Religion Reality Check

Direction from God

Application of the rhetoric of Moore and Scalia would explicitly contradict the U. S. Constitution which defines government as coming from the will of the people. The notion of moral authority of the law being derived from God is a throwback to the Dark Ages with its Divine Rule of Kings. Scalia is charged with the highest role in preserving the Constitution as a secular document. His attempts to change the source of governmental authority should be of concern to us all. There is a disturbing tendency for those who see God as the source of moral authority to invoke that authority to validate the most extreme Old Testament sanctions. Scalia’s essay is specifically in support of the death penalty. There is one paragraph that underscores his linkage of the death penalty with Christianity:

“So it is no accident, I think, that the modern view that the death penalty as immoral is centered in the West. That has little to do with the fact that the West has a Christian tradition, and everything to do with the fact that the West is the home of democracy. Indeed, it seems to me that the more Christian a country is the less likely it is to regard the death penalty as immoral. Abolition has taken its firmest hold in post–Christian Europe, and has least support in the church–going United States. I attribute that to the fact that, for the believing Christian, death is no big deal.”

It may or may not be that we are better off as a society if we have the death penalty. However, we certainly should study the question applying reason and logic instead of accepting it just because Scalia thinks “for the believing Christian, death is no big deal.”

If our law comes from God, according to the words of religious text, it comes from an arbitrary, fierce and inhumane God. If it comes from the consent of the governed it is more likely to have some thoughtful reason, logic, and compassion in how it is written and applied. A prime example of God given law being enforced by man is the Taliban rule in Afganistan. Remember that the Christian God says blasphemers should be put to death. Leviticus 24:16, “And he that blasphemeth the name of the LORD, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the Lord, shall be put to death.”

References:

(1) Divine Right of Kings

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/GLOSSARY/DIVRIGHT.HTM

(2) James VI & I on the Divine Right of Kings

http://history.wisc.edu/sommerville/351/Jamesdrk.htm

(3) Web source at Penn State:

William II, German Emperor

http://ftp.cac.psu.edu/~saw/royal/r01.html#I21

(4) Scalia is quoting Romans 13:1–5

(5) First Things, May 2002

Antonin Scalia, "God’s Justice and Ours"

http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0205/articles/scalia.html

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