More laws insufficient to halt slide into immorality

Can we really legislate morality?

I wonder this again as I look at the latest bulletin insert sent to churches throughout Idaho. It’s from the Marriage Protection Alliance, and it puts forth a cogent argument for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union of one man and one woman.

The alliance is rightly waging a campaign to curb the spread of legalized gay marriage. Although same-sex unions already are prohibited by state law, the alliance argues that a constitutional amendment – similar to those ratified by 11 states two years ago – would bolster Idaho’s legal ability to ban gay marriage.

Lost in all of the vitriol on the issue is this: We will never create morality with better laws. Government cannot rescue our culture from its slide into moral relativity.

Need proof? Consider that we now have tens of thousands of laws on the books and our society is increasingly immoral – and, perhaps worse, increasingly amoral.

Our tendency to tolerate everything, and stand for nothing, is a far more dangerous enemy than the absence of strong “moral” laws.

I have no quibble with churches using bulletin inserts from the Marriage Protection Alliance. But mine is not.

The real battlefield in the war against immorality is not the statehouse but the human heart.

Focusing our prayers and energies toward lovingly spreading the gospel, one person at a time, does much more to protect the culture than better laws.

Before I became a Christian, I generally obeyed all of the laws and respected government authority. Yet I was rotten on the inside because I had never been cleansed of sin through faith in Jesus Christ.

Conformity to the law was irrelevant; my hope was not in outward good behavior but in placing my trust in Christ and allowing him to slowly change me from the inside. (For the record, that work is still in progress.)

For Christians to place too much hope in stronger laws and better government neglects something fairly obvious: The culture readily accepts moral tolerance and even chafes at the notion that values are perfectly defined in the Bible.

In fact, much of the world we live in now sees Christianity as an obstacle to human progress.

Here’s an example: In Sweden, an anti-Christian designer is peddling Cheap Monday blue jeans to the masses. Each pair sports a trademark skull with an upside down cross on its forehead.

“It is an active statement against Christianity,” says Bjorn Atldax, who created the logo for Cheap Monday jeans. He said his irreverent logo is intended to make young people question Christianity, a “force of evil” he blames for sparking wars throughout history.

We should expect to see Cheap Monday jeans soon. They’re reportedly all the rage in Sweden and are growing in popularity elsewhere in Europe.

The arrival of Cheap Monday jeans isn’t any more shocking than gays wanting to be married. What is alarming is the presence in America of a ready market for such things.

Americans have largely been lulled into an acceptance of anti-Christian messages and lifestyles for decades. What once was considered blasphemy is now called free speech or tolerance.

It is politically correct now to be accepting of everything. So we’re OK with gay marriage and blasphemous blue jeans and even banning the words “Merry Christmas.”

Why? Because we cannot stomach the notion of offending someone else’s liberty!

The only thing that cannot be tolerated in our increasingly humanistic culture is the notion that there is absolute truth.

Scriptures tell us that true freedom is found in doing things God’s way, not our own. Solomon, renowned for his wisdom – and willingness to chase after whatever pleased him – ultimately concluded life’s salient purpose.

“Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man’s all. For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil” (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 – NKJV).

The trouble is, better laws never get at the “secret thing.” At best, they help keep order and provide a window dressing that hides what is really going on in people’s hearts.

That’s where reform is most needed – in the heart.

And it starts the moment each heart surrenders to the lordship of Christ. Our best hope as individuals, and as a culture, is not in chasing after whatever seems right to us but in surrendering to God and living his way.

Proverbs 16:25 says, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.”

It is heartbreaking to live in an age where so many choose spiritual death over eternal life by pursuing only “what seems right” to them.

I pray those churches wrapped up in the fight against gay marriage spend even more time and energy spreading the gospel.

Jesus, not the law, is our hope.