There Oughta Be a Law
by R.C. Sproul Jr.

Perhaps the most damning evidence of our cultural statism, and that such has wormed its way into the church, is our conviction that wherever there's a problem, the state must fix it. Something, after all, must be done. Are Kurds being mistreated? Something must be done. Does unpleasant nation A have nukes? Something must be done. Are steel producers having trouble with their sales? Something must be done. Are people getting the flu? Something must be done. Are people unemployed? Something must be done. Our "conservative" president, as he prepares to seek reelection, for instance, has been touting how many jobs he has created. Presidents don't create jobs, they destroy them. Businesses create jobs.

We have been arguing that it is both a wretched sin and sheer foolishness for one person to judge another by the color of his skin, that the world is indeed divided into two kinds of people, not Jew and Greek, but seed of the woman and seed of the serpent. Here I am arguing, however, that this sin, this folly, is none of Leviathan's business. It is wrong to refuse a man service in your business because he is black. It is likewise wrong for the state to treat those who would do so as criminals. No one has a moral right to do wrong. But there are moral wrongs that the state does not have the right to correct. It is wrong for me to feed my children twinkies for breakfast every morning. It is more wrong for the state to charge me for doing so.

The strange thing is that sometimes liberals understand this. (It is a strange thing that they ever understand anything.) It's not that unusual to see the ACLU actually defending a Christian's, or even a racist's free speech rights. Everyone loves that old aphorism, "I do not agree with what you are saying, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Why can't they likewise affirm, "I do not agree with your refusal to rent to blacks, or midgets, or redheads, but I'll defend to the death your right to do so."? Why is it that liberals insist that they be left alone in their bedroom, but refuse to allow me to determine to whom I might rent my spare bedroom?

Leviathan grows precisely when Lady Justice begins to peak out from under her blindfold. We do not enjoy equality under the law, because the state delights to use the law to curry favor, to buy votes. And it uses its government school systems to guilt the rest of us into going along.

But before we sons of the south work ourselves once more into a lather, into a posture of moral indignation, before we rage against the feds and their civil rights movement, we need a little objective history. It was indeed a bad thing for the federal government to descend upon the south a second time at the centennial of their bloody conquest. It was wrong for the national guard to be called out to enforce local relationships. But it was likewise wrong for sundry state governments to do the same thing. We need to remember that racial segregation wasn't merely a preferred way of life for all the citizens of the south. Neither was it the preferred way of life for those who enjoyed social standing. Rather, segregation was a legal construct, statewide Lady Justice peaking under her blindfold. While it may be that lunch counters, busses and drinking fountains would have been segregated had the state stayed away, the truth was that it was the law of the land. A righteous man in the pre-civil rights movement south would have found himself at odds with the state government had he rightly shared Martin Luther King's dream. While we might rightly fault the feds for acting outside their turf, we show ourselves to be hypocrites if we fail to judge the state governments for the same thing. (Just as the south showed herself to be infected with the Yankee disease when she, like the north, eventually enslaved her citizens by instituting the draft.)

When the government ceases to be colorblind they are doing far worse than clumsily trying to cure what they are ill-equipped to cure. Instead they are showing themselves, once more, to not be a terror to wrong-doers, but terrible do-gooders. They demonstrate their own hubris, that legislation has the power to sanctify. They show themselves to be the descendants of the fools of Babel, arrogant, self-deluded, utopian, dogs. They once more demonstrate that they have bought the devil's promise, that they shall be as gods.

Of course the mess is all the more tangled because Leviathan has set up shop in countless places where it does not belong, because it has trampled underfoot countless private gardens. That is, not only should the state schools be colorblind in their admissions policies, but there should be no state schools. Not only should there not be minority set asides in federal contracts, there should not be federal contracts.

But what are we to do? The good news is that if we are truly colorblind, we are not apt to run into any trouble. While the contrary is certainly a possibility, counting colored noses is probably not necessary if we judge men on the content of their character. A clean conscience is a powerful tool in combating the intrusions of the state. Fire those who do not work hard. Hire those who do. Rent to those who pay their rent. Do not rent to those who don't. And if your conscience is clean, when they complain, "It's because I'm black…gay…short…fat" you won't blush, and therefore won't lose.

And we likewise turn the other cheek. That is, we don't try to use the state to protect us, because we are black, gay, short or fat. God will bless our integrity, as long as we don't in turn turn to the state for special favors for our kind. As long as we don't grumble to the state that we were fired because we serve Christ (thereby showing that we really serve the state), Christ will probably protect us from the race police. And if He doesn't, then we experience the supreme blessing of being blessed for righteousness sake. That the state is not colorblind doesn't change our calling. It just makes it a little more dangerous.