Grace Abounds All the More

 

 

Who knew that a profile about a bankruptcy law expert in my alma mater's monthly magazine would be such a thunderbolt for me? I usually read the publication faithfully and without incident, but this article on David Skeel literally struck me.

The piece goes on at length about how Skeel's evangelical Christian faith informs his career work as well as the moral perspective by which he approaches it. I particularly appreciated this insight:

In the years since he and Stuntz articulated their Christian case for a minimally ambitious legal code, Skeel has continued to evangelize about the perils of legal moralism and symbolic religious legislation. He devoted a chapter of True Paradox—which was pitched at general readers, not legal scholars—to what he calls the “justice paradox.” It flows from two observations. Humans have long placed remarkable faith in the idea that the right system of law can produce a just social order. Yet from Hammurabi’s Code to Napoleon’s, and from Marxism to the libertarian system of laws inspired by John Stuart Mill, we have been disappointed over and over again. 

“Both parts of that pattern—the hubris about our capacity for justice and the failure that follows—are important,” Skeel wrote. The New Testament demonstrates this dynamic twice over, as first the Jewish authorities and then the Roman ones condemn Jesus on suspect grounds. “The hero of the Christian story was murdered by impressive legal systems, not transparently evil ones,” Skeel noted. “Lest we think that it is simply an accident that one system of law failed, the Jesus story shows that even two legal systems working together and potentially correcting one another cannot ensure a just outcome. The justice paradox lies at the very heart of the Christian story.”

What an insight! The origin story of original sin, applied to how we govern ourselves as communities and a nation.

I too desire to live out my faith in my workplace, career, and civic space. And what I believe informs how I think about politics and governance. But I connected with Skeel's insights most viscerally via my identity as a father.

I've long heard it joked that kids are a great example of original sin, in that most kids don't need to be taught how to do bad things. Closer to home and on a more serious note, what father or mother hasn't lamented as they watch their children, faced with two choices in which it is clear one has a happy and productive outcome and the other a sad and destructive one, choose the wrong way? I certainly have pain in my heart over all three of my kids, and I consider them to be really good kids.

How frustrating it is for us as a society to want to believe so much in the rule of law to maintain social order, and then to watch ourselves descend into chaos and ruin. How frustrating it is for us as parents to have it good enough that our kids have the opportunity to make good choices that lead to good situations, and yet watch them choose poorly instead and suffer the consequences of it. 

The origin story of the Christian faith is such that it must be maddening for a perfectly righteous God to set up literal paradise for His creation and then watch His creation choose otherwise. The fundamental precept of the Christian faith is that sin destroys and turning from sin gives life, and yet over and over again we reject life and choose destruction.

In the midst of all this dismay, I am reminded of the centrality of grace to this whole story. Absent grace there is no hope for our society, for our kids, and for our own salvation. What we call good news is that we are not absent grace. We can trade in hopelessness for hope. And we can trade in frustration, cynicism, and despair about keeping social order, about our kids living good lives, and about our own souls. Instead, we can be sober about how easy and natural it is to fall. And yet how wonderful that there is an unending source of grace when we fall. Good news indeed!