When you hear “Christian” in political discussion it often conjures up images of right-wing white Republicans whose top issues are abortion and gay marriage. And to be honest that’s not too far from the truth. Most Christians I know vote Republican and believe that recognizing gay marriage would mark the end of the nation. However, I believe that when you are focused on behavior, you are less focused on relationship and love; I believe the love of Jesus is bigger than any social issue.
I am a Christian, meaning I am a follower of Jesus Christ. And I am not a social conservative.
There are three main reasons for this, and it’s not because I believe that people should use drugs, hire prostitutes and have abortions twice a year. The idea that if you believe something should be legal means you want to do it or that you encourage others to do it is tired and trite. I don’t know anyone who thinks being rude should be illegal, but in general rudeness is not a quality that is valued. Instead, my reasons are:
#1. America was founded on liberty. We have made many mistakes in this country, even from the beginning, but personal liberty is one of the primary ideals that sets us apart from the rest of the world. We should strive to maximize liberty by learning from past errors and making the future better than the past. If personal liberty – being left in peace to do as you please so long as it does not harm or infringe upon the rights of others – is no longer valued, America is dead. Because you can rest assured that someone out there disagrees with something you do. If you cannot offer peace and privacy to others, they are unlikely to be willing to offer it to you.
#2. Trying to codify morality results in serious inconsistencies. Why is gay marriage the killer of American morality, but no one is trying to make it illegal to engage in premarital heterosexual sex? Why is alcohol, a substance (generally) manufactured by humans, acceptable and morally superior to a plant in its natural state (marijuana)? “Crimes” that hurt no one other than the individual themselves are harshly punished, but those that injure others, such as marital unfaithfulness, are overlooked. If you’re going to try to make sin illegal you’ve got a lot of explaining to do on your system of picking and choosing. It is impossible to justify the positions of the social conservative in any rational way.
#3. Jesus did not try to force morality on those around him. He simply offered them a better way. Instead of petitioning the government to make activity X, Y or Z a crime, He offered them a relationship with him, not harsh rules and impossible law. He came to free us from the law, but today’s Christians so often want to cling to a series of rules and regulations. God offers us free will and freedom of choice – a courtesy that so many Christians seem very unwilling to extend to those around us. In fact, people are so intent on controlling the behavior of others they are willing to forfeit their own freedom in order to do so. The more freedom we attempt to take by force, the further down the spiral people will go, and the more enslaved we will become to our own rules. Jesus didn’t try to use the government to force people to behave a certain way, and neither will I.
I’ll address specific issues one by one in future posts, but all of my positions are rooted in these three founding principles: liberty, consistency/equality, and non-aggression.
One of my favorite movies is Serenity, a science fiction film based on the TV series Firefly. In the movie, the government uses drugs instead of laws to calm and control the population of a planet called Miranda. It seemed to be working initially, and surely the powers that be congratulated themselves. But it worked too well, and the people were so calmed they just laid down and let themselves die. A small percentage of the population had an adverse reaction to the drug and they became horrific monsters, murdering, raping, pillaging and eating people alive. The government’s attempt to force people to be “better” ended in disaster. I pray that the United States does not become Miranda.
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