Some years ago, I spent a long time helping an organization in transition. After a couple of years, the problems were resolved (or at least the beginnings of solutions had started), and a new group of leaders was ready and chosen to move forward. In the process, I think I learned more than anyone else involved. After a few months, someone asked me for a summary of what I had learned, and I wrote the following, which I am publishing in this blog.

I have learned over the years from my involvement in leading six or more churches and several nonprofit organizations that there are no perfect leaders. Some people love to criticize and judge leaders, especially in the media. This is fair, and those in leadership should listen to their critiques. However, I sometimes suspect that those criticizing have the luxury of never truly being responsible or facing failure in leadership. Most leaders would agree that they have learned the most from their failures.

Failures rarely mark the end of leadership. The real disaster is not recognizing failures and mistakes. Those who listen, learn, and grow can recover and attain new heights of leadership potential.

My 29 Summary Thoughts

1. Contribute Positive Energy. A leader’s primary responsibility is to infuse positive energy (wisdom and love) into the organization’s social system. (“Leaders do not have the luxury of going negative.”) I consider this the first principle of leadership. Leaders introduce positive energy into the system through wise love.
2. Demonstrate Sacrificial Love. In a Christian organization, one key form of positive energy is expressing other-centered love (Christlike love, Cruciform love, etc.), being willing to suffer for the good of the organization and its members. This means being willing to sacrifice your own ego needs for the group.
3. Discern with wisdom. Credibility is primarily built on wise decision-making. Even when facing opposition, if you prove to be right in the end, you will become a stronger leader. Opponents often criticize the best decisions. Don’t let that fact deter you from seeking the counsel of others and seeking the wisest course of action.
4. Exude confidence in your Leadership. Results require patience, and good plans often face difficulties during implementation. A strong leader maintains patience and demonstrates confidence, even when privately concerned about the outcome. You may have private fears about the odds of success. Most often, it is best to keep them to yourself. Courage is grace under pressure. The more challenging the situation, the calmer the leader must remain.
5. Calculate Carefully. A good leader considers the likely outcomes of several options before deciding. Examining the problem, seeking advice, and understanding the possible results of different courses of action lead to sound decisions. This means seeking advice and counsel from many people, including those who may not appreciate the course of action you may choose.
6. Get the Facts. Often, bad decisions result from wrong or inadequate facts. Look beneath the surface and ask, “What is happening here?” The worst decisions are made when the leader does not seek the facts or believes false facts to be true.
7. Think about what others will do. In a conflict, leaders often don’t know what opponents will do. Focus on what they are capable of and likely to do.
8. Count the Cost of Conflict. Conflict in an organization can be positive and lead to growth, but it often damages a leader’s credibility. Therefore, it is essential to count the cost of conflict.
9. Discern the Spirits. Often, conflict in an organization signals spiritual conflict at a deep level. A good leader recognizes that spiritual dimension and asks, “Am I part of the spiritual issue?” Surface problems, which are symptoms of deeper conflicts, are never solved superficially.
10. Seek Good Advice. Proverbs reminds leaders that victory comes from good advice and defeat from bad advice. No leader can get too much good advice, especially during a crisis.
11. Plan Thoroughly. There’s no replacing careful planning—events almost never go exactly as planned, which is why adaptability is a crucial leadership trait. Still, a plan details your initial expectations and helps guide adjustments for unexpected developments.
12. Disengage from Your Ego. A good leader is self-aware and seeks to discern the wisest and most loving result. This means disengaging from one’s own ego and opening oneself to the needs of others. We all have ego needs. Good leaders are conscious of their needs and resist being driven by unconscious motives.
13. Aim for a Win/Win outcome, especially during serious conflicts, particularly if you think you will “win.” Remember to try to achieve a win for everyone as much as possible. You can’t always give people what they want, but you can strive to ensure they get something valuable.
14. There May Be No “Pain Free Result.” Leaders must make decisions in the best interests of the entire group. Unfortunately, everyone rarely wants or needs the same things. Therefore, there is no pain-free result. The goal is to anticipate and reduce the pain of a good decision.
15. Decide at the Right Moment. Too many Christian leaders are constantly studying without ever making a decision. Some leaders are impulsive. To move an organization forward, a leader must be patient and decisive. The key is to decide at the right moment and take action.
16. Never Make Decisions Out of Fear. Leaders often feel anxious about a course of action, and anticipating problems is valuable, but it should never be the main reason for making a decision. Decisions made from fear are rarely good decisions.
17. Don’t React. Act. Never make decisions reactively. Threats, failures, difficulties, mixups, and similar issues often cause a leader to react. Don’t. Act from wise love.
18. Stay relational. During conflicts, avoid withdrawing from personal friendships with opponents. Maintaining relationships is a key leadership trait.
19. Maintain the Moral High Ground. If a leader appears petty, self-absorbed, dishonest, or devious, they lose the moral high ground. Especially during conflicts, it’s crucial to stay on the high ground.
20. Say Yes. Whenever possible, say “Yes.” The only time to say “No” is when the action would go against the organization’s Mission, Vision, and Values or Biblical truth. Yes has the potential to move an organization forward; no leaves it where it is.
21. Act Promptly with Love. Good leaders act quickly with love, humility, humanity, vigilance, and courage. Once a decision is made, act promptly. Remember, problems rarely improve with time. They tend to get worse.
22. Be direct. It is crucial to communicate with calm, rational frankness. Deceit, circuitousness, and indirection weaken the leader’s ultimate authority.
23. Adapt to Change. Good leaders don’t cling to fixed ideas; they let events guide them. This doesn’t mean good leaders lack morals and values. Having a fixed goal is okay, but there are usually many ways to reach it.
24. Communicate Constantly. Leaders often know where they and the organization are headed, but forget that most people don’t. Keep regularly sharing the organization’s plans, goals, purposes, and strategy. Remember: Good communication also means listening. Keep in mind that those who disagree might be right.
25. Keep Your Own Counsel. Every word a leader says eventually spreads throughout the organization. Be discreet and speak as little as possible when facing difficult decisions or dangerous situations.
26. Align Yourself with God. Prayer, meditation, contemplation, alone time, retreat, and other spiritual disciplines help leaders align their will with God’s. Make time for alignment. Seek to understand where Christ fits in the decision.
27. Guide and Coach Subordinates. Good leaders like to lead. The best subordinates are those who can take initiative. Therefore, a good leader guides and coaches whenever possible. The need to give orders or ultimatums is often a sign of failure.
28. Support Subordinates. Senior leadership’s primary role is to set overall direction and provide general guidance for staff. Once a decision is made, support your subordinate unless there is a moral issue. The leader who makes a subordinate look good also looks good.
29. Never hurt anyone more than is Necessary. Leaders must make tough decisions, and sometimes people get hurt in the process. This is especially true in personnel matters when employees need to be let go. Never cause more pain than is truly unavoidable.
30. Work hard as a Leader. Expending energy is part of injecting positive energy. Leadership sets a standard and example through its work ethic. This does not mean ignoring self-care, family, and close friends. It means setting the standard for co-workers. Especially in crises, people must work hard. They need to see an example to follow from the leader.

