“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 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 for loving their neighbors 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 in America by abolitionists North and South, and the civil rights movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. – each of these largely supported by Christians – demonstrate how the courage and persuasion of the believing community can move a society to enact just public policies. As Dr. King wrote, “A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law.” Through the efforts of abolitionists and civil rights advocates, individual responsibility for respecting – if not loving – one’s neighbor was restored, albeit gradually and grudgingly in many quarters. Unjust laws were identified and replaced by laws more reflective of the teaching of God’s Word through a combination of lawful public procedure and by just acts of civil disobedience.

In the situation in America, copious amounts of blood and treasure were expended to achieve justice for enslaved African Americans – an example of a just war if ever there was one. And more sacrifice was required on the part of those, including Dr. King, who understood that unjust laws and policies, restricting individual liberty and discouraging neighbor love, must be replaced.

The road to justice, following the tenets of the divine economy, is not always an easy way.

Over time, minds and hearts changed to reflect the new public realities. Additional unjust laws and policies were identified and gave way to just laws policies as movements for justice grew and justice as understood in God’s Law became the new guiding social norm. 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.

In the divine economy people are responsible to act in loving and just ways toward their neighbors. When the State seeks to coerce equality – of anything other than opportunity or the requirements of justice – it encroaches on the freedoms and usurps the responsibilities of its citizens, and it transgresses the prerogatives of the Lord.

T. M. Moore

Visit our website, www.ailbe.org, and sign up to receive our thrice-weekly devotional, Crosfigell, featuring writers from the period of the Celtic Revival and T. M.’s reflections on Scripture and the Celtic Christian tradition. Does the Law of God still apply today? Order a copy of T. M.’s book, The Ground for Christian Ethics, and study the question for yourself.