34 Responses to “Can We Really Legislate Morality?”

1. Glenn
   August 22nd, 2008 @ 6:23 am

   That’s a great question. I wonder if it should be rephrased as “How MUCH should we legislate morality?” Do you know what I mean?

   It seems to me (and by all means, correct me if I’m wrong) that to be a society that operates “normally” (in some sense of the word) we’d have to ‘legislate morality’ to a degree. Like for example, the protection of person and posessions – generally speaking.

   Any thoughts?

   Glenn

2. Glenn
   August 22nd, 2008 @ 6:24 am

   And, of course, no matter how much we “legislate morality” we could never possibly change a person’s heart.

3. Fearless
   August 22nd, 2008 @ 10:00 am

   More of the arrogant Christian mission to tell the rest of us how we must live and what we must believe. Whose morality? People’s whose holy book makes excuses for killing people who don’t worship the Judeo-Christian God, promotes slavery, the degradation of women, the killing of science, the restriction of free inquiry and critical thinking? That’s the kind of morality we need to legislate against. Think about what a chaotic and violent place the world would be if everyone had Christian morals.

4. angela . d
   August 22nd, 2008 @ 1:57 pm

   you will always have opposition but it still says ,if you want to change the world on this …go and sin no more…so as believers in jeshuah,we must use Gods word only to win the moraly lost,to legislate it,it says government is set in by God..if the people want moral standards they need to vote that way, if the people want the other side [satans] then they will vote in that way,it shows us where our country is…God says you can have what you want, so how you legilate something is what God put into your heart..so the poeple of this country or government dont have jeshuah in mind or a vision, and His teachings,the people will perish..they say we have to acommadate everyone, not so…freedome in jeshuah is not in our legislation ,freedom of anything goes is in america now…the only freedom you dont have is to preach the gospel on a srteet corner,they will come and tell you ,you are disturbing the peace,when that is what you are preaching..try it some time..and then go to challenge your legislature…morality comes into the same catigorey..if we dont try as believers we wont know!.and canada where im from they ae based on the 10 commandments ,but dont hold the up..we need to be bold and do what God askes us to do…many of us are sleeping..we have it to good…the enemy is loveing it….you can only change your own heart,and give away what you have , freely, im dealing with the drug addicts in downtown van. bc. canada,only God can hover over this part of the city,He said ”if my people who are called by my name will humble them selves and pray ,I will heal their land….ifGod comes down in this way,the government will be will see and will want this to,and will come to know the Lord,like shadrak ,michak, and abendigo…in the bible…God bless you..from angela

5. angela . d
   August 22nd, 2008 @ 2:12 pm

   you can not change a persons heart, the holyspirit can move them, by prayer, and love on them, but walk around your government 7 times[ 7 means competion] and come agaist the strongholds, and claim the government to their knees, GOD said ask anything and I will give it to you…keep doing it and your jeshuah will answer…if it takes 1 yr. 1 day. 1 hr. 1 min. or 10 yrs. keep on…its a test of your faith…if we say God is all powerfull then we need to trust Him..” thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven..”..we have been given aurthority by jeshuah to go and do…..from angela

6. Ryan Dube
   August 22nd, 2008 @ 4:20 pm

   jeshuah – - hmmm I don’t think I have seen that hybrid before

   sort of a jesus/yeshua combo?

   cool

7. Ewan
   August 22nd, 2008 @ 6:49 pm

   I haven’t heard this broadcast yet – it’s not yet available to download. The answer to the question ‘Can we legislate morality?’ is ‘At a certain level all law is legislated morality.’ The question is not or should not be ‘should we legislate morality’, but ‘whose morality should we legislate?’

   See this article for more.

8. Ewan
   August 22nd, 2008 @ 6:51 pm

   The following is not available online as far as I know so apologies in advance for the length of it.

   CAN WE LEGISLATE MORALITY?

   An oft-quoted statement has it that we can’t legislate morality. We are told that it is useless and even wrong to enact certain kinds of legislation because they involve trying to make people moral by law, and this, it is insisted, is an impossibility. Whenever various groups try to effect reforms, they are met with the words, “You can’t legislate morality.”

