Culture

You Can’t Legislate Morality. Or Can You?

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Brannon Howse
Contributing Columnist
Thursday, March 28, 2002

You cannot legislate morality! That is the most quoted phrase of liberals when they oppose a piece of legislation, but have a weak argument against its passage.

Unfortunately, most Christians have bought this line of reasoning without thinking about it.

All laws impose someone’s morality. Those of us who desire to see partial birth abortion outlawed are attempting to bring our biblical morality and worldview to bear on the issue of murder. Those who want to keep partial birth abortion legal desire to maintain their morality based on their humanistic, relativistic worldview of murder.

You see, even those who say you cannot legislate morality are in reality attempting to do just that-- legislate their morality. But, can you legislate morality? Of course you can. Our laws legislate morality every day. The question is not if morality can be legislated but whose morality will be legislated?

John Witherspoon, a signer of the Declaration of Independence wrote: "Consider all morality in general is conformity to a law."

Laws against murder, rape, stealing, child pornography, kidnaping, etc. are all laws that are legislating morality. These laws forbid people to murder, rape, steal, exploit children, kidnap, etc.

I know what you are thinking. "Just because you legislate morality does not mean people will obey the law." That is true, but just because everyone does not obey the morality of the law, thou shall not murder, does not mean we eliminate the laws on murder. If that were the case we would have no laws and everyone would do what was right in his own eyes.

Statistics show that the overwhelming majority of people in America follow the laws even when they are not being watched or have a policeman or government official standing over them. For example, most Americans voluntarily pay their taxes, obey traffic rules and register for the selective service at age eighteen.

I know your second argument. "You cannot change the heart with legislation."

However, the changing of the heart is not the foremost goal of legislation.

When a guy sees a woman walking to her car in a dark and secluded parking lot, and has immoral thoughts about her in his heart and desires to assault and rape her, but chooses not to because he might get caught and go to prison, it does not matter whether or not the laws on the books have not changed his heart.

If the law caused the individual to control his desires and reject his immoral impulses for fear of retribution, then the law has done its job, whether it has changed his heart or not.

If the young women he was discouraged from assaulting and raping was your wife, daughter, granddaughter, relative or friend, you would be particularly thankful if the laws, and the fear of the consequences, caused the pervert not to act on his impulses, regardless of whether his heart had been changed.

There is historical evidence however, that over time, laws can change the heart. Take slavery for instance. At the time our nation outlawed slavery, there were many people that disagreed with that law and thought they should be allowed to enslave an individual based on the color of their skin. Many thought that to do so was not immoral.

Today, in America, you will be hard pressed to find someone that thinks slavery is morally acceptable. Over time, the law has caused people to think about slavery and the moral basis for outlawing slavery. Americans now obey the law not out of coercion but out of the heart’s desire to treat their fellow man, regardless of his color, as they would like to be treated.

Just as the implementation of laws restrain the actions of many for the good of society and change the heart of many for the betterment of society, the reverse is also true.

In 1960, very few individuals in America would agree with or accept the idea that abortion, the killing of an unborn child, was morally acceptable. It was certainly something they would not do as a pregnant mother or encourage their wife or girlfriend to do as the father of the baby or encourage their daughter to do.

But because the U.S. Supreme Court, the highest court in the land, has ruled that abortion is legal, many Americans have, over time, accepted abortion as being morally acceptable.

The fact that the U.S. Supreme Court says the killing of an unborn child is acceptable has had a powerful and negative impact on the morals of hundreds upon thousands of citizens. Most people equate what the law says is acceptable with what is right and morally acceptable.

These two examples show the power of government for either the accomplishment of good or evil. Romans 13 describes God’s plan that civil government is to encourage good through the fear of being punished for wrongdoing. God’s plan for civil government is to protect the righteous and punish the wicked.

In his outstanding book, Why We Can’t Stay Silent, Tom Minnery of Focus on the Family writes:

"When people say, ‘you can’t legislate morality,’ they probably mean there is a limit to how effective laws are in bringing people to act rightly. That’s true, but we still need laws against murder or any other serious violation of God’s standards.

Admittedly, we can’t force anyone to acknowledge God or willingly obey Him, But like it or not, they either have to accept God’s ideas about what’s right and wrong or pay the consequences. We’ve just said that biblical morality-no lying, cheating, stealing, murdering, etc-is good for society, and we should be pleased that our forefathers had enough sense to translate these godly principles into law. Those principles work well for everybody, because they reflect what is true about human nature."

Minnery hit the nail on the head and I recommend everyone read his book.

