Seamless Robe Suggests Ethic of Consistency

Oct. 2^nd, 1999.

It is fitting that in this season we should continue to look at various spiritual approaches to politics. This time I'd like to talk about an approach that takes its name from the "seamless garment" of Christ, referred to in the passage above. Christ's garment had no seam, so there was no place for the soldiers to start a tear. So rather than shred the cloth into worthless pieces, they gambled to see which one would get it.

The seamless garment of Christ was taken by the Catholic bishops a few years ago as the metaphor expressing their approach to ethics. They chose the seamless garment because ethics should be all of one piece, a unified whole of life-giving service. Jesus taught us to be "the salt of the earth." Salt has both life-preserving and life-enhancing qualities. Note that salt has "bite." Jesus did not say: "you are the sugar of the earth." Being a follower of Jesus then, is not so much about always being sweet, but more about always doing that which preserves and enhances life in a decaying world.

The seamless robe also suggests an ethic should be consistent and whole throughout all issues, not fragmented or self-contradictory. It should bring people to the place where they can always say "yes" to life. Thus it should not be for life on some issues, and against life on others. It should not be against abortion and for capital punishment, for example. Consistency is the basis of the approach taken by the Seamless Garment Network, a loosely organized network of groups of many different religious backgrounds who share in common this holistic ethical approach.

It's intriguing. It always seemed to me that because the kingdom of God cannot be simply identified with any one political theory, party, agenda or ideology there really should not be any easy alignment between Christians and any one type of politics. Yet we see many conservative Christians lining up behind right wing politicians, while many radical or left wing Christians line up behind the NDP. In my last column I wrote that Christians should be in all political parties. But I also emphasize that a true understanding of the reign of God will mean they cannot box God into any one ideology of this world.

To help break up these too easy alignments, evangelical ethicist Ron Sider wrote a book in 1987 called Completely Pro-Life: Building a Consistent Stance on Abortion, The Family, Nuclear Weapons, The Poor. (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press.) At that time Sider was better known for his 1977 best-seller Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger. This popular book was a Bible study focused on the Bible's radical teaching about money, poverty, social justice and caring for the poor. It was a blockbuster in the world of young evangelicals at the time, and continues to send ripples well beyond the evangelical community today.

In Completely Pro-Life, Sider took things a step further, to advance a consistent ethical stance throughout all issues. He wanted Christians to realize that saying "yes" to life means not only the rejection of abortion, but also the rejection of capital punishment, and nuclear weapons, and all of the idolatrous economic forces that promote death and destruction in the world.

As a model for reading the scriptures, I find the seamless garment approach more durable than any other I've come across so far. It has helped me to put into a workable consistent framework all of the sayings of Jesus and to understand them as a reality that he meant us to "incarnate," meaning to "put into flesh." This he meant us to do through our way of living in this world, right now. Thus, the Sermon on the Mount's words to "turn the other cheek" and "bless those who curse you" are to be done in this life, and are not just a nice ideal or something for the after life. This is truly radical, though radical in a way that doesn't always fit current definitions of the term. It is also "conservative," if we can understand that word to mean conserving all things life enhancing. But ultimately, the one who defines what these words mean is Jesus, the Word made flesh.

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Ian Ritchie earned his Ph.D. at the McGill University Religious Studies Faculty.

You can reach him by email at the CONTACT PAGE

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