Do Christians Impose their Beliefs?

A letter appeared recently in our local newspaper that goes as follows:

“Mr. X’s commentary explaining what being an evangelical Christian means to him was passionate, eloquent and informative. I am left with no doubt that he is a good person. However, I believe he has missed the point as to why some people get nervous about the efforts to mobilize the Christian right politically (with evangelicals seemingly being at the forefront). It is a fine line between wanting to have your voice heard and wanting to impose your belief system on others. Though Mr. X might not want to, many hear the rhetoric of some leaders of that mobilization as the desire to impose their beliefs on others. You don’t have to believe in God or some particular version of God to be a good person. Although the vast majority of us, evangelical Christians included, are good people, avowed belief and attendance at church don’t determine who’s good and who isn’t. Also, each of us have a different view on what disqualifies individuals from membership in the “Good Person” club. Debating the qualifications is healthy. Trying to impose my views on others when their views don’t really affect me is quite another matter. The heroic political evangelical leaders to whom Mr. X refers all understood the difference. Some of us are not as confident about some of the current leaders.” By Mr. Y from the eastern suburbs.

Now, I didn’t read the original letter or commentary by Mr. X (not his real name). But I gather that he expressed the belief that evangelicals are generally good people and that a number of evangelical leaders in the past have effected important social changes for the good. (I suspect he mentioned William Wilberforce’s successful effort to abolish slavery in the British colonies.)

Mr. Y commends Mr. X for being a good person and sees no problem (it appears anyway) with evangelicals wanting to have a voice in politics and in steering public policy in a certain direction. He seems genuinely concerned, though, about evangelicals imposing their views on others (he mentions this three times.) This concern, however, is unfounded.

To impose a belief is to force people to accept said belief. That being the case, evangelicals don’t impose their beliefs on others, nor could they given their numbers. Instead, they propose a certain view of reality for consideration, one that people are free to either accept or reject. As Harvard law professor Mary Ann Glendon points out, that’s what citizens in a democracy do: propose, give reasons, then vote. This is no different than what Mr. Y has done. He has put forward a particular point of view. He’s provided some reasons for his view. And as for voting, I presume he feels no obligation to vote the way certain evangelicals may want him to (and it should be noted that there is a diversity of political views within Canadian evangelicalism. There are evangelicals in all the major political parties and voting among evangelicals is not monolithic. See the Sept/Oct 2004 edition of Faith Today for details). I, or anyone else, can either agree or disagree with his view. I’m sure nobody would mistake the proposal of his viewpoint for an imposition of beliefs on others.

Of course, one could point out that Wilberforce did in fact impose his views on all citizens of the British Empire, namely the view that slavery is wrong and its practice should expunged from British society. But certainly some beliefs are so sensible and worthy of adoption that imposition is not a problem, and I think the abolition of slavery is one of those beliefs. Other beliefs need to be evaluated on a case by case basis. In addition, somebody’s beliefs are always being imposed on others in a democracy by being enshrined in law, such as the belief that it is wrong to steal other people’s property or that one should not abuse children. That being the case, imposition in itself is not a problem. The problem is in what beliefs are being presented for imposition. In any case, evangelicals propose beliefs for consideration.

Mr. Y also makes the claim that people don’t need to believe in God or attend church to be good. That this is obvious to both religious believers and non-believers alike renders such a statement meaningless. The question is not whether non-religious people can be good (of course, they can) but rather whether or not any person can be good if God does not exist, regardless of that person’s particular religious beliefs. The existence of objective moral standards follows from God’s existence. If objective moral standards do not exist, then one cannot distinguish between goodness and badness. Since one can distinguish between goodness and badness, then objective moral standards do exist. Since objective moral standards do exist, then God exists. The real question is: What grounds the moral standards in reality, the same moral standards (generally) that both believers and non-believers alike hold to? One doesn’t need to believe in God in order to be good. But God does need to exist in order for one to be good. Of course, on the biblical view, no one is truly “good”. We’ve all committed moral crimes of one sort or another (commonly known as sin). Hence, the need for forgiveness. And this is why many people are evangelicals. They have accepted the forgiveness of their sins offered by God through Jesus Christ.