Recently, John Edwards, a well known former presidential candidate, held a press conference. He announced that though he admitted doing wrong in having an affair on his wife, that he hadn’t broken the law in trying to cover it up. Evidently, back in 2008, he fathered a child by one of his assistants in the campaign and it seems that some wealthy Edward backers, gave contributions that were used as sort of hush money to keep it quiet. The U.S. Government is taking Edwards to court as they are contending he used political contributions in an illegal way to hide the other woman. He insists that it was to hide her from his wife and as he stated, though he had done wrong, it was not illegal. Though I do not wish to try to defend John Edward’s actions in the least bit, I am impressed that he knows that even though something may be legal, it can still be wrong.
I contend that there is often a difference between what is legal and what is right with what is legal usually being the lowest standard set by man and what is right or righteous being the higher standard, set by God. Since the beginning of man’s domain here on earth, the societies of men, countries and kingdoms have all established laws for the common governing. And a student of history knows that for the most of man’s time here, the standards of religion and the laws of men often had a common bond. Most nations in history and in existence today have some or most of their laws, rightly or wrongly, based on their country’s former or current religious beliefs.
Our country is no different, with most of our laws finding a common foundation in our Judeo/Christian heritage. But our country is also different in that, though we did have a distinct Christian heritage, our founding fathers set our country up as land of law. It would not be the church or the temple or the mosque that would determine guilt or innocence. And it would not be the preacher, priest, rabbi or cleric that would administer punishment. And because our country was founded with morals and ethics in mind, in general, it has worked well. It has not been without flaws and there have been and will always be justice delayed or justice partially unfulfilled, but it is still a great privilege to live in a land of law and order.
But over the years, something has begun to happen in our society that will eventually be a great challenge for us. And that is the widening gap between what is legal and what is right. Even though the system of making and judging our laws was built into a non-religious biased system, there was still much influence of religious thought. Some examples would be the blue laws that used to prohibit dancing and playing cards on Sunday and still today influence liquor sales in many states. Many courts still ask a witness to swear to tell the truth “so help me God” and our last president swore his oath on a Bible.
But to watch what comes out of Hollywood or read the latest people magazine or just observe the language our young people use, we are certainly not a religious land anymore. And without that basic moral fabric, most in our country now live by what is legal, rather than what is right. The problem with this is that secular laws are, as stated before, the lowest standard by which men should live, and when someone violates this line, the society must act to restrain or punish. And as most of our society becomes more and more illiterate regarding the Christian Scriptures, there will be nothing to promote excellence of character above what is legal. And many Americans have a view of right and wrong, that if it is legal, it is alright and if it is not illegal, then it can’t be wrong. If that mentality was applied to school grades, then all our kids would be working for a D- as it is technically not flunking. Obviously, we want our children to excel in academics and work to achieve the highest standard but why is it that we are not doing the same with character. The reason is simple, academics are taught, measured, graded and character is not or not since the Bible was no longer taught in school. But as we live our lives, what grade we made in Math class becomes less important and whether we learned character begins to show all the more.
And so I’d like to challenge you to not just live by what is legal, don’t just teach your kids how to stay out of jail, don’t live by the lowest standard of our society. But determine
to do what is right, live by a higher standard, excel in righteousness, and admit wrong even when it was legal. Legal is not the same as right and I wish more politicians and people knew that.
Rev. R. A. Abell
Senior Pastor
Heartland Baptist Church