Conclusion

Of course, there are many other principles that leaders might follow. This is not an exhaustive list. Leadership is more of an art than a technique. It is highly personal. A leader may be very successful in one situation with one group of people and fail in another situation with a different group. We might say that these are not strict rules but rather tips that each leader must adapt to their own personality.

General Eisenhower once said that anyone could be a leader. I don’t believe he meant that anyone could be President of the United States or the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force. Instead, he emphasized that all of us can exercise appropriate leadership within our social situations and among friends and colleagues. It’s important to remember that there is never just one leader in any organization. Organizations are communities, and communities are made up of many people and diverse interests. This is especially true in large organizations with many people, programs, and operations.

Eisenhower’s comment about leadership was made to students at Sandhurst, some of whom would eventually lead small units on D-Day. It’s worth repeating exactly what he said:

You must know every single one of your men. It is not enough that you are the best soldier in that unit, that you are the strongest, the toughest, the most durable, and the best equipped technically. You must be their leader, their father, their mentor even if you are half their age. You must understand their problems. You must keep them out of trouble. If they get in trouble, you must be the one to go to their rescue. That cultivation of human understanding between you and your men is the one art that you must yet master, and you must master it quickly. Then you will be doing your duty….(Dwight David Eisenhower, March 11, 1944)

It is worth noting that Eisenhower was not speaking to senior commanders but to new graduates who would lead small units in virtual anonymity. His rise to leadership came unexpectedly, and after many years of remaining relatively anonymous, working behind the scenes for others who received credit for his efforts. His leadership exemplifies the virtues of humility, wisdom, and compassion.

This is my last post for the time being from The Ethics of Beauty. [1] In this particular Blog, I will focus on the relevance of a focus on Beauty for the Great Commission and the Christian endeavors of Evangelism and Discipleship. It turns out that beauty is essential in drawing people into God’s church.

When I was a new Christian, the first books I read were C. S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity,” Francis Schaeffer’s “The God Who Is There,” and Josh McDowell’s “Evidence that Demands a Verdict.” It sounds as if (as was somewhat the case) that my conversion was a “truth first” conversion. However, there is more to the story.

