Penn State, the law, and moral obligation

This isn't going to be a terribly insightful blog. It won't tell you anything you haven't heard over and over.
But maybe we can't hear it enough.
Let's talk about the law.
One aspect of this horrible Penn State case is that it has created a conversation about obligation, as in, 'what is a citizen's responsibility under the law?'
It's a great question.
It's a great question because one of the inherent problems of 'law' is that it is best at telling us what people can't do, not what people can do or even should do.
Kind of like The Ten Commandments: Thou shall not murder, thou shall not steal, thou shall not lie, thou shall not commit adultery ... the law is there to point out the things that we might want to do, but that we should not do.
However, if you think nobody likes being told what not to do, try telling people what they ought to do.
Nobody likes being told what is the right thing to do, because right is subjective, nebulous, almost impossible for everyone to agree on - unless it's agreeing that it's right not to murder, lie, cheat, and steal.
And because we human beings don't like being reminded of what is the right thing to do, sometimes it looks like we've all convinced ourselves that maybe it just makes more sense to do nothing than to do something.
By that I mean we all know how so many of us have decided it's not worth it to get involved. If we see an uncomfortable situation, turn away. You've heard the stories of people getting mugged on crowded city streets but there being no witnesses; of the recent story of the little girl being run over repeatedly in China and no one stopping to help.
"Stay out of my business,'' is a common enough phrase.
Helping is messy. It means getting involved. And sometimes the law seems to work against getting involved. At best, it often requires taking time away from our own lives to be involved in the lives of either the victim or the criminal (as in testifying in court); at worst, it can mean being actively punished for doing what we though was right, as in being sued for "meddling" in someone else's business or even retaliation from the accused,  or friends and supporters of the accused.
Nobody likes a 'rat,' someone who tells on someone else. That's one of the earliest lessons of childhood relationships.
Plus, if we're honest, the rights of criminals sometimes seem more vigorously defended by the law than the victims or even just the rights of members of society in general to live in security.
I'm not suggesting the rights of the accused should not be protected; they should. But we all know of cases where those 'rights' have gone too far and the obviously guilty are set free on a legal technicality.
It's not easy, being free.
The problem is that while we're all so acutely aware of what's legal that we often forget what's moral; what we used to call moral law. Sometimes the law causes us to forget that every one of us has a moral obligation to protect the innocent, the victims, the defenseless, the abused.
Truthfully?
The Bible tells us the law  - even the law as laid out in The Bible - is only there to point out our shortcomings. It does not have the power to change us into 'good' people, moral people, people who do the right thing.
Simply put, the law can't make people do what is right. It can only discourage people from doing what is wrong.
Doing right has to come from somewhere else. It has to come from a change of heart, of attitude, of will.
Theologians would tell us that's what Jesus does for us. Jesus even made the radical statement that He came to abolish the law.
But at the very least, it requires us as individuals, every day, to resolve to be involved in the world outside of our own lives, to be aware, to 'do unto others as you'd have them do unto you.'
A good society doesn't make people good.
Good people make a society good.
And all the laws, all the restrictions, all the punishments, all the best-designed plans to build a "Great Society''  in the world won't change that.
As I said in the beginning, there's nothing new here, nothing terribly profound.
It's just something I needed to be reminded of.
Because if we learned anything from Penn State, it's that sometimes the sin of omission has consequences just as great as the sin of commission.
In other words, there is a cost to both not acting, or even to acting inadequately. And it's one that, as a society, we just can't afford to keep paying.

I can't leave this without going a little further into Jesus' saying he came to abolish the law. Part of what makes Christianity so difficult is that the Bible does not spell out what we need to do to please God, unlike other religions that tell us "pray this many times a day, give this much money, do this many good deeds" and we'll find favor with God. Christianity is of the heart, meaning we allow God to work within us to convict and convince us of what we should be doing. It's much more difficult, much more challenging, and yet - in the end - much more of a complete transformation because it changes us from within.
Until that happens, however, we need the law to tell us what not to do.
And we need the examples of good people all around us showing us a better way to live.