When we explore the boundaries of life and death with doctors and patients' families, we seek to make of law the ground rules for a more caring society. The church is not above the law, but neither is it contained within it. Religious leaders who respect the law also expect to interpret and sometimes change it according to their vision of what God expects of us. When Martin Luther King Jr. was accused of disrespect for breaking the laws of a segregated society, he said it was his profound respect for the law that made him disobey it. Church and law are partners, uneasily yoked for common cause.
Law provides the framework for the social order, but religious faith provides the vision.
Laws can, for example, make a day-care center safe, but only vision can say why we should support it. Laws can protect the purity of food, but only vision can create a soup kitchen, or imagine its alternative. We are challenged to rewrite welfare legislation in America. Church leaders are again asked to compare the effects of new laws with an ancient biblical vision of affirming humanity. As we speak and live our conscience, we act at the juncture of church and law.