I am disappointed in so many Christians on issues like abortion, drugs, and what is commonly referred to as “gay marriage”. They vie for Constitutional amendments to prohibit these acts because they believe that God condemns these acts. Yet God is nowhere on record as having commanded the Christians in the Bible to institute a civil government which would codify the moral teachings of the Bible and impress it upon an unwilling society. No, it seems he taught them to adopt those morals for themselves and to teach them individually to as many others as would accept them. No government was involved in that original plan—not so far as I can read.
Today, however, Christians (many of whom insist that ours is a “Christian Nation”, even against compelling evidence to the contrary) ought to see that they have utterly failed to impress upon our general society the love of those morals they espouse from the Bible. Instead of working harder to inspire the public to adopt those same morals for themselves….from a sincere heart and an intellectually honest appreciation for those morals and the natural merits thereof….they seek to get the government to do it for them. The want the government to mandate that people behave in keeping with “Christian” morals, whether those people believe in them or not. I can only wonder what amendment they would propose next if these ideas were ratified—tithing to the church?!
Knowing some Christians as I do, if they ever win this endeavor—succeeding in having such federal laws (or amendments) passed—they will be no closer to winning over the hearts and minds and souls of their fellow citizens than they are today. No, their best hope in this endeavor is to make hypocrites of yet more people.
Just like charity has now been co-opted by the ever-more-socialst government (it used to be the business of people and their churches), so also are these Christians hoping that morality can be co-opted, too. They appear to lack the confidence that the message of the gospel can change men’s hearts any longer, and now they seek for the government to do it instead. Meanwhile, they continue to vote for a Congress that will give away our hard-earned dollars to poorer nations. And why? Well, because we are a “Christian Nation”, of course!
Never do they stop to ask whether the “Christians” who ostensibly make up this “Christian Nation” would ever lift a finger themselves to send a dime to the poor overseas. No, it’s more convenient to keep this an unthinking affair, and take the poor fellah’s money in taxes, redistributing it to the poor in some other country. Besides, if you asked the guy and he said “no”, then wouldn’t that make it harder to keep on saying that we are a “Christian Nation”? No, it’s probably better simply not to ask. Just tax the guy and be done with it.
And what about that tax-paying citizen? I suppose it’s only right that the guy unwittingly get some sort of spiritual credit on some heavenly ledger somewhere for his act of generosity? Yes, merely by virtue of living in a “Christian Nation”, our Christian citizen should get credit on account of the “kindness” of the whole. And for that matter, so should the atheist citizen, who is also robbed (taxed) in support of such foreign aid. (Hey, if they get spiritual credit for this, can we dispense with trying to convert them?)
But I digress.
Didn’t the disciples once say, “Lord, send these people away so that they can get something to eat”? And didn’t he reply, “You give them something to eat.”?
Yes, that’s how I think it went. It appears they would get no credit from Jesus for simply having had the idea. No, they themselves were expected to meet the need. In America, however, we’ll tax our own people to send money (presumably) to the poor overseas, while we let the poor among us go hungry. Is this somehow part of “God’s plan” for the Christian?
Now, to approach this whole topic form another troubling angle, I find it quite ironic that so many are so consumed with federally-mandated morality when most of our own churches are awash in corruption from within. I don’t even have to reach beyond the congregations of which I was a member to find the worst of examples. Let’s see, there was the preacher who murdered his wife and one of his sons with a butcher knife one night. He’s still in jail, I believe. And then there was the youth choir director who was later discovered by his own children to have made videos of child pornography. I think he still wears a radio transmitter and is on house arrest Oh, and the youth director who had sex with one (or more) of the teen girls. Then there was the other youth choir director who molested his own daughter, and had affairs with untold numbers of other teen girls.
OK, that’s a lot, and that was all at the FIRST church I attended. Then there was the second church, where the preacher had committed suicide and where the small-town gossip ran amuck. Then at the third one, the singles group was exceedingly promiscuous…and bragged about it. The fourth church had loads of bad behavior…especially among the leaders. They lied and bribed to get access to the mission fields they wanted, collected money for one advertised purpose and then spent it on another, excommunicated members who would dare to expose acts of unrighteousness they had witnessed, and so forth. After that, the next one I remember was the one with the preacher who was punched out for making homosexual advances toward one of the male members. He was forced out, but threatened, as I recall, that if the elders ever said anything bad about his behavior, he’d sue them. The elders remained silent, even though they knew he’d be looking for another job at one of their “sister” churches.
So that’s what I can remember about the corruption in the churches I attended. This, of course, doesn’t get into what all I have witnessed from afar—or what I have heard or read about.
Isn’t it ironic, then, that so many Christians are pushing so fervently to have the United States Congress adopt as a matter of law some of the very tenets they cannot even inspire (or enforce) in their own number? After all, which should be the greater shock: that unbelievers in America would be acting like unbelievers, or that those in “the church” would be acting that way, too?
Call me crazy, but I suppose it’s better to sweep one’s own porch before complaining about the neighbor’s! If you don’t like either of these options, however, there may be hope. The plan, as I understand it, is that we could get the town council to pass an ordinance that everybody must sweep his own porch. And then we could hope for special mercy (as the ones who prompted the law in the first place) should our own porches ever be found unswept.
And just one more thing before I go. Those Christians who are in favor of federal statues (not constitutional amendments, but statutes) that prohibit drug use or any other behavior thought to be immoral, —you are wishing for the Constitution to be violated. Nowhere in the “enumerated powers” of Article I, Section 8 is the Congress given the authority to pass laws about such matters. And as if that were not clear enough (which it apparently is not for some people), the Tenth Amendment makes it very clear that any powers not specifically granted to the federal government by the Constitution are left to the states or to the people.
So if you’re supporting such federal laws, or trying to get them passed, are you aware that you are collaborating to violate the Constitution? If it’s such a good idea, then you’ll need to amend it first.
We could all benefit from giving these issues some deeper thought.
Jack
