Legislating morality

Sorry it's been a while since I last wrote, but January and February were extremely busy. finally got a couple of days off to think about things other than work and I have a notebook full of ideas, but today I wanted to take up the issue of legislating morality.

I don't believe it can be done, but there are many who think otherwise and point to laws against murder as proof. But my point is that while you can pass laws against or for anything, it doesn't change the moral climate of a society. Murder is still a prevalent crime throughout our society in spite of laws and punishments against it. The US founding fathers put the restrictions on government interference in religion for a reason and this is one of them.

(Note I did not say the separation of church and state, which is a misunderstood concept. The premise was not to keep the influence of religion out of government, but to limit government endorsement control of religion. Interpretation in the past 100 years has reversed the intent of the concept.)

A good example of what I am talking about is the attitude regarding abortion in the US. Both sides of this highly polarized issue are pushing for government intervention in what is ultimately a moral decision. When life begins is not the issue, but when life attains a right to life is. And that decision is based on one's theology, not politics. Therefore the decision rests in the individual. There are any number of laws and legislation that are meant to control access and availability of abortion but none of them have had any affect on how many abortions are performed in the US.

Some might point to the Roe v. Wade decision as the legalization of abortion, but that isn't the case. What happened in that decision was the government actually started taking notice. Statistics on abortion were not really reliable until 1970 because many abortion were done in private and reporting was not required, and they continued to climbe after Roe- v Wade in 1973. After 1979, however the the number of abortions flattened out and started a steading decline beginning in 1990. After some thorough checking, there really wasn't any major change in US legislation against abortion in 1990 and beyond, nor were there any major legal precedent changes. So what was it that caused abortion to flatten out and then decline?

A little more checking and I found that in 1974 a movement promoted by the evangelical community, Crisis Pregnancy Centers, became a real force by the early 1980s and went into ascension in 1990 as it attained the same government support levels as Planned Parenthood. The centers have changed names a couple of times since then but the work is still pretty much the same: offer an alternative to Planned Parenthood's abortion bias. Some people on the pro-choice side claim the CPC dogma is deceptive, but pro-lifers say the same about Planned Parenthood, so I think the rhetoric balances out.

Here's my point: The morality of abortion was not legislated. The state just said, leave us out of it. It's up to people to make moral choices like this and the church is better equipped for that job. Abortion and teen pregnancy are steadily declining all over the country not because of legislation, but because people of faith decided to start doing their job and provide a second moral option. What's more, they did it in a loving, non-judgmental manner. (you might have had a different experience with the CPC people, but the one's I know provided information on abortion services to anyone who really wanted them and did it without making the client feel guilty.)

If there are issues of morality that you are concerned about, don't look to the government to fix it. That job belongs to the church and it's about time we started doing our job. We already know it works.

Effective faith

One of my friend's father died last night after a really long bout with cancer. My friend didn't have the best relationship with his dad because he treated my friend's wife -- one of the sweetest people in the entire world -- like crap. But near the end, the wife and the father reconciled. He apologized and the wife, who is full of grace, just showed him love and forgiveness. the father has been in a coma for the last few days and she was by his side for much of it. He came our of it a few hours before he died and she was right there, telling him about heaven and the love God has for him. She walked him through the process of reconciling with God for the simple reason that her children, his grandchildren, loved him and wanted him to be in heaven. And so the old man made his peace with God with the woman he had verbally abused for many years, leading him literally by the hand into eternity.

Sweet story.

Here's the thing.

Lynda and I have been in relationship with this family for a long time. We love them to death. Sometimes they come to church, but because of their work schedules, about the only day they get to have together is Sunday, so the don't come to church very often. He's not really into church stuff, anyway. And she is really new-agey and into crystals and auras. You know, the kind of stuff that gives regular evangelicals the heebee-geebies. She also reads the Bible and teacher her kids what she learns. She totally has the love of God thing down. In fact, she has it down better than most of the regular evangelicals I know, primarily because she doesn't go to church very often and doesn't get exposed to all the extra stuff that comes from being washed in the modern rules of church.

She is a very effective Christian and lives out the great commission every day of her life better than most every other Christian I've ever known.

So my friend, who rarely goes to church, this week led a man, who has hated her for a decade, to salvation and eternal life with God. What did you do this week?