In a broken part of my life, a woman who worked in a law firm with me invited me to a Bible Study in Houston, Texas, one spring Friday night. Although there were a few singles (one of whom I eventually married), most participants were young married people about my age. Over the next few months, I got to know many of them, had meals in their homes, and saw the difference between their lives and mine. The common denominator for these happy couples was their faith in Christ and participation in a Christian community. There was something present in their lives that I desired for my life. Eventually, I came to Christ.

Let us dwell on the phrase, “something present in their lives that I desired.” When I teach on the “Four Loves” (there are more than four, but Lewis made famous “the Four Loves”), I am always careful to note that, while Eros is used for sexual love, its Greek meaning is broader and deeper than merely sex. “Eros” is an evoked love. Something in the beloved draws us out of ourselves with a desire to be in community with it. Eros is a response to beauty.

I can eros a person, a house, a painting, a social entity, a community, etc. The beauty of the thing loved draws the lover into the relationship with the beloved. Do you remember my mentioning Francis Schaeffer’s “The God Who Is There”? Shortly after reading Schaeffer’s book, I read Edith Schaeffer’s “L’Abri,” the story of their life and ministry in Switzerland. Believe me, I was motivated to read the rest of Schaeffer’s works more by his wife’s book, and the loveliness of the life and ministry they created in Huémoz, than by Schaeffer’s books, which can be hard to read. Schaeffer is known for his apologetics, but people forget the attractiveness of the place he created in Switzerland.

The point is simple: If Christians wish to attract other Christians to their faith, then the first thing we must do is show them by our lives and relationships that Christianity is a beautiful thing that will bring them happiness, wholeness, and pleasure. We must create little communities of beauty where people can find forgiveness, healing, and wholeness for their lives. That is precisely what I saw at what we knew as “The Friday Night Bible Study.”

Balancing “Show” with “Go”

Evangelical Christians know all about the Great Commission:

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely, I am with you always, to the very end of the age. (Matthew 28:18-20).

Just as foundational for the church and discipleship is the description of the first church in Acts, where it is recorded:

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who needed them.  Every day, they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the people’s favor. And the Lord added to their number daily those being saved (Acts 2:41-48).

While the apostles’ teaching formed the intellectual basis for the little community, it was also characterized by community, table fellowship, and prayer, and the church’s generosity attracted everyone. The table fellowship and hospitality of the early church were just as crucial as its proclamation for the growth of the early church. When people saw the beauty of the first Christians’ fellowship, community, faith, and morals, they desired to join to experience the same joy. “Show” was as important as “Go” in the early church.[2]

A Vision of the End

People are motivated by love to seek the ends they choose; therefore, people need a vision for the end of life they desire. This week in my daily devotional, I was reminded that nothing is more important than falling in love. Furthermore, the most important love we can have is a love for God. As one author put it,

What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you will do with your evenings, how you will spend your weekends, what you will read, whom you will know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.” [3]

Many times I’ve told a story from my early Christian life. The men of our Bible study were playing touch football with the senior high from our church. The game was over, and I watched one of my friends holding hands with his wife, walking off the field. I was suddenly captured by the notion that that was exactly what I wanted my marriage to look like. Notice I hadn’t attended a seminar where a pastor or psychologist articulated the “seven secrets of a successful marriage.” I just looked and saw—and what I saw was beautiful.

In the Revelation, the apostle John gives us a vision of beauty when he describes the church as a beautiful bride or a city made of jewels and gold descending from heaven (Revelation 21:1-21). The idea is that faith in Christ and his Church is so attractive that it’s like the most beautiful bride you’ve ever seen or the most beautiful city you’ve ever imagined. This vision of a bride and a city was intended to motivate the early church to keep on in the face of persecution because of the attractiveness of the end for which they were striving. They were to show the people of the decaying Roman Empire a better, healthier, and more beautiful way of life.

The Final Judgement

In Matthew, near the end of his life, Jesus speaks of the end of times. He reveals himself as the judge of the Earth who will separate the sheep from the goats. The separation will be strictly based on how Christ was treated in the face of the victims of history:

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the world’s creation. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me’ (Matthew 25:34-36).

