Morality and the Law

In a recent talk, Kim Forde-Mazrui had three suggestions for those who seek to create laws based on moral grounds. He was talking specifically about gay marriage and adoption, so the examples were drawn from that perspective. The suggestions themselves, however, may be more broadly applied.

1. Weigh moral benefits against moral harms: For example, the moral benefit of prohibiting gay adoption arguably results in the moral harm of having parentless foster children and orphans.


2. Consider that you are mistaken: Slavery, anti-miscegenation, segregation, etc. were all supported on moral grounds at various points in American history.


3. Consider compromise: Consider distinguishing between civil and religious marriage.

I can see where he's coming from. I do not believe that all of Christendom hangs on having American law perfectly mirror God's law. To what extent is it beneficial or necessary to have man's law reflect Christian morality? The typical assumption in the Evangelical community is that the closer US laws are to the Bible the better. I am not sure that is true for a few reasons:

1. God ultimately seeks changed hearts, not changed laws. Has the American Church flipped this around? (See Americans are incurable legal optimists....American Christians...have been more American than Christian).


2. If it's so important for national laws to match up with the Law, why didn't Jesus focus on fixing the laws of the Roman government.
   

I'm not saying that law is not important. I think that laws can be redeemed too (see the previous post). Maybe it's just a matter of priority.