I’ve been thinking all day about responses to comments and concerns around recent violent acts in the U.S. I will not comment on social media sights because people don’t read those to learn or be enlightened and I do not want to be attacked or asked to defend myself. I am not a debater and cannot eloquently supply support for my thoughts and opinions so I do not want to wade into those waters.
I am greatly concerned for the decline in the moral character of the U.S. Society as a whole and the resulting consequences of this moral decline. The acts of violence are only one visible outcome of this decay. In my search for words to understand or help others I came to my blog site and as I contemplated words to type I perused old posts and found this gem: https://bikegirl2.wordpress.com/2015/06/26/morality-laws-and-rights/
It is impossible to legislate morality as I stated in that previous post. People who will live moral, upright lives of integrity will do that whether there is a law about it or not. Those opposed to a given standard will push back and rebel whether it is a custom, practice, or law. Therefore, it does not truly matter what is legal or illegal when looking at the extremes of right and wrong. Laws will help keep those in the middle who wander to close to an edge in check. Times of indecision, anger, or confusion might find someone daring to test the waters but a law and fear of the consequences could keep someone safe from going too far adrift.
Now just like morality cannot be legislated neither can love and kindness be legislated. I know that no one is looking to pass a law mandating a love your neighbor behavior but maybe that is what we should be debating. We are debating gun laws, immigration rights, and fighting terrorists. Are these not the distractions stemming from lack of love and kindness to your neighbor? A quote I saw today was, “it was not the gun in his hand but evil in his heart.” That is absolutely true but we are discussing the gun and not the evil. How do we change an evil heart? We try by wanting to change the legal standing of a tool used in an evil act. An act that is already illegal.
We have legislated the act to be illegal and that hasn’t stopped the behavior. Now we want to add legislation banning or greatly restricting the tool used in the act. That will have no greater effect on the curbing of evil acts than the already illegal act has had. We need to get at the root of the issue. We need to get at the heart. And heart issues cannot be solved through legislation.
Morality will only be addressed when Christians and places of faith become the place of meeting needs. We cannot depend on a corrupt immoral government to provide an avenue of morality. Faith tribes must meet the needs of our neighbors in order to right the moral compass of our nation. In this same vane, Christians must lead the way in living lives of compassion, kindness, and love to fight the evil fabric working to destroy what is good around us.
Christians living as the world lives will not bring about the change in a moral righting and pure of heart cleansing that we need in society. We must be set apart as Holy as God’s righteousness among men. When we live in such a way as to preach the morality we want legislated and live daily the love and kindness we need fighting back evil hearts and minds then, then we can stop mass shootings, violent protests, riots, fear, and division.
We don’t need more laws because we can’t even enforce the ones we already have. We need a change much deeper than behavior in order to stop the violence we dread hearing about in the news almost daily. We need a change of heart. Recently I saw a statement asking why advertisers will spend millions of dollars on a 30 second to one minute commercial believing it will influence behavior to make money, yet we do not believe that images and ideas consumed in hours of video games, TV, and movie watching will not influence our thinking and behaviors related to violent and hateful tendencies? That is a very valid question. What you take in changes you and then comes out of you. Be careful what you take in.
They will know you are Christians by your love not your pop culture prowess. Be in the world and not of the world. This will change the world.
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