One of the most fundamental facets of Christianity is the theological understanding of law. I’ll do my best to distill two millennia of teaching on the subject and then I’ll show you how it applies to a current controversy in our country.
In theology, the concept of “law” can refer to two things: 1) the way things are; and/or 2) the way things ought to be.
Gravity is an example of law in the sense of “the way things are.” If you lift an item with a mass heavier than air high into the sky and drop it, it will fall. That’s the way God created it. It is law and this law should inform your decisions. In other words, you shouldn’t jump off a 20-story building expecting to float or fly. This would be a bad decision because going against the law would lead to suffering and death.
We do well to allow science and mathematics to define the laws of the ways things are.
Science and mathematics; however, are not as helpful in defining the laws of the ways things ought to be. For insight into this second part of law, we turn to God’s Word.
God’s Word is the divine force that created the universe and declared each aspect of creation “good.” Our creation stories in Genesis tell us that human beings are not just good, but we are actually made in the image of God. And yet, as represented by the story of Adam and Eve, humans are continually tricked into looking elsewhere to become like God.
We are inherently distrust of God’s laws of the way things ought to be; and so we are tempted to look in places other than God’s Word to determine parameters of human flourishing. We look to physical strength, accumulation of wealth, self-preservation at all costs, limited compassion, principles of scarcity, any number of “-isms,” artificial boundaries separating people who are in from people who are out, and so on.
There are natural consequences to our lawlessness. Scripture tells many stories of how disaster falls on people who are unable to follow the law of the way things ought to be. Recall all the stories of floods, conquest, slavery, terrible leaders, and retribution delivered on future generations.
God, however, is not punitive in nature. Instead, God continually seeks new ways to impress upon us the importance of following the law of the way things ought to be. For example, we have the Ten Commandments – a framework meant to keep our attention on God’s role as our sole provider. The Ten Commandments are not punitive but rather instructive.
And yet we continually disregard God’s Word in favor of short-sighted solutions that benefit our personal well-being over and above the well-being of our fellow humans. Let’s call this the “law of the way we want things to be.” Or you could call it by a more familiar name – sin.
This is where the gospel comes in. The good news is that God is one of us – a fully divine, fully human known as Jesus – the way, the truth, the life. One who came into the world not to condemn the world but to save it by showing the way to move beyond our original sin and instead tap into the original divinely-proclaimed original goodness of all people.
The great irony is that Jesus, grace incarnate, was convicted of breaking the law and was put to death under the law. The one who came to remind us of the law of the way things ought to be, was killed by people who instead chose the law of the way we want things to be – a perversion of the law that seeks self-preservation above divine revelation (a.k.a., sin).
Suffice to say Christians have a complicated relationship with laws. Christ-followers are subject to the human laws of whatever country they reside, only insofar as they do not conflict with the divine law of the way things ought to be.
The history books are full of stories of Christians standing up against unjust laws. And tragically, the history books are full of stories of Christians dreaming up, enacting, and enforcing unjust laws. For example, for every one Christian that fought against racial segregation in the United States, there were dozens more Christians who had a role in the origination and enforcement of that law.
I felt it necessary to start with that systematic theology primer because I think it could help you make sense of something that might have surprised you this week.
Earlier this week President Trump terminated the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. The original initiative was an executive order from President Obama in 2012 that sought to take away the threat or possibility of deportation for people who were not born in the US but while under 16 years of age had been brought to the US illegally. Eligibility requirements included being full-time students or workers, as well as a clear criminal history. To date, approx. 800,000 people have been accepted into this program and are working or studying.
Today these people fear that in six months they will be deported to countries wholly unfamiliar to them, forced to leave behind their education, employment, dreams, and families.
For many people, the issue is cut and dry, black and white. These “dreamers” as they are referred, are not legal citizens and therefore are simply not allow to be in this country. Critics of DACA see the initiative as a subversion of the rule of law.
As news of the program’s termination broke, I wonder if you were struck by how many religious institutions came out with statements condemning the decision. Did you wonder what was behind the swift and poignant responses coming from traditionally conservative as well as traditionally liberal Judeo-Christian denominations and agencies?
This morning I wanted to present a couple of these statements to you so that together we can try to understand the principles on which religious institutions are basing their pro-DACA stances.
