In my study of Hebrews over the last week or so, I reminded of how great Paul really was. He has a lot of insight for us today, and Hebrews is another great example.

I’ve always been a big fan of Paul’s works, mostly because I’m an anti-law guy (in the sense that Paul usually speaks). This is another one of those times. There are a few places in Hebrews where he addresses the effectiveness of the Law of Moses:

For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did; by the which we draw nigh unto God.
Heb 7:19

This really highlights how just doing something may not really be helping unless you’re more aware. And again:

[The law,] Which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience;
Heb 9:9

You’ll have to read all of Hebrews for the context (which includes some really great discussion on the symbolism of the tabernacle), but this is what I picked up from the text that I hadn’t realized before:

The Law of Moses did not perfect those who practiced it, but it was a necessary step in getting closer to God. As a father, I’ve realized that some of the things my own parents expected of me were preparatory law-like practices. They asked me to do certain things, not because the act (in and of itself) was really beneficial, but because the doing it was a type of something that would be required of me later on. Children aren’t usually ready for the meat of life, so we construct an artificial framework of rules that gets them ready for life later on.

But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.
Galatians 3:23-25

The other thing I wondered is how we best leave the schoolmaster behind. If I’m just going through the motions, it isn’t perfecting me. If I’m just showing up and making things happen, there’s a chance I’m not being changed into something better. If I’m requiring my children to act because of the lower law, it’s possible they’re not becoming better people. How do we leave this lower, preparatory state and live a higher, more effective law?

Read Hebrews, and I think you’ll find out. :)

I know this is a sensitive topic, but I can’t find any information about it, so I’m blogging here.

Miscarriage is something that I think needs a little more press anyway. No one talks about it, and I can’t seem to find much from the Church about how miscarriages play a part in the family. If someone has some information, I’d be very happy to know about it.

We’ve had our share of miscarriages in my family. Once or many times, the experience is extremely disheartening. Enjoying the prospect of having a baby is an immensely happy occasion, and having those hopes shattered in the silence of a heart monitor, or the ultrasound room, is an experience I will forever loathe. I still have a really hard time making it through those first few doctor’s appointments.

My main question is this: what happens to these little people who never quite make it? As a Church and as a people we value this early stage in life: we’re definitely against abortion. The thought of purposefully killing one of these innocent little children is beyond reason.

So what’s the difference between death on purpose and death on accident? Aren’t these lives real? Why don’t we cherish them more? Why don’t they have names? Why don’t we remember them?

I feel like we stand up for these lives when people are trying to kill them, and we gloss over them when we lose them on accident.

I’ve heard some people justify the situation to some degree by claiming that these little lives were interrupted because they were too deformed to live. First, that’s a horribly insensitive thing to say to someone who has just endured a loss - make sure to never make that mistake - and secondly, we cherish and care for the handicapped after birth… Why not before?

I have this nagging feeling: a wonder where these little lives start and end, but more especially, a wonder about how they might fit into my family in an eternal sense.

Guess I’ll keep looking.

There have been a lot of related issues on my mind lately, and I’ve put off writing for a time in order to let things simmer. I hope this doesn’t seem to scattered: its taken some time to sort out, and I hope it rolls out here in some sort of cogent manner.

The main issue I’ve been thinking about is the term “Legistlating Morality.” I’ve been wrestling with the idea for a long time, and it has always felt… well… wrong. Sound odd? I suppose it should. I’ve found myself on the other side of the fence lately - fighting for the protection of people I despise, but in the end, I think I’ve taken the right approach. Let me explain.

The Illusion Behind “Moral” Laws

Many lawmakers and philosophers out there talk about the moral reasons for law. Don’t steal. Don’t kill other people. These sound like a moral force: laws that have been crafted for the sole purpose of making bad people into good ones.

In my view, the true role of government isn’t to make good people, it is to allow everyone to live in an environment that is fair to everyone. Sometimes this comes across as a ‘moral’ mission, but the real reason laws are enacted is to level the playing field. Why does the government manage the roads? Everyone needs to use them to work, trade, and recreate. The general idea is to keep people from harming each other so everyone can do what they want.

Sometimes laws may seem to have a morally correct foundation, but I think this is an illusion. The point of law is to promote liberty by eliminating and reducing any possible harm caused by other citizens.

Some see law and public policy as a way to advance a certain moral cause. I think sometimes people figure that as long as the majority agrees with a certain position, its acceptable to legislate morality. If were fighting to put something into law that is for a good cause, how could that be wrong?

Liberty, Agency and the Necessary Evil

I think I’ve probably surprised people occasionally when I’ve taken a stance that seems opposite to my core beliefs. On occasion, I’ve argued in behalf of the pornographer or atheist. My main reasoning behind doing that is that I believe it’s wrong to try to legislate morality. Its really hard for me to take that stance sometimes, but hopefully I can explain why I sometimes to seem to be fighting for the wrong team.

Lehi used up his last pages in the Book of Mormon to get this important idea across: there needs to be opposition in all things. Why? Because righteousness cannot manifest itself unless there is wickedness to be had.

