Foolish Saints

Warning: Crazy formatting to follow.

Below is my most recent paper, an evaluation of the ethical philosophy of "non-conflicting absolutes." When I copy-and-paste papers with formatting and endnotes into Blogger, though, everything goes crazy. So that might happen here... But, hopefully, it's still readable. Don't click on the endnote hyperlinks - I'm not sure why Blogger turned them into dead links. Just scroll down to find the corresponding endnote.

Anyway, if you're interested in ethics and/or nerdiness, see below.

In the rich Jewish tradition of thoughtful interaction with Scripture, the Talmud gives a definition of what Rabbi Joseph calls the “foolish saint”: “A foolish saint… brings destruction upon the world. What is a foolish saint like? For example, a woman is drowning in the river, and he says, ‘It is improper for me to look upon her and rescue her’”[i] (B. Sotah 21b). The foolish saint is not really a saint at all in Jewish thought; in the case above, the foolish saint chooses an ideal of propriety over the higher value of saving a woman’s life. Granted, in typical day-to-day life, it would be ethically inexcusable for a man to look upon, grab, and grasp a woman he didn’t know who was wearing wet, disheveled clothing (or no clothing at all). But when the woman is drowning, rules for typical day-to-day life no longer apply – all effort, however grabbing and grasping, must go to saving the life of the woman. As the Mishnah (Sanhedrin 4.5) explains, “He who saves a single life is as if he saved an entire world.”[ii]

The situation of the foolish saint is one of conflicting ethical values – the value of propriety conflicts with the value of life. In the most challenging of these situations, “absolute”[iii] values are found to conflict. In a famous example, an honorable man is hiding someone from a murderer and the murderer himself comes to the honorable man’s door asking about the innocent person’s whereabouts. Here, the value of truth conflicts with the value of life – should the man tell a lie and save a life, or tell the truth and mortally endanger the person who has trusted him? [iv] The philosophy of non-conflicting absolutism, stemming from an Augustinian understanding of law and guilt, holds that there is actually a “third alternative” [v], that “there will never be a situation in which obedience to one absolute will entail disobedience to or the setting-aside of another absolute.”[vi] In the truth-versus-life example, it is suggested that the man has already fulfilled his obligation to protect the innocent person by hiding him or her, so now he is obligated to speak truthfully to the murderer.[vii] While this may sound like choosing truth over life, the “third alternative” is trusting God that His will for the innocent person (which may perhaps be death) will not be thwarted by your choosing to hold to the moral absolute of not lying. Echoing Augustine and Immanuel Kant, John Henry Newman explains the reasoning behind this position: “The Catholic Church holds it better for the sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions who are upon it to die of starvation in extremist agony… than that one soul… should commit one venial sin, should tell one willful untruth, though it harmed no one.”[viii] If one person’s truth-telling, argues another proponent of this view, causes someone else to die, “this also is within the providence of God. Surely the God of the scriptures is not one whose plans for certain individuals are frustrated because someone told the truth.”[ix]

This argument sounds remarkably like something Rabbi Joseph’s foolish saint would declare. It is an argument based in the assumption that we as humans are not deeply responsible for the innocent and the defenseless, and that if we just do the “right thing” we will not be guilty of the evil which might befall our brothers and sisters. The first question asked of God in the Bible is Cain’s: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4.9) If the rest of Scripture is to be taken seriously, the answer is a resounding “Yes”. God’s covenant people are called to “be holy, for I am holy… For I am the Lord who brought you up from the land of Egypt, to be your God; you shall be holy, for I am holy” (Leviticus 11:44-45). But what is holiness? The entire system of covenant law is framed by and woven into the story of God’s liberating action, rescuing the Israelites from Egypt.[x] This framework is indispensable in interpreting what is meant by the abstract command to “be holy”: being holy, being like God, involves participating in the deliverance and liberation of the world from the inseparable evils of systemic sin and death.[xi] Bruce Birch suggests that, when considering the entire Old Testament narrative, “to take seriously the role of Moses is to abandon passive waiting for God’s liberating action.”[xii] We are our siblings’ keepers.