How an “Ethics of Beauty” deals with this passage is important, and it is a position that illuminates the entirety of The Ethics of Beauty and its underlying meaning and purpose: The sacrifice of Christ on the Cross was not only a juridical action of God/Man dying for the sins of the world; it was also the most beautiful act of human history and an act that reveals the true nature of beauty, for sacrificial love is the most beautiful action of all. [4]

As Christians embody the beauty of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, there are many ways in which we act to reveal that beauty to the world. In addition to mission work, philanthropy, doing a good job in our ordinary lives in the world, serving other people, and taking care of our families, we also reveal the beauty of Christ when we pray, meditate, and live out the wisdom and love of God.[5]

Beauty in the Season of Pentecost

Christians best demonstrate the beauty of Christ when we take care of all of our responsibilities, from the smallest to the greatest, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, which is, after all, the wisdom and love of God with us. There is a certain unpredictability about how the Spirit will lead us from time to time and in situation after situation. Love must be wise, but it really doesn’t have many rules. Instead, love adapts itself to the needs of those being loved. [6] Pattisis puts it this way:

When the Holy Spirit is moving, life becomes unpredictable…. It becomes fractal, and more than fractal; that is, fractals are a part of nature, but in the Spirit, we enter the realm of the supernatural. Each of the excellent ways of ministering to Christ in the least these of is present within all other ways.[7]

Here, we have an excellent statement of the freedom of the Spirit to move, which will create harmony and healing in human relationships. We are not mere automatons but people created in God’s image and being conformed to God’s image in Christ.

The Church as a Reflection and Symbol of Divine Love

Without in any way denigrating the activities of para-church and other organizations, the primary vehicle in which God intends to evangelize the world is the church. In the church, the world is to see the beauty of the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, reflected in the world. When the church fails to be that community of love, a beautiful thing set among the nations, it fails to disciple the nations. More than once in my pastoral career, I’ve had the opportunity to watch a very effective church destroy its effectiveness amid church conflict. I often tell my wife, “People are not attracted to a church that’s unhappy or arguing.” Everything the church does, from its worship to its fellowship to its teaching and other ministries, should be carefully constructed to reflect not just the truth of the gospel but its beauty. When we go astray—and all people and all churches do go astray—we confess what we have done, return to fellowship with God, and go forward. Not only is God’s original intention beautiful, but what God does with our brokenness and flawed beauty is lovely as well.

Copyright 2025, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] Timothy Pattisis, The Ethics of Beauty (Maryville, MO: St. Nicholas Press, 2020).

[2] Id, 522.

[3] Pedro Aruppe, quoted in Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Relationships Day By Day (Grand Rapids, MI, Zondervan, 2017), 42.

[4] The Ethics of Beauty, 536-539.

[5] Id, 545ff.

[6] Id, 554ff.

[7] Id, 551.

At one point in The Ethics of Beauty, Timothy Pattisi emphasizes that the American Constitution and the system of government it established are products of the Enlightenment.[1] Indwelling the notion that the universe operates like a machine, the founders aimed to design their new nation as a mechanism that guarantees reliable governance. The entire notion of “separation of powers” and “checks and balances” is the constitutional equivalent of “regulators” on a machine.

This paradigm for visualizing the world and human society arose when Sir Isaac Newton depicted the universe as mechanistic, composed of matter and forces. From this viewpoint, human reason is merely a force (mental power) that is useful for altering the physical world and human society. In the realm of industry, this involved technology; in the political realm, it meant harnessing the mind’s power in pursuit of political and economic dominance. This inevitably led to a perception of society as consisting of isolated individuals interconnected by various forces.

I’ve been writing this series of blogs because of this perspective’s social, cultural, and political consequences on the world. If those who believe we are at the end of the modern world and at the beginning of what is called the postmodern world are correct, and if it is necessary to adopt a more organic and human-centered view of the world—one that encompasses mind, body, and spirit—then it is not surprising that our political institutions are under great stress. We see the results of a mechanical view of reality taken too far all around us.

As I have said before, if all that is involved is a will to power, and if politics is simply war by another name, then the destructive political behavior we read about daily is warranted. However, if the materialistic view of the world is incorrect, then there is hope to avoid the decay of our social institutions. Achieving this will require changes in our perspective on the world and the way we structure our political institutions.

Basing Politics on an Outdated Model of the World.

The modern worldview that produced the United States Constitution views reality as ultimately materialistic. The “real” consists of material things (ultimately particles) connected by various forces. In this perspective, the universe, including the human race, is visualized as a complex machine made of matter and energy. In recent years, this materialistic model of the world has been replaced by one that assumes deep interconnectedness, relationality, freedom, and inner sensitivity. It is an “organic model” that perceives the universe not as a machine but as an organism or a process. In my view, and that of others, the older mindset has led modern politicians, policy-makers, and intellectuals into numerous errors. Henry Sapp puts it as follows:

 [We] are faced today with the spectacle of our society being built increasingly upon a conception of reality erected upon a mechanical conception of nature now known to be fundamentally false. … As a consequence of this widely disseminated misinformation, “well-informed” officials, administrators, legislators, judges, educators, and medical professionals who guide the development of our society are encouraged to shape our lives in ways predicated on known-to-be-false premises about “nature and nature’s laws.”[2]

The world, as modern relativity and quantum theories describe it, is deeply relational, historical, and sensitive to minor information inputs. If the world itself is organic, relational, traditional, and sensitive to minor information inputs, then so are human beings and the societies they create. This insight leads to a much different and more relational view of human society—a view consistent with an older classical view of human society.

