Light Brings Salt
Volume 3, Issue 19 May 8, 2005
Dedicated to the Systematic Exposition of the Word of God
Christian Morality and Public
Law--Three Secular Arguments
Dr. Albert Mohler
What should be the relationship between
Christian morality and public law? This is a quintessentially modern question.
In other eras of Christian history, or even the history of Western
civilization, to ask what should be the relationship between Christian morality
and public law would have been incomprehensible. Most people would have
understood morality and law to be either one and the same thing, or else they
would have seen public law merely as a tangible structure and definition of
Christian morality. Throughout most of Christian history and the history of
Western nations, law and morality were conceived as being on parallel tracks,
indispensable to one another. Public laws were simply the codification of a
moral worldview.
Now we live in a day in which that
understanding is completely changed. With the advent of modernity--and now the
postmodern age--the view that public law is or ought to be predicated on
Christian morals is no longer taken for granted. Not only is that idea
questioned--it is even rejected out of hand. There are many in Western
societies who are now absolutely convinced that there should be in fact no
relationship whatsoever between Christian morality and public law. For these,
it is just as axiomatic that public law should be essentially secular, as it
was once axiomatic to believe that it must be essentially Christian.
That ideology, properly known as
secularism, suggests that there is an oughtness to the secularization of the
public space, that the culture indeed ought to be established on purely secular
terms without any reference at all to a theistic reality or a theistic
accountability. Secularism as an ideology has never been well-accepted in
And what do these people say about
the intersection of Christian morality and public law? For the secularist who
believes that
Let me offer three examples of
those who hold to such a position. First is Robert Reich, the former Secretary
of Labor in the
So what should be done with the
"radcons?" Reich said this: "It is
perfectly fine for radcons to declare strong personal
convictions about sex and marriage, convictions often based on sincere
religious beliefs. But it is something quite different,
it is quite another thing to insist that others must share these same
convictions. As I have said, the liberal tradition has wisely drawn a sharp
boundary between religion and government. We've got to stop the radcons before they impose their narrow-minded agenda any
further."
And then this, as he parodies the
"radcon" understanding of descent down a
slippery moral slope: "Here is a real slippery slope that does concern me.
Once we all radcons or anyone else to decide how we
should conduct our private sex lives, where would it end? If we accept the idea
that one religion's view of proper morality should be the law of the land, how
do we decide whose religious views should prevail?" Robert Reich is one
example of a person who believes Christian morality should have no voice in the
public square.
A second example is Robert Audi,
professor of philosophy at the
Second, Audi suggests a principle
of secular motivation. He explains: "One has an obligation to abstain from
advocacy or support of a law or public policy that restricts human conduct
unless one is motivated by a normatively adequate secular reason whose
sufficiency of motivation here implies that some set of secular reasons is
motivationally sufficient, roughly in the same sense that (a) this set of
reasons explains one's actions, and (b) one would act on it even if other
things remained equal or one's other reasons were eliminated."
In other words, any religious
motivation is ruled out of bounds. Not only must a person advocating a public
policy position have a purely secular rationale, but his advocacy must be
secularly motivated as well. It is not enough to offer secular arguments for a
position, if one's real reason for holding it is a belief in God.
Finally, Audi offers the principle
of ecclesiastical neutrality. He says, "Churches committed to being
institutional citizens in such a society have an obligation to abstain from
supporting candidates for public office or pressing for laws or public policies
that restrict human conduct." In other words, churches may do whatever
churches wish to do, so long as they do not endorse political candidates (a
restriction with which most of us would be quite satisfied) or "press for
laws or public policies that restrict human conduct." That is more
troubling, for most of us would insist that Christians must, as Christians,
advocate laws which restrict human conduct in some ways. Most laws do.
A final example is law professor
Kathleen Sullivan. Following the same mentality, she said, "The correct
baseline theory is not unfettered religious liberty, but rather religious
liberty insofar as it is consistent with the establishment of the secular, moral
order." That is a fascinating statement, one which amounts to a
redefinition of religious liberty. The baseline, she says, is not unfettered
religious liberty; those God-believers should be granted religious liberty only
so long as their liberty does not interfere with the establishment of a secular
moral order.
I bring these three witnesses
because I believe they are being honest. Reich, Audi, and Sullivan call for a
public space that is purely and completely secular. Not only must the shape and
content of the arguments in the public square be secular, but the very
motivation for making an argument at all must be entirely secular--as Audi puts
it, "without reference to whether or not there is even a God who
exists." Any argument based on any premise which might be considered
"religious" is categorically excluded. The honesty of these positions
is helpful, for it sets the issues squarely--and thus demonstrates immediately
the implausibility of such proposals.