A proponent of non-conflicting absolutism might argue that God could, if He wished, always thwart the murderer’s immanent sin (strike him stupid?) and save the innocent life betrayed by truth-telling. True, but if that was God’s typical course of action, He could also strike the man hiding the innocent person mute before he had a chance to lie.[xiii] It is not easy to accept, but the existence of horrifying violence in the world indicates that God has given humanity a terrifying amount of responsibility.[xiv] There is no “third alternative” of indifference toward the result of one’s actions.

How, though, can it be claimed that the “absolute” value of preserving innocent life is a greater good than the “absolute” value of truth-telling? Essentially, in what way is a particular law “absolute”? Robert Rakestraw defines “absolute” as “an universally-binding moral norm or directive which admits of no exceptions or exemptions outside of the absolute itself.”[xv] This is a fine general definition except that it remains unclear how one knows when one has encountered “an universally-binding moral norm” or how it can be known when an exception or exemption exists within the norm. While, for instance, it is often assumed that the Decalogue is a set of “absolutes”, this is actually far from self-evident. For example, it is debatable that the Decalogue as Decalogue, as the overarching “constitution-statement” for the covenant between God and the people of Israel, is “universally-binding”. The Decalogue in the context in which it was given is for Israel, not the universe. Granted, in context with the rest of the scriptural witness, it is theologically appropriate that the Decalogue can be morally normative for the rest of humanity. Yet it is still necessary to come to terms with the fact that this is an imposition of extra-biblical theological interpretations onto the Decalogue making it normative to Gentiles.

Not all values-generally-assumed-to-be-absolute are even found in the Bible. Nowhere in Scripture, for example, is it explicitly forbidden for a widow (unmarried non-virgin) to sleep with a man who is not her husband, whether he is married to someone else or not. The biblical definition of adultery is very much based in a man’s world – adultery is when a man sleeps with another man’s wife, not when a (unmarried) woman sleeps with another woman’s husband. Yet just because the Old Testament authors never thought it necessary to spell out this “female” perspective of adultery does not mean that theologians today are wrong to interpret the word “adultery” to mean all types of marital infidelity. It does mean, though, that readers of the text must admit to interpreting[xvi] the absolute value of marital fidelity by considering the intention behind the original command.

The suggestion that it is necessary to consider the intention behind the original command is adamantly not a suggestion that interpreters narrow all aspects of biblical ethics down to a broad (and ultimately lenient) concept like “love”. It might mean, as in the case with adultery and Jesus’ interpretation in the Sermon on the Mount, that biblically-based ethics are stricter than the literal letter of the biblical law.[xvii] It means that interpreters can draw ethical principles not only from the Old Testament legal code, but also from the rich narrative of all Scripture. Given that Scripture is unified as story and not law-book[xviii], it is important that a way of understanding ethics through narrative (and not through legal statements alone) is emphasized.[xix]

Jesus’ understanding of Sabbath-keeping sets a strong precedent for this type of legal interpretation. The emphasis on Sabbath-keeping in the Old Testament cannot be underestimated – it is of such importance that even animals and the land itself fall under its jurisdiction.[xx] Keeping the Sabbath is to directly imitate God’s own action. It is just as much an “absolute” in the Old Testament as truthfulness or sexual morality. Additionally, based on the text itself, there is no arbitrary moral/ceremonial distinction between a command against lying and a command to keep the Sabbath.[xxi]

When Jesus didn’t flinch an eye when his disciples picked grain, threshed it with their hands, and ate it on the Sabbath, then, the most careful observers of the law were naturally alarmed. Sabbath-keeping was a defining marker of Jewish covenantal holiness (if anything was, it was an absolute) – how could this upstart rabbi from Galilee justify breaking it? Mark records the crux of Jesus’ argument: “The Sabbath was made for humankind, not humankind for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). The Sabbath is a law which is meant to lead to life[xxii] – keeping the Sabbath does not entail “keeping” it to the point of physical danger (and certainly not to death).[xxiii] In Jesus’ mind, keeping the Sabbath was not simply an arbitrary abstract absolute – it was a law for humanity’s well-being (though the Old Testament never spelled it out this way), a law for building a community which was representative of God’s redemption and restoration. If the law of Sabbath-keeping came in the way of that community’s well-being and redemptive mission, it was necessary (and guiltless) to break the law.