   Now it must be granted that there is a measure of truth to this statement. If people could be made moral by law, it would be a simple matter for the board of supervisors or for Congress to pass laws making all Americans moral. This would be salvation by law. Men and nations have often resorted to salvation by law, but the only consequence has been greater problems and social chaos.

   We can agree, therefore, that people cannot be saved by law, but it is one thing to try to save people by law, another to have moral legislation, that is, laws concerned with morality. The statement, “You can’t legislate morality,” is a dangerous half-truth and even a lie, because all legislation is concerned with morality. Every law on the statute books of every civil government is either an example of enacted morality or it is procedural thereto. Our laws are all moral laws, representing a system of morality. Laws against manslaughter and murder are moral laws; they echo the commandment, “Thou shalt not kill.” Laws against theft are commandments against stealing. Slander and libel laws, perjury laws, enact the moral requirement, “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” Traffic laws are moral laws also: their purpose is to protect life and property; again, they reflect the Ten Commandments. Laws concerning police and court procedures have a moral purpose also, to further justice and to protect law and order. Every law on the statute books is concerned with morality or with the procedures for the enforcement of law, and all law is concerned with morality. We may disagree with the morality of a law, but we cannot deny the moral concern of law. Law is concerned with right and wrong; it punishes and restrains evil and protects the good, and this is exactly what morality is about. It is impossible to have law without having morality behind that law, because all law is simply enacted morality.

   There are, however, different kinds of morality. Biblical morality is one thing, and Buddhist, Hindu, and Moslem morality radically different moral systems. Some moral laws forbid the eating of meats as sinful, as for example, Hinduism, and others declare that the killing of unbelievers can be a virtue, as in Moslem morality. For Plato’s morality, some acts of perversion were noble forms of love, whereas for the Bible the same acts are deserving of capital punishment.

   The point is this: all law is enacted morality and presupposes a moral system, a moral law, and all morality presupposes a religion as its foundation. Law rests on morality, and morality on religion. Whenever and wherever. you weaken the religious foundations of a country or people, you then weaken the morality also, and you take away the foundations of its law. The result is the progressive collapse of law and order, and the breakdown of society.

   This is what we are experiencing today. Law and order are deteriorating, because the religious foundations, the Biblical foundations, are being denied by the courts and by the people. Our American system of laws has rested on a Biblical foundation of law, on Biblical morality, and we are now denying that Biblical foundation for a humanistic one. From colonial days to the present, American law has represented Biblical faith and morality. Because it has been Biblical, our laws have not tried to save men by law, but they have sought to establish and maintain that system of law and order which is most conducive to godly society.

   Now, our increasingly humanistic laws, courts, and legislators are giving us a new morality. They tell us, as they strike down laws resting upon Biblical foundations, that morality cannot be legislated, but what they offer is not only legislated morality but salvation by law, and no Christian can accept this. Wherever we look now, whether with respect to poverty, education, civil rights, human rights, peace, and all things else, we see laws passed designed to save man. Supposedly, these laws are going to give us a society free of prejudice, ignorance, disease, poverty, crime, war, and all other things considered to be evil. These legislative programs add up to one thing: salvation by law.

   This brings us to the crucial difference between Biblical law and humanistic law. Laws grounded on the Bible do not attempt to save man or to usher in a brave new world, a great society, world peace, a poverty-free world, or any other such ideal. The purpose of Biblical law, and all laws grounded on a Biblical faith, is to punish and restrain evil, and to protect life and property, to provide justice for all people. It is not the purpose of the state and its law to change or reform men: this is a spiritual matter and a task for religion. Man can be changed only by the grace of God through the ministry of His word. Man cannot be changed by statist legislation; he cannot be legislated into a new character. The evil will or heart of a man can be restrained by law, in that a man can be afraid of the consequences of disobedience. We all slow down a bit on the freeway when we see a patrol car, and we are always mindful of speed regulations. The fact of law and the strict enforcement of law are restraints upon man’s sinful inclinations. But, while a man can be restrained by strict law and order, he cannot be changed by law; he cannot be saved by law. Man can only be saved by the grace of God through Jesus Christ.

