Like several prominent evangelical occupational fellowships, the Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship originated to provide a focus for prayer and Bible study. Today, it is increasingly concerned with how its members may apply biblical principles in the use of their professional skills for the benefit of the wider society. Legal members of the Ecclesiastical Law Society may well be familiar with churchgoing colleagues who do not appreciate the role of the Church in shaping the general law or the importance of law for enabling the ministry of the Church itself. This slim publication, which was developed from a series of lectures given in London in 2010, argues persuasively for Christian engagement in public life and provides a compelling antidote for any who are tempted to religious quietism.
Chapter 2, particularly, on ‘Public truth’, challenges the relativism of the secular reader with the claim that ‘Truth [which enables us to identify what is objectively good] exists as a meaningful public concept because it is objective, rational, communicable and gracious’ (p 51). This contrasts with today's ‘political discussion [which] risks becoming increasingly banal in the search for easily quoted sound-bites [such that] arguments themselves become a source of entertainment rather than the pursuit of a conclusion’ (p 52). The point is well made that, without a generally shared framework, the maintenance of social order will depend on the unprincipled exercise of authority by those in power.
The test of this book's usefulness is how well it equips a Christian to argue for such God-given truth to be taken into account in public debate, for shaping law and social policy. That requires a clear theological framework. Thus the book stresses the consistency of God's sovereignty in both personal faith and public order. However, the overall moral order is distinguished from ‘the fundamental God-given structuring upon which … society depends, and any harm to [which] has an exponential negative impact on everything else’ (p 41). There is a timely warning here that enforcing the moral order against others for its own sake, rather than to achieve an identifiable public benefit, is a moralism which can prompt charges of hypocrisy.
Several points are succinctly made in addressing arguments against the use of the Bible for public debate: relying on biblical guidance does not mean quoting scriptural texts – although that may sometimes be effective; past conflicts between Christians do not show that the Bible is politically unusable but rather a lack of biblical engagement. The underlying message is made with conviction: that a thorough familiarity with the Bible can and should inform the Christian contribution to public debate in shaping law and policy. Chapter 4, at the end of the book, on ‘Public hope’, provides practical advice on how to engage in the debate effectively and in an appropriately Christian manner. However, Chapter 3, which seeks to identify the content of ‘public good’ that can be deduced from biblical principles, can only touch the surface. These are controversial areas and, although the chapter may seem disappointing, that may be no bad thing; it avoids an overly dogmatic stance and invites further thought and discussion.
As a starting point, the believer may share with the humane secularist the golden rule expressed in the second great commandment – to ‘love your neighbour’. The Ten Commandments also express fundamental principles that are recognisably expressed in any civilised system of law. But it is argued here that, if the detailed rules of the Old Testament are read in the light of the New Testament gospel, they provide paradigms for modern law. The sacrificial laws have been superseded by Christ's sacrifice, and dietary and other laws designed to maintain the identity of Judaism do not apply to the open community of the Church; nevertheless there remain ‘worked examples of what (God's law) looks like in a particular social context, in the light of the moral order of creation’ (p 64). God is unchanging and so is human nature, but Scripture must be interpreted in the context of when it was given ‘to a particular culture, to a particular people, at a particular time in history, living in particular circumstances’ and a paradigm identified in Scripture ‘is something used as a model or example for other cases where a basic principle remains unchanged, though details differ’ (p 63).
Although it may be true that human spiritual and physical needs have not changed, understanding of those needs may alter, particularly with increased scientific knowledge. Some in the Church have been notoriously slow in acknowledging scientific developments that require a revised understanding of certain basic principles of moral behaviour. A topic which needs careful consideration in this context is the contemporary debate on human sexuality. Those who question the traditional view on same-sex relations may seek biblical truth as sincerely as the traditionalists but they aim to reconcile it with modern medical evidence. As this book recognises, we do not ‘assume the answers of previous generations of Christians were necessarily correct’ but ‘it is not enough to argue “We know better now”. We need to show how our thinking is consistent with the teaching of the Bible’ (p 63).
