March 07, 2005
A Small Victory, A Larger Loss
Michele at A Small Victory is all fired up over this article in Christianity Today from former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore.
She selects this quote from Moore as particularly offensive to her sensibilities:
"The acknowledgement of God is basic to our society, to our law, and to our morality. Christianity is in a prime position to wake them up. I can't do it alone, and Christians need to be awakened to what's going on in our country. If we continue to let this happen, what will happen is a complete departure from our constitutional form of government. The basis of our morality is being destroyed. We have no morality without an acknowledgment of God."Michele responds:
"To say I strongly disagree is a vast understatement."She then gets bogged down in pitting one religion against another in the wonderful world of moral relativism:
"Who is judging the validity of this source? There are some "higher powers" that promote death to non believers. So if someone says they get their sense of absolute right or wrong from that higher power, who are you to argue with it? That's their morality, as much as "turn the other cheek" may be yours. With more than one God hanging around, there is more than one absolute morality. Who's to say that yours is right and theirs is wrong? Using a higher power as the grounds for determining what's moral or not is sometimes a cop out, sometimes an excuse."First, Michele is horribly skewing the argument. Let's hook the red herring above before proceeding.
Moore is explicitly talking about the United States (he says "in our country"), not the rest of the world as Michele seems to imply by her comments. She seems to be trying to place this argument into a global context, which is explicitly wrong if this is her intent.
Moore is speaking about the United States, and he isn't saying that other religions, or the absense of all religion, cannot occur here. He is simply stating that we were founded as a nation by those who overwhelmingly believed in a Judeo-Christian God, and that belief system is the cornerstone of our nation.
Once again, Moore said:
The acknowledgement of God is basic to our society, to our law, and to our morality.
That statement is true in a historical sense. True in a cultural sense. True in a legal sense as far as the evolution of where our laws came from. True in a moral sense.
I'm not sure Christianity can or should be singled out as the only "right" religion as Moore seems to imply here, but our morality, laws and societal norms in America all do derive their basis from Judeo/Christian beliefs. That is incontrovertable fact.
Our founding document, the Declaration of Independence, acknowledges the existence of God no less than five times: God as supreme Lawmaker and Judge, God as Creator of all men, God as the Source of all rights, God as the world's supreme Judge, and God as our Protector on whom we can rely.
Michele can disagree with Judge Moore all she wants on a personal level, but it won't make her any less wrong on the larger cultural level.
"The acknowledgement of God is basic to our society, to our law, and to our morality."Correct on all counts, Judge.
