So, what's the role of Christianity in today's political scene? Do we try and "legislate morality", or do we isolate ourselves from the world and from its secular governments and its laws? Laws as moral crutches for broken legs--if society doesn't desire those crutches, sees no need for those crutches, then who are Christians, no physicians us, to say what medical responses are necessary or proper?

A patient can wilfully reject treatment for a disease or wound. It may be that for all our attempted Christian doctoring, society can rightfully push that away.

Jeremiah,

As I tried to make very clear, Christians can't take a blanket approach. Policies have to be carefully considered and specifically applied. On the "legislating morality" front, for example, laws ensuring that citizens can move around in their lives without having to lock themselves out of society to avoid pornography would help in the healing of "moral legs." If businesses' sense of propriety — instilled culturally, religiously, or educationally — is no longer adequate restraint, the public begins to have a claim to assert itself through law.

I'm more trying to form a picture of the problem than suggest a strategy. And I'm not talking about instituting a theocracy. If laws pass according to our system, then by definition, it isn't true that society doesn't see a "need for those crutches." It does. The point is that Christians have to begin paying attention, at least, to whether unilaterally declaring "oh, we can't legislate that" results in the opposite's becoming the law of the land.

There are areas in which a contrasting principle might be necessary, such as visibly and loudly rejecting tax exempt status. Careful judgments need to be made about whether such things take us out of the game or make a worthwhile statement. However, for far too long, we've been coming to think that our beliefs must be compartmentalized away from public action.

Furthermore, I think we have to ask ourselves whether asserting our morality through law mightn't have a better long-term chance of returning the nation to a preference for limited government than straight-on libertarianism has. For one thing, it will ensure that both sides of the culture war have direct examples of the harm that government can do to their own intentions. For another, Christian morality is inherently more concerned with an authority other than the government.

I would submit - concerning the general flow of this conversation - that the gay "marriage" battle is really the last batle in the culture war.
By that I mean - to loose this engagement is to answer many of the questions we struggle with.
To loose this battle is to presuppose a disengagment with the culture at large.
This will dispirit the troops concerning coming battles over the "right" to die, legalized prostitution, abortion, educational implementation of the liberal agenda, ect.
Further more - loosing this battle will cement the idea of permissable judicial supremecy over our most important moral battles.
This will encourage our robed masters and their new class supporter's - giving them carte blanche to implement their agenda further (really, who will apose them after this huge defeat)

In many ways they have allready won - The lack of outrage amongst the legal elites in calling biology and reproduction "No rational basis" is indicative of their supremacy amongst the ruling class.

My question to you Mr. Katz is - Do you disagree with my thesis? and if the answer is No, then why are you (and the rest of us) not throwing all are efforts behind apposing this latest front? (or are you?)

Thank You

Correction....
My question to you Mr. Katz is - Do you disagree with my thesis? and if the answer is No, then why are you (and the rest of us) not throwing all our efforts behind apposing this latest front? (or are you?)

Thanks for the link. If and when secular humanism is widely recognized as a religion we may be able to make some progress in this politlcal arena.

I meant to come across as more rhetorical than anything else. I agree that a blanket approach is inferior to a more case-by-case method of exerting moral influence - choose our battles, in other words. To some extent, however, a society that outright rejects even singular distinctions of moral prohibitions is not long going to think twice about locking Christian influence out of the process completely.

I'm about halfway through 'Icarus Fallen' by Chantal Delsol, and I highly recommend it (excerpts can by found at http://www.isi.org/forum/icarus_fallen/delsol1.html )

She talks about how modern man wants to have the good without knowing the truth, which I think is along the same lines as Williams' point:

"One of the particularities of our time consists of the fear of truth. We hold dearly to the good, but we are suspicious of truth. Ethics survives in spite of the fading of religions, world systems, and ideologies, which are structures of truths. Contemporary man is no longer sure if the world is infinite, if there is life after death, or if human society can hope for perfection in this world. In this sense, he is very different from his ancestors, who prided themselves in having certain, albeit diverse, answers to all these questions. Contemporary man will hear nothing of it. Furthermore, these questions do not really interest him. What does interest him, however, is ridding the world of its monsters—and not becoming one himself. In other words, he does not fear what is false, but what is evil."

I haven't finished the book yet, so I don't know what Delsol's full description of the problem amounts to, or what solutions she proposes. But so far she seems to be very insightful, and the text is quite easy to read.

I have long nurtured the belief that an unbridled libertarian order--or even the socially libertine order toward which we seem to be floating--is ultimately self-defeating. That is, social degredation and depravity invariably result; the consequence is an irresistable political impetus for expanding government involvement in the most personal matters of the average citizen. Witness the appalling course of family law since the onset of sexual anarchy, or the proliferation of "social services" in precisely those places where traditional social institutions like marriage are weakest.