Send us some feedback!
| The exit polls report that moral issues played a large role in the outcome of the election this year. This seems to have taken the election pundits by surprise. Now it is highly questionable whether we should trust those polls given their poor track record but it does raise the question: “Should personal morality influence our laws and public policy?” Of course! In fact, we have consensus on this. Our problem is that we do not have consensus on what morals should influence our public policies. And even when we agree on moral values, like helping the poor and the oppressed, we do not always agree on how to go about helping them. This is quite understandable in a pluralistic society that values freedom of thought and lifestyle.
One popular solution is to try to remove morality from our decision-making by postulating that there is no “right” and “wrong.” The problem is that no one can live this way. And actually, there are a great many things that we agree on about right and wrong. While there are aberrant exceptions it is universally agreed that Nazi Germany’s attempt to wipe out the Jews was wrong. The same could be said for murder, incest, and abuse. We may define the parameters of such terms differently but in essence the moral value would be the same. It seems that everyone has some sense of morality. There are few, if any, truly amoral people.
One of the difficulties in agreeing on moral values is the different foundations upon which people build them. Some build them upon objective standards that are determined outside of themselves, appealing to an authority like Scripture or its equivalent. Others build their moral concepts upon subjective data that is progressing and changing with new information and ideas. That is why for those of us who are religious, while it is perfectly valid to build our values on God’s directives, it will not be very persuasive when interacting with others who do not share our faith in God or our understanding of God’s perspective.
And moral values are not emotionally neutral! They form a substantial part of our identity and sense of personal value. Furthermore, someone else’s moral judgments can be an indictment of our lifestyle or of us. As a result, discussion of values and morality can be extremely threatening and heated because they often involve explicit or implicit personal attacks.
Our constitutional system was designed to help create policy and laws through the democratic process, through our representative form of government, and through the judicial system. It is a remarkable process unparalleled in the known history of mankind. But it is difficult, it is cumbersome, and it does not guarantee success. Sometimes the majority is wrong, sometimes our representatives fail, and sometimes the judicial system is unjust. But let’s not pretend that morals do not or should not influence public policy and laws. Our political system is intended to help us work out our differences and uphold a common good.
Moral perspectives should and will always inform and influence public policy about the common good. But I am not suggesting that any person or group has a monopoly on morality and the public good. In our democracy we all have the opportunity to contribute to our corporate concepts and implementations of the public good. Moral perspectives must not be locked out of the discussion or used to club the opposition. Civility, respectfulness, and reasonableness are especially important as we engage in debating emotionally charged issues. So instead of arguing past one another let’s talk and listen to one another carefully. |
|
by Dr. J. Patrick Curtis, Senior Pastor |
Send us some feedback!