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The Political Order
333
THEY FAIL TO ORGANIZE TO INFLUENCE GOVERNMENT POLICY.
Protestants generally are prejudiced against organized and coopera
tive efforts to influence government policy. This prejudice stems from
a highly individualistic understanding of man and society and a highly
moralistic conception of ethics. According to this view, the social
and political ills of society will be effectively overcome only as in
dividuals become persuaded in increasing numbers to practice the
good private virtues of sobriety, thrift, honesty, justice, and love—all
understood in terms of each person’s individual relationships to
other individuals. In this view, a good society is simply a collection
of upright citizens. Its organic character is overlooked, and the
indirect relationships of men to each other through various special
interest groups as well as through the common body politic are ig
nored.
Implicit in the concept of Christian ethics which underlies this
prejudice is the assumption that Christian love is unrelated to the
demand for social justice. Love and justice may even be viewed as
being in contradiction to each other because the establishment of
justice rests upon the appeal to political power and also because jus
tice appears too impersonal and calculating whereas love appears to
be personal and self-giving. For Christians who are motivated by
love, the requirement of justice is alleged to be unnecessary; more
over, it is often assumed that, unless men are motivated by love and
personal commitment to the social virtues, they will not actually ac
cept and practice justice. “You can’t legislate morals,” so the argu
ment runs. The only effective appeal is to the individual’s private
conscience; and, indeed, any other appeal is counter to the Christian
ethic of love.
This individualistic and moralistic approach to political problems
causes many Protestants to pride themselves on staying aloof from
party affiliation. They prefer to be independents on principle, thus
ignoring the role of political parties in sharpening and clarifying the
alternatives in an election and in fixing responsibility for public
policy. Sometimes these individualists seek to exercise their political
responsibility merely by casting a protest vote for a third party
which has no chance of winning; they may even be proud of the fact
that they have never voted for a winning candidate. By simply regis
tering their preferences as individuals and by neglecting the organiza
tional and promotional work that are essential to winning elections,
Protestants generally fail to marshal their potential strength. Thus