Church and State
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Contents |
Introduction
Questions about believers' response to the authority of secular government seem to break up into two groups in the New Testament: the Gospels' "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's" and the Epistles' "Be subject to the governing authorities." Let's begin with the Gospels.
Render Unto Caesar That Which Is Caesar's
Texts
Matthew 22:15-22
15:Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said.
16:So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians,
saying, ‘Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality.
17:Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?’
18:But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, ‘Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites?
19:Show me the coin used for the tax.’ And they brought him a denarius.
20:Then he said to them, ‘Whose head is this, and whose title?’
21:They answered, ‘The emperor’s.’ Then he said to them, ‘Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’
22:When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.
Mark 12:13-17 13:Then they sent to him some Pharisees and some Herodians to trap him in what he said. 14:And they came and said to him, ‘Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality, but teach the way of God in accordance with truth. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not? 15:Should we pay them, or should we not?’ But knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, ‘Why are you putting me to the test? Bring me a denarius and let me see it.’ 16:And they brought one. Then he said to them, ‘Whose head is this, and whose title?’ They answered, ‘The emperor’s.’ 17:Jesus said to them, ‘Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ And they were utterly amazed at him.
Luke 20:20-26 20:So they watched him and sent spies who pretended to be honest, in order to trap him by what he said, so as to hand him over to the jurisdiction and authority of the governor. 21:So they asked him, ‘Teacher, we know that you are right in what you say and teach, and you show deference to no one, but teach the way of God in accordance with truth. 22:Is it lawful for us to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?’ 23But he perceived their craftiness and said to them, 24:‘Show me a denarius. Whose head and whose title does it bear?’ They said, ‘The emperor’s.’ 25:He said to them, ‘Then give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ 26:And they were not able in the presence of the people to trap him by what he said; and being amazed by his answer, they became silent.
Characteristics
These texts should be read with careful consideration to their common background. In 6 AD the Roman governor (or hegemon) of Palestine introduced the Roman "census" tax of one denarius per person per year. (A denarius was the rough equivalent of a day's wage for the average person.) The tax opened up the opportunities given to Roman subjects, but it was fiercely unpopular. In fact, the same year it was introduced, Judas the Galilean led an ultimately unsuccessful revolt sparked by the tax. (As a side note, it's this census that leads Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem, where Jesus is born. The government counted the population as a way of calculating how much tax it was owed.)
In Jesus' time, the census tax was still detested. The discussion about whether to pay reflects a broader conversation in the Jewish community over the appropriate response to Roman occupation. Roughly speaking, there were three possibilities: the nationalists or Zealots refused to accomodate the occupation or have anything to do with Romans or their money. The Pharisees, though they disliked the occupation and the tax that went along with it, paid up and accepted the peace in the hopes that a better situation would emerge. The "Herodians," who are only mentioned as a political party in the New Testament, presumably responded as a Vichy government. Because they were kept in power by Herod Antipas and his successors, they were all too happy to pay the tax and grease the wheels of a system that favored them.
It is important to recognize here that these divisions were both religious and political, since not much separation of the two categories was made at this time. Each party laid claim to represent "true Judaism," understood as a faith, a family and a national identity.
Each of the three gospel writers, then, present the question about paying taxes in a larger context of controversy surrounding Jesus. The bottom-line question is how Jesus intends to represent Judaism, both politically and religiously. For Mark, this question reflects ongoing questions about Jesus' identity; for Matthew, the question turns on Jesus as authentic interpreter of Jewish teaching. Luke has perhaps the sharpest vision of the question: as Jesus is hauled before Pilate (23:2), one of the charges leveled against him will be a distortion of his answer here. Jesus' response to this hostile inquiry will have consequences.
And make no mistake about it: the gospel writers are united in depicting the question as unfriendly. All three call it a "trap"; Luke describes the questioners as "hypocrites." The snare in this trap is to force Jesus into an either/or position: either he recommends not paying the taxes, which will open him up to charges of sedition and fomenting revolution by the Herodians, or he will instruct the crowd to pay their taxes, disappointing many Pharisees and enraging any Zealots listening in to the conversation.
Jesus escapes from the trap by pointing to a third way. To understand his response, one must understand his request to see the coin. At this time, a denarius (the required currency for payment of the census) was thought of as the personal property of Caesar. As such, it bore his image. More than likely, Tiberius' face adorned the coin Jesus examined, along with the inscription, "Tiberius Caesar, Son of the Divine Augustus."