The Founding Fathers specifically chose a constitutional republic that has morality and religion as its basis. According to the Founders, and their chosen law book, Blackstone’s Commentaries, all human laws had to be checked first to make sure they were not in contradiction to God’s law, or as they called it, Divine Law:

"To instance in the case of murder: this is expressly forbidden by the Divine…If any human law should allow or enjoin us to commit it, we are bound to transgress that human law…But, with regard to matters that are…not commanded or forbidden by those superior laws such for instance, as exporting of wool into foreign countries; here the…legislature has scope and opportunity to interpose."

Why did the Founder’s desire our laws to be based on God’s laws? Because they not only understood that God’s way was the best way, the right way and the most successful way, regardless of culture or religion, but that God’s moral law was written on the hearts of all men.

In his book, Original Intent, David Barton writes:

"The Founders believed the Bible to be the perfect example of moral legislation and the source of what they called, ‘the moral law.’ For nearly 150 years, the Courts relied on that moral law as the basis for our civil laws."

Amazing as it may be, there are those among us, even some of America’s pastors, that do not agree with the concept of legislating morality. One such pastor is John MacArthur of Grace Community Church in California.

MacArthur is the author of numerous books, the host a national radio program and the head of a college and seminary. Unfortunately, many Christians are buying into MacArthur’s ill-conceived thinking in the area of government, laws and Christian activism.

Two years ago MacArthur wrote a book entitled Why Government Can’t Save You. Honestly, I don’t know any Christian that says government can save you, and MacArthur never quotes any Christian leader or Christian activist who say government can save you, but nevertheless he felt this was a widely accepted belief among evangelicals and one that needed to be challenged.

What does John MacArthur think about the concept of legislating morality?

In the Introduction he writes, "… by trying to establish Christian values through earthly methods, we risk creating a false sense of morality. Forcing people to adopt our biblical standards of morality only brings superficial change and hides the real issues-sin and their need for rebirth in Jesus Christ. When people of this world face God’s judgment, their ‘traditional Christian values’ won’t matter at all-only how they respond to Jesus Christ. That’s why pursuing outward change at the expense of inward transformation is both a nearsighted and deadly choice."

In a letter MacArthur sent to his financial donors dated August 15, 2000, he writes:

"Establishing biblical righteousness through external laws and policies runs the risk of creating a false sense of morality, which may actually keep people from Christ. The changes people make to keep in step with new laws and polices are merely superficial. They do not address the deeper issue of their sin and their need, for Christ. You cannot generate true righteousness in people by pressuring them into pseudo-righteousness behavior. That can only create a self-righteousness that will not help them when they stand before God."

I don’t know of any Founding Father that believed, or any modern day Christian legislator, judge or policeman who believes, that by writing, passing and enforcing our laws today, it will lead individuals to repentance and acceptance of Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

Many other Christians and I hope that all would come to repentance, but that is not the ultimate goal of our civil laws. Under MacArthur’s reasoning, you would discourage all laws based on biblical morality for fear we have individuals involved in pseudo-righteousness.

On page 15 of Why Government Can’t Save you MacArthur writes: "Using temporal methods to promote legislation and judicial change, and resorting to external efforts of lobbying and intimidation to achieve some sort of ‘Christian morality’ in society is not our calling-and has no eternal values".

Page 130: "God does not call the church to influence the culture by promoting legislation and court rulings that advance a scriptural point of view."

Page 5: "During the past twenty-five years, well meaning Christians have founded a number of evangelical activists organizations and put millions of dollars into them in an ill-conceived effort to counteract the secular undermining of American culture. They have used these groups, along with existing Christian publishing houses and broadcast networks, to lobby hard for a ‘Christian’ political viewpoint and fight back against the prevailing anti-Christian culture."

Again, in the Introduction of his book MacArthur writes: "Appalled by the lack of biblical morality or sense of justice, believers have been told to take the spiritual battle to the streets. Christians are being urged by leaders to fight for cultural change by demonstrating, protesting, boycotting, and blockading, anything that conflicts with our ‘traditional values.’"

One such group which falls into the category MacArthur mentions in the above quote is the American Family Association, a pro-family, Christian based activist organization.

I could write a book on the accomplishments of AFA over the past 25 years in the battle for decency and morality in America--a battle MacArthur clearly thinks is a waste of time and takes Christian’s time and resources away from spreading the gospel–but I will just mention one. Because of the efforts that AFA spearheaded since the 1980s, 35,000 convenience stores have stopped pornographic magazines in their stores.

The 7-Eleven chain took them out of 4,500 stores alone because of an economic boycott initiated by AFA. Was anyone saved from their sin because of this activity? That seems to be the lone criteria for judging the legitimacy of any activity Christians should be engaged in according to MacArthur and those who think as he does.