   Now humanistic law has a different purpose. Humanistic law aims at saving man and remaking society. For humanism, salvation is an act of state. It is civil government which regenerates man and society and brings man into a paradise on earth. As a result, for the humanist social action is everything. Man must work to pass the right set of laws, because his salvation depends upon it. Any who oppose the humanist in his plan of salvation by law, salvation by acts of civil government, is by definition an evil man conspiring against the good of society. The majority of men in office today are intensely moral and religious men, deeply concerned with saving men by law. From the Biblical perspective, from the Christian perspective, their program is immoral and ungodly, but these men are, from their humanistic perspective, not only men of great dedication but men of earnestly humanistic faith and morality.

   As a result, our basic problem today is that we have two religions in conflict, humanism and Christianity, each with its own morality and the laws of that morality. When the humanist tells us therefore that “You can’t legislate morality,” what he actually means is that we must not legislate Biblical morality, because he means to have humanistic morality legislated. The Bible is religiously barred from the schools, because the schools have another established religion, humanism. The courts will not recognize Christianity as the common law foundation of American life and civil government, because the courts have already established humanism as the religious foundation of American life. For humanism is a religion, even though it does not believe in God. It is not necessary for a religion to believe in God to be a religion; as a matter of fact, most 9f the world’s religions are essentially humanistic and anti-theistic.

   The new America taking shape around us is a very religious America, but its religion is humanism, not Christianity. It is a very morally minded America, but its ethics is the new morality, which for Christianity is simply the old sin. This new, revolutionary, humanistic America is also very missionary-minded. Humanism believes in salvation by works of law, and, as a result, we are trying, as a nation, to save the world by law. By vast appropriations of money and dedicated labor, we are trying to save all nations and races, all men from all problems, in the hopes of creating a paradise on earth. We are trying to bring peace on earth and good will among men by acts of state and works of law, not by Jesus Christ. But St. Paul wrote, in Galatians 2: 16, “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.”

   Law is good, proper, and essential in its place, but law can save no man, nor can law remake man and society. The basic function of law is to restrain (Rom. 13: 1-4), not to regenerate, and when the function of law is changed from the restraint of evil to the regeneration and reformation of man and society, then law itself begins to break down, because an impossible burden is being placed upon it. Today, because too much is expected from law, we get less and less results from law, because law is put to improper uses. Only as we return to a Biblical foundation for law shall we again have a return to justice and order under law. “Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it” (Ps. 127: 1).

   R. J. Rushdoony, “Law and Liberty” (The Craig Press, 1971) 1-5.

9. Glenn
   August 22nd, 2008 @ 10:28 pm

   Ewan, I havn’t been able to read that whole article, but the question you posed, “whose morality should we legislate?” is DEFINITELY the good question to ask! I’ll read that article as soon as I get a chance.

   Thanks for you imput!

   Glenn

10. Dr Michael L Brown
    August 22nd, 2008 @ 10:48 pm

    Fearless,

    You wrote: Think about what a chaotic and violent place the world would be if everyone had Christian morals.

    To the contrary, if everyone lived by true Christian morals, as laid out clearly in the New Testament, the world would be in massively better shape. Do you really not know the high moral standards laid out in the New Testament?

11. Glenn
    August 23rd, 2008 @ 12:31 am

    With regard to what Dr. Brown just wrote, I agree wholeheartedly. If one was to simply begin with the teachings of Jesus in Matthew chapter 5 they would see that if everyone were to live according to those standards the world would begin to look radically better!

12. Marcus French
    August 23rd, 2008 @ 10:17 pm

    love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control…

    Oh what an awful world it would be if everyone had these traits abundant in their life! Truly there would be a need to set up legislation to stop people from doing the acts that would result from having these characteristics!

