Individual Responsibility – The Law of God and Public Policy: The Economy (3)

Individual Responsibility

The Law of God and Public Policy: The Economy (3)

Every human being is responsible before God.

“You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.” Leviticus 19:18

In an economy based on material prosperity, people look to government to ensure a “fair” and “just” distribution of available wealth. Politicians delight to play this game, for it allows them to explore endless possibilities for purchasing the support of various constituencies through the manipulation of public policy. In the American economy the State presumes to be the arbiter of all things “good” and “fair” and “just.” It alone possesses the power to enforce its views and to shuffle and distribute resources according to its preferences and policies.

Governments thus feel free to compel those who have means to yield those means to the State for its purposes in “spreading the wealth” around, to use the phrase of a well-known contemporary politician. The State thus violates individual responsibility, taking away the freedom one has to steward his personal property as he sees fit and, especially, as accountable to God alone. Government attempts to play God thus result in loss of freedom and cancellation of individual responsibility for the wise and just use of the resources provided by the Lord.

In the divine economy people are encouraged to seek the wisdom of God and to use their resources in a manner consistent with His instructions and commandments. They stand or fall before Him according to the economics of justice outlined in His Law. Those who will not tithe, for example, or who refuse to help the poor in their community should not be subjected to government policies that seize their wealth in order to do what is “right” with it. Taxation to support churches in early America should not have been considered just. Nor are programs of income redistribution that exceed the bounds of justice as defined by God’s Law. Christians who use their property unjustly, without due concern for love of God and neighbor, will come under the discipline of their local congregation. Those beyond the pale of faith are still accountable to God for the use they make of His good gifts—time, strength, property; however, if they cannot be moved to do good by the teaching and example of the Church or the fear of public disapproval, they must be free to practice their folly without fear of State intervention or interference. Of course, any use of property or individual freedom which directly transgresses the Law of God and assaults the freedom of one’s neighbor should be regarded as a breach of justice, and appropriate actions must be taken.

In other times the example of the righteous and the “peer pressure” they have been able to bring to bear in society have exerted strong influence in encouraging people to exercise individual responsibility to love their neighbor in ways that fulfill the requirements of the divine economy, even when people may not have been particularly eager to do so (cf. Ps. 81:15). The movement to free slaves and to reform public manners in early 19^th-century England, led by William Wilberforce, and the civil rights movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., demonstrate how the example and instruction of the believing community can move a society to enact just public policies. In each of these cases individual responsibility for loving one’s neighbor was restored and embodied within particular communities. From that platform others were called to join in the effort. Over time, unjust public policies gave way to just policies as each movement grew. Now those movements have so affected the general public outlook that we look askance on any who use their individual responsibility to perpetuate the evils those movements overturned.

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.