Legislating change?

Barack Obama has made a living talking about "Change we can believe in." And, he's probably right in thinking that some things need to be changed about the way we do business in our government, our health care, our business ethics and all kinds of other things. But, aside from the greater difficulty in doing such change than in talking about it, there's another implication of his convictions that disturbs me.

Mr. Obama stated in a recent speech that the way to change America was to change Washington. In other words, if I understand him rightly, we will be able to make the needed changes in Amercian society and life if we can just change the way our government functions to administer the public business of just laws and programs.

The Democratic party has a long history of supporting governmental programs designed to balance out the distribution of blessings of our nation's prosperity and freedoms. And, it has sometimes in history required the strong hand of a president like Franklin Roosevelt to bring needed corrections to the tendency of our capitalistic economy to allow the rich to get richer and the poor to just get whatever they get. And even a Republican president like Franklin's cousin Teddy Roosevelt could swing a "big stick" against the monopolization of wealth by a few.

But has all this legislation, including that of later presidents like Kennedy or Johnson or Reagan, brought a truly "great society" to a nation that still tends to spread the blessings quite unevenly across the whole? And that's just the economic picture, not to mention the unhappiness that many citizens endure of a moral or physical or social nature. Now, if we make sufficient "changes" in the way Washington politicians do their work, will we at last usher in that American utopia our candidates have long promised? I wouldn't bet on it.

No doubt, just laws and just administration of those laws will make a more just society than one rampant with corruption and favoritism toward the wealthy and powerful. No question, politicians devoted to the welfare of every citizen will make a better life on the whole for all of us. But, is the "good life" really something that can be required by law, or regulated by an act of Congress? And, for that matter, what's a "good life", if not a life lived in the will of our good and gracious God?

As long as men are in charge of government, they will have laws and programs subject to the weaknesses of men as well as the ideals and altruistic values of men. And even fair and just laws, at least as just as men can make them, will be subject to the hearts of the men who are required to follow them. And ultimately, as we have learned with the most perfect laws ever given, those of our God Himself, the Law can advise men of their duty and convict men of their unlawfulness, but it cannot change the heart of men toward true obedience. Only Christ living in our hearts can do that, and only when we surrender daily to His will and the authority of His Word.

So, let's try to improve the way we do government. But let's not get any dreamy ideas about finding the legislative key to a better society until we've solved the real problem: Not better laws, but better hearts.