13. Glenn
    August 23rd, 2008 @ 11:34 pm

    Oh Marcus! It would be horrible…

14. Marcus French
    August 24th, 2008 @ 3:29 pm

    All,

    For those of you waiting for posts from Fearless, he has been blocked from the site because of his refusal to refrain from personal insults and attacks. Although we do appreciate the opportunity to interact with atheists on the blog here, we do have rules of conduct, and in both public posts as well in private emails, Fearless has violated our guidelines repeatedly, despite pledging to adhere to them. For that reason alone his posts have been blocked.

    Marcus French
    Line of Fire Moderator

15. Ewan
    August 25th, 2008 @ 9:44 am

    Glenn, have you managed to read that article of Rushdoony’s I posted above yet? If so what did you think?

    I have had a chance to listen to this show now and want to thank Dr. Brown for another excellent show. I totally agree with your position on this subject and would comment that this issue is another big one that the church is ignoring. There is a disconnect in the minds of many Christians between politics and the Christian faith. If the laws of our land are not based upon the Christian ethic, then they will be based upon another ethic. A big part of the problem is how people understand the idea of secularism. In the name of secularism, many people, including unfortunately many Christians, think we need to keep religion out of politics. I have written more about this here and here.

    I think the main reason that a false dichotomy between faith and politics has arisen within the church of the west, is because it is the corollary of the false dichotomy that preceded it, that is, between science and religion. Once we cut the Bible free of the real world as has been done by those in the church who disbelieve the Bible’s history in Genesis, then we foster the false idea that science and faith are mutually exclusive. The idea that science has disproved the Bible is now rampant in the western world (perhaps less so in America which might explain why much of the American church still doesn’t ‘get’ this). The natural corollary of this view (that science and faith are mutually exclusive) is that faith and politics should also be kept separate because politics has to do with the real world, whilst religion should be confined to issues to do with personal morality.

    I also recommend this article: A Christian View of Government and Law.

16. S. Johnson
    August 25th, 2008 @ 9:15 pm

    I find this to be a difficult problem. Core laws must be based on core moral values. But these moral values in turn need a ground. If we try to make this ground Christianity, this will result in a Theocracy—something most would prefer to avoid. Civil law needs to be based on values we all hold in common. Jeffersonian law was based on natural law. That is, the idea that we are all “hardwired” with a sense of right and wrong—what C.S. Lewis called our sense of the way we “ought” to act.

    The problem is that there is no specific book we can point to for clarification of these “natural” laws. Thus, when different world views are superimposed on natural law, it may reach a point where the laws based on one world view “seem right” because we are told they are right over a long enough period of time. The morals of natural law in essence get blurred by the PR campaigns of special interest groups (e.g. gay agenda). While within the Judeo-Christian tradition the Bible should keep us from undue influence from such PR campaigns, we cannot directly point to this as a ground for morality in a pluralistic society without seeming to push for a Theocracy.

    I agree with Dr. Brown, as Jesus changes the lives of individuals, they in turn can change society, which in a democratic system should result in laws that are in keeping with those beliefs. In the long run this seems to be the only way out.

17. Marcus French
    August 25th, 2008 @ 9:38 pm

    I long ago gave up any idea that I knew what the perfect political system would be. On the one hand, I would be the last person that would want to live in a Christian theocracy, but on the other hand, any legislation is legislating morality, and so the question of where our basis is for morality of course comes up, and I would rather base my morality on the Bible than on whatever “feels” right to people at the time. So I’m stuck.

    I’ve come to two conclusions however:
    1) For now, a system that just allows me and everyone else to vote our individual convictions is probably the best thing going.
    2) A King is coming that will sort out all this mess and provide a true theocracy of the best kind.

    For to us a child is born,
    to us a son is given,
    and the government will be on his shoulders.
    And he will be called
    Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

    Of the increase of his government and peace
    there will be no end.
    He will reign on David’s throne
    and over his kingdom,
    establishing and upholding it
    with justice and righteousness
    from that time on and forever.
    The zeal of the LORD Almighty
    will accomplish this.

18. Glenn
    August 25th, 2008 @ 9:55 pm

    Marcus, you said, “A King is coming that will sort out all this mess and provide a true theocracy of the best kind….”