Perhaps the most fascinating statement Jesus makes on the issue of Sabbath-keeping (and legalism in general) is in John 7.23-24: "If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath in order that the law of Moses [regarding circumcision] may not be broken, are you angry with me because I healed a man’s whole body on the Sabbath? Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment." An infant Jewish boy, according to Leviticus 12.3, is to be circumcised on the eighth day after his birth – but this, of course, could fall on the Sabbath day and require the priest performing the circumcision to work. Circumcision is a sign of an infant boy’s entrance into the community of the people of God – the community called to participate in God’s restoration of the world. How much more is miraculous healing, even at the apparent expense of the Sabbath, a sign of the inauguration of the redemptive, restorative Kingdom of God in the present physical world? (And, it seems, in this case, the appearance of breaking the Sabbath is actually not something to be judged – instead, the right judgment sees that healing is in line with Sabbath-keeping since the intention of both is for restoration and wholeness.)[xxiv]

All biblical laws are rooted in the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God. This is the “missional” aspect of biblical ethics: ever since Eden, God has been on a mission to heal the world and that He has called a community, the People of God, to be His partner in this task. For ethics to be future-oriented[xxv] does not mean that moral absolutes are concerned with an individual’s level of guilt or other-worldly salvation; the future-oriented aspect of ethics is that all moral absolutes given by God point toward His Kingdom, the future of His community and His will for restoration of the cosmos. The Jewish concept of tikkun olam underscores this ethical understanding. The faithful Jew will ask herself daily, “Have I brought about tikkun olam with my actions – have I participated in healing the world?” [xxvi] Asking this question, which reaches beyond the law to its intention, may produce different results in situations of ethical conflict than simply asking, “What is the ‘absolute’ which applies here?”[xxvii] The underlying ethical question in the Jewish mind is, “Am I perpetuating the Kingdom of God?” The underlying ethical question is not that which is often asked by the Christian: “Am I accruing guilt?”[xxviii]

While Christians have tended to idolize martyrdom,[xxix] Jewish theology has tended to encourage its avoidance. The story of the midwives who lied to Pharaoh in the process of saving Hebrew babies has been held up to mean that lying is better than martyrdom.[xxx] Where an action – even a transgression – will surely lead to life (when death is the alternative) and the ability to continue to influence the world for tikkun olam, in most cases, it is best to take that action. Exceptions include cases of murder (you should not murder someone even if your own life is at stake[xxxi]), public idolatry, incest, and “less serious transgressions only in times of severe persecution”.[xxxii] The idea of always upholding all commands to the point of death does not fit within a paradigm of God as loving father: “Just as parents would rather their children not die for their parents’ honor, so, too, can we assume that God wants His children to stay alive.”[xxxiii]

The value of saving an innocent life in biblical ethics is, therefore, an incredibly “heavy” one.[xxxiv] It is, indeed, a heavier value even than truth, when the two are pitted against one another.[xxxv] In fact, when considering the intention behind some of the strongest statements against lying (Exodus 20.16, 23.7; Leviticus 19.11; Deuteronomy 5.20), it is necessary notice their context. The Decalogue states, “You must not bear false witness against your neighbor” – the law is specifically forbidding falsely accusing an innocent person of a crime they did not commit; the law is protecting the innocent person’s life. Similarly, Exodus 23.7 says, “Keep far from a false charge, and do not kill the innocent and those in the right, for I will not acquit the guilty.” A “false charge” is wrong because it might mean the death sentence for an innocent person – saving the innocent person’s life is the intention behind the law. Leviticus 19.11 commands, “You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; and you shall not lie to one another…” Surrounding commands emphasize justice, fairness, and defending the defenseless. The intention behind all these commands (many of them involving business ethics, such as “you shall not keep for yourselves the wages of a laborer until morning”) lies in verse 19.18: “…you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.” The context behind all these “absolute” statements about lying implies that the intention for commanding truth-telling is to protect the weak and innocent.

