Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. – John Adams, 2nd President of the U.S.
John Adams was prescient and right. A form of government like ours can only work for the common good when there is both a broad agreement on what the common good truly is and when we have a people who have been morally and religiously formed to practice the virtues of compassion, justice, and love of neighbor. The Constitution, as a guiding document, does not exist outside of time or context. Adams rightly concluded it could only be effective as a guiding document if the people using it as a guide were morally and religiously sound.
That was why Dr. King was successful in being the voice of the Civil Rights movement. He had the Constitution in one hand and the Bible in the other and he appealed to those who took both seriously. In his 1963 speech at the Lincoln Memorial he spoke of the “promissory note” that African-Americans had that was based on the Constitution’s “Blessing of Liberty.” The Biblical narrative exposed how we as a nation had defaulted on that “promissory note.” He quoted the Prophet Isaiah, saying: “every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.” The Constitution alone could not have propelled the Civil Rights movement. It was successful because we were a people whose conscience could also be moved by the Biblical narrative. I wonder if that is still true today?
Consider the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” A society that grants people the right to keep guns as their personal possessions must also presuppose that those same people are of sound religious, or at least, moral fiber so that they will use those guns for only legitimate sport or personal self-defense. A constitutional right such as this only makes sense when there is an a priori presence of morality already existing in the people. It seems to me we now have the right “to keep and bear arms” without an overwhelming consensus about the morality of their responsible use.
The 2nd Amendment was codified at a time when that religious and moral consensus was present. That is no longer the case. I’m not suggesting doing away with guns. What I am postulating, however, is the need to examine their regulation in light of our reality. It will do us no good to wax sentimentally about the good old days of John Adams. We had horse carriages then and we now have “horseless carriages” that are “well regulated” requiring licenses, driving examinations, and insurance. With automobiles one has to show some level of competency and responsibility in order to own and operate one. It seems reasonable to me that a similar level of scrutiny needs to be applied to gun ownership. Absent a religious/moral sense of behavior and responsibility that is broadly shared, the 2nd Amendment alone is as obsolete as the horseless carriage.
+Scott
The Rt. Rev. Scott Anson Benhase was the tenth Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia from 2010-2020. This website serves as an online archives for the weekly email reflections, the eCrozier, he wrote during his episcopacy.