    Amen! It’s so awesome to think about. He’s coming SOON brother! :0D

    Ha ha, I can’t wait!!!! Man it’s gonna be awesome!

19. Glenn
    August 25th, 2008 @ 9:56 pm

    Ewan,

    Yes, I did read it. He makes very interesting points.

20. Marcus French
    August 25th, 2008 @ 11:44 pm

    Awesome it will be Glenn. While we’re on the subject, let me put a plug out for a message by Art Katz called “The Theocratic Kingdom”: http://artkatzministries.org/the-theocratic-kingdom/

21. Ewan
    August 26th, 2008 @ 6:46 am

    Let me say to both Marcus and S. Johnson that you are both incorrect to claim that for a pluralistic democracy to base its laws upon Christian morality results in a “Christian theocracy”. Why do you both assume this? It is actually Christianity that provides the foundation for the concept of a separation between church and state. It comes from the statement Jesus made about giving unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s. I address this issue more fully in the following speech I gave in a debate on the subject of religion and politics. Apologies again for the length of it.

    The question “Religion and Politics do not mix” is a leading question that presupposes that it is even possible to separate the two. A fairer question to our side would be “Can Religion and Politics be separatred?”, to which I would answer NO. My reasoning is because I propose that there really is no such thing as a non-religious person because all worldviews are by nature religious, therefore if we were to have politics without religion we would need to find a way to have politics without people – a preposterous concept!

    Those who complain about Christians forcing their morality on the rest of society forget that everyone is always pushing some some kind of morality, some set of values. Secularists push secular values, Muslims push Muslim values and Christians push Christian values. No one lives in a value-free or value-neutral world. We all have moral convictions, and there is nothing wrong with arguing those convictions in the public arena. This is what a pluralistic democracy is about.

    As I have said, all worldviews are at heart religious, because all worldviews have a faith component. That is, not all of their claims and beliefs can be fully and absolutely proven or established, so there is a belief or faith commitment involved. Every worldview, even the secular worldview, has this faith component. Secularists have their faith in philosophical naturalism. This is the belief that all that matters is matter – also known as materialism. It is not something that can be proven or even scientifically tested, but it is instead a philosophical presupposition – an axiom – a position that is accepted as true without the need for proof.

    There is nothing wrong with having such faith commitments, in fact it is a philosophical necessity. We all hold to some beliefs without absolute surety, but we have substantial and reasonable grounds for holding to such beliefs. And I would claim that of all the various worldviews, it is we Christians who have the most substantial and reasonable grounds for what we hold to be true.

    The secularists of course like to misrepresent the relationship between religion and politics by presenting it as a dichotomy of ‘religion versus reason’. Such a dichotomy is a false dichotomy. I’m sure we are all familiar with the accusation of the secularist that religion should be kept out of politics because we need to base our decisions on reason alone. That secularism is a worldview or religion in its own right is a fact that clearly escapes the people making such assertions.

    Secularists are not just against certain things such as God, the supernatural, the existence of a universal and absolute moral code, etc., but in fact have many things they are positively promoting and advocating, such as their philosophical naturalism, their materialistic reductionism, and so on. We see examples of this in education policy such as with the promotion of naturalistic evolution and the censorship of intelligent design theory.

    Moreover, many secularists want in fact to establish a ‘seculocracy’. They want to see established by law their views on a whole range of issues, be it evolution, moral relativism, multiculturalism (which is just relativism applied to culture), feminism, environmentalism, etc. Some of these goals have been codified in the various Humanist Manifestos written between 1933 and the latest in 2000.

    If secularism is as much of a worldview or religion as is Christianity, then both should be treated the same: both should have equal access to the public square, and both should be allowed to set forth their case, and let the people decide which is the preferred option, at lease on various public policy issues. But secularists do not even want the debate to take place. They act as if they alone should have exclusive access to the public arena, and that all religions (except for their own of course) must be privatised affairs, with no influence whatsoever in the social and political spheres.

