Duty

One of history’s recurring problems is the stubborn survival of false ideas, and among the most destructive is the Jeffersonian belief that evil is a product of the environment rather than of the human heart. As Daniel J. Boorstin notes, Jefferson treated moral corruption as no more blameworthy than catching yellow fever. Scripture, however, insists that man is morally responsible, and that evil flows from within: “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts… ” (Matt. 15:19). A society that denies this cannot long maintain any law order. Our age has inherited Jefferson’s mistake, trading the Biblical concept of duty for an obsessive focus on rights. The result is a population trained to excuse itself and others, even though such excuses carry no weight before God. Strength will return only when we again stress responsibility, beginning with ourselves our duty to God, to family, to neighbor, and to our land.