Situation Ethics and Watergate

Abstract

For some strange reason, evangelicals find curious delight in linking the “mistake” of Watergate with what they take to be situational ethics. In the June 10, 1974, issue of Time, Billy Graham (“both a stern moralist and a firm friend of Richard Nixon's”) is reported to have said: “A nation confused for years by the teaching of situational ethics now finds itself dismayed by those in Government who apparently practiced it” (p. 18). In the Sept. 13, 1974, issue of Christianity Today, Erwin W. Lutzer, a Baptist pastor and part-time professor at Moody Bible Institute, accuses Joseph Fletcher, one of the early spokesmen of contextualism, of advocating that “when love (i.e. the best for the greatest number) conflicts with the law, we ought to ‘sin bravely’ and do what is best for the majority.” So it follows that “the Watergate conspirators followed just that principle,” (p. 27). In the Sept. 18, 1974, issue of The Christian Century, Martin E. Marty struggles to contain his editorial composure over this correlation, using a naughty word to describe the Graham-Lutzerline. We asked Joseph Fletcher to comment on the implied connection, and what follows is his response.