Today a writer by the name of Laurence Vance had an article published on LewRockwell.com arguing that Christians are inconsistent for supporting the criminalization of prostitution, denying that there is any scriptural justification, and saying that Christians who support its criminalization are hypocritical for refusing to support the criminalization of other sins. You can find that original article here. You shoud probably go ahead and read that first. Now that you’ve hopefully done that, for my comments.
Laurence Vance comes what is called a libertarian perspective, which means he believes that laws should only exist to protect people from either physical aggression against person or property or threats thereof. And by extension as a Christian, he believes the Bible teaches this view.
There are two interesting things about the libertarian perspective that made it worth critiquing. For one, it is internally consistent. Unlike the “conservative” (Republican) and “liberal” (Democrat) systems, the libertarian system is internally consistent and purposely so. The second reason is that it offers a way out of the culture war, suggesting the government need not pick a side.
There is some thought provoking commentary about sin in the article as well and how it relates to crime. Vance correctly identifies the problem with making every sin a criminal matter. He is also correct that arbitrary distinctions between the two are not good.
However, I would dissent from the idea that the Bible never teaches that prostitution should be a criminal matter. Considering Deuteronomy 22:28-29 (ESV)
28 “If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, 29 then the man who lay with her shall give to the father of the young woman fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife, because he has violated her. He may not divorce her all his days.
Now there’s a whole nother discussion about why this is talking about fornication and not rape, but I’ll sum up by saying rape is described as “like murder” earlier in the same chapter, and thus would be a death penalty according to the law. By contrast if two unmarried people sleep together, the punishment was that they had to get married.
So if a prostitute were to meet her first “client” and they were both virgins, they would have to marry each other. But if one or the other was pledged to be married (which I would assume is comparable to engagement) or married, the penalty would be death for both involved. In neither case is the act of prostitution legal.
And since this is an enforcement of the moral law, I see no reason why this should not be applied in the same form by Christian civil government. Not all sins should be criminalized it is true, but prostitution, fornication, and adultery are sins which are also crimes in the mind of God, sins so serious that they not only deprive one of heaven (as all sins do) but that also require the civil authorities to take action here and now.
Now, if we take God’s civil laws as the standard for what sins fall under government jurisdiction, this does have conclusions that are unacceptable to most conservative Republicans, and so I think Vance is right to say they are hypocritical. For instance blapshemy and homosexual sexual activity would be illegal, but there isn’t anything making drug use criminal, so that would be a sin (akin to drunkenness) that was not a crime. So I would actually say that criminalizing the former two is simply applying God’s law as he intended, while criminalizing the latter is trying to make every sin a crime. Furthermore it would mean that homosexual contact (punishable by death on the testimony of two or three) and the preaching of false gods (also punishable by death) are more serious crimes than armed robbery (punishable by double restitution and arguably perhaps flogging). Most Christians today do not believe that either of the former two things should be criminal offenses at all, and yet would put the latter perpetrator in prison for years. This is not a just situation.
But back to libertarianism, the major problem with trying to make it work Biblically is that it requires an unbiblical assumption that the New Testament is the only rule of faith for Christians. You see this problem throughout Vance’s article “there is nothing in the New Testament that says.” God does not have to repeat himself in the New Testament before his words are binding on Christians, instead what he says should be presumed continuous unless taken away. Deuteronomy 4 forbids us to add to or subtract from what he has revealed, so we must follow all of it except for the ceremonial law, which the New Testament teaches is no longer binding on Christians as a complete unit. Perhaps there could be further discussion on what is an is not ceremonial, but that is for another post.
For those who say it was totally just to punish certain things in the Old Testament but not now they must explain what has changed. Surely it must be something other than the character of God, for that always remains the same.
Should Christians support the criminalization of prostitution? Yes, not only because it is a sin but because God has taught that it should be a crime.
reconvenantersassanach 