Yes, the system is imperfect
as is everything run by fallen humanity but you are trying to mix oil and water
here. Secular Governments with laws that are conducive to moral
behavior are ordained by God and their ministers are ministers of God, (not
for eternity but at least until Jesus returns and takes over). In a
Democratic Republic such as the United States the Government will
reflect the common morality of the people. Paul in the book of
Romans Paul refers to Caesar in Rome during the first century
AD who was hardly democratic but Rome did enforce the Pax Romana for
many years and peace (rather than anarchy) is important because it is
impossible to get anyone's attention with the truth of the gospel of Christ
or for them to live godly lives and learn from Him the midst of chaos (such
as what is presently happening in Sudan).
Why do you want to make
things so complicated? Even the unbeliever has some kind of
conscience, they may not know how to love, but hey - neither do the majority
of those who profess to follow Christ. Morality is a good start, we
can go from there
even though the fear of God
is eroded and continues to erode. judyt
I am writing from
my self-imposed exile. All is well here on the island of
Patmos.
Just a quick note
for this conversation which I have re-titled as I am afraid that the point
is being missed and that there is a lot of talking past one another.
What Lance, Terry
and Izzy are saying are all flying past one another. I do think that moralism and Christianity are diametrically
opposed. Bill could write all this up much better than
myself. Perhaps he will correct where I am off here. My
apologies for using the Canadian/British spelling of behaviour.
J
Lance is saying that there is no hope, no life, no godliness
in moralism. Moralism is the practice of moral behaviour.
Moral behaviour is taught by society. What we determine to be moral as
a nation may not be what another nation may think (I wrote about how having
a mistress in Malta is considered by many of the populace as normal, whereas
having a mistress in North America is considered adultery). In our
lifetimes we are seeing a wide swing regarding homosexuality; it is moving
from being considered immoral to moral (i.e. acceptable). When my
father was young chewing gum in school was considered
immoral.
The problem with moralism (keeping good social morals) is that
it is completely disconnected from God. Morals properly placed
in a subjective manner to God are good. For example, the Torah laws
are good as long as they are placed subservient to the lawgiver God.
To just follow the laws apart from a relationship with God earns one nothing
but it does give the illusion of progress (i.e the
Pharisees followed the laws and were indeed legally righteous; what
they missed was the lawgiver � this is
moralism. It is no more new today than it was then). In
other words, morality (which can be defined as good behaviour, even desired
holy behaviour) divorced from God avails nothing but an illusion. The
illusion itself is powerful. It is this illusion that makes some think
that we live in moral, godly nations. The precepts our countries were
built on have been detached from a relationship with their
Creator.
What the founding
fathers wrote is great stuff, as long as it is placed within the framework
of who God is. Without God, it turns into a legal
matter, a moralistic issue instead of a spiritual issue. In
society it becomes moralism; in the church it becomes
religion.
Let me give another
quick example. Imagine that I behaved completely moral to my
wife. I did everything right, treated her kindly, never cheated on her
and was always polite. It would not take my wife long to see through
me; although I did nothing legally wrong to her, without the love that God
has placed in my heart for her my behaviour is empty. My behaviour was spot on, my heart was not.
Moralism is like this. My behaviour, while noteworthy (others who saw
how well I treated my wife would be jealous of our marriage) lacked the
basis in relationship.
Legislating moral
behaviour is a whole other post�..
Back to exile with
me!
Jonathan
Izzy
wrote: Lance, I�ve been wanting to ask you this. Would you please
clarify what it is you have against �morality�? Please define
morality. (To me it means making moral choices vs immoral choices,
which means choosing sinless choices over sinful choices.)
Izzy
A
great question. And your (Izzy) exchange with Bill was as
interesting to me as was Bill's comments. Did you change the
color of your hair?
;-)
John
