"You can't legislate morality" - how many times have you heard that?
And yet, isn't that what laws are for, to set agreed upon moral standards that a community believes it needs to adhere to in order to have the quality of life and values that it supports?
I mean, most of us would say killing is immoral. So we pass laws saying killing is illegal; isn't that legislating morality?
Ah, but you and I know what people mean when they say, "you can't legislate morality." Usually, it's used when someone is trying to pass a law to prohibit some activity that a lot of people want to take part in.
For a number of years, I had a fairly successful afternoon drive-time radio show, a sports-talk show. It was successful primarily because of my partner (I was the sidekick), but I'd like to think I had something to do with it.
Anyway, my partner, Herb, loved gambling. Gambling was, for the most part, illegal in Alabama (there were two dog tracks where gambling was legal on greyhounds, and a failed horse track in Birmingham that became a third dog legal dog track because what else were they going to do with the facility?). This was during the time when Native Americans were getting licenses to open up casinos (which did happen in south Alabama).
State lotteries were the big thing, and my partner was very much in favor of all gambling.
I have always opposed legalized gambling, and it made for some very lively debates on our radio show.
Herb, my partner, always claimed that the problem was "Christians'' who were trying to keep people from doing what they wanted to do and were always trying to tell other people how to live. Although a Catholic himself, it was easy to blame "Christians'' for keeping gambling from becoming more legal than it was in the state of Alabama; for voting down state lotteries and a few other state-wide ballots that had to do with gambling.
It is true that in many churches, gambling is preached against as if it is a sin. And in many cases, it was organized church-members who rallied - and won - to keep state lotteries illegal. So I can see why Herb blamed the church.
Now I'm leaving that particular point for a minute, although I'll get back to it in the end.
Many Christians in America today do feel oppressed. They fall back on the concept that this country was founded on "Christian principles'' - which is true enough; it is impossible for anyone to argue that the Founding Fathers were not influenced by the thinking of the Reformation and Calvin and Knox and Luther and the Protestant movement in general.
But we in the church also like to claim the problem in this country is that "God has been taken out of the schools,'' laughable because unless you believe in a limited God, you can't take Him out of anywhere. And certainly no one can stop prayer in school (only audible, organized prayer).
Sometimes I think we in the church confuse the Bible for the Constitution.
So when faced with changes in society we don't like, we fall back on concepts of 'sin' and an argument that basically comes down to, "God won't like that!"
I'm not sure that's the right way to argue. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's not.
We don't have to take on the ills that have befallen our country by throwing the Bible at it. Truth is, too many people in this country today will reject those arguments flat out - and rightfully so!
But we in the church don't even need to use "The Bible'' as our trump card in political/sociological arguments. What we forget is that God and The Bible give us a blue-print for how to live happy, successful, prosperous, safe lives.
And so when we attempt to counter movements in this country, we don't need to say "because God says so" or "if you only believed in God!" We have the argument for which in a Democratic society there is no argument against, not even by the staunchest atheist out there: "I don't think it's what is in the best of a free and healthy society."
We don't have to say a thing about religion or faith or the Bible.
Let me go back to the gambling issue. When Herb and I argued gambling on the radio, he'd blame "Christians'' - of which he knew full well I identified as being one.
And I would counter, "It's not about the Bible. It's not about whether it's sin or not. I'm telling you I don't believe gambling is what is best for the country ...'' and I could proceed to give a long list of statistics as to why I believed gambling to be destructive toward a healthy society.
The man who probably personified the pro-gambling forces in Alabama, Milton MacGregor, was a frequent guest on the show. Milton and I actually got along (at least I think we did). Milton knew my stance, and he knew it wasn't based on emotion or "the Bible." He, I believe, respected my position - even as he disagreed with it.
My point is this: there is hardly a change that is taking place in America or the world today that I believe could be identified as "sinful" or against the teaching of the Bible that I can't argue from a position that it's not healthy for society because of the historical ramifications or potential consequences on society, without even mentioning Christianity, faith, the Bible, or God.
Until we, as Christians, learn to make our arguments that way, we're going to be derisively dismissed as "fundamentalists."
The simple truth is that you can't legislate personal morality. That requires a change of a person's heart, and I believe only God can do that.
But you can legislate societal morality. You can determine and get people to agree that certain things - murder, stealing, kidnapping, sexual abuse - are not healthy for society at large. And just as you can get people to agree on those issues, you can make equally valid arguments to oppose what we used to recognize as "vices" - gambling and prostitution, same-sex marriages, drug abuse, slavery, oppressing aliens.
We can't win arguments in the public square by quoting The Bible.
Fortunately, we don't have to. The Bible tells us who we were meant to live. We just need to argue that "we the people'' have a right to meet, discuss, and make a case for what we believe leads to a healthy, safe, prosperous community.
That is Democracy.
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