The Moral Majority’s Mission

The Moral Majority’s mission to Waynesville (NC) at Mt. Lyn Lowery raises some questions.

First, it sharpens the issue of Church and State. Our Constitution sets up a wall between the two as formal institutions. No organized sect, based on religious dogma can take power in government. Government, in turn, cannot legislate concerning, nor control, religious beliefs.  Every legal system mirrors morals or lack of morals of the society it governs. The “Moral Majority” members have a right to try to influence law making, just as do other persons with different or fewer or no moral principles.

There is an oddity in the “Moral Majority” in this matter. It has identified itself with a political crew that attacked Jimmy Carter in 1980 for his ethical concerns. They demand that he be more practical and pay less attention to right and wrong.

Some years ago I made a proposal to the Board of Directors of a human services organization suggesting a new special project. A minister of the Board asked, “Howard, can we afford it?” Before I could reply, a banker broke in, “It isn’t a question as to whether we can afford it. It’s a question of the right thing to do.” It was odd to find the clergyman being practical and the layman being ethically sensitive. The Board voted to do the right thing.

The basic issue for Christians is always, “What is the right thing to do?”

It is possible that the political outfit with which the “Moral Majority” has allied itself gas actually taken over the “Majority” as a tool for self perpetuation in office. I remember well the 1920’s when, in a neighboring state, a group of rascals seized on the prohibition movement to capture the Church vote to keep themselves in power.

One must always be suspicious of any individual or group that prides itself on its righteousness. Oliver Cromwell, three centuries ago, chided his fellow Puritans with this bit of wisdom, “I beseech you, brethren, by the mercie of the Lord Jesus, to remember that you may be mistaken.”

The present government in Iran shows what happens when the self-righteous get power. The efforts of the “Moral Majority” to destroy our Constitutional form of government by denying to the courts the power to decide questions of law and constitutional issues. The “Majority” this poses a threat to our basic liberties.

Jesus faced a “Moral Majority” in His day – the scribes and Pharisees. They were the good people. But in bitter terms he denounced them (Matthew 23:13-36). “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrite, for you tithe mint, dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel.”

For Jesus and the prophets morality calls for feeding the hungry, providing shelter for the homeless, strengthening the weak and the afflicted, healing the sick (even if they can’t pay), giving the poor equal justice in the courts, seeing that all children regardless of circumstances get a good start in life, reconciling enmities and enemies, and restoring the outcast and despised to a sense of dignity and worth as children of God.

These are the Major elements of Morality.