Unfortunately, it would be naïve to suggest that all ethical conflicts can be resolved by simply looking to the intention behind the absolutes or by consistently “choosing life”. Even asking the question, “Does this action perpetuate or hinder the Kingdom of God?” does not always make the matter clear. Some of these ethical conflicts are extreme situations: Helmut Thielike describes this type of scenario as "…characterized above all by the fact that in it one is confronted by an opponent who is known to be bent wholly on the exercise of power, and who is obviously on the side of evil… To fight such an opponent is an obvious duty. But if this is so, the duty is one which can be fulfilled only as we adopt the methods of the opponent…"[xxxvi] Ought a Christian join an army fighting (supposedly) against “forces of evil”?[xxxvii] And, if he is willing to kill enemy combatants (who, as individuals, may or may not be in agreement with the governments they serve), ought he be willing to torture them for information? Thielike rightly notes that violently resisting an enemy “on their terms” can create violent mentalities even in the best-intentioned soldiers.[xxxviii] There has never been such a thing as a “just war”, however justified the reasons for fighting the enemy may be. One of the end results of a “justified” war might be (or might be hoped to be) the freedom and safety of innocent people – certainly this supports the advance of the Kingdom of God. Yet even the most “justified” war increases violence and warfare – and this is inherently against all that the Kingdom of God stands for.

Situations where the value of life conflicts with the value of life (ought “justified” violence be chosen or not?) are not common in day-to-day life. And yet, in a globalized economy, some of the most unclear ethical decisions must actually be made while shopping. It is not possible to buy a t-shirt without in some way contributing to systems of injustice: ought a t-shirt be purchased from the “big box” store, perpetuating the system of sweatshop labor in another country? Or should t-shirts be bought from the local, organic, handmade t-shirt store, discouraging the creation of big-box jobs (low-paying, but jobs nonetheless) and draining one’s bank account so much that the purchaser cannot use his or her own time and money for other, equally worthy causes? These are the choices of a globalized world, and often enough, there is no perfectly clear correct action.[xxxix]

In both “extreme” and “ordinary” ethical conflicts of this type, the problem is “not due to any lack of clarity in the divine commandments themselves. It is due to the mists of this aeon, in which a clear beam of light becomes a diffused cloud of light.”[xl] God commands justice and life, yet some of our actions as individuals in societies caught in broken systems inevitably perpetuate injustice and death. We must still prayerfully discern the “lesser evil” by seeking the action which least hinders the Kingdom of God; we must also acknowledge our own part in perpetuating the broken systems.

And, above all, in the situations of ethical conflict where a “heavier” value is not clear, where we find ourselves trapped in the broken systems, we must look beyond the immediate situation and seek to begin a new system of holiness and life.[xli] The story of God’s work in the world is a narrative of a trajectory toward wholeness. The people of God ought to be at the frontlines of confronting systemic injustice – turning the world around by the power of the Spirit so that the Kingdom of God, systemic in its own right, fills the world. Christians ought to be the most radical proponents of environmentally-friendly policies, anti-slavery efforts, and peaceful foreign negotiation. Ethical questions on a global scale (whether regarding war or shopping for necessities) are not primarily questions about individual guilt – they are questions of societal transgression and must be addressed on both individual and societal levels.

In situations in which absolute values conflict, it is important to examine the intentions behind the absolutes – in this way, thoughtful followers of God may be able to determine the “heavier” command and choose this as the “greater good”. The terminology of “greater good” is deceiving, though – the apparent hierarchy is not arbitrary, but is rooted in the overarching narrative of God’s total redemption of the world (tikkun olam). Yet the reality of living in a broken world is that we as humans may find ourselves trapped in broken systems in which fighting evil may require violence and where meeting one person’s basic needs sometimes means contributing to injustice. These situations require discerning which decision better reflects (though imperfectly) God’s will for humanity. More importantly, the existence of these situations means that we as the people of God need to seek ways to truly bring about tikkun olam, to heal the world by implementing systemic justice and life in our own lives and communities (and thereby uprooting the unjust and death-perpetuating systems currently in place). None of our decisions in situations of ethical conflict should be decisions governed by apathy or a hyper-concern for our own individual guilt-tally. This mindset will only lead us toward a very foolish type of sainthood.

