Civil Righteousness and the American Church

The need for virtue and morality is largely understood to require that churches preach and inculcate the moral law. But when churches place the needs of a political society—even the need of a democratic society for widespread civil righteousness—on a par with the needs of the Kingdom of Heaven, there arises a temptation to emphasize the law and to give the Gospel short shrift. Indeed, offering forgiveness could be viewed as antithetical to the moral needs of the regime.