Stan Moody

Much is being made these days about Representative Stan Moody’s Christian Policy Institute. My first inclination was not to address the issue, in order not to give it more attention than it deserves.  I do not think the newly-formed Christian Policy Institute has much of a future, because it is based on a misunderstanding of the problems which confront our society.

In an age in which there is much confusion regarding the nature of man and how society should be governed, there is always the danger that wrong  ideas will take root in the mind of the public, and flourish; and for that reason I want to briefly address the ideas underlying the Christian Policy Institute.

First, it is not correct to state that the Christian Policy Institute is taking a new approach to Christian activism. Christian activism has been present in Maine in some form or other for centuries, and in the West for millennia. The question has always been which issues are to be addressed. The issue of poverty is nothing new, for example; Our Lord Himself having pointed out that “The poor you will always have with you.”  Similarly, a concern for persecuted minorities is nothing new, Maine having been home to one of the nation’s foremost abolitionists.

But which issue is Christian Activism to address first – racism? poverty? social injustice? All these are symptoms of an underlying disorder in society, the failure of society to follow God’s laws. I do not mean a theocracy should be imposed on society. I mean that it is necessary for a society to implement the divine, eternal moral law, which can be known from the Bible, and by reason. To the extent that a society is based upon this law, it flourishes; to the extent that it departs from this law, it withers and dies.

Stan Moody is part of a political party which routinely flaunts its absolute indifference, if not open hostility to these laws, through its support of abortion, the tolerance of homosexuality, and the failure to respect private property through confiscatory taxation. We may even say that the party to which Stan Moody belongs makes political capital out of breaking these divinely-ordained laws. As an alternative, that same party proposes an economic solution for each of society’s ills. All will be well, they claim, if only each and every individual in society is given enough economic opportunity.  

But this is to confuse cause and effect! The single mother who toils in the factory to put bread on the table for her family, is crushed by poverty because God’s laws regarding the family were broken. The drug addict and alcoholic who need help, are in a condition of dependency because they too have broken God’s laws. Virtue and a scrupulous observance of the laws pertaining to the family yield a sound economy and a healthy society, not vice versa. The wrong views concerning the nature of the economy – for example, the idea of the welfare state, espoused by the party to which Stan Moody belongs – open a Pandora’s box of social ills – including illegitimacy, broken families, and chronic dependence on the state. The fundamental defect of Stan Moody’s Christian Policy Institute is that it puts the cart before the horse. It can never hope to be successful, since it is based on an erroneous view of man and society.

True prosperity and social harmony are produced by a virtuous populace which obeys God’s laws, and that will always be the focus of the Christian Civic League. To believe otherwise, is to pursue a delusion, which has already been proven wrong in theory and in practice.