Mission Schools, Call Girls, and Ethics

MISSION SCHOOLS

It was in junior high school, in a Sunday school class at our missionary boarding school, that I was first introduced to the concept of “situational ethics.”  Being one who is inclined to look at life from a philosophical perspective, I spent considerable time thinking about this and the problems and solutions it presented. 

Most conservative Christianity holds to the idea that there are fundamental morals which can be described as “right” or “wrong” no matter what the outcome.  Hence the idea that an ethical choice that depends on the “situation and its outcome” rather than a “moral absolute regardless of the outcome” is believed contrary to the Christian faith. “We believe in what we do not see.”

Ultimately I adopted the “Christian,” viewpoint. That is, ethics depend on a “moral absolute” regardless of the outcome or consequence.  While this should have placed me right smack dab in the middle of Christianity, it began, instead to marginalize me. I began to see significant contradictions between absolute moral issues and Christian practice.

A case in point was very obvious to me.  It involves a dilemma relating to missionary kids (MKs) on the “mission field.”  New missionary families engage in an intense struggle on balancing the “call” and the “moral” obligations of being a family. 

One of the solutions provided the missionary family is the boarding school.  In the moral fiber of every decent parent on earth is the knowledge that they are the ones obligated before both God and society to raise their own children.  For years I have argued against the idea of a boarding school on the basis that it is in direct contradiction to a moral certitude. Parents alone are the most fundamental social unit around which a child is to be nurtured. 

If one were to know details of my background, they would be amazed that I would be even engaged in this discussion.  Almost anything would have been a better choice than my family life and while I attended a boarding school, I often envied the students who lived on the campus as boarders rather than lived at home as I did.  However,  my ethics were based on moral absolutes, not my situation.  One who believes in the ultimate does not take into account the immediate. 

The pains of my arguments have been that they are directed toward people I know and love. These are people who believe that they have made the best moral choice for their children.  More often, I have argued with the children themselves, who fiercely defend their parents and claim, for the most part correctly, that they have turned out just fine. 

But it is the responses against my arguments that have driven me to distraction. Not a single time has anyone ever answered the “moral” question itself.  In every case they answer with a “situational/outcome” based response.  The very ethic against which conservative Christians cry, is the same ethic they use to justify their decisions in regards to their children.  Unaware, most new missionary families are struggling in the midst of the process of changing their ethical basis from a moral absolute to a situational morality.  Once changed, the idea of “truth” will never be the same.  

Here are some typical responses that justify sending one’s children away from the family to a boarding school.  (1) During the school breaks we spend more time with our children than the ones who live with their parents. (2) It is one of the best educations in the world and more children from that school have successful careers than in almost any other school in the world.  (3) Surveys of MKs years after school show that most are glad they went to the school and would like their kids to go to a similar school if they could.  (4) We have prayed that God would protect our children, and believe that He understands our circumstances and will ensure that our children will be blessed.  (5) Surveys also show that MKs tend to be better adjusted and show better leadership qualities than the average person in society. 

This is a small sampling of the many arguments. Never mind that some of them are just plain dumb, they all have the same thing in common.  Not a single one of them will say with absolute moral certitude that it is a good thing to send one’s own child away for someone else to raise.  Not one of them will say that they hope the indigenous people that are watching their example will also send their own children away so that they can serve God too.  No, not a single time has someone provided moral justification.  Every justification is situational/outcome based.  The argument seems to be that while sending children away may be wrong in general, it is correct in light of their situation and the outcome proves it.

CALL GIRLS

During a fifteen year career which put me in touch with all types of people in society, I had an occasion to meet a “call girl” I will let the reader’s imagination decide the moral nature of my contact with this woman. 

I am very curious about people and so spent a lot of time asking questions about the world in which this young lady lived.  She was a single mother.  She had a small part time job that brings in a few hundred dollars a week, but her ‘call girl’ services bring in between $200 and $400 per hour. 

I often asked her if she enjoys what she does or if she feels “forced” into the occupation.  Her answers were very interesting to me and vaguely familiar. 

She loved her daughter very much and would do anything to give her a good and normal life. Her daughter’s sperm donor left her alone and under-educated.  Under-educated, perhaps but this was a very intelligent person.  On one hand she felt she had few choices and struggled for a long time, but finally decided that the life of a “call girl” was the best way that she could love her daughter.

When I met her, she had  been in the occupation for a few years, she had learned that as long as she was very choosy and stayed away from drugs, alcohol and pimps, she really did enjoy her work.  She gave her daughter an above average lifestyle and put her in a good school. 

I met her daughter and she appeared to be an emotionally healthy young girl, well on her way to a good future.  The daughter was very aware of her mother’s occupation and its inherent dangers.  She loves and defends her mother fiercely but had more “legitimate” career goals in mind.  

Recently this “call girl,” knowing my background asked me a question that she had never asked me before:  “Was what she was doing, sleeping with so many men, most of them married, morally wrong?” 

A NEW ETHIC

It suddenly occurred to me that I had been wrong all these years.  It was the situation and outcome that matter most.  It would be morally wrong for most mothers to do what this “call girl” has done, because most mothers would have ended up with a pimp, on drugs, and teaching their daughters to mimic their occupation.

This mother’s choice, seasoned with caution, show love and affection to her daughter. Her daughter is proof that she made a morally good choice. She taught me what missionaries and their children had failed to do:  The outcome has proved that a choice which would be morally wrong for most women and mothers was morally right for this woman.

Situational ethics was the only way she could approach life.  While there may be some vague moral absolutes, they occur in the world of the unknowable and impractical.  This woman was forced to live “now” and had done well with it.

So my answer to the mother was, “Yes, it is probably morally wrong, but I am not the judge, and you made the best choice you could for your daughter.”  A cop out, I know, with my new-found ethic, but it was the best I could muster considering my background. 

I told her that few in the world have the opportunities that her daughter has, few have had the lifestyle, few have had the education and few have had a mother that sacrificed so much for her daughter.  How anyone could judge that situation was suddenly beyond me. This was a very lucky and blessed mother and daughter. 

So I recant years of critique against Missionary Schools.  The moral question is not necessary if the outcome is good. Indeed, one who lives in the immediate cannot always take into account the ultimate. 

Most declare it good, so thus it is.