The downside of legislating morality and God’s path to joyful transformation
A new analysis shows that abortions have increased in nearly every state that banned abortion, as women responded to these bans by traveling to clinics in states where abortions were legal or ordering abortion pills online.
Legislating morality is essential to a functioning society, or we cannot have speed limits and prohibitions against murder. But it doesn’t necessarily make us more moral. For example, despite laws against sex trafficking, prostitution, and abusing the elderly and those with disabilities:
- Former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO has been arrested on sex trafficking and interstate prostitution charges.
- Popular culture is continuing to normalize prostitution, euphemistically calling it “sex work.”
- Elderly dementia patients are unknowingly fueling political campaigns.
- American Airlines has been fined $50 million for mistreating passengers with disabilities.
If laws are not enough, how do we change a broken culture?
Why we don’t know what we don’t know
One approach is called the “October Theory.” The Wall Street Journal explains that “people are using the beginning of fall as the best time to reset their goals and values.”
Another approach is to treat politics like religion. New York Times columnist David Brooks observes: “In an increasingly secular age, political parties are better seen as religious organizations that exist to provide believers with meaning, membership, and moral sanctification.” Many invest in political parties and candidates in the belief that they will make the world that is into the world they wish to see.
Yet another approach is to define ourselves by what we do and then work hard at it. Psychologists call this “enmeshment.” In this view, our value lies in what we achieve, so the more we achieve, the more valuable we become. And the more we engage with the world, the better the world becomes.
Each of these approaches centers on the belief that humans can improve humanity if we only try hard enough for long enough. One source of this belief goes back to Plato, who saw the human soul as comprised of a white horse, a black horse, and a man as the “charioteer” driving himself through life. As a rational “lover of wisdom,” he controls the darker self (motivated by desires such as greed, vanity, and short-term gain) and the lighter self (representing honor and nobility).
The problem comes when the charioteer cannot control both horses. In our “post-truth” culture, we have an even greater problem when we cannot distinguish one from the other.
The Dunning-Kruger effect states that people who lack expertise in something will necessarily lack the knowledge needed to recognize their own limits. In other words, we don’t know what we don’t know. Now research is demonstrating a corollary fact: People have a strong tendency to believe that they already have enough data to make an informed decision, whether they actually have that information or not.
In other words, we don’t know what we don’t know, but we think we do.
“The hungry soul he fills with good things”
David offered a better charioteer reference than Plato’s famous analogy: “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lᴏʀᴅ our God” (Psalm 20:7). Why should we join him?
The Bible proclaims that “the Lord God Omnipotent reigns!” (Revelation 19:6 NKJV) and that his “kingdom is an everlasting kingdom” (Psalm 145:13). Because he can “do all things” (Job 42:2), “what is impossible with man is possible with God” (Luke 18:27).
This is good news because “the Lᴏʀᴅ is good to all” (Psalm 145:9) since his “steadfast love endures forever” (Psalm 107:1). We are therefore assured that “he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things” (v. 9).
Even when “some were fools through their sinful ways, and because of their iniquities suffered affliction” (v. 17), “they cried to the Lᴏʀᴅ in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He sent out his word and healed them, and delivered them from their destruction” (vv. 19–20). Accordingly, you and I can “be strong and courageous” since we know that “with us is the Lᴏʀᴅ our God, to help us and to fight our battles” (2 Chronicles 32:7, 8).
“No other explanation for our joy”
We have focused this week on the transformation only the living Lord Jesus can make in our lives. When we yield every day to God’s Spirit (Ephesians 5:18), asking Jesus to continue his earthly ministry through us, he changes us and he changes the world through us (cf. Colossians 1:27).
One telltale result is the joy that the Spirit produces in us (Galatians 5:22), whatever our circumstances might be. In First15, our ministry’s daily devotional resource, we read:
We are not designed to have joy in ourselves. Rather, such joy comes by the dwelling of the Holy Spirit within us. As the disciples began to be filled with the Holy Spirit, their lives changed dramatically. They went from fearful, fair-weathered followers of Jesus to joy-filled, sacrificial, and empowered world changers. They had joy in the midst of intense persecution because they had the Holy Spirit filling them with the fruit of his indwelling.
We have the same Holy Spirit the disciples had, and he longs to do the same kind of works in you and me today as he did in them thousands of years ago. He longs to fill us with joy in the midst of any trial or pain. He longs to heal and transform our hearts into greater reflections of God’s goodness. He longs to make us a people so joyful that there is no other explanation for our joy other than God is with us.
When Jesus is living his joyful life in us, we are able to testify to the world,
“The joy of the Lᴏʀᴅ is your strength.”
What—or Who—is your “strength” today?
NOTE: For more on transforming power to worship and trust God in even the worst of days, please see my new website article, “The deep-sea service that keeps your internet running.”
Thursday news to know:
*Denison Forum does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in these stories.
Quote for the day:
“Upon a life I did not live, upon a death I did not die, I risk my whole eternity on the resurrection.” —Charles Haddon Spurgeon
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