Cops enforce the behaviors that preachers sermonize about. It's preaching peace versus enforcing peace. A 'good' Christian is supposed to act in a way worthy of Jesus. Imitating Jesus is usually the rule of thumb for achieving that act of worthiness.
Those values, those behaviors, of love, grace, forgiveness, and so on, those are the grounding behaviors of polite, egalitarian society as well. We are past the days in this nation where the boss says it and we do it. Rather, we have a Social Compact, Ethics of the Public Sphere, whatever you want to title it, a series of do's and don't's that are supposed to define how we treat each other.
An application of that is exercising our Constitutional rights. I can exercise them to the point where they impinge upon your Constitutional rights. There is a Judeo-Christian ethic at the base, thankfully divorced from its religious overtones so that we can have a pluralistic society and not the Inquisition. I love the irony of thanking God for secularism...
So, the difference between preachers and police is that we, the preachers, can talk the good talk, police can enforce the good talk. We have bibles, police have guns. We are called by God to share the Word of God, daring to make the ultimate sacrifice of our own lives for it, in the pattern of Jesus. Police are called by God as well, but they carry a double burden.
On the one hand, to serve and protect the public may cost them their lives also in the pattern of Jesus. On the other hand, they also carry the responsibility that their calling may require that they take the life of another. It is a paradox that we hope is never exercised in the lives of our peace officers. On the other hand, I don't know if it something that is ever really preached about either.
Preachers have it easy, we talk the talk. It is the police who have to walk the walk. And they do that in a veiled world the rest of us don't want to see so we can pretend it doesn't exist.
But that's a post for another day.
3 comments:
"There is a Judeo-Christian ethic at the base, thankfully divorced from its religious overtones so that we can have a pluralistic society and not the Inquisition."
This is probably WAAAYYY beyond your intention in posting, but I wonder how robust the "Judeo-Christian ethic" is when it is divorced from its religious basis. I am not arguing here for a theocracy, but how can a post-Christian society rely on a Christian ethic for societal stability? It is perhaps more jarring in Britain where Sovereignty is much more clearly rooted in Christianity (i.e. the Archbishop of Canterbury crowns the Monarch, and the Monarch is, in turn, head of the Church). How can a society that is increasingly hostile towards Christianity depend on Christianity for its stablizing ethic?
It is all about perception. I presuppose that God, through Jesus, through the witness of Holy Scripture, through the internal witness of the Holy Spirit, teaches right from wrong.
But that is also based on faith. I can't prove it. What we have in this world, according to my faith, is a relatively unified system of what is right and what is wrong, reinforced by the spiritual beliefs of all faiths.
What I can prove is that when a faith, including mine, is put in charge of right and wrong, terrible things happen.
So we create a secular society, a 'trans-religious' or 'non-religious', stripping away the drive to convert people by any means possible-sin penetrating evangelism-to allow for a common set of values enshrined in a common legal code.
"What we have in this world, according to my faith, is a relatively unified system of what is right and what is wrong, reinforced by the spiritual beliefs of all faiths."
I don't think that I would agree on this - this strikes me as somewhat too optimistic and too cultural-centric. Yes, there are some things which would appear to be universal - don't murder, don't steal - but these aren't always as universal as you'd think, and these tend to be based on religious underpinnings. Secular societies only work if there is a strong religious ethic or ethics in the underlying society. 21st western societies are the first secular societies that no longer have robust religious ethics in their underlying societies. There is currently the hang-over of the Judeo-Christian ethic (the only one viable in the West) but this hang-over will only last so long.
Couple this with the likelihood that Western societies are now in decline from their zenith of power and influence, and will thus likely face increasing financial and social hardship and stressors.
"What I can prove is that when a faith, including mine, is put in charge of right and wrong, terrible things happen."
I would actually say this "whenever human beings are put in charge of right and wrong, terrible things happen." Anytime you give one system of authority both religious or quasi-religious status in addition to the power of state coercion, terrible things are likely to happen. In many Western societies, government has taken on a quasi-religious status. Thus, I don't fear a church based theocracy right now (really not possible in our cultural context) but rather I fear a state-based quasi-theocracy that has arrogated to itself the power to define right and wrong and the power to enforce it, without a robust underlying religious ethic in society to hold that state in check.
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