Ever has it been, dearest. Those who are blind slaves to principled belief would claim virtue while murdering for their beliefs. Yet they claim that they are exalted above those who profess no such principles at all, even as the bodies pile up. — Modesitt, L.E. Jr., The Shadow Sorceress, The Spellsong Cycle, Book IV.
Yesterday I wrote on how law is not a purely rational endeavor, but one that takes part and parcel in the culture and religion of the area. What do I mean? I was a missionary in South America. At one time I visited some missionaries who were living with a tribe in the Amazonian basin. The tribe’s mode of dress would have been considered immodest, indecent, and downright immoral here in the USA. Yet, in a mode of dress that would have gotten them arrested anywhere in the USA, they came to church and worshiped the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, our Lord Jesus Christ. None of the missionaries minded, rather they were overwhelmingly happy to see these fruits of the Holy Spirit attending church.
I have also known a missionary who went to a part of Haiti where it was not unusual for all the children, and many of the adults, to go skinny-dipping in the local river. I myself regularly traveled to a Quechua village in the Colca valley where I had to take a bath in the nearby river, nearby as in flowing right next to the small village where all could see, should they wish to. Yet at no time did I, or the Haitian missionary, opine that we were in any way breaking any of God’s moral law. Yet the behavior in which we engaged would have been sufficient to have the church council of the churches to which we belonged begin the process of defrocking us, had we done it in the USA. But, when we were on furlough and they heard some of our stories, they giggled, were supportive, and continued to give money for our overseas mission. Why is this so?
Every country has a cultural component to their laws. That is, the laws do not merely lay out what is the eternal right and wrong, but they also lay out what is the cultural (and religious) right and wrong. Most Americans have problems understanding that because they have sold themselves either on the idea that the law is the law, and that it is supposed to always reflect what is right or on the idea that somehow the law is nothing more than a set of social agreements in which right or wrong are not applicable words, rather the correct words are acceptable or not acceptable behavior. The reality is between those two positions. But today let me just mention that there is a significant cultural component to the laws of any country.
Thus, why is skinny-dipping to wash yourself in public view considered to be wrong? Well, not simply for Christian reasons. After all, both those in the village I visited and the tribal people in the Amazonian basin were Christian. Nor, given our modern water sanitation systems, does it have mainly to do with health. Note that millions of people wash themselves yearly in the Ganges River in India without India having an unceasing epidemic. No, rather, our laws have a cultural component to them. It is not acceptable for cultures that come from Northern European Judeo-Christian cultures to either skinny-dip publicly nor to be in a state of undress in public (undress meaning almost no dress). Some will argue that this is based on God’s clothing laws, but if it is, then there are a lot of missionaries throughout the world who should repent for their failure to teach their converts to cover up better.
Do I think that there is anything wrong with a cultural component to our laws? No, I do not. Part of the role of law is to, in certain areas, provide cultural boundaries that help to provide a healthy identity to the culture they govern. That is, one role of law is not simply to define what is eternally right and wrong, but also to define what is culturally right and wrong. Americans will sometimes have a problem with that when they go to a culture that is more strict than ours. For instance, more than once I have heard insulted-sounding women who visited Vatican City and were told that they could not enter the basilica unless they covered up their shoulders. They miss the fact that this is a different culture with different definitions of what is appropriately dressed. Actually, the same happens when they go to an area that is less dressed. Thus, there have also been “good” Americans who have been shocked at the less strict standard of dress in many beaches in various parts of the world. What is considered indecently dressed in those lands is more relaxed than what is considered indecently dressed in the USA.
Now, here is the fun cultural brain shocker for you. Some of the same countries that forbid women to enter a Christian church with uncovered shoulders will allow standards of undress on the beaches that are far more revealing than anything one sees in the USA. That is, one can be a good solid law-abiding moral Christian in those lands while holding views that are at one time both more strict and less strict than our views.
Law has a cultural component.
===MORE TO COME===
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