For Jews, this would have seemed idolatrous, if not downright blasphemous. They recognized no god but YHWH, the God of the Israelites. The problem was especially acute at the Temple, where "graven images" were forbidden. A strict interpretation of that commandment would have banned coins with Caesar's head on them. But at the same time, the denarius was the legal tender of the Empire. To do without it would have caused great financial hardship and outright confrontation with the Romans come tax season. For this reason, most Jews, despite their misgivings, carried the coins and swallowed their principles.
When Christ answers that his questioners should "give to the emperor the things that are the emperor's," then, he is setting out a response that works on two levels. First of all, he points out the hypocrisy in carrying a coin that represents an economic system to which one is theoretically opposed. You've taken the money, he says, and now you have to play the game. Though on a surface level, it may seem that he is proposing a radical division between believers and the unjust systems that surround them, it's more likely that he means to point out here the almost universal complicity in those systems. Unless one wants to withdraw completely from the world, as the Essenes did at Masada, life will involve decisions about how to negotiate the world's corruption.
But there is another level to Jesus' response. His call to "give God what is God's" serves as a reminder of God's previous claim to our very selves. Genesis, for example, tells us that we are "created in the image of God" (1:26), a sharp contrast with the image of Caesar on the coin. In the same way, I Corinthians expresses God's claim to our bodies:
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price...
Psalm 24:1 expands this claim:
The earth is the Lord's and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it.
The Gospel of Thomas suggests an even more radical claim: there, Jesus responds, "Give Caesar that which is his, and give me what is mine," he says (100).
His "third way," then, is this: avoid confrontation with the governing authorities where possible, and keep your eyes on the prize.
Conclusions
This story has long been used to argue for a strict separation of the church and state. Many Anabaptists, for example, cite these texts as part of their justification for refusing to serve in the military or in any government capacity. Even to take the story at this level, however, requires more nuance than it is usually given. Jesus does not counsel a direct refusal to pay up, and even the Amish pay their taxes. Given our almost inescapable participation in the world's economic system, we are called to give the government its due. Christians, the gospel writers argue, should be good citizens of the secular world unless they simply cannot avoid confrontation with the powers that be.
Nor should we ignore the other dimensions of this story. First: religion, like politics, is formed in controversy. The truth is not always to be found in authoritative pronouncements. Jesus lays out no hard and fast rule here. Instead, he throws the question back on his listeners and requires that they make a decision. So it is with us: we must listen to the conversation, and make our best judgment.
But we must listen and judge with a sense of God behind the picture. Jesus' aim in this controversy is not make new tax law; it is to point his questioners back to the God who created us, who redeemed us from the brokenness of the world, and who sustains us in our present life. His charge to "give Caesar what is Caesar's" challenges us to decide what is of ultimate importance to ourselves, and to act accordingly. At some points, this may require us to confront the "powers and principalities" we see around us; at others, we may need to subvert them more circumspectly. At still others, we may need to cede their authority and pay our taxes, looking to God to accomplish what we cannot.
"Be Subject to the Governing Authorities"
We move now into more difficult terrain. The ideas on the relationship of church and secular state found in the letters of Peter and Paul are often difficult for modern readers to accept, and nearly always foreign to them. To make matters worse, these texts (with the exception of Romans) are of dubious authenticity. They may or may not be by the people to whom they are attributed, which calls into question their authority.
However, a patient reading of the texts that aims to get inside their purposes (as much as that is possible) shows that they have something to offer, despite their many problems.
Texts
Romans 13:1-10 1: Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. 2: Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3: For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you wish to have no fear of the authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive its approval; 4: for it is God’s servant for your good. But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for the authority does not bear the sword in vain! It is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer. 5: Therefore one must be subject, not only because of wrath but also because of conscience. 6: For the same reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, busy with this very thing.
7: Pay to all what is due them—taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due. 8: Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9: The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet’; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ 10: Love does no wrong to a neighbour; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.
I Timothy 2:1-4 1: First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings should be made for everyone, 2: for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity. 3: This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, 4: who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
Titus 3:1-8 1: Remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, 2: to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarrelling, to be gentle, and to show every courtesy to everyone. 3: For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, despicable, hating one another. 4: But when the goodness and loving-kindness of God our Saviour appeared, 5: he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. 6: This Spirit he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Saviour, 7: so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. 8: The saying is sure.
I desire that you insist on these things, so that those who have come to believe in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works; these things are excellent and profitable to everyone.
I Peter 2:11-21 11: Beloved, I urge you as aliens and exiles to abstain from the desires of the flesh that wage war against the soul. 12: Conduct yourselves honourably among the Gentiles, so that, though they malign you as evildoers, they may see your honourable deeds and glorify God when he comes to judge.
