For all the lip service that is lent to the Ten Commandments being the foundation of good law and for all the tablets and inscriptions of those commandments in American houses of law, you may be shocked to learn that only two of the commandments are written into law: thou shalt not steal and thou shalt not kill. Considering that America is an overwhelmingly Christian nation, it seems puzzling that we enforce only the two commandments that every nation on earth, Christian and heathen alike, enforce.
There are a few famous examples of Christian-run governments that attempted to enforce God's law to a more thorough extent, but unfortunately they were infamously harsh and/or authoritarian (Geneva circa the Reformation comes to mind). Let us dispense with past mistakes and begin anew.
Unfortunately, modern American law only partially encourages observance of God's commandment "thou shalt not kill". We
should do everything in our power to make abortion illegal once again,
but that's just the beginning of voting according to God's law.
Just as Jesus stayed an entire crowd's hands by saying "He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her", so too should we depart from the institution of capital punishment, as the blood of those criminals is on all of our hands, as voters.
We
should also vote against unnecessary warfare. It is one thing to
protect ourselves from a genuine invasion and quite another to bomb vast
countrysides on the other side of the world, killing tens of thousands
of innocents, for some theoretical insulation from a repeat of 9/11,
which killed a relatively paltry two thousand. This sort of violence is
appalling and decidedly unChristian.
As
taxpayers are currently footing the bill for the massive killing
machine that is our military and this military facilitates an aggressive
attitude toward international politics, we should also downsize our
military to one reflective of an attitude of self-defense, not of
aggressive enforcement of worldwide dominance. This will also promote a
greater sense of humility across our nation. Our international actions
this past decade have frequently been grounded in pride, selfish fear
and an insufficient love of our neighbors. Downsizing our military budget by an order of magnitude would
go a long way towards stifling those American sins.
Sodomy and all manner of sexual perversions should of course be prohibited. Until these things can be outlawed, nothing resembling acceptance or tolerance of such behavior should ever be passed into law. This behavior is never okay and we as Christians should make this holy truth clear with our votes.
Even more important for protecting our country's social fabric, though, is preventing divorce and sex before marriage-- the two biggest contributors to social fragmentation and destruction of the family unit. The legalization of "no fault" divorce across states in the early 1970's had an appalling affect on the social fabric of America. One of the most important steps to bringing that fabric back together is going to be reversing that legislation and forcing married couples to work things out.
The problem of sex before marriage is a more difficult snarl to untangle. Abstinence-only sex education has done little or nothing to stem the rising tide of babies born out of wedlock. There is a deeper root cause at work here: young people are waiting until very late in their lives to marry and have children intentionally, and they are succumbing to temptation in the meantime. This is a result of a shifting economy, but Mormons have demonstrated that marrying early and having children within wedlock is feasible. Mormons consequently have a much lower rate of out-of-wedlock births. We should start by prohibiting sex before marriage and then institute a program to encourage marrying early, perhaps just out of high school as was typical in the 1950's.
An important topic of the Lord's teachings that we also need to take into consideration at the voting booth is that of poverty and wealth. Jesus said "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." He also suggested to his apostles, "If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven." Between these two quotes I think we have a clear God-given mandate for how to structure our government's tax and entitlement systems.
First of all, American government should take money from the rich until they are no longer rich, and in so doing save their souls. We should then take this wealth and distribute it to the poor and save America's soul. It is very simple and it is very much in keeping with the gospel. The fact that America, as the most God-fearing of first world countries, does the least redistribution of wealth in this most moral of directions quite frankly boggles my mind.
These are the first and foremost things we need to vote for to save our souls and the soul of our nation. There are many further things we could do, such as formally recognizing America as a Christian nation and enforcing all ten of the commandments, but those must wait until America is ready for our holy vision. Baby steps, my fellow Christians, baby steps.
For those of you who enjoyed this dose of common sense, I recommend checking out my friend Rob's Reasonable Person's Guide to the Bible.
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