A few weeks ago I was speaking about how we should evaluate laws and policies of our government. As a Christian, we might well evaluate laws according to Christian ethics and purposes. Do they privilege a powerful few at the expense of many? And so on. There is much room for exposing laws and policies to a Christian critique. However, such a critique may well be compelling only to Christians.
And so I proposed another approach to evaluating government law and policy on a basis that is not specifically Christian. I don’t mean to abandon Christian ethics or the teaching of Jesus – not at all. Neither do I intend to imply that Christians should not evaluate policies using Christian teaching as their standard. Rather, I intend only to say that there are ways to evaluate government policies or laws that a wide majority of our fellow citizens might find compelling even if they follow another faith or do not have religious belief at all. Often these more widely acceptable approaches to evaluating policy are sufficient.
The first level at which one might evaluate is at the level of the intended purpose of policies – is the purpose or intended effect of the law just and right? Is the policy or law having the intended impact in our society? Why does the particular policy exist and is it achieving its stated purpose? Does it even have a stated purpose?
A second level is at a very practical level. How is a law enforced? How is the policy implemented? Is the implementation done fairly without cruelty or brutality? Are the accused given a fair hearing to respond? Is whatever legal process may be involved open and transparent so abuses cannot easily be hidden? Is enforcement bringing increased peace and order and well-being to society? Or, is the action of implementing the policy disrupting normal life and harming the community?
I suppose some might say this second level of evaluation involves Christian ethics. That is, the idea that we should avoid cruelty and brutality, which is certainly a Christian teaching. On the other hand, I think most of our fellow citizens would agree that this is desirable even if they are not Christian; it is a teaching of other faiths and philosophies and likely to be held in common by most others.
In any case, it seems we are putting into practice policies that fail on both of these levels of evaluation. One has to ask why – and why so many tolerate or even advocate for bad government.