Reinder Bruinsma. Matters of Life and Death: An Adventist Pastor Takes a Look at Abortion, Cloning, Physician-Assisted Suicide, Euthanasia, Capital Punishment and Other 21st Century Issues the Bible Writers Never had to Face. Nampa, Idaho: Pacific Press, 2000.

Reviewed by Mark Carr
(February 25, 2002)

I feel ambivalence after reading Reinder Bruinsma’s Matters of Life and Death. Perhaps my ambivalence is a reflection of Reinder’s; even the title denotes he is not altogether sure what he wants to focus on. However, for a broad-brush approach to a bunch of vexing issues for our times, this is a worthwhile read.

I am pleased that a church administrator of Bruinsma’s stature is paying such careful attention to these issues. Would that more top-level church officials show the kind of careful and at times gutsy thinking toward difficult issues that he shows. I am also pleased that the folks at Pacific Press recognized the need to publish something on ethical issues.

I am troubled, as well. I’m troubled with the way this book came into being. Did the editors at Pacific Press solicit this manuscript? If so, why turn to an administrator from Europe to write about bioethics in the United States? Was the manuscript submitted to the press by Bruinsma? If so, why didn’t he or the editors consult with experts in the Church who have written and taught about such matters for decades? I would love to write a book for Pacific Press that focused on conference, union, division, and general conference administrative ethics. Perhaps if I submit a manuscript they will publish it . . . without having an administrator read it first.

But I digress. . . .

I do wish to affirm Bruinsma for his effort and the press for its publication. I shall address three areas that strike me as important: (1) Bruinsma’s choice and use of authorities, (2) his choice and use of principles, and (3) his nascent vision of a broad view of the moral life.

Authority in Adventist Ethics

In his introductory chapter Bruinsma lays out his thoughts on method and appeals to four "basic elements—authorities, if you please—that come into play" (21). The elements of this Seventh-day Adventist quadrilateral are: the Bible, Ellen G. White, the "spiritual community," and personal conscience. As these four points get worked out in detail the "spiritual community" turns out to be "Church Statements." Bruinsma agrees with some ethicists who urge the more typically Protestant individualists among us to avoid making decisions in "isolation": "The Bible is the norm. The writings of Mrs. Ellen G. White have a unique authority. But the interpretation and application of the principles of these two sources do not take place in a vacuum" (25).

My ambivalence rises here again. Bruinsma should be applauded for mentioning this area of authority, but he never refers to the General Conference Christian View of Human Life committee that over a decade generated the bulk of these "church statements." Nor does he bemoan the fact—as we all should—that this committee has just recently been disbanded. But, again, I am pleased that he is even aware of these statements and uses them in his book.

Bruinsma’s fourth authority, "conscience" is more problematic. This source of authority is "within ourselves," working in "a mysterious way," telling us "whether or not we are on the right track," and helping us to "apply . . . revealed principles." Our conscience should not compete with the others sources, "since it is the same divine Spirit who speaks in each instance." As the text proceeds to address the particular issues of life and death, this category if often left off altogether. When Bruinsma does use it, it is more vague than the others and seems to be the place for his own personal convictions to settle the matter. Indeed, at the end of his methodological statements he notes that "when all is said and done, we will . . . make our own moral decisions." "If, ultimately, our judgments differ from those made by other Christians or even from those of fellow church members, we will have to respect the judgment of others, while at the same time standing up with firmness and courage for our convictions" (26).

Thoroughly Protestant, thoroughly Adventist, thoroughly troubling. Not that I seek some sort of magisterial force for the preceding three sources of authority, but it is deeply troubling "when all is said and done" that Seventh-day Adventists in their moral life remain the rugged Western liberal individualists who have shattered community life through many centuries of Protestantism. Is a consensus among individuals in our "spiritual community" within the realm of possibility? If so, what authority over our individual convictions might this consensus urge? Would or could our "community" be a more uplifting place if we felt a greater sense of togetherness despite our individual convictions?

A Principled Approach

Bruinsma’s appeal to the use of principles in bioethics is not uncommon. The so-called principlism of Tom Beauchamp and James Childress is accepted widely in secular bioethics throughout the world and finds resonance among Adventist scholars of bioethics.1 I will set aside the fact that Bruinsma fails to refer to Beauchamp and Childress’s work in bioethics. What I am critical of is the manner in which he finds and uses principles within his book.