As Pattisis puts it, “our ignorance of this basic being of society is one reason why, since the Enlightenment, domestic political disagreements have frequently evolved into violent civil wars.”[3] It does not take a lot of imagination to see this truth in the kinds of domestic violence that the United States and other Western nations have experienced in recent years. The breakdown of the enlightenment idea, ideals of government, can be seen this week in the rioting in Los Angeles and the responses of politicians to that violence. Some are egging on the violence, and others are using violence to stop the violence. In each case, there’s a belief that the violence is justified.

The Insight and Structure of the Founding Generation

It is widely recognized and universally accepted that the United States of America was the first great democracy of the modern world, born from the Enlightenment and its focus on human freedom. Consistent with their worldview—that the world was fundamentally a machine—the founding generation sought to create a system of government that would reflect that reality. The legislative, executive, and judicial functions were separated as “powers” competing with and checking one another’s behavior. It was the naïve belief of the Enlightenment that this would happen automatically. In a way, our system of government was meant to introduce Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” into the realm of governance.[4]

In Pattisis’s view, this division of government into executive, legislative, and judicial functions replicates the insights of Plato in The Republic and Jane Jacobs in her work on political philosophy. Both Jacobs and Plato saw society as made up of certain kinds of special interest groups. Plato sees that an ideal state requires ideal rulers to administer its political and governmental affairs. If these rulers are to be able to rule effectively, then the various social classes that make up any society must be harmonized. Otherwise, there can be no justice. Any society is made up of different classes of people. Plato was familiar with Greek societies and those of the surrounding area. In these societies, there were six fundamental groups:  Rulers (charches), Soldiers (polymystes), Farmers (perioikoi), Craftsmen (tekton), Laborers (helots), and Slaves (douloi).

The first two groups are related, for the rulers generally came from an aristocracy (aristoi) with military training and ability. In the Republic, Plato sometimes reduces the various groups to three: rulers, philosophers, and everyone else. [5] In her musings about politics, Jane Jacobs simplifies the Platonic vision of society into two categories, Guardians and Traders. Guardians administer and guard the social system. In our society, the guardians are those active in politics, in the executive, legislative, and judicial parts of governments, as they are found in various national, state, and local bodies. Guardians populate modern bureaucracies.

The problem, as Jacob sees it, is that the interests and perspectives of Guardians and Traders are inevitably at odds with each other. She goes into great detail, illustrating how Guardians and Traders view the world in completely different ways and hold entirely different opinions on politics and morality. For instance, generally speaking, Guardians don’t like the trading aspect of business; it’s too chaotic. Conversely, traders disapprove of regulation and order, preferring the freedom to conduct business as they wish; it’s too restrictive. Guardians change the rules of society to create their vision of stability. Traders highly value predictability in law and the enforcement of contracts, whereas Guardians prioritize administrative, military, legal, and political power.[6]

Complicating matters is that Traders and Guardians hold different views on the nature of justice. Traders generally believe that justice means everyone receiving what they have earned and deserve. Guardians, conversely, see justice as about equality in outcomes. Both perspectives are partially correct but ultimately limited. For instance, social status and luck often play significant roles in success. There’s nothing just about being born to wealthy parents or experiencing moral luck. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that equality of outcomes can stifle productive striving and the pursuit of excellence. According to economic theory, if pushed too far, equality of outcomes leads to moral hazard. For social peace to prevail, some “third force” must operate within any society to balance these competing ideals.[7]

This point precisely connects the work of Jacobs and Plato to The Ethics of Beauty. Due to the intractable conflict among various social groups, a third force is necessary to unify and harmonize society in order to achieve social peace. Jacobs recommends, and Pattisis follows her approach, that a “third force,” which can take the form of love, serves as that social bond. As Pattisis puts it:

“What is required in order to have a civilization is a concert of the two social justices under the influence of love. Love is what makes it possible for us to balance the two opposing main kinds of social justice into one social harmony. This is why the Byzantines called their social and political theory “symphonia”—they were after a concert, a musical and artistic balance and proportion of the merchant approach and the warrior approach to social order.” [8]

I have previously described the necessary change as a return to a fundamentally organic, communal, wisdom-oriented view of social life, which I call sophio-agapism. As I put it in another context:

Sophio-agapism embraces a communitarian viewpoint that sees all participants in society as part of a common community bound together not just by power but fundamentally by a willingness to sacrifice for the community, whose interests must be considered in addition to the selfish interests of individuals that make up that community (the agapic move). In particular, nurturing families, neighborhoods, mediating institutions, and voluntary societies create social bonds that give stability and restraint to the state’s power and can accomplish goals that state power alone cannot achieve.