13: For the Lord’s sake accept the authority of every human institution, whether of the emperor as supreme, 14: or of governors, as sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do right. 15: For it is God’s will that by doing right you should silence the ignorance of the foolish. 16: As servants of God, live as free people, yet do not use your freedom as a pretext for evil. 17: Honour everyone. Love the family of believers. Fear God. Honour the emperor.
18: Slaves, accept the authority of your masters with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh. 19: For it is to your credit if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly. 20: If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, where is the credit in that? But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God’s approval. 21: For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps.
Significant Characteristics
At first glance, Peter and Paul's apparently unqualified endorsement of secular authority is problemmatic at best and rankly offensive at worst. Paul Achtemeier points out that this is only made worse by some of the commentary on these passages. For example, Luther writes on Romans: "Christians should not refuse, under the pretext of religion, to obey men, especially evil ones."
As if it weren't bad enough that Paul instructs Timothy to lead his church in prayers for "rulers and authorities," he goes on in Romans to command subjection to the "governing authorities," which have their authority and even their beginnings from God. Still worse, the Greek word for authority, "exousia," is the same term often used to describe spiritual power in the New Testament. God is solidly on the side of the government, Paul seems to be saying. To rebel against the authorities is to rebel against God's authority:
Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you wish to have no fear of the authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive its approval; for it is God’s servant for your good. But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for the authority does not bear the sword in vain! It is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer. (2-4)
Paul readily accepts secular power here, even up to the point of capital punishment.
In the same way, in I Timothy, he seems to urge a kind of political quietism on Christians:
I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings should be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity. This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. (1-4)
More obnoxious yet are Peter's remarks on slavery:
Slaves, accept the authority of your masters with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh. For it is to your credit if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly. If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, where is the credit in that? But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God’s approval. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps. (18-21)
More generally, Peter seems to parallel Paul's instructions, urging his readers to "accept the authority of every human institution,"(13) and "honor everyone. Love the family of believers. Fear God. Honor the emperor."
To figure out what's going on here, we need to keep several things in mind.
First, the form and context of these passages. Romans is perhaps the most "philosophical" of the letters. It is addressed to a church that Paul does not know, but from whom he would like to raise money to support his missionary activities. In the letter, he lays out an overview of his theology and ministry. Chapter 13 concludes a long section of the letter dedicated to a consideration of Christian and Jewish beliefs, and their common relationship to the law, secular and divine.
I Timothy and I Peter are considerations of life in "God's household." As such, they fit into ancient genres, and represent little in the way of groundbreaking theology. Rather, they are practical guides to life together, sometimes at the expense of Christian "theory."
Titus' situation is perhaps the most interesting of the four. Luke Johnson has argued that the situation faced by Paul's delegate was one of bringing Greek (and Christian) culture to a frontier area, Crete. Think about the preacher's job in a Wild West town, and you've got the drift. It's little wonder, then, that Paul should put a high premium on authority. Titus' job is to tame a wilderness, and he'll need all the authority he can lean on.
Second, these texts reflect a certain amount of realpolitik in the early church. In fact, both Romans and I Peter may reflect the influence of Hellenistic Jewish "guidebooks" for dealing with secular authority, much like today, when many non-profit groups publish guides for churches in election years. In other words, it's possible that what we're reading is boilerplate rewritten to fit a new situation.
More generally, though relations with the state were never easy, there was no possibility of the church overcoming the empire. At the time the New Testament was written, the Christian church numbered no more than a few hundred believers.
Peter and Paul estimated that to enter into open hostilities with the government would have been suicide, and they counseled their readers accordingly. At the same time, we should remember that both of these men were eventually put to death by the state. Their commitment to the cause was unimpeachable. Obviously, then, they must have felt that direct confrontation was not the best strategy for the church.
