HE relation of Church (or Christian) to world is perennial theological problem that is particularly pressing today. This paper will investigate, part, one aspect of that problem: the significance of Jesus for its solution. Specifically, the question is whether and what degree an American of the modern day may any way gain from Jesus guidance or clues for behavior, for existence in the world. In order to seek an adequate answer, we must realize that everyone lives highly complex ethical situation. This ethical situation requires both individual and corporate response the two sometimes separate, sometimes overlapping, sometimes conflicting. Further, what we have come to call our society confuses ethical issues to still greater degree, especially on the corporate level, since the possibility is immediately raised that Christian ethics may not be appropriate to such society, composed, as it is, of variety of non-Christian groups and individuals. Because of this complex ethical situation, our inquiry regarding Jesus will have to raise at least passing the question whether Jesus may be valid for individual ethics, corporate ethics, or both; and whether this validity may extend to pluralistic society. To be sure, there is hardly any hope of finding individual instructions that will still be valid after nearly 2000 years; but whether Jesus provides general ethical validity --middle axioms, norms, or even mere direction of response will be the question. In fact, considerable number of theologians (including pastors and theological students), although not all, assume and will argue that Jesus left an ethical teaching which all Christians should attempt to follow. An example of this view is to be found the Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, where it is stated that the Golden Rule (Matt. 7:12) is a climactic summary of the Sermon on the Mount, and that this, along with the commandment to love God and one's neighbor as oneself, justifies the conclusion that
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Oct 1, 1989
Paul W Welliver 
Open Access