Political love is fundamentally a recognition that society is a joint endeavor requiring the cooperative efforts of all participants to achieve human flourishing. It is a social bond that transcends individual grasping and searching for personal peace, pleasure, and affluence. It requires confidence that the existing social order, as flawed as it may be, provides positive benefits to all members of society and should be protected while at the same time advancing in the realization of justice and human flourishing.

Sophio-agapism embraces the ideal of social harmony as the goal of political life. The modern, revolutionary focus on equality dooms political life to unending conflict among persons and classes. Political life aims to achieve progressively more significant degrees of harmony among the various participants in any society. A return to viewing social harmony as the aim of wise and just decision-making is implied by the interconnectedness of the world and the various societies humans inhabit. Equality

is undoubtedly an essential component of justice, as are opportunities to achieve, the acquisition of property that one can call one’s own, respect for all citizens, and a host of other components of a functional society. [9]

Overcoming the Delusions of the Enlightenment

One Enlightenment delusion was the belief that creating a universally accepted moral and political system would be possible solely through human reason. The organic approach advocated in The Ethics of Beauty and my work, Illuminated by Wisdom and Love, holds this idea to be fundamentally flawed. Human history and social institutions are inherently historical and reflect the traditions that preceded them. There is not, nor has there ever been, a “universally accepted moral and political system” nor is one possible. There cannot be a single fixed system of social harmony.[10] We live in a constantly changing historical flow of culture and society. Whatever the current state, someone will be dissatisfied and suggest changes.

Any serious reader of the Federalist Papers and the history of the Constitutional Convention recognizes that Madison, Hamilton, and others were well-versed in the earlier, classical view of society. They were influenced as much by Cicero and Edmund Burke as by Thomas Hobbes. The problem we face is that contemporary political thinkers and actors are overly-influenced by Hobbes and the intellectual optimism of the Enlightenment. Fundamentally, this must be overcome for the postmodern world to flourish.

Instead of believing that we can construct the perfect political system solely through human reason, we need to focus on fostering social harmony and refining our current political system. This reflects the principles of sophio-agapismand The Ethics of Beauty. Most importantly, we must move past our fascination with the idea that politics is merely war by another name. Politics is a collaborative effort among the members of society to achieve the optimal balance of interests at any given moment. If it seeks to be anything more, it leads to the tragedies seen in Germany, Russia, China, and other evident calamities of the 20^th and 21^st centuries.

[1] Tomothy Pattisis, The Ethics of Beauty (Maryville, MO: St. Nicholas Press, 2020), 584, note 30.

[2] Henry F. Sapp, “Whitehead, James, and the Ontology of Quantum Theory” 5(1) Mind and Matter (2007) downloaded at https://www-physics.lbl.gov/~stapp/WJQO.pdf (June 16, 2020), 85. In this quote, Sapp is not speaking of the exact phenomena that I am concerned with here—the tendency to view all reality as a machine—but his quote is equally applicable to what I am saying in this essay. Sapp is concerned with the assumption of materialistic theory that our experience of human freedom and the efficacy of human thought is an illusion. This quote from Sapp is one of my favorites and appears over and over in my writing.

[3] Ethics of Beauty, 583.

[4] Ethics of Beauty, 584, note 31..

[5] Plato, Republic tr. G. M.A. Grube rev. C.D.C Reeve (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 1992)

[6] Ethics of Beauty, 561. Pattisis creates a page-long chart showing the differences, which is well worth reading.

[7] Id.

[8] Id, at 566.

[9] G. Christopher Scruggs, Illumined by Wisdom and Love: Essays on a Sopio-Agapic Constructive Political Philosophy (College Station, TX: Virtual Bookworm, 2024), 258-9.

[10] This was the mistake of Plato criticized by Karl Popper in his magisterial work The Open Society and its Enemies (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994).

