Abstract

The overriding argument in this article is that Christian ethics rightly ought to originate in and flow from the worshipping activity of Christians. The article notes the dearth of attention given by American religious ethicists to the relation of worship and ethics. Its primary purpose, however, is to get directly to seeing worship as ethics. The lenses for such an exercise are the Orthodox liturgies and rites of baptism. The purposes of the article are: (1) to initiate both critical and constructive reflection upon Christian worship as a source and resource for Christian ethics, (2) to examine both what kind of people Christian worship (specifically Orthodox worship) seeks to form and the pattern of such a formative process, and (3) to indicate the ways in which Christian worship, seen as ethics, can enable the Church to engage the culture; or stated somewhat differently, how the prayer and worship of the Church can obtain a public criteriological bearing upon society and its values.