Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
When I suggest that Christians should consider the moral law of God as higher than any human law, as I did in my last column here, I routinely meet with some resistance, even from believers.
“But, preacher, many people are not Christians. They don’t agree with God’s law.”
There is a noble sentiment behind this objection. We haven’t been called to convert anyone by force, or to coerce them into agreement with us. We don’t want to shove our religion down their throats.
On the other hand, though, laws that strip us of our God-given rights are currently being shoved down all our throats. Philosophically speaking, it is the nature of civil law to command obedience, regardless of your agreement. Something is darn well getting shoved on somebody.
A lot of the momentum behind this objection is frankly born of ignorance. Even professing Christians have bought into the popular caricature that says God’s commandments are harsh, burdensome, or even barbaric. The truth is that, historically speaking, it is the law of God found in the Bible that was the foundation for things we now take for granted — like religious freedom, trial by jury, due process, the presumption of innocence, and equal standing before the law.
Non-believers and adherents of other religions would be left alone to believe as they wish in a nation that looked to Moses to inform its codes. Many of us would go our entire lives without interacting with government. This is supposed to be a nightmare somehow.
“But, preacher, we don’t want to live in a theocracy.”
What is often meant by this is that we don’t want an ecclesiocracy, where the church runs everything. God’s law actually forbids this. The king and the priesthood are established as separate offices. Neither one is to rule the other, but they are supposed to encourage each other to obey God. The Bible, not humanism, gave us the concept of separate spheres of authority for church and state.
Frankly, you may not want to live in a theocracy, where somebody’s ideas about what their god wants are what control things; but, you already do. Law is merely the codification of moral concepts. Even something as small as handicapped parking spaces is a moral law. Someone believed at some point that it was “good” to make sure we let the weaker members of society have the best spots. OK, fine. But it must be acknowledged that “good” and “evil” are inescapably religious terms. Every honest atheist will agree that without God morality is a fairly meaningless, societal construct and is not reflective of any real “good.”
But all the religious hypocrites, apostates, and heretics in Washington, D.C., go merrily along telling all of us what’s right and wrong, don’t they? Somebody’s faith is calling the shots. Their rulings (based on nothing) may upset you, but without the objective law of God, all you have is your personal opinion disagreeing with theirs.
“But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve. … But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:15)
Gordan Runyan is the pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church in Tucumcari. Contact him at: