Historically, the Founding Fathers and early civil rulers
knowingly and willingly made laws based on moral grounds. Most of them realized
that a nation is great only when its people and rulers are moral. And most of
them had no problem with the fact that religious faith was the moral basis
underlying the laws they made. (See our article at http://www.gospelway.com/government/continental_congress.php.)
So why are we today so hesitant to defend our views on moral
grounds? The answer is that our society - and especially our government - has
become so secularized that moral arguments are often not welcome. In
particular, rulers and many citizens have bought the false modern view of
"separation of church and state," so that they have come to believe
that no law should be based on any view that is held by religious people. But
the fact is that every law we have listed (and many more) is based on views
held by religious people. That is, religious people generally oppose (at least
to some extent) every practice I have listed.
If a practice must never be restricted because opposition to
it is based on a moral conviction, and that moral conviction is believed by
religious people, then the bottom line is that we will never have any laws that
have any real substance whatever. When we come to face the real truth, we must
acknowledge that our moral beliefs are the real basis of virtually all our laws
of substance.
(c) Copyright 2012 by David E. Pratte - We copyright our material, not to prevent its use, but to prevent its misuse. You have permission and are encouraged to save this article for future reference and to email copies of it to your friends and acquaintances, provided no fee is charged and no changes are made in content.
Church of Christ - Utica, Ohio