    Secularists will tolerate Christianity only so long as Christians confine their beliefs to matters of personal morality and do not try to apply their Christianity to every sphere of life and society. Such a minimalist view of Christianity is not true or biblical Christianity. Unfortunately too many professing Christians today are happy to oblige the secularists and limit their faith to one of simply informing their personal internal values and then only in matters of morality.

    It is possible that secularism might prevail over Christianity. In fact it has already done so in the sense that it is now arguably the dominant worldview in Western civilisation and is certainly the dominant view in our Australian parliaments. The challenge for Christians is to regain the public and intellectual relevance that has been lost to the worldview of Secular Humanism.

    The inherent danger of a democratic system of governance is that it is possible that the majority may vote to abandon the value system that gave rise to that very democracy. In other words, when the foundation of society shifts away from Christianity to some other worldview, as is happening in the West, true democracy is gradually eroded and replaced with the ‘tyranny of the majority’. Abortion is a classic case in point where the majority have exercised their ‘pro-choice’ view at the expense of a powerless minority – those being the aborted preborn who are unable to vote against their own destruction.

    If a Christian based democracy is going to survive long term it needs a healthy church which is active in two areas. Firstly in evangelism so as to ensure a stable base of Christian voters and secondly in teaching those converts about the Christian faith in terms of doctrine and theology, apologetics, and worldview issues. Unfortunately due to the increasing influence of theological liberalism on Western Christendom the church is weak in both of these areas. This is the real cause of the decline in Christian influence in the West.

    A fair and democratic political system will allow vigorous debate on the issues that concern its citizens, and not allow one group (increasingly in the West, the secularists) to have an unfair monopoly over the public arena.

22. Glenn
    August 26th, 2008 @ 8:42 pm

    Ewan,

    Interesting article.

    1) You stated, “There is nothing wrong with having such faith commitments, in fact it is a philosophical necessity. We all hold to some beliefs without absolute surety, but we have substantial and reasonable grounds for holding to such beliefs.”

    Are you sure that all people actually have “substantial and reasonable grounds” for their system of belief?

    And are you sure there is nothing wrong with having certain “faith commitments”? What about the faith commitments that bring people to walk into a city with explosives on and blow up as many people as they can while thinking they’re doing God a service.

    Maybe I misunderstood your point though. Can you please clarify?

    2) You stated, “The challenge for Christians is to regain the public and intellectual relevance that has been lost to the worldview of Secular Humanism.”

    Interesting statement. Do you think that this is the primary challenge? And how do you think it can and/or should be done? You did note a few things in the second to last paragraph of your article, anything beside that?

    3) Also, you may have already stated this, but what form of government do you think is best at the moment? Any specifics?

    Thanks!

    Glenn

23. Marcus French
    August 27th, 2008 @ 11:39 pm

    Ewan,

    Let me say to both Marcus and S. Johnson that you are both incorrect to claim that for a pluralistic democracy to base its laws upon Christian morality results in a “Christian theocracy”. Why do you both assume this?

    Well, let me ask this, if your Country’s constitution was based upon the Koran, would you think it was an “Islamic Theocracy”? There are obviously varying levels of theocracy, and there doesn’t need to be something like Sharia Law to have a country have a form of theocracy.

24. Ewan
    August 28th, 2008 @ 12:24 am

    Glenn,

    Concerning your questions:

    1. No I didn’t mean all people have “substantial and reasonable grounds” for their beliefs. It was a Christian audience I was addressing so I was specifically referring to Christianity here. My point was that every worldview/religion/belief-system is at bottom religious by necessity. In other words, there is no such thing as a non-religious worldview. Obviously as Christians we disagree with all other worldviews/religions.

    2. No the primary challenge for Christians/the Church is to preach the Gospel, after that comes the responsibility to be salt and light in our communities. How we should respond to secular/evolutionary humanism is two-fold. We need to start defending the Christian worldview (employing apologetics) whilst simultaneously demonstrating the weaknesses of secular/evolutionary humanism. This is why I believe the Creation/evolution issue is so important because it is the area where the battle rages and because it is foundational to both Christianity and secular/evolutionary humanism. It is therefore a make or break issue to both.

