A Clear View of a Murky Issue

The issue may be murky for some, but one thing is as clear as the waters caressing the casino-lined beaches of the Bahamas: In anybody's language, laying money on the line in hopes of instant wealth has become big, big business in America. Unless a rational force of resistance is mounted, this business is going to get bigger still.

   Winning — or more often, losing — on the turn of a roulette wheel, the roll of the dice, the flip of a card, the pull of a slot machine handle, the fall of a number of the score of an athletic contest now enjoys a broadening legitimacy and public acceptance undreamed of only a couple of decades ago. Each year, either by referendum, by legislation or by personal compromise, more Americans enthusiastically embrace legalized — often state-controlled — gambling as a versatile cure-all against both personal boredom and the mounting cost of government.

   But what are we doing to the Body of Christ when Christians, too, participate? As His "kingdom of priests" (Rev. 1:6, Phillips),

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do we trust in our High Priest or in a heathen concept of luck? Under the terms of the Ten Commandments, we are denied the indulgence of coveting and stealing. We are to acquire another's man's wealth only in exchange for goods or services — or as a voluntary gift. We testify to the world that our Saviour supplies everything we really need "according to his riches in glory" (Phil. 4:19). By what perverted rationalization do we undermine that faith by seeking our wealth from the fickle hands of some goddess of chance?

   Here and there, a stubborn old warrior of the faith might speak out against this newest step toward moral and spiritual oblivion, but few, if any, heed the warning. People who consider themselves enlightened seem to prefer the oblivion. Advocates of legalized gambling ridicule as narrow and shortsighted any objection to a permissive society where vices are legitimized and human weakness is exploited in the name of fun, games and government funding.

Who Speaks Against Compromise?

   For people in whom Jesus Christ dwells and over whose lives He rules and reigns, what is our appropriate posture on an issue that speaks so eloquently of covetousness, greed and avarice? In fact — quite apart from Christian commitment — what should the response be of multiplied thousands of unchurched men and women of good will who long to breathe freely the air of a clean, honest, sane and crime-free society? Surely no mystical level of spiritual insight is required to recognize the systematic self-destruction that already has our society

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foundering on the shoals of vice and corruption. Lawmakers across the nation are capitulating — often in spite of their own better judgment — to the public clamor for lotteries, casinos and other forms of legalized gambling. Have Christians lost the will to speak out against such compromise?

   While the rest of the nation celebrates, where are those who dare cry alarm? Along with the whoremonger, the "covetous man, who is an idolater," (Eph. 5:5) has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ. "Because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them" (vv. 6,7). The Word of God contains no specific "Thou shalt not gamble," but it speaks with painful clarity on the subject of thievery, greed and extortion.

Our Nobleness of Spirit

   If there is any validity at all in the idea that a nation's greatness relates in part to strength of character and nobleness of spirit among its people, then our fascination with government revenue from gambling must be viewed with a sense of impending doom. The funding of our government from sources that prey upon weaknesses — that exploit the frailties of human nature — is not calculated to strengthen the fiber of our nation. Neither will it draw us closer to God.

   The fact is, government-sponsored gambling is more likely to encourage defiance of the law and a spirit of revolution among those already inclined to view our system with hostility and cynicism. The lottery, for example, can be seen as a bizarre new form of discrimination. The same people whom the law denies any right

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to organize and profit from gambling for themselves — because somehow it is a threat to our mutual well-being — are asked to become its willing victims so that the state may prosper. That irrationality is not the foundation upon which our nation was built. In a democratic republic, the state exists for the people, not the people for the state.

   A functioning "government of the people, by the people and for the people" bound together as "one nation, under God" assumes certain ethical prerequisites — chief among them being the ideal of common good. Even some state lawmakers who reluctantly support the legitimizing of gambling fear those ethical prerequisites are dangerously lacking in the way state lotteries are operated.

   Chief among these ethical requirements is a sense of mutual responsibility on the part of the people who are governed. Without that sense of shared involvement — expressed both in personal concern and in public allegiance — we would not deserve the freedom and dignity inherent in a healthy democracy. What is more, we would not be likely to get it or to keep it very long.

The Social Costs of Gambling

   Writing in USA TODAY, psychologist Julian I. Taber warns that "No one knows the social costs of gambling or how many players will become addicted because the states, ignoring the concerns of experts on compulsive gambling, have failed to do any research before leaping into the gambling business. The states are experimenting with the minds of the people on a massive scale."¹

   Taber fears the unemployed, the uneducated, the moderately

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retarded, the isolated old, the widowed with empty lives and the very young all will be made "the new victims of state greed." His research has shown that most lottery customers suffer to some degree a common delusion, identified through psychological research done with clinical groups of compulsive wagerers. They see gambling as something more than mere recreation; it appears as a way for players to solve their problems. All too often, the result of that erroneous perception is a disastrous worsening of the problems they sought to resolve.

   That is why our sense of personal pride and civic responsibility is eroded as more and more government is financed with proceeds from gambling schemes. The prospect of national strength and individual loyalty is considerably more favorable when money for the function of government is derived from equitably assessed and duly collected tax revenue — from each according to his ability to pay.

"Fair" May Be Elusive

   Admittedly the word, "equitable," raises inevitable problems where taxes are concerned. In our imperfect world, "fair" and "equitable" become relative terms wherever they are applied — but that cynical truth need not eliminate the concept of equity in sharing the cost of government. Fairness may be elusive in any frame of reference, but occasional inequities in the assessment and collection of taxes — even the apparently inevitable inconsistencies — need not warrant the abandonment of taxation as the proven and preferred basis for government funding.

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   Whatever the legitimized gaming enterprises, they imply the transfer of the burden of supporting government from a tax base to a percentage of the take from games of chance. That transfer will deprive citizens of their sense of personal involvement in the means by which government is financed. More than that, a subtle inequity emerges. Those who do not gamble get a free ride — with all the benefits and none of the responsibilities.

Points to Ponder

1. Some forms of gambling now enjoy increasing acceptance and legitimacy, even though gambling generally was regarded as a criminal activity during most of this century. People's ideas, value systems and mores do change over the years, but under what circumstances might morals — "right" and "wrong" — change?

2. Lawmakers historically have considered gambling a threat to the general welfare and, in their wisdom, have classified it, along with others, as a vice. Was that a mistake that needed correcting?

3. If the Bible does not speak specifically on the subject of gambling, what principles should we examine that might shed some light on the attitude God takes toward this widespread human indulgence? Is covetousness — or perhaps even stealing — really a factor in a person's gambling habit?

4. Do you think the funding of government through lotteries

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instead of through a system of taxation might be a threat, however subtle, to the nobleness of spirit and unity of purpose that made America great?

5. As government gets more and more involved in gambling enterprises, what responsibility do you feel it has toward those who are victimized because their gambling habit is out of control?

Note

1. Julian I. Taber, in "Opinion," USA TODAY, [August 14, 1984], p. 4.

Chapter Two  ||  Table of Contents