National Conscience

Woven throughout Scripture is the theme of CONSCIENCE. The Bible talks about David’s conscience being bothered. It also talks about having a clear conscience, a good conscience, an evil conscience, a seared conscience, a corrupt conscience, a weak conscience and someone being conscience stricken.

What is the conscience? Conscience has been defined as: The sense of right and wrong that governs a person's thoughts and actions. The English word conscience comes finds its roots in the idea of being conscious of what will happen or conscious of guilt. Conscience is derived from: ‘con’ = with + ‘science’ = knowledge or with knowledge.

The conscience, when it is working correctly, is like the screeching of car wheels when the brakes are worn out or the indicator light that comes on to tell you better get gas, the buzzer that tells you your seat belt is not connected, the chirp of the smoke detector that beeps to tell you that the battery needs changed or the warning pop-up that says you are about to open a virus infected email or website.

People have a conscience. They can bury it, change it, sear it or disable it but it is still there. One aspect of a follower of Jesus is the reactivation and continual recalibrating of the conscience that happens.

Benjamin Franklin said: “A good conscience is a continual Christmas.”

Not only do people have a conscience but groups and nations have a conscience. That conscience can be continually renewed and re-calibrated or it can be calloused over and ultimately seared.

Our first President George Washington said: “Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called conscience.” In recent times we have not done that. As a people we have not labored to keep alive the spark of celestial fire.

Social and political commentator Will Rogers said: “People are getting smarter nowadays; they are letting lawyers, instead of their conscience, be their guide.”

What will it take to renew our national conscience? What will it take to recalibrate what has been confused and lost?