When God created us, He gave us minds capable of observing, contemplating, reasoning and acting. He also gave us a soul with an inherent, though obscure, hunger to connect with and please Him. And mixed in there somewhere is a conscience that supposedly tells us what pleases God. You would think, then, that He designed us to use reason, guided by conscience, to determine what pleases Him and act accordingly. But we don’t. Instead, we usually begin by determining what is in our self-interest, use reason to figure out how to get it, and then reorient our consciences so that we can convince ourselves that what we want to do pleases God. There are exceptions, but by and large, this is how we humans are. We didn’t design ourselves. If God wanted us to serve and worship Him but wired us so that we don’t, is that not His fault? If so, it seems to me to be a Design Flaw. But what do I know?
Consider Thomas Jefferson. He penned one of the most admired sentences in history: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…” Yet, as inspiring and God-pleasing as that declaration was, it ran counter to Jefferson’s self-interest. Somehow, he reasoned that it was acceptable to enslave hundreds of African Americans and cleared it with his conscience. Some say there are two sides to every story, with neither significantly righter than the other. That is patently false. If all men are created equal, Jefferson was wrong not to free his slaves, and those who advocated freedom were right.
Eventually, this wrong was righted after the death and maiming of millions of Americans. The Confederacy’s Vice President declared that its cornerstone rested on “the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man” and that slavery was his “natural and normal condition.” Most Southern Whites believed some version of this. They were wrong, while the abolitionists and defenders of the Union were right.
I grew up in South Mississippi in the 1950s and 60s. My parents, along with a large majority of Southerners, believed Blacks were inherently inferior to Whites and that segregation and subjugation should continue. Organizations such as the Klan used terror and murder to maintain Jim Crow and discriminate against Blacks and others, while convincing themselves that what they were doing was pleasing to God. They were wrong. The Blacks and “Liberals” who fought for Civil Rights were right.
In these examples, people driven by self-interest, even when they called themselves Christians and supporters of America’s founding principles, were wrong. Yet they acted anyway. Why? Humans are naturally inclined to find ways to justify what serves their interests.
To be fair, “Bleeding Heart Liberals,” however well-intentioned, have gotten things wrong too. A case in point is the welfare system, particularly Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). AFDC exacted a heavy cost on society by creating incentives that discouraged marriage and encouraged father-absent households.
So why did God design us to be so selfish? Perhaps because He also gave us the ability to overcome that moral handicap. People can rise above self-interest, care about their neighbors nearly as much as themselves, care about those Jesus called “the least of these,” and genuinely seek the common good.
As MLK said, “the arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.” And it is true. Today, most conservatives agree that slavery and Jim Crow were wrong and that those who fought for change were right.
Donald Trump has mastered the art of appealing to people’s self-interest and convincing his followers to ignore their moral principles and constitutional beliefs. The question is: Do we continue to let political leaders appeal to our basest emotions, or do we allow ourselves to be guided by the teachings of Jesus and the founding principles of our nation? I suspect most of my Facebook friends would choose the latter. If so, let’s overcome the Design Flaw, be guided by our “better angels”, and find ways to work together to jointly serve our beloved nation. And no doubt, if we do so, that will please and impress God.
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