old Testament Law, “love your neighbor as yourself” (Deuteronomy 6:5), and Jesus said that is the second greatest command. (Matthew 22:34–40)
Caroline Bologna writes that horizontal morality “…focuses on genuine empathy, compassion and love toward others, recognizing the actual effects our actions have on people.”
Horizontal morality strives to help people, period. Helping people is in itself a good thing.
So am I saying that vertical morality is all bad and horizontal morality is all good. Not quite. How so?
I try to explain in the next post.
Engaging Scripture 