Equality vs. Egalite
This April, we’re not fooling when we ask for your prayers and support for the Lutheran Center for Religious Liberty’s efforts to contend for the freedom to proclaim the faith.
The Declaration of Independence speaks of us all being created equal. Such a notion is biblical, in as much as every human being has dignity, is created in the image of God. This truth is underlined by God's word to Noah: “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed; For in the image of God He made man." Such an assertion of equality does not mean that we do not have roles to play. The father is the head of the family, and children are to honor father and mother. To the husband is given headship, along with the responsibility to sacrifice himself for his wife and to protect and provide for his family. To woman is given another glory. For good reason, the bride is adorned in white and rightly receives attention.
The French Revolution speaks of equality in a different way, one that is leveling of all distinctions. The call of "liberté, égalité, fraternité" breathed a spirit quite different from our own nation's founders. The French Revolution was a rebellion against God's created order that sought to overthrow both God and family. The French Revolution set the table for Marxism and the leveling of distinctions that has played itself out in cultural Marxism in which even male and female have no role, no set definition. The American revolution, which was essentially conservative in nature, relied on natural knowledge.
Slavery, we must say, is not a good thing, but it is the result of our fallen nature. St. Paul speaks of how a Christian lives in world of slavery, but in doing so does not endorse slavery as an inherent good. We might find a comparison in the way we read Old Testament practice of polygamy, which is not a good thing. When Christianity asserts itself, polygamy falls by the wayside, as does slavery. Missionaries have long brought Christ to polygamous worlds, and as this happens polygamy falls by the wayside.
Hinduism gives different value to different people based on a religion that places people in different castes based on what is thought to be their intrinsic worth. Islam is much more happily at home with slavery, and to think of slavery not as an evil will be with the world until our Lord's return, but as something that is intrinsic to God's creation. Or, to put it another way, slavery cannot be put in the same category as the man being head of his wife. Slavery is an evil.
Any talk of race must give way to the fact that we are all children of Adam, all created in God's image, members of the human family. That does not mean that we cannot say that some cultures are better than others. Who would wish to live under the worldview of the Hindus or the Muslims? And likewise, Christianity is a leavening agent, and we can celebrate history when St. Patrick's vision frees Ireland and when Poland turns from a pagan worldview to one that is Christian.
To be sure, a man like Thomas Jefferson was not Christian, yet the Declaration's opening lines are congruent with the biblical truth that every person is created in God's image. America's founding was not based on the Enlightenment as embodied in world of liberté, égalité, and fraternité. The Declaration's claim to equality never meant the end or obliteration of distinctions and roles within humanity, does not abolish male and female, mother and father, male and female. But such a notion of equality is no ally to a system of slavery. This does not mean that we disdain all who lived in a world of slavery, a world of wars and rumors of war. This does not mean that we imagine that we can create a utopia. Marxists are always about the business of creating utopias, but that means smashing institutions, yet never with anything to put in the place of that which was torn down. To see the Enlightenment play out, we might look to present day Europe, and many places in America, where all distinctions blurred. With God and the family overthrown, there remains only the state. As a result, the French Revolution ultimately turns every person into a cog in the machine, where everyone is a slave. We don't fight this notion of equality by claiming that all notions of equality are misguided. Instead, we go back to the idea that every person is valuable, from conception to natural death. More to say, but this is a start.
The Rev. Dr. Peter Scaer is chairman and professor of Exegetical Theology and director of the M.A. program at Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Ind.
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