Tony Campolo has said that trying to mix the predominantly secular power of the state with the spiritual power of the Church is like trying to mix manure with ice cream. It doesn’t hurt the manure, but the ice cream is ruined! Look at what is happening in Iran presently with their political elections. The Iranian situation gives you a good example.
As we celebrate Religious Liberty Sunday, July 5, we honor the principle of separating church life from the power of the state in our nation. We look to the message of Jesus as our foundation for our liberty.
Both Matthew’s and Luke’s accounts of the temptations of Jesus tell us that Satan offered Jesus power over all the kingdoms of the world if Jesus would only worship him instead of God. (See Matthew 4:8-10 and Luke 4:5-8.) Imagine yourself in that situation! I don’t know about you, but I would have had a real struggle with turning it down. Secular power is so seductive. It promises those who pursue it the chance to possess the kind of power that intimidates or coerces. If we could just get enough Christians elected to serve in our legislatures and on our courts, we would be in a position to make and enforce laws that would make everybody act like good Christians should.
But that is why Jesus refused to yield to this temptation. A faith that is forced by an outside power source is no faith at all. Jesus faced the same temptation again in John’s account of the feeding of the multitude. The crowd who had witnessed this most amazing miracle wanted to start a revolution and make Jesus their kind. But when he discerned their purpose, Jesus quickly got away (John 6:15). This raises a question: Why do so many Christians in positions of influence seem to be running after what Jesus ran from?
When brought before Pilate, Jesus answered Pilate’s question about his kingship. “My kingdom, said Jesus, doesn’t consist of what you see around you. If it did, my followers would fight so that I wouldn’t be handed over to the Jews. But I’m not that kind of king, not the world’s kind of king” (John 18:36, The Message.)
In other words, a king who was concerned mostly with secular, political power is not going to let himself be taken prisoner and put on trial for his life without his followers putting up a fight. But Jesus was willing not to engage the injustices of the Jews and the Romans in a violent engagement. That was not the nature of his kingdom. Instead, he took upon himself the suffering and agony of the cross, dying like a common criminal, knowing that when God raised him from the dead it would show anyone willing to see and believe that he had broken the power of Death from which injustice derived its power. This is not your ordinary garden-variety king!
Jesus also impressed upon his disciples that the power of his kingdom rested in loving service to others (Mark 10:42-48). He warned them that the only power that they would need is the power to serve others in his name. In his kingdom the servant, not the master, will hold the place of honor. The servant, not the master, will have the last word.
So what, then, did Jesus believe about secular power? If he didn’t seek it, does that mean he sees a positive place in God’s creation for this kind of power? When Jesus said that we are to render to Caesar (the power of the state) what belongs to Caesar, I think he was implying that Christians should support any effort their government makes toward promoting the common good.
Remember Tiberius Caesar, who was the Emperor of Rome when Jesus spoke these words? Well, he was a paranoid and morally corrupt tyrant! But even a government headed by a man like Tiberius is capable of doing things that benefited all the people of the Roman Empire. For example, when the first Christian missionaries like Paul and Barnabas and Silas set out to take the Good News to the world outside Jerusalem, they traveled on roads built by Romans and financed by Roman taxes. When the first Christian missionaries traveled by boat, they sailed on the seas that had once been infested with pirates until the Roman navy launched a military campaign that suppressed piracy and made travel by sea much safer. And just how were the Romans able to build and maintain the fleet that kept the Mediterranean safe for travelers? They used tax revenue, that’s how!
Remember, Jesus couldn’t vote. He had no say in choosing who would be his earthly ruler. Nor did he enjoy many of the freedoms we take for granted. Jesus didn’t have freedom of religion. His Roman masters just tolerated Jews. They didn’t interfere with the Jews practicing their faith as long as they remained peaceable and didn’t rebel against their Roman overlords. But what about us?
We follow Jesus when we eschew seeking the kind of power that would allow us to uphold our convictions by suppressing the rights of others to express faith convictions that are different from ours. We also follow Jesus when we support our government’s efforts to promote the common good. This is WJWD — what Jesus would do.
Sid Rodriguez is a member of the Baptist General Association of Virginia’s religious liberty committee.