Monday, May 18, 2015

Beware the short cuts: cannibalism, racism and prohibition, learning from past mistakes. Part 2


 Last week I used the contrast of Abraham Lincoln and William Wilberforce as examples of two different approaches to dealing with a societal evil.  This week I will ramble into some conclusions.

The Old Testament Hebrew word translated ‘righteous’ includes the meaning of “one who by their suffering brings those in conflict into fellowship”.  Hence the crucified Lord is the ultimate expression of righteousness.  The church abrogated its righteous role to the courts and the legislatures.  For example, Christians should have looked at the conditions of black schools as contrasted with white schools and said, “Separate but equal is not working, it is foolish and it must end”.  Instead the white church in the South did little or nothing to bring about justice.  We had to wait for “Brown vs. The Board of Education”.   And when segregation ended, Christians, Bibles in hand, protested at the schoolhouses.  While the decisions of the courts and the laws to end the effects of racism are to be celebrated they never change the heart; law cannot change the heart.  This, by the way, is one of the core messages of the Gospel.  In fact, it appears that rather than change hearts, those with hard hearts become more hard hearted in response to the court rulings and the new laws. 

I am not attempting to justify the behavior of rioters in Baltimore or Ferguson, MO.  But for multiple generations, black men, women, and children have been subject to a system that has a façade of equality, but hides an inner distrust, resentment, and in some cases hostility, in both directions across the divide.  Some rioters were simply thugs and criminals using an opportunity to pillage and plunder.  But even that godlessness mindset is the result of the church not being salt and light, of abandoning a generation of black ministers to liberation theology, or other expression of liberal theology, of Christians running from the inner city in white flight to enjoy the security of the suburbs, and a white’s only community and worship hour. 

This is the legacy of a top down solution to moral ills. Let us consider, briefly, other cases where there has been an attempt to accomplish a top down approach to our society’s problems.  Prohibition was a grand success, if you were a bootlegger or a smuggler.  The War on Poverty has certainly elevated a whole class of people into the ranks of the wealthy; unfortunately, it is the tax-fattened bureaucrats that administer government entitlement programs.  The plight of the poor has not improved; but rather, it has, in many cases, grown worse.  We could again look at the success of the war on drugs.  How many millions of dollars have been poured into halting the importation, distribution, manufacturing, and consumption of illegal drugs?  How effective has it been?  Looking out of the window at this moment I can see a home that is widely known as a place to purchase pharmaceuticals you can’t get at CVS.

Here is the point: social ills reflect a spiritual and moral failure, a.k.a. sin.  There is no law solution to sin.  Yes, we need laws; they serve as wonderful moral teachers, and hopefully protect the innocent.  But for too long Christians have wanted to take the short cut of getting law to do the heavy lifting that is the responsibility of the church.  We have called for a Moral Majority and a Christian Coalition to come together and vote in God Fearing leaders that will pass laws that will make the U.S. a moral nation.  We have wanted the government to make abortion illegal, without our doing the heavy lifting of teaching about the holiness before God of sexual purity.  We have wanted the government to make sure the widows and orphans are visited in their suffering, without our doing the heavy lifting of serving the “least of these”. 

I want laws that will protect the unborn.  I want a basic social safety net.  I want to see the police working to protect innocents from the ravages of drug and alcohol addiction.  But I know there is no short cut to these ends.  Only the Gospel can change the heart.  I have two fears.  The first is that Christians are beginning to believe that if we could get the laws we want, we can make America Heaven on earth.  Please, by all means, get involved in the political process; write letters to congress, run for office if you will.  But for the love of real change, let’s stop believing in top down solutions.  Moral revival will never come from Washington, or the state capitol building, or the county courthouse.  My second fear is that Christians and politicians alike, will attempt to use Christianity as a useful means to the ends of a fair, just, and equitable society.  We must not hope for a revival for the safety or preservation of our nation. We must seek revival for the glory of God and any civil blessings are simply a joyful by-product.

Only the Lord changing the hearts of men has any real and lasting effect.  If we don’t see Christ change the hearts of our people, the blame does not fall on the world, nor in heaven, but squarely on the people of God’s church. 

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