"As Adventist Christians," says Bruinsma, "we must ensure that we define our principles in a manner that is both Christian and Adventist" (21). He goes on to denote the sources of these principles as emerging from the Ten Commandments, the New Testament emphasis on love, apostolic application of "fundamental principles," revealed and eternal truths, and principles underlying Ellen G. White’s relevant works. It is our task to identify relevant principles and to interpret and apply them to particular issues. Bruinsma does not take the effort to teach us how to do this most important work. As is often the case with a principles approach within a religious tradition, the method of resolving difficult issues goes something like this: identify the problem; find scriptural texts for help; extract a principle from the texts; apply the principle to the problem. We manage to find principles just about anywhere in Scripture that we need to in order to help us resolve some difficult case. If there is some place in the pages of Scripture or Ellen White where the topic is explicitly or even remotely referred to we draw from it—sometimes miraculously so—a principle ready made for our application.

In bioethics, Beauchamp and Childress argue that four fundamental principles emerge from what they call the "common morality" of our society. These principles are nonmaleficence, beneficence, justice, and respect for autonomy. Within Christian and Adventist ethics and bioethics then, to what do we turn in an effort to come up with an authoritative and exhaustive set of principles? Is there a "common morality" among Adventists and other Christians that would provide the foundation of such a list? There is a fair number of published articles and manuscripts from Adventist scholars of ethics that depend on a principles-based approach. Yet there is no single publication or series of articles that serves as a benchmark for identifying principlism in Adventist thought.2 The Christian View of Human Life committee used a principles-based approach in generating important church position statements. It seems to me that the time is ripe for a thorough treatment of the principles-based reasoning used in Adventism, one that moves in the direction of establishing a relatively fixed number of principles from which we may approach any given moral issue.

What sort of list might emerge? For Bruinsma, when applying his method to abortion he lists the following principles: (1) man is made in God’s image, (2) we do not have ultimate control over our own bodies, (3) God cares for the vulnerable, (4) materialistic motives can be dangerous, (5) there is forgiveness, and (6) we worship the Giver of Life, not life itself.3 Arguably, this particular list would not simply emerge from the Ten Commandments, the work of the apostles, Ellen White’s corpus, or church statements. Not that I would disagree with any of them, mind you, but I am urging that our faith community should engage in the hard work of clarifying what we take as principles, exactly where we get them, and what limited number of them we wish to uphold as common among us. When this task is accomplished it will then be legitimate to argue that Adventism takes a principles-based approach to ethical issues of the day.

Beyond a Principles-based Approach

In addition to the fact that we need to clarify our understanding of the relevant principles within Adventism, I believe that we need to encourage a broader view of ethics and the moral life. Ethics, as broadly conceived among our church membership, is overly focused on principles and rules. Despite the fact that I have just called for a serious effort to shape such principles within our church, we need more. We need a vision of ethics that takes in the whole of our lives, not merely problem areas that need resolution. Ethics among us is too often focused on resolving particularly vexing issues, what some call "quandary ethics" or "decision-making ethics."

Bruinsma, for example, finishes his book with a focus on choices. "We must make a choice," he argues with regard to matters of life and death. This is a choice that emerges from our faith, "a faith that trusts unwaveringly in a happy ending of the human story." This is the story, as he puts it, of everybody "who makes the right choice" (213).

I find this both troubling and exciting. Troubling because it allows such a narrow view of what ethics is about. Exciting because it is such a wondrous experience to discover the richness of a view of morality that moves beyond simply making difficult decisions. Moving beyond quandary ethics in Adventism will allow us to focus on the stories and the characters of our heritage so we can realize that the moral life is ALL of life, not just the more vexing parts of life. To be fair to Bruinsma, he begins to move in this direction when he states, "What really counts is what kind of persons we are" (213).

Principles and rules-oriented ethics will remain essential in the establishment of official positions or statements that emerge from the Church, but a broader view that focuses on the sort of persons we might become would open up a rich new area of study within Adventist ethics. This would connect with our historic interest in just how Christ’s character becomes ours through years of growth in sanctification. Theological concern in Adventism has moved away from a legalistic approach to a more grace-oriented approach. Similarly, if we move away from a decision-making vision of the moral life toward one that envisions the kind of people we may become, then we will not be so overly concerned with what we do.

In ethics, this is typically referred to as a character or virtue-oriented approach. As one might imagine, there is a rich debate about what is more important in ethics: attention on what we do or focus on who we are. It seems intuitive and somehow elusive that we should aim at a blending of both concerns. To the extent that Bruinsma has helped move us in that direction—and he has—I applaud his efforts.

Notes and References

1. Tom Beauchamp and James Childress, Principles of Bioethics, 5th ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).

2. Perhaps John Brunt and Gerald Winslow’s "The Bible’s Role in Christian Ethics," Andrews University Seminary Studies 20.1 (spring 1982): 3-21, comes closest to such a defining article. Of course, there are significant publications from a great number of Adventist scholars whose principlism should be considered important to Adventist ethics.

3. I cannot resist commenting on the fact that Bruinsma and the editors at Pacific Press do not use gender inclusive language. Clearly this is a "21st century issue the Bible writers never had to face," but one that we should.

© 2002 Spectrum/AAF