 

The Ethics of Beauty is a multidisciplinary work. Interestingly, the book does not begin with an analysis of beauty per se. [1] Instead, it starts by examining how the ethics of beauty can clarify certain occurrences in post-traumatic stress situations, with particular emphasis on the psychological damage caused by war. The author, now a professor of ethics, also assisted soldiers in recovering from war trauma.

In a way, this blog serves as a bridge to the next week, which will discuss the application of the ethics of beauty to our constitutional system and its moral underpinnings. This week, however, I want to focus on the specifics of why beauty and the ethics of beauty are relevant for those recovering from PTSD. It begins with a difference in how Orthodoxy and Western theology traditionally view war. In the West, we’ve developed a doctrine of “just war.” This doctrine outlines when a government may resort to war (Jus ad Bellum) and how war must be conducted (Jus in Bello).

The Least Unjust War

Under just war theory, for a war to be just, there must be a just cause for war and just intentions in commencing hostilities. A legitimate authority must be involved. The extent of the war must be proportional to its reasons, and resorting to war should be the final option in a series of steps to prevent conflict. Conducting a war justly requires discrimination on the part of combatants, avoiding injury to non-combatants, and proportionality, using force proportional to the strategic benefits sought.

In the East, they’ve adopted a slightly different approach. In Eastern Orthodoxy, there has been a tendency to start with the belief that war is inherently evil. In other words, the destructiveness of war, no matter how necessary it may be, is itself evil. Consequently, those who participate in war are engaging in something fundamentally evil. Since it is inherently evil, the more violent the conflict and the more deeply involved the actor becomes, the more likely it is that significant spiritual and psychological damage will occur to the warrior. War is inevitably damaging to the human soul. [2] One might say that, as opposed to a just war, there’s a notion of the least unjust war in the East. Both recognize that war is a feature of human history.

The Ugliness of War

If war is somehow inherently ugly, and if the fact that war is being fought means that the harmony intended for creation is being broken, then recovering from psychological injury due to war involves more than just learning to cope with prior trauma. As opposed to developing coping mechanisms, the soldier needs to be healed of the spiritual injury done to them by the mere fact that they were required to engage in an inherently destructive activity. This means, among other things, that the person involved must accept their responsibility for the damage done to them by the battle. Trauma is connected to the human feeling that a moral order has been violated. [3]

In connection with my years as a pastor, I’ve had to counsel soldiers suffering from PTSD more than once. In many cases, they felt guilty about things they had done due to combat. On more than one occasion, I’ve had the opportunity to talk with soldiers who were responsible for firing munitions at an enemy facility in which civilians happened to be present.

Let’s take a bridge, for example. When the weapon was fired, no one was on the bridge. But a group of children arrived on the bridge before the munition hit. They were all killed. A soldier may feel that they should not have fired under such circumstances. A special forces officer may be ordered to enter a village and remove a perceived enemy, only to learn later that the person killed was not an enemy combatant. We might call this combat guilt. Whether they were morally culpable or not, the fact is, they killed someone, and they feel some degree of guilt.

There were also circumstances in which soldiers may feel guilty for things beyond their control. For example, a soldier ordered to report to headquarters, whose entire combat unit is killed while he is absent, is not responsible for the deaths of his friends. He received a legitimate order that had to be obeyed. On the other hand, it’s been my experience that soldiers feel guilt for not having been with their unit in such a situation, even though it is almost certain that they would have died had they been present; we might call this false survivor’s guilt.

Shame and Guilt

Psychologists sometimes distinguish between shame and guilt. Shame is a sense of unworthiness; it makes a person feel they lack integrity, are unattractive, and so on. They feel that as a person, they are flawed and inadequate. Conversely, guilt is the sense of responsibility for a specific action or inaction that a person perceives as sinful or wrong. Shame attaches to the person who feels shame. Guilt attaches to the action the person is guilty of taking or not taking.

In all cases, there can be appropriate and inappropriate feelings of shame and guilt. I may feel ashamed of a particular aspect of my personality, but that’s really nothing to be ashamed of. I might feel guilty for something I’ve done, even when I bear no real responsibility. Modern psychology, however, doesn’t necessarily clarify things by suggesting that people shouldn’t feel shame or guilt. The reality is that they do.

The feeling of shame or guilt itself indicates that a person feels somehow responsible for their circumstances. Telling them they are not accountable or helping them see that they are part of a larger machine does not alleviate the guilt. This is where Grace comes into play. God can remove guilt through the operation of Grace, and that removal can restore a portion of the lost harmony. The mediated forgiveness of Christ is the best way to heal the trauma war inflicts. [4]

To expand on a prior example, soldiers who survive combat in which their closest comrades are killed often feel what is called “survivor’s guilt or shame.” In some cases, a person may have nothing to feel guilty about. On the other hand, if one deserted a unit and was the cause of the deaths, then perhaps that person does have something to feel guilty about. If one was ordered to a different location and thus escaped the incident, one has nothing to be ashamed of. A character flaw did not cause the deaths of comrades. Conversely, if I knew of the danger and took action to ensure that I was exempt from that danger, then perhaps I should feel shame.