    3. Regarding systems of government. The best system is that found in most western democracies which has developed over centuries. Representative democracy with separation of powers and the rule of law. (It may not be perfect but as Winston Churchill famously said, “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others.”) Having said that, no system however well designed will survive unless its people are moral. Even your own Chuck Norris knows this:

    “Good morals precede good laws, which is why government isn’t much help. Unless the people and their legislators are grounded in morality, the best of laws will be broken and the worst of laws will be made, legalizing immorality. We can’t look to government to improve decency, civility, and morality. For that we need to look to another source.

    “John Adams put it well when he said: ‘We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.’ …

    “Our Founders had a better answer than government or even education. God is the answer. God is the moral compass of America. Or He should be, if we ever want to restore morality in our homes and civility to our land. Our Founders believed morals flowed from one’s accountability to God, and that, without God, immoral anarchy would result.”

25. Ewan
    August 28th, 2008 @ 12:45 am

    Marcus,

    If a country’s constitution was based upon the Koran, it would indeed be an Islamic Theocracy. This is because in Islam there is no separation between church and state (or mosque and state in the case of Islam). Under an Islamic theocracy the religious leaders are also the leaders of the government. Not so under a system of pluralistic democracy where the morality of the state is Christian morality. There is a separation between the church and the state which is a concept derived from the very words of Jesus as I said above.

    It appears you have a very broad definition of theocracy. Even Israel in the time of the monarchy was not a true theocracy because the King and the High Priest were not the same person, but the nation was or was supposed to be governed by God’s moral standard. In our democratic system, laws can be based on Judeo-Christian morality without it meaning we have a theocracy. The term “Christian theocracy” is really an oxymoron. The proper term for the view that man’s laws should be based on the Bible is ‘theonomy’ whereas the view that man gets to make up his own rules without reference to any external absolute moral standard is ‘autonomy’.

    Let me ask you this, if a nation’s laws are not based on God’s moral standard, then upon what should they be based?

26. Marcus French
    August 28th, 2008 @ 1:01 am

    Let me ask you this, if a nation’s laws are not based on God’s moral standard, then upon what should they be based?

    That, Ewan, is the hard place on one side of my dilemma. (The other being a government that legislates religious beliefs as such, something that will probably end up persecuting the true Church, and instituting man-made religion that will hinder authentic faith).

27. Ewan
    August 28th, 2008 @ 1:22 am

    Marcus,

    But you present a false dichotomy here. It’s not a matter of legislating religious beliefs. It’s a matter of legislating for outward moral compliance, not for what people should believe. The concept of non-compulsion in religious belief comes from Jesus’ teaching after all, so a Christian based government should never legislate to make church attendance (to give an example) compulsory or have laws against apostasy in the way that Islam does.

    The essay by Rushdoony that I posted above explains much of this.

28. Glenn
    August 28th, 2008 @ 5:00 pm

    Ewan, thanks for responding.

    1) You stated, “so a Christian based government should never legislate to make church attendance (to give an example) compulsory or have laws against apostasy in the way that Islam does.”

    So, where is the line drawn? I’m not even sure where exactly I stand on this issue. But, where is the line drawn between “beliefs” and “outward moral compliance”. Don’t you think it’s kind of blurred? I mean, I obviously know the difference in definition, but the difference in implication.

    Maybe I’m confusing myself. Do you care to clarify? Thanks.

    Glenn

29. Marcus French
    August 29th, 2008 @ 12:50 am

    Ewan,

    What are your views on religion in public schools? Should the Bible be taught? If so, in what style (as fact, or literature, objectively studied as a religious text)? Would you be okay with teaching the Koran? If so, would you want the Koran and the Bible taught in the same way?

30. Ewan
    August 29th, 2008 @ 10:03 am

    Glen,

    You raise a valid question about how to determine what should be illegal in a Christian based society. I can’t remember off the top of my head where the quote originated, but it has been said: Not everything that is a sin should be illegal and not everything that is illegal is a sin.

