In our nation’s history much has been said about the separation of church and state. Many interpret Jesus’ comment about a coin with Caesar’s head on it as saying: Here is what you owe to the state and here’s what you owe to God; they are distinct, don’t mix them.
But Jesus isn’t being so benign. He is critiquing the power arrangement of his day, and surely ours as well. He tells his people: Look at the arrogant claims of the state — give them back. And look how your own fingers are wrapped around that power — let it go; serve only God. His words do apply to our ongoing disagreements about the state and the church, but for him it’s not about two allegiances; it’s about power.
John Upton
|
It seems we never get finished fixing the power arrangements between governments and religion, and we in the church have to talk about it. Religion and government have a nasty habit of reaching for each other’s power and entwining their powers together. It has always been the case. The priest crowns the king, the king keeps the priest. Each side will use the other to its own advantage. They will join forces to crush dissent. And where possible, religion tries to become the state and the state tries to become the religion. A prime example of the persistence of this tango is what happened in the first American colonies. Puritans fled persecution by the state religion in England, only to set up their own state religion and legally persecute people with different beliefs.
Only one of the colonies insisted on absolute freedom of religion — Rhode Island, which also upheld Native American rights. It was founded by a Baptist, Roger Williams, a radical. This is what Baptists have historically been, radical advocates for religion and government to keep their sticky hands off each other. When the Constitution was written, it was a Baptist minister, John Leland, who was among those persuading James Madison to include freedom of religion in what became the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights. This principle and passion for freedom for religion and freedom from it is the great legacy of our people to this nation, and as Virginia Baptists you’re among people who stand proudly by it. Whatever else you think of Baptists, on this one we did good!
All over the world we see this unholy alliance. Its final fruit is almost always violence. No state or tribe has ever killed so cheerfully as when they’ve done it in religion’s cause. No church more effectively betrays its calling than when reaching for a political prize. Among the saddest casualties is the name of God in the world. Bind a faith and government together, and you’ll still have a state, but the faith will be dying.
Jesus said that what belongs to God we give to God. And what would that be? What belongs to God? The world and everyone and everything in it, including ourselves, all belong to God. And here is the thing: If all this is true, then our politics also belong to God. We join our voices to national, state and local discussions to give to God what belongs to God. We bear moral witness and ethical witness in the public square. Our sense of what God would want for the world informs and ignites our public engagement. Among other things, this means we vote and participate. There are no perfect candidates and few uncomplicated issues, but we vote our truest conscience — for us, the conscience most akin to the moral vision of Christ, as best we can discern it. From that vision, we join with others, we act, we advocate, we live our lives bearing public witness.
Then there are those who politically oppose you and me and they fervently believe they are expressing what God wants for the world. This includes people we love and respect — or ought to. It is a reminder that the public witness we seek to bear, even with passionate conviction, should be offered with a fitting humility and kindness. This, too, is rendering to God what belongs to God.
“Whose image in on the coin?” Jesus asked, and they said, “Caesar’s.” He might also have asked them, as perhaps he is always asking us, “But whose image is in you?” We are in the image of God. We either serve the image on the coin, or we serve God’s image hidden in the best hopes of the world. In this conviction we live our public lives.
John Upton is executive director of the Baptist General Association of Virginia.