Well, who knows? But we also don’t know how many young boys were saved from a lifetime of pornography addiction, how many young girls were spared sexual abuse or rape, or exactly how much money didn’t go into Satan’s coffers because Christians decided to take their business away from 7-Eleven as long as they sold pornography. Are these alone not worthy objectives and Christ honoring?

Case in point on page 14 MacArthur says: "When the church takes a stance that emphasizes political activism and social moralizing, it always diverts energy and resources away from evangelicalism."

It does not have to be either or. If you follow this line of thinking you would never go out to eat, play golf, take a family vacation or have your ministry sponsor a cruise or build a new building because that is energy and resources being diverted from evangelicalism.

Christians can and should defend the life of the unborn, call for a standard of decency, hold public office and proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord, and the foundation of all truth and righteousness. This can all be done at the same time. That is a comprehensive biblical worldview.

MacArthur’s book is confusing and regularly finds MacArthur contradicting himself and running in circles.

The MacArthur quotes above discourage Christians from lobbying for laws that promote our biblical values and righteousness. Yet, MacArthur goes on to write about the need for biblical principles to be noticed and applied.

For example on page 32 he writes: "When truth is properly understood and applied, guilty persons will be discouraged from committing further offenses and others will not want to follow their unlawful example."

How is that truth applied in legislation and laws? MacArthur stated that he believed that the church has no calling to be involved in legislation or judicial change.

Then of page 12: "As Paul’s words declare, we must reject all that is ungodly and false and never compromise God’s standards of righteousness. We can do that partly by desiring the improvement of society’s moral standards and partly by approving of measures that would conform government toward righteousness."

Wait a minute? Would this not run the risk of having individuals involved in pseudo-righteousness as MacArthur writes against in the Introduction of his book and in his August 2000 letter to his donors?

At one point MacArthur says we are wasting our time by trying to bring about moral and political reform and then he says we should approve measures that would conform government to righteousness.

By approving of measures does he mean legislation? How do we approve of these measures? Certainly not by lobbying for them because on page fifteen of his book MacArthur says we are not to resort to external methods of lobbying to bring about Christian morality because it will not have eternal value. MacArthur also states that the church is not called to promote legislation.

How do we approve of these measures--by just praying it will pass into law? Would it be wrong to pray and write a few letters, make a few phone calls or write a letter to the editor of my local paper?

On page 33 MacArthur write: "Is it any wonder that authority is flouted at every level these days? Not really, when you consider how regularly the preceding biblical principles go unnoticed and unapplied because people, from government officials to average citizens, are ignorant of them."

How can you wring your hands over citizens and government officials not applying biblical principles to governing while at the same time writing that it is a waste of time to try and bring about moral and political reform? And that Christians are not called to be involved in promoting legislation? Which, by the way, is not only one way, but a very effective way to apply biblical principles.

McArthur’s real message in his book seems to be that he favors certain measures that promote righteousness in our nation but it is not the calling of any Christian to be the one to write the legislation or lobby on behalf of its passage. I guess we are to hope the ungodly write and lobby on behalf of the church for righteous measures.

MacArthur has influenced many pastors to believe as he does and thus they train their congregations accordingly. Is it any wonder that Christians are so impotent in today’s culture when we have such confused teaching from evangelical Christian leaders in regards to bringing a biblical worldview to bear in all areas of life, such as law, government, ethics, etc.

Recently, MacArthur’s Master’s College and Seminary refused to allow a well-known Christian ministry to give a free copy of the book, Mind Siege by Dr. David Noebel of Summit Ministries and Dr. Tim LaHaye, to every college and seminary student that agreed to read the book.

The book by LaHaye and Noebel actively calls for Christians to be involved in the culture war in numerous ways including running for office and lobbying for pro-family legislation, among other activities, that can impart a biblical worldview to our children, family and nation.

We have numerous verses that call us to promote righteousness, which is right living or justice.

Matthews 5:6: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst to see right prevail, they shall be satisfied.

Proverbs 14:34: Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.

Proverbs 11:11: Through the blessing of the upright a city is exalted, but by the mouth of the wicked it is destroyed.

Proverbs 29:2: When the righteous thrive, the people rejoice, when the wicked rule, the people groan.

Yes, you can legislate morality.

Despite the beliefs of many misguided individuals, Christians should and must be involved in the process if we desire to promote righteousness and be salt and light in a dark world. After all, if God created government, should not his people be involved in the promotion of morality through the legislative process?

Brannon Howse is the founder of Worldview Weekends of America conferences. You can e-mail him your thoughts on this column by visiting his website at http://worldviewweekend.com