Evangelicals and the State

A law professor makes a case for a libertarian Christianity.

W. James Antle, III from the June 2007 issue

(Page 2 of 2)

While Olree seeks to “maximize overall Choice,” George believes the law should promote a “moral ecology” in which virtue flourishes as immorality withers on the vine. George’s vision would be implemented through the prohibition of vices such as prostitution and pornography, gradually and selectively reducing opportunities for bad behavior.

Olree counters that this is directly contrary to a Christian understanding of virtue, which requires “right heart” (correct intentions) as much as the right outward behavior. By taking away opportunities to sin, you are also taking away chances to behave in ways that please God. Consequently, secular law can only advance the appearance of virtue, not virtue itself.

Before turning to government, an evangelical must ask why God Himself did not choose to remove the opportunities to sin that trouble so many social conservatives. A Garden of Eden without the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil would, Olree writes, “certainly have exemplified the ‘good moral ecology’ that George advocates.”

Many evangelicals would be shocked by Olree’s radical recommendations. They might also object to Olree’s frequent resort to the language of classical liberalism, seeing it as yet another attempt to dress up a secular ideology in the veneer of Christian theology. But before rejecting The Choice Principle, they should ask themselves why they would give the government powers that God Himself does not assert. They should also wonder if their fellow Christians, many of whom converted after acknowledging their own sins, would have been better off being coerced into false virtue by the state.

And there is another reason evangelicals might want to depoliticize their faith, one Olree implies but never fully articulates. Rather than “leading America back to God,” the excessive identification of Christianity with politics may be repelling more people than it attracts. Consider Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan, the two bloggers who left John Edwards’ presidential campaign because of their history of posting comments critical of Christians on their own blogs. Perhaps they would have been hostile to Christianity in any event, but it is difficult to avoid the suspicion that much of their hostility stemmed from conflating the faith with the Republican Party.

Christians may yet be persuaded that affairs of the heart play a larger role in their Great Commission than affairs of the state. By Olree’s reasoning, government can be more of an obstacle to the transmission of their faith than an effective vehicle for it. Disenchanted evangelicals who contemplate his arguments may decide they have a place in freedom’s choir after all.

W. James Antle III is associate editor of The American Spectator.

Discuss this article online.