When we try to legislate morality, we turn the government into something it isn’t meant to be. We are trying to remove opposition. Instead of protecting justice, freedom, and liberty, the State turns into the confused enforcer of a moral standard for a subset of its citizens. In a sense, you’ve elected to remove liberty, expecting to keep agency. When you force someone to do something, even if it is the “right” thing to do, you’ve lost liberty.

Without liberty, there is no agency. Without agency and liberty, there is no righteousness.

The interesting thing about liberty is that it it can be a tool used to build agency or a corrosive poison that drains agency:

With respect to the loss of personal liberty through the misuse of free agency, our daily lives are filled with tragic evidence. We see the alcoholic with his craving for drink, the dope fiend in his frenzy, and worse, the pervert with his irretrievable loss of manhood. Who will say that such persons enjoy liberty? …Every wrong decision one makes restricts the area in which he can thereafter exercise his agency. The further one goes in the making of wrong decisions in the exercise of free agency, the more difficult it is for him to recover the lost ground. One can, by persisting long enough, reach the point of no return. He then becomes an abject slave. By the exercise of his free agency, he has decreased the area in which he can act, almost to the vanishing point.
Marion G. Romney

Consider the man who uses his liberty to drink himself into oblivion every night. His mood, intelligence, and health gradually corrode, leaving him with fewer and fewer options as time passes. Liberty in this case is used to smother agency.

Consider also the man who uses the same liberty to walk past the liquor store every day on his way to work. His increased resolve frees him to pursue his own interests. Liberty fuels the fire of agency, and righteousness is manifest.

Just as following wrong alternatives restricts free agency and leads to slavery, so pursuing correct alternatives widens the scope of one’s agency and leads to perfect liberty.
Marion G. Romney, Ibid.

Is drinking bad? Yes. Should we enact legislation to prohibit people from drinking?

No.

Government: The Great Equalizer

According to data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, in 2005, 16,885 people were killed in alcohol-related crashes. One almost every half-hour.

I think this is where the question gets harder. Wouldn’t it save lives if we made drinking against the law? Wouldn’t we be more secure if we removed this sort of behavior from society? If we could pass such a measure, the democratic process would have run its due course.

I think this sort of approach is wrong. The role of the government is not to tell us that drinking is right or wrong, it is to step in when people are being harmed. I think the current legislation surrounding alcohol is more or less the correct approach: don’t allow people to drink and drive.

There are scientifically based reasons behind this legislation: the human brain is disabled during drinking to a point that is dangerous while driving. There are no fuzzy lines or moral undertones that drive these laws: you can prove why it needs to be thus with a few simple experiments. There really can’t be much argument about the issue, because you can prove your reasoning.

If we empower government to enforce morality, we lose the power to define our own.

The correct stance is to allow liberty. If people can drink, liberty is maintained. If people can drive on the road with less fear of being hit by an intoxicated driver, liberty is maintained. Allow drinking, prohibit drinking and driving.

Because liberty is a prerequisite for agency and righteousness, it will sometimes seem as though I’m fighting for people to have the right to drink. The same liberty that allows for people to drink allows me to actively choose not to drink. It allows me to make my own decisions about what I put into my body. That’s liberty.

This is the true role of government. If we sacrifice liberty, the results will only lead to decreased righteousness.

We have a classic example of the loss of economic freedom by the misuse of free agency in the book of Genesis. The Egyptians, instead of exercising their agency to provide for themselves against a day of need, depended upon the government. As a result, when the famine came they were forced to purchase food from the government. First they used their money. When that was gone, they gave their livestock, then their lands; and finally they were compelled to sell themselves into slavery, that they might eat.

We ourselves have gone a long way down this road during the last century. My counsel is that we beware of the doctrine which encourages us to seek government-supported security rather than to put faith in our own industry.
Marion G. Romney

Keep that Bathwater

When morality is forced, you eliminate the possibility of righteousness. If you’ve forced goodness on everyone, then no one is good anymore. Even the lowest of men will pray and attend church if threatened by a $50,000 fine and 6-12 months in jail. Is that same man “good” for making sure he attends?

God hath said a man being evil cannot do that which is good; for if he offereth a gift, or prayeth unto God, except he shall do it with real intent it profiteth him nothing … And likewise also is it counted evil unto a man, if he shall pray and not with real intent of heart; yea, and it profiteth him nothing, for God receiveth none such.
Moroni 7:6,9

If there is no possibility of doing evil, there is no possibility of doing good. Legislation, prompted by purely moral tenets, is a step in the wrong direction. The whole point of life on Earth is to be tested, and the test loses its discriminatory power when we (not God) threaten students with prison time if they don’t get all the answers right.

It’s fine to imprison students who are making it impossible for others to finish the exam, however.

Wasn’t it Lucifer who first wanted to force morality? That planned was scrapped in favor of a plan that allowed for all sorts of reprehensible behavior. Why?