[i] Kirschenbaum, “The Bystander’s Duty to Rescue in Jewish Law” in The Journal of Religious Ethics, Vol. 8, Issue 2, 221
[ii] Telushkin, The Book of Jewish Values, 128
[iii] “Absolute” here is taken to mean that no exception to the value is explicitly given in biblical legal writings. So, for example, the value of honoring parents is not absolute, because it is biblically qualified by “in the Lord” – if honoring your parents cannot be done “in the Lord” (the meaning of which is left up for interpretation), it is not necessary. “Absolute” values, then, include truthfulness (which is given no explicit exception in the legal materials), sexual morality, not coveting, not stealing, and (especially when the New Testament witness is considered alongside the Old) peacefulness. (The current paper will primarily deal with Old Testament ethics; for a closer examination of this last value, see the writings of John Howard Yoder and Richard Hays.)
[iv] Clark & Rakestraw, Readings in Christian Ethics, Volume 1, 113
[v] ibid, 114
[vi] Rakestraw, “Ethical Choices: A Case for Non-Conflicting Absolutes” in Readings in Christian Ethics, Volume 1, 119
[vii] The man is not obligated, however, to tell the whole truth, or a perfectly opaque truth. This is based on Augustine’s definition of a lie as deliberately speaking a falsehood with the intention of deceiving – if your speech is true, even if you intend to deceive, you have not lied. This opposes the traditional Jewish definition of a lie as synonymous with intentional deceit (whether spoken or not). Lying and being deceitful, in non-Augustinian ethics, are understood to be the same thing. See, for example, Telushkin, The Book of Jewish Values, 101.
[viii] Newman, quoted by Telushkin, A Code of Jewish Ethics, Volume 1: You Shall Be Holy, 423
[ix] Lutzer, quoted by Rakestraw, “Ethical Choices: A Case for Non-Conflicting Absolutes” in Readings in Christian Ethics, Volume 1, 120
[x] Birch, Let Justice Roll Down, 129
[xi] Death here being both physical and spiritual. A far higher value is placed on physical life in the Old Testament than in Augustinian philosophy – in the Old Testament, man is understood as a whole, a body-spirit-mind combination. Man is also inherently mortal, sustained only by his connection to God (and thus death enters man’s world through sin). But all hope lies in resurrection, in the restoration of actual bodies. Augustinian thought encourages a spirit-body dualism, wherein the spirit is inherently immortal and predestined to either eternal disembodied torment or glory. Jewish thought, then, places much higher value on the life of actual bodies than Augustinian philosophy (which suggests that actual bodies only matter in so much as they are instruments of temptation).
[xii] Birch, Let Justice Roll Down, 127
[xiii] Which, interestingly, would both prevent him from sinning as well as likely saving the innocent person’s life. Though, depending on the frustration level of the murderer, it might cost the life of the now-muted honorable man.
[xiv] Unless, of course, we reason away the horrifying violence by suggesting that God Himself thought from the beginning of time that horrifying violence would be a good plan. Siding again with the Jewish theologians, I will presume free will (and thus human responsibility, and God’s disappointment at many of our choices) throughout this paper. (See Telushkin, A Code of Jewish Ethics, Volume 1: You Shall Be Holy, 10.)
[xv] Rakestraw, “Ethical Choices: A Case for Non-Conflicting Absolutes” in Readings in Christian Ethics, Volume 1, 122
[xvi] Rightly, I would suggest!
[xvii] Jesus himself modeled this type of interpretation of law in the Sermon on the Mount – taking Old Testament legal statements, examining their actual intention, and holding up an even higher standard.
[xviii] Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament, 295
[xix] “It seems much more reflective of the full range of the Old Testament witness to focus on the character and activity of God as well as the will of God. Focus on God as law-giver is too narrow to do justice to the range of testimony on God’s roles and activities in the Old Testament.” Birch, Let Justice Roll Down, 38
[xx] For a fuller examination of the importance of Sabbath-keeping, see A.J. Heschel’s The Sabbath.
[xxi] These categories were largely superimposed on the text by theologians like Origin who assumed that the Old Testament could not be relevant if the law was essentially a covenant between God and Israel (not the Gentiles) – there must be some sub-section of the law which directly applies to Gentiles (so Origin sought to create such a sub-section) (Wright, Old Testament Ethics for the People of God, 388). For an opposing view, see Rakestraw, “Ethical Choices: A Case for Non-Conflicting Absolutes” in Readings in Christian Ethics, Volume 1, 124.
[xxii] In all senses of the word.
