Necessary Roughness

Breitbart.tv has video of Charles Barkley on CNN’s Situation Room. He announced his intent to run for governor of Alabama in 2014 as a Democrat, and he is supporting Obama for president. This is quite funny, because while Mr. Barkley was in the employ of the Phoenix Suns, he was a registered Republican because the Democrats would raise his taxes. Perhaps he isn’t making enough at TNT to feel the pain he did before.

The other major comment that Barkley makes is that conservatives are “fake Christians,” that conservatives are hypocritical because “they’re not supposed to judge other people…They act like Christians, but they are not forgiving at all.” I know the fact that Charles “I am not a role model” Barkley said this actually detracts from the charge. But, alas, he probably got the idea from somewhere else, and so it must be answered, lovingly, of course.

My first and immediate answer to his statement was yes, we are all fake Christians, if being Christian is defined by what we do. There are not only conservative “fake Christians,” but liberal, libertarian, socialist, and anarchist ones. Being a Christian is not about what we do but what we believe Christ did for us. There are generally accepted ecumenical criteria (some would say creeds) about the basics of what needs to be believed, even though some theological planks are well disputed.

Sir Charles’ charge is both theological and political, similar to many of us who would say that supporting gay marriage or abortion is anti-Christian. When we debate these topics we need to recognize without separation the civil and religious components of the debate, emphasizing the component that is more conducive to the people we are trying to persuade. We also need to realize that within the set of generally accepted “bad behavior,” there is a subset of behavior which we can say, “this is the behavior we are going to punish.” Resources are limited. It would not surprise me that the effort alone in enforcing all of Islam’s hadiths (not to mention the brutality of the punishments themselves) have held back Muslim countries technologically. We would all end up in jail if we civilly punished every sin.

Christianity certainly gives us an idea of what is right and wrong, though some areas are more gray than others — e.g. polygamy vs. homosexuality. It also informs us that human government has been instituted by God (Romans 13:1-6) for us to live peaceful, quiet, godly, and dignified lives (1 Timothy 2:1-2). Our society is twisted enough that some Biblical proscriptions would cause outright rebellion, but our society is not so twisted that we cannot take Biblical proscription as good advice for human rule.

We can recognize the value of this good advice. The National Right to Life Committee estimates that over 48.5 million abortions have been conducted since 1973. These are people that could have helped us fight wars, advance technology, teach, provide food, and other things that we don’t know we are even missing. If we could have laid that statistic at the hands of the five justices who voted in favor of Roe, perhaps they would have changed their vote.

Some issues we cannot find statistics for yet. We don’t know the complete effect of our actions. Biblical advice becomes the conscience that warns us when things are wrong, before we make a decision and see the results. Some things cannot be undone once started. If marriage were simply a contract where people would live together and share medical plans, it would be easy to allow it, but we have Biblical revelation that also informs us that marriage is instituted by God, consists of a man and a woman, is intent on creating children, and has multiple parallels with the relationship between Christ and his church. A Christian cannot simply ignore that any more than we can ignore the virgin birth. We do not have a grasp of the social chaos that will ensue. To borrow from Todd Wilken, we participate in our government to serve our neighbor.

Without Christianity, abortion can be argued using autonomous rights of the unborn, and that argument seems to be winning. Gay marriage has to be contested with conflicting studies on both sides until we see the results long after the point of no return.

Barkley’s accusation that conservatives cherry-pick scripture can be leveled at himself quite easily, but let’s examine his theological argument. Indeed, Jesus tells us not to “judge not, that you be not judged” (Matthew 7:1) and “Judge not, and you will not be judged” (Luke 6:37). Looking back in the text, both admonitions are part of Christ’s teaching to multitudes. They certainly apply.

But that isn’t the entire counsel of God. The Great Commission (Matthew 28:16-22) informs us that part of our duty is “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (v. 20) When we teach not to judge, or to flee from sexual immorality, or to fill the earth and subdue it, etc., etc., we are teaching the Word. The Lord is doing the killing and making alive (Deut. 32:39). Where we add what has not been written, we are the judge. Where the plain reading of the Word is delivered, the Word is the judge.