Christian Ethics: The Emperor vs Love

When reading The Moral Quest: Foundations of Christian Ethics, I could not help but notice the similarities between the evolution of Christianity with my father's own way of raising me. Within this ethic, the relationship between God and his people was that of the superior-inferior. God was considered superior to all other beings and we as the inferior must strictly obey what he has set forth for us. This strict obedience to the covenant would prevent individuals from sinning and allow them entrance into the kingdom of god. This is the god of the Old Testament, one that was considered to be vengeful and that should be feared above all others. The relationship, to me, resembles that of an emperor and his subjects, with disobedience leading to the destruction of life as we know it.

However, this edict changed rather quickly with the coming of Christ on earth. He taught his followers that it was through love, repentance, and faith that one would enter the kingdom of God. God did not want his subjects to blindly follow his orders, like a storm trooper following Emperor Palpatine. Instead, his aim was a radical conversion of the mind that lead one another to love as God loved them. It is my belief that God realized that the way of the Old Testament was not growing true believers, and, in fact, was creating resentment towards him, even if no one of he time admitted it.


When reflecting on my own life, i see my father has changed his ways in a similar fashion. He is a former warden of New Jersey State Prison and he ran his household like it. He used to "bark" out orders and demand compliance. When I moved to Florida, he did not come with us because he had to continue working in New Jersey, which was during my adolescent years. During this time, i grew to resent my father and honestly hated him for how he treated me: never telling me that he was proud of anything I had done and treating me as another one of his inmates. When he moved to Florida, I think he realized how much his attitude effected my development (my mother had been warning him this would happen for many years) and so he changed how he treated me. I was no longer being ordered to do things, he trusted my judgement and showed he was proud to have me as his son. Now if my judgement was wrong, I definitely received a nice, long lecture, but it was having the ability to make the decision that changed my attitude and, in turn, allowed me to internalize more of his teachings. The path of the Old Testament leads to the makings of a General Grievous, while the path of love leads to the makings of Obi-Wan-Kenobi.