[xxiii] In Jewish legal writings, if a bystander sees another person in danger on the Sabbath, it is forbidden even to hesitate and ask oneself, “It is the Sabbath – should I break the Sabbath to help this person?” If immediate physical danger is present, breaking the Sabbath is required. Kirschenbaum, “The Bystander’s Duty to Rescue in Jewish Law” in The Journal of Religious Ethics, Vol. 8, Issue 2, 213
[xxiv] It is worth noting that nothing about the Sabbath-and-Jesus passages suggest that Jesus invalidated the command to keep the Sabbath, though he did re-emphasize the intention behind keeping the Sabbath.
[xxv] Kaiser, Toward Old Testament Ethics, 10
[xxvi] Eckstein, How Firm a Foundation, 59
[xxvii] Note, again, that asking this question may in fact result in a stricter ethic than simply asking what the “absolutes” require. A woman may not take another woman’s husband. Divorce may be an option in fewer situations than is “legal”. It will be possible to create an ethic of television and internet use, though such topics are not “covered” in the Bible.
[xxviii] Compare Augustine’s statement with a modern Jewish rabbi’s. Augustine: “Since, then, eternal life is lost by lying, a lie may never be told for the preservation of the temporal life of another.” (Augustine, quoted by Telushkin, A Code of Jewish Ethics, Volume 1: You Shall Be Holy, 422)
Kirschenbaum: “The basic rule of Jewish law declares that all ethical, civil, religious, and ritual duties are suspended if their implementation or fulfillment would create or sustain danger to human life.” (Kirschenbaum, “The Bystander’s Duty to Rescue in Jewish Law” in The Journal of Religious Ethics, Vol. 8, Issue 2, 213)
[xxix] Perhaps most disturbingly in the Catholic church’s veneration of the “virgin saints” like Maria Goretti – a young Italian girl who was killed while resisting a sexual assault in the earliest twentieth century. Maria’s actions may certainly have been saint-worthy: she confronted her attacker more bravely than most girls in the male-dominated culture of the day, and, in the end, she forgave her attacker as she lay dying. Yet her strength and forgiveness are not what her hagiographers have most emphasized. Instead, her adorers have tended to venerate her continuing virginity, her supposed choice of death over “defilement” – as though even being the victim of a heinous sin like rape was worth “martyrdom”. It is difficult to reconcile the fact that Maria is now the patron saint of rape victims, since the way her story is usually told implies that rape survivors chose the “less righteous” path of living as “defiled” compared to Maria’s apparent choice of virginal death.
[xxx] Telushkin, A Code of Jewish Ethics, Volume 1: You Shall Be Holy, 426
[xxxi] For, as the Jewish saying goes, “Who is to say that your blood is redder than his?”
[xxxii] …where the persecution is so severe that any violation of the law is understood by “outsiders” to be a denial of identity within the people of God. Telushkin, A Code of Jewish Ethics, Volume 1: You Shall Be Holy, 471
[xxxiii] Telushkin, A Code of Jewish Ethics, Volume 1: You Shall Be Holy, 471
[xxxiv] Kaiser, Toward Old Testament Ethics, 45
[xxxv] Telushkin, The Book of Jewish Values, 102
[xxxvi] Thielike, “The Borderline Situation of Extreme Conflict” in Readings for Christian Ethics, Volume 1, 125-126
[xxxvii] Not even to mention that the “best-intentioned” wars tend to be fought for reasons more insidious than their “honorable” starting points. The American Civil War, for example, which killed more Americans than any other American war, was not fought solely (or primarily) because the North wanted to free the slaves. The North didn’t want the cotton- and tobacco-producing South to separate; the South wanted their economy to remain sound; the North wanted political power; the South wanted to defend themselves against ruthless practices like General Sherman’s scorched earth policy. What did it mean to fight honorably? We will never know if emancipation might have occurred through less violent means. It is interesting, though, that perhaps African-Americans were more emancipated by Martin Luther King, Jr.’s non-violent actions than by the immediate results of the Civil War.
[xxxviii] Thielike, “The Borderline Situation of Extreme Conflict” in Readings for Christian Ethics, Volume 1, 126
[xxxix] Though, thankfully, we have seen great advances made in changing these unjust systems even in the past few years: large corporations, with their immense economic power, have begun selling more-ethically-responsible items, and stores specializing in “local” products have proliferated even in remote and urban areas. We must not underestimate the ethical importance of these types of economic transformations, and, indeed, these transformations much affect our own actions.
[xl] Thielike, “The Borderline Situation of Extreme Conflict” in Readings for Christian Ethics, Volume 1, 129
[xli] ibid, 130