    In answering your question, one needs to first delineate the areas of different God given responsibility between the state and the individual Christian or the church. For example the state is charged with implementing justice (Romans 13), whilst the individual Christian is commanded to forgive. So the state, through its legal system and law courts, is required to punish the law breaker, whilst the individual Christian should forgive those who wrong him. There are different mandates so there are different responsibilities.

    I agree there does seem to be some areas that are “blurred” as you say. One way of determining what should be criminalised and what shouldn’t, is to consider what can practically be enforced. For example consider pornography. It is primarily a sin of the mind, but no government can or should criminalise thoughts (although that is exactly what modern humanistic governments attempt to do with anti ‘hate speech’ laws), but they can make pornographic material illegal. Although the secularists would protest and claim that to censor porn is to curb liberty, the opposite is true since unlimited porn means more sexual crime which has a nett effect of reducing the liberty of a society.

    Marcus,

    In answer to your question, what you have to keep in mind is that there is no such thing as ‘secular’ or ‘neutral’ education. Education is always going to be presented within a worldview context. The problem we have in the west today is that we are basically a post-Christian society. In Australia, as I’m sure is true of most of the western world, our public schools are not ‘neutral’ or ‘secular’, they are teaching the religion of secular/evolutionary humanism. The facts of the world are presented within a naturalistic context/framework. So what to do with public schools given that the west is now so pluralistic? My answer is to abolish the present state run school system and replace it with an education voucher system that gives parents more flexibility to choose schools. In other words, fully privatise the education system.

    In several of his messages, I’ve heard Dr. Brown quote from the New England Primer, I think it’s called. That is a good example of how to incorporate Christianity into education I think. I think it’s necessary for a Christian school to teach about evolution and the Koran, to use your example, but only because it is necessary to know what others believe and why we don’t believe that. The bottom line is this – there is no such thing as a neutral education. I hope this goes some way towards answering your question.

31. Marcus French
    August 29th, 2008 @ 6:01 pm

    Ewan,

    If I’m understanding you correctly, you would do away with a Public Education system that is common to all people in a society? That is certainly one solution to the dilemma, though quite a radical one. Are you actually pushing for this in your country?

32. Ewan
    August 30th, 2008 @ 2:24 am

    There’s nothing wrong in having state determined minimum standards for numeracy and literacy, but beyond this you start to get into the worldview issues. Few Christian parents would consider sending their children to the local Islamic school for obvious reasons. But few have any problem sending their children to the local public school even though it is also teaching a false religion – in this case secular/evolutionary humanism. This is why 80 to 90% of students from Christian homes abandon the faith after completing their schooling.

    The idea of a school model based on the voucher system originated in the USA first I believe. I don’t think it is that radical. Think of it as privatising the existing public system.

33. Dr Michael Brown
    August 30th, 2008 @ 3:51 am

    Ewan,

    I don’t expect to be able to interact much in this post, but I’m trying to jump in here and there in the different threads.

    Although I’m not advocating public schools, my understanding of the 80-90% falling away that we see with many of our Christian young people in America comes once they leave home and go off to secular college, where they are bombarded with both extreme worldliness (while out of the family setting) and extreme secularism.

    Again, I’m not arguing a particular position here but rather interacting with your point. I would also question the spiritual depth of many of those who do fall away in terms of being adequately grounded in the Lord. (This, I think, is a point we would all agree with.)

34. Ewan
    August 30th, 2008 @ 7:14 pm

    Yes Dr. Brown, I understood the figure refers to college not to high school, which is why I used the inclusive term “after completing their schooling”. The same secular forces are at work in the public school as you know, but perhaps the influence of parents and local community keeps them from abandoning the faith at this time. Has there been any surveys of those who graduate from junior high (or whatever is the name of the level in the USA meaning before college)?

    I have attended a couple of Dr. David Noebel’s Summit Ministries week long conferences here in Australia. This ministry’s aim is to ground Christian students in the Christian worldview before they enter college. That way they will be prepared for the secular/atheistic/leftist propaganda they will be bombarded with at college. A couple of Dr. Noebel’s books I recommend are Understanding the Times and Clergy in the Classroom.

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