The culture war is a matter of law versus grace | GARY COSBY JR.

In terms of the so-called culture war, many people who consider themselves to be moral individuals and who view many of the issues of the culture war as sin, have turned to the civil government for answers. The question moral people must ask themselves is, why?

Why would Christians, the largest religious group in America, look to civil government to address issues such as transgender health care, sex education or gender identity issues?

Essentially, the answer has to do with ease. If the government will take care of such issues, we don’t really have to behave like Christians toward people with whom we are uncomfortable. Ouch.

That old question, "What Would Jesus Do" which was emblazoned on countless things like wrist bands and T-shirts, is certainly a valid one, but it seems to me that people get confused in the way they answer the question. If you examine the Holy Bible, you see law working throughout the Old Testament and grace being introduced in the New Testament.

In many ways, these are opposite concepts. Laws, even biblical laws, are meant to give direction to life and, perhaps more importantly, to provide a framework for punishing those who step outside societally accepted norms. Grace, however, is a vastly different concept. Grace recognizes mankind’s weakness and inability to do what law requires and provides a framework for forgiveness and redemption that is absent in law.

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Applying that concept to issues such as transgender healthcare, how then should we react as a culture, and we generally are a conservative culture both politically and morally, to persons whose lives are so vastly different from our own?

First, if we turn to law for the answer, we must, by nature, restrict such people and condemn them to some form of punishment if they fail to adhere to our concept of societal norms. A child who has gender identity issues and needs medical care might not get the care he or she needs under such a system. And why? We are uncomfortable with those questions because we fail to understand the challenges such people face because we have never experienced those challenges and have not bothered to get to know anyone who has.

We have constructed a system that excuses our own weaknesses but castigates those whose weaknesses are different from our own. Again, that hurts, but I am as guilty as anyone else in this matter.

But what would grace do for a person such as a child with gender identity issues? In other words, What Would Jesus Do? That’s interesting. If you carefully read the New Testament, you will see that Jesus would have extended the hand of love to such people and offered the grace of God to help them. What he would not have tolerated were self-righteous people imposing a code of law upon the weak that they themselves failed to keep. You might not have gender identity issues, but biblically speaking, a person who transgresses the law in a single point has transgressed the entirety of the law.

This is so basic to New Testament theology that it is amazing we so often miss the concept. But in practical terms, what does it mean for America? It means, primarily, that the government would keep its nose out of issues so deeply personal as gender identity. It would mean that government would not deny healthcare to individuals with unusual problems. It would mean that Christians and people with real morality would be extending their hands to help those in need.

How much value does God place on the flesh of man? That is a very interesting question and one with deep moral implications but not eternal ones. The flesh of man will not enter the eternal realm. While God does miracles for the fleshly part of man from time to time, his primary miracle is for the eternal spirit, ensuring a way for man to enter into eternal life.

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The flesh, as Paul wrote, profits nothing. The flesh, however, does provide a litmus test for where our own hearts are. Let us take that child with gender identity issues. Rather than shouting back and forth about that child’s right to education, health care, or even to have a sex-change operation, why are we not extending love and support to that child and family? Law does not change anyone, but love can and does impact everyone.

Is not the eternal more important than the physical? God can reach out and touch that individual for eternity’s sake through the loving care of persons of faith. But that is hard and it challenges our faith and fully explains why we have looked to government to deal with these issues. If we can put this on the government to deal with as a matter of law, it abrogates our responsibility to deal with people with grace.

Somehow, the body politic has turned to government to solve all our problems. The obvious problems in society today are largely a result of that transference of moral responsibility to the amoral and sometimes immoral civil government.

Gary Cosby Jr. is the photo editor of The Tuscaloosa News. Readers can email him at gary.cosby@tuscaloosanews.com.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: The culture war is a matter of law versus grace | GARY COSBY JR.