Righteousness

If you want to make America righteous, good for you. But if you think the way to do that is to win political power and pass “Christian” laws, you are misguided or misinformed. It doesn’t work that way.

First, righteousness before God comes as a result of faith in Christ. That was Paul’s primary message in his letter to the Romans, which is perhaps best summed up in Romans 4:5: “But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness.” Faith in Christ cannot be mandated by law—it must be chosen by each individual.

Futthermore, efforts to force people to behave in a “righteous” way don’t work. We should have learned that as a nation in the 1920s when a Constitutional Amendment[1] and federal laws were passed to prohibit the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages—a time that was nicknamed “Prohibition.”  The laws were unpopular and were widely flouted, so much so that the Constitutional Amendment was repealed in 1933.[2] Laws once criminalized homosexuality, yet homosexuals didn’t disappear. The so-called War on Drugs has been ongoing for decades, yet illegal drugs are still used by millions of Americans. You can’t legislate morality. People are going to do what people want to do.

I’m sure the New Testament authors wanted the Roman Empire to become righteous, but they never believed that the path to accomplish that was through political power. They knew that the way to change people’s behavior was to change their hearts, to redirect them back to God, and to show them a better way by treating them with kindness and respect. Here is Paul’s advice to Timothy in that regard:

The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, skillful in teaching, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.[3]

Does that sound like Paul wanted to force people to be righteous? Of course not. He wanted Timothy to persuade “those who are in opposition,” by gently correcting them.

Righteousness in the New Testament is always personal, not national. Paul urged his readers to be righteous.[4] He never said they should try to compel others to be righteous. Indeed, he didn’t even want to judge unbelievers, much less try to force them to behave in a certain way.[5]

So be righteous. Speak the truth. Act with honesty, integrity, and kindness. And stop worrying about whether others are being righteous. Instead, just show them love, kindness, and respect, and perhaps that will lead them to repentance—and righteousness.

[1]. 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

[2]. 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

[3]. 2 Timothy 2:24-26

[4]. See, for example, Romans 6:12-19, Ephesians 4:17-24, Ephesians 5:6-10, 1 Timothy 6:11, 2 Timothy 2:22

[5]. See 1 Corinthians 5:12: “For what business of mine is it to judge outsiders?”