Here is a point that is sometimes overlooked in contemporary psychology: In any of the four cases, the harmony and beauty God desires for the human personality have been defaced. The person involved feels shame and/or guilt. Telling them they should not feel this shame or guilt does not solve the problem. In some cases, they are troubled by the sense that they might have done something to save their comrades. The goal of an “ethics of beauty” or a “psychology of beauty” is to restore the integrity of the individual. However, what needs to be done to restore that integrity may differ from case to case.

The Beauty of Christ and Our Beauty

At this point, it’s helpful to introduce a common motif in The Ethics of Beauty: the sheer beauty of Christ, the Cross, and the Resurrection. For Christians, Christ embodies the divinely intended beauty of the human person. The Cross and Resurrection symbolize God’s decisive action to undo the effects of evil and distortion, restoring humanity to its originally intended state. When considering the disciples recognizing the resurrected Christ, one must realize their initial thought was probably not, “It’s true!” but something like, “Oh my gosh.” Witnessing the resurrected Christ, a complete restoration of his disfigured body, must have filled them with awe—the awe one feels when experiencing a powerful, transcendent beauty.

This notion that we are restoring the beauty intended by God in the human person has profound consequences. Each person with PTSD, and indeed every victim of any sin or distortion, is meant to be a subject of Christ’s redeeming power. The primary goal of the doctor, psychologist, or pastor is to restore the image of God within the person before them. This restoration is not primarily an act of “getting them to see the truth,” but rather of resurrection, by the power of the Holy Spirit, an inherently beautiful person.

True and False Liturgy

When attending an Orthodox liturgy, I’m always struck by the sanctuary’s beauty, the chanting, the physical participation of the congregation, and the sacraments. It is as if the liturgy is an attempt once a week to restore the initial harmony of the human soul, not so much by what it says, but what it says primarily comes from scripture, but through the entire experience of being drawn into the mystery of Christ.

As Pattisas sees war as the opposite of the orthodox liturgy. If the orthodox liturgy is all about restoring the harmony of the human soul, war is all about destroying any form of harmony, physical, mental, moral, or spiritual. In a sense, it’s “an anti-liturgy.” To use the thoughts of C.S. Lewis and Walter Wink, if the Christian story is the “true myth” of God’s love for the world and the human race and desire for its restoration, then the “myth of redemptive violence” that war creates is a “false myth,” “anti-myth” in which human beings can find wholeness in the destruction of the wholeness of others. [5]

Lewis puts it this way in his letter:

Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened: and one must be content to accept it in the same way, remembering that it is God’s myth where the others are men’s myths: i.e. the Pagan stories are God expressing Himself through the minds of poets, using such images as He found there, while Christianity is God expressing Himself through what we call ‘real things’. Therefore, it is true, not in the sense of being a ‘description’ of God (that no finite mind could take in) but in the sense of being how God chooses to (or can) appear to our faculties. The ‘doctrines’ we get out of the true myth are of course less true: they are the translations into our concepts and ideas of that which God has already expressed in a language more adequate, namely the actual incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. [6]

I think it’s interesting to note that for Lewis, the literary images contained in the biblical narrative (the thing of beauty) come before church doctrine and are, in some sense, more important than church doctrine. In other words, for Lewis, Beauty comes before Truth. [7]

Conclusion

The discussion of trauma and PTSD in the ethics of beauty has an application far beyond victims of war. To some degree or another, all trauma of whatever type causes a wounding and defacing of the human soul. Therefore, all counseling, Christian or otherwise, must be concerned with the restoration of the beauty of that soul.[8] That which is true of soldiers is also true of neglected children, of those who have committed crimes, for those who have been victims of crimes, and every other victim of trauma.

Copyright 2025, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] Tomothy Pattisis, The Ethics of Beauty (Maryville, MO: St. Nicholas Press, 2020).

[2] Id, 3.

[3] Id, 16.

[4] Id, at v.

[5] C. S. Lewis, Letter to Arthur Greeves (1931) and Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1992).

[6] Id.

[7] This very weekend, I talked to an Orthodox priest about the fact that Lewis is constantly found in Orthodox bookstores and that Orthodox children are encouraged to read him. His approach is profoundly Orthodox and “Merely Christian.”.

[8] Id, 19-20.