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Wanna Bet?

copyright Clark H Smith

Abortion, civil rights, nose piercing, bell bottoms pants, and dancing the Charleston are distinctive issues which spark diverse responses. There are as many ways to think about an issue as there are people who think. We each have the privilege to think our own thoughts and arrive at our own positions on the great (and small) issues of our day.

In many areas, there may never be an answer that solves a matter for the ages. We must all be very careful what we label as "right" and "wrong" - we each have peculiar insight and information that may not wear well on others. On the other hand, since we are a social animal, what each one of us thinks impacts all others. Democracy is a tool for organizing our personal opinions into a systematic way of dealing fairly with each other. Even so, a democratic solution is no assurance of having arrived at a proper position on an issue. We have learned that society shifts and sways, waxing and waning in its stand on the "great questions" of its day.

A moral code is a borrowed tool. No one actually has one of their own, but we all need to use one. Morality rises above a society, above cultures, above time itself. It seems transcendent. And that is its key. Any morality that has a definitive origin is likely to advance the purposes of its originator(s). That is not only undeniable, it is evidenced everywhere.

Our hope for mankind is to accept the Morality that is highest, broadest, and best. We need a Morality that rises above and is not diminished by the failing of its adherents. The most transcendent morality, therefore, is best. A morality of immediate personal gain is, by definition, inferior to long-term global gain. A morality of symbiosis, as good as it may be, is inferior to humility and sacrifice. For example: A morality that allows (if not embraces) abortion is inferior to one that rejects abortion if only because the pro-abortion view is so narrowly developed.

At the moment, the issue of gambling rages in the United States. Seldom looking at the "whether" of gambling, its advocates have arrived at simply discussing "how much and by what mode." A local morality has grown up around gambling. "It is recreation. It is diversion. It is opportunity. It is advancement." Any advocate of gambling must play a shell game with the truth to win any debate on the morality of the subject. Gambling is known to remove wealth from the hands of many and place it in the hands of the few, the very few. Gambling is known to take funds from those who can least afford it. Gambling confesses to paying out less than it takes in. Gambling is known to destroy the culture in which it, like a flesh-eating bacteria, flourishes.

Gambling fails any test of moral rectitude. To gamble is to squander hard-earned capital. To gamble requires that you do not love your neighbor - a moral tenet that is virtually indisputable. For me to gain from gambling, you must lose. For me to desire gain is to desire you to lose. We could hardly say a healthy society is composed of citizens each wish economic failure on his fellow citizens.

To tolerate gambling is to wish it well.

Long before we get to the teaching of time-proven and time-honored scripture, we arrive at the certainty that gambling is poisoned water in the community well. If we are guided by the Bible, we have even less to wonder about. Is it the duty of Christians to refuse to let gambling persist and flourish?

Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do, and does not do it, to him it is sin.
(James4:17 NAS)

Do you want it in black and white? The "moral" imperative for Bible-believing Christians is to refuse to let gambling persist and flourish. In my view, the role of the CHURCH is to shape the conscience of Christians with the Truth of scripture. Christians then are to bring this Christian consciousness into their culture through the various acts of citizenship (namely: vote, lobby, protest, persuade, inform, campaign, and exhort).