Abstract
Several years ago, I worked on a study of gambling for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. I expected to find, and did find, substantial opposition to gambling. But in talking with various church groups, I heard a recurrent theme, one that often dominated the conversations: gambling may be a problem, even a serious problem, but our response must avoid “legalism” at all costs. One might explain this fear of “legalism” in sociological terms, as the response of people who were embarrassed by parochial moralisms in the past—prohibitions on drinking, dancing, and card playing. People who left Garrison Keillor's “Lake Wobegon” and moved to the Twin Cities (or worse yet, Chicago) want to be urbane. Or perhaps they simply want to enjoy their weekly lottery ticket or their annual trip to the casino without church-sponsored guilt. But more seems at stake in their hostility toward “legalism.”
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