…We will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them; And they who keep their first estate shall be added upon; and they who keep not their first estate shall not have glory in the same kingdom with those who keep their first estate; and they who keep their second estate shall have glory added upon their heads for ever and ever.
Abraham 3

It must have been a horrific sacrifice on God’s part to place his children in a situation where some of them wouldn’t make it. As a father, I feel a similar responsibility. But if I force my children into “good” their whole lives, how can they really be “good”?

Ever wonder why God set Adam and Eve in a garden with a tree they weren’t suppose to eat from?

The Retreat of Resolve

One of the scariest dangers of forced morality is that it erodes at our ability to reject temptation. When the punishment is artificially extreme, we don’t have to try as hard to avoid sin.

If I completely protected my children from drugs and pornography for their entire youth, how effective would they be, as adults, in rejecting enticing advertising or peer pressure later on? If there was absolutely no way to see inappropriate material on the Internet at home, how would I steel my children to the temptations that will present themselves in the future?

How can you be strong when you’re protecting yourself from nothing? How can you be willful when you’re keeping yourself from the impossible?

Governments should help us install safety nets: that much is sure, but we need not depend on them to fortify us against bad influences.

A More Correct Approach

Because forced morality doesn’t work, there needs to be some sort of answer. As appealing as it is to close up this rant and move on without providing some sort of solution, I think I’ll put one on the table before I wrap up.

There is a distinct and profound difference in fighting for the right and forcing the right. When we educate, when we teach, when we love: that’s when real progress is made. People decide on their own to become good people, and that’s what life is all about.

I will fight until the day I die against drugs, pornography, and atheism. The best way I know how to fight against these ills of society is through personal effort and care. We can’t force people away from these things. We can’t expect the government to be responsible for keeping our children away from bad influences. People need to have both options in front of them. When they are educated and loved by others, they can make the right choice.

We need to fight for the right while maintaining liberty for all. We need to persuade and coach rather than press and compel. The human spirit is born with an unquenchable desire for the power to choose. Taking away that power only causes rebellion.

You will never be able to force a change of heart - you can only inspire others, and love them until they make the right choices on their own.

If we are going to make a difference, we also need to work to legislate against behaviors that can be clearly proven to be harmful. This means that we need to show harm using secular means. Not only does this make enforcing the legislation practical, but it removes the moral debate and allows progress to move forward in a clear, fair manner.

Pre- Retorts

In my discussions with others, I’ve met up with some common replies to my line of thinking. Let me address these in hopes that they won’t find new life now that I’ve vocalized my point of view.

Morality is about right and wrong, and that’s what laws put into legal form. Can you think of one law which doesn’t declare one behavior right and its opposite wrong?

No, but that’s because fair play is moral. Laws are moral only because they aim to maintain fairness.

You say you need to have exposure and access to sin in order to build resolve. Do I have place myself in a position where I can easily murder/commit adultery/commit some horrible sin in order to be more resistant to that temptation?

Nope. I don’t think many people fall into murder out of nowhere - its usually the result of the feeding of smaller sins and letting them run wild. In the case of murder, it’s usually a direct result of feeding anger or pride. In the case of sexual sins, it’s feeding inappropriate thoughts.

Removing yourself to a place where there is no one to anger you, or no one to tempt you will weaken your resolve. There is a reasonable amount of risk we take in participating in society. Others may anger or tempt us, but we need to take that reasonable amount of risk. Winning small victories by turning down invitations to sin makes us better people.

This nation was built on Christian principles. Its the right thing to do to return our nation to its religious roots. The morality I wish to legislate returns us to those roots.

Here are some Christian principles I hold dear:

We do not believe it just to mingle religious influence with civil government, whereby one religious society is fostered and another proscribed in its spiritual privileges, and the individual rights of its members, as citizens, denied.
D&C 134:9

We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.
11th Article of Faith

I think that the government should be empowered with the ability to shield me from bad influence. Pornography is rampant on the Internet, and the government should respond by monitoring the content that is placed on it.

While the government can rightly be tasked with keeping everything fair, we have to remain somewhat skeptical of the government itself. Allowing the government too much power in enforcing fairness can also be limiting to liberty and thus agency and righteousness.

Privacy is a way to maintain security against the government. If we give the government power over privacy, they hold information about us, and information is power. Protecting privacy hides the occasional criminal, but it also protects the reformer.

Christians have as much a right as non-Christians to speak out and to influence legislation in our democratic society.

That’s true, but morally reprehensible scoundrels should also have the right to operate as they please as long as they aren’t hurting anyone. If the government tries to discover harm using scientific means, the lines are clear cut. If the government attempts to use some moral code, the lines are very blurry, and will get abused.

Pure democracy is not a good system for government. People sometimes choose the wrong thing. What if my neighbors assembled, voted, and decided to burn down my house because I was viewed as some sort of moral threat? Minority rights need to be protected.

Your example of the drunk man is flawed in that it…

It’s just an example. No metaphor is perfect, but I hope you realize the basic points I’m trying to bring across. Government should maintain fairness and protect liberty. Without that liberty, no righteousness can exist.