Third, the apostles' acceptance of secular authority extends only so far as governments are necessary "servants for your good." Paul Achtemeier puts this into the appropriate perspective in commenting on Romans:
...This passage rather clearly means that Christians may not frivously disregard civil authority, as though the freedom from law won for them by Christ's death included freedom from all civil law as well. Part of the good order of God's creation, which was itself established by the overcoming of primeval chaos (see Gen. 1:1-2), is the ordering of human affairs. If, to paraphrase Reinhold Niebuhr, that goodness makes civil order possible, the corruption of hman nature by sin makes such civil order necessary. The first premise Paul lays down therefore is that order is established by God (v. 2), because chaos and disorder are God's enemies. To oppose such order is in fact to oppose God by supporting those forces which are at enmity to him (v.3). The Christian's freedom from law therefore does not mean freedom from civil law. The believer is just as obligated to obey traffic lights as the unbeliever! (204)
Fourth, neither Peter nor Paul could have imagined the monstrosity of governments in the 20th century. Nor would the apostles have approved of the murderous nationalism espoused by some of those governments. To read into their calls to accept secular authority a tacit approval for such regimes is as silly to cite them in opposition to modern technology. It is unlikely at best that they would have advised meek submission in the face of genocide.
It is here that these passages begin to give up their bounty. For both Peter and Paul, the relationship of Christians to the secular world is a relative one. That is to say, government plays a necessary role in "ordering human affairs." But the authority to carry out that function is relativized by the believer's ultimate loyalty to God.
For Paul, this is a matter of conscience (Romans 13:5-8). Obedience to ordinary civil authority frees the believer to fulfill Jesus' commandment to "love one another as I have loved you." And, importantly, it establishes the same tailored response to authority as found in Jesus' instruction to "give to Caesar that which is Caesar's." Clearly, there is a distinction for Paul between paying taxes, giving respect, and giving honor. The first two are what one pays to civil authority; the third is reserved for God.
I Timothy makes this ordering even more explicit. The prayers and supplications are to be given "so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity." (2) Furthermore, "This is right and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." (3-4) Authority is not submitted to because it is authority; is given latitude so that Christians can keep about their "real" business, salvation.
In the case of Titus, Paul's message is very practical. As Titus and Paul came into personal redemption from their errors through the grace of Christ, so Titus should teach the Cretans about civilized manners. As he says in verse 9, "...Avoid stupid controversies, genealogies, dissentions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless."
Quite simply, such things are counterproductive and sidetracks to Titus' mission. He is better off giving them wide berth, and teaching the members of his church to live ordinary, decent, law-abiding lives.
The only way to make sense of Peter's apparently repressive instructions is through the lens of Christian self-giving. First, as Peter argues in verse 12, self-restraint can be a form of testimony to the powers of God: "Conduct yourselves honourably among the Gentiles, so that, though they malign you as evildoers, they may see your honourable deeds and glorify God when he comes to judge."
In 13-17, he fleshes out this idea. Believers are to accept "the authority of every human institution," literally "every human creation". Though these institutions should have no power over the people of God, yet submission to their authority is an act of faith, demonstrating the moral superiority of the Christian way of life: "For it is God’s will that by doing right you should silence the ignorance of the foolish." (15) Doing so provides a paradoxical kind of freedom: the acceptance of earthly authority while believing in God's ultimate power.
Like Paul, Peter relativizes the claims of the state on believers: "Honor everyone. Love the family of believers. Fear God. Honor the emperor." (17) "Honor" is to be given to the emperor, just like anyone else. "Fear" (or "worship") is for God alone.
The conclusion of Peter's argument in 18-22 is the logical summation of his belief in voluntary submission. Like Christ himself, who went to the cross even though his crucifixion was a great wrong, Christians who are slaves are to endure the injustice of their slavery as a witness to God's redemptive work. Apparently, the masters in question are not themselves Christians. To be "aware" of God is to have a conscience, and the "credit" Peter calls upon his readers to seek is God's grace. Endurance--particularly endurance of unjust suffering--is a virtue that will not go unnoticed.
It may be fairly argued that this passage endorses slavery, and indeed, it was used in this way by southern whites in the antebellum period. The English translation, however, masks an important point in verse 18: the "deference" with which slaves are to accept the authority of their masters is not due to those masters, but to God. The Christian response to evil is not to reply with more evil, but with love. It is "assymetrical warfare" of the most profound kind: that seen in nonviolent civil disobedience from Gandhi to Vietnamese Buddhist monks to Martin Luther King. While Peter does not counsel open resistance here, he does point believers to a way of thinking outside the traps that secular authority can impose upon them. This is not "quietism," as is so often argued, but activism of a sort the world has much difficulty in understanding or accepting.
I Peter should also be read in the light of Paul's declaration that there is "neither slave nor free in Christ Jesus." That believers ought to temporarily accept their lot in life does not imply God's approval of that lot, nor does it excuse the wrongness of their suffering. The masters should free their slaves, and treat them as equals, "co-inheritors of Christ." But since that seems unlikely to happen in immediate future, Peter gives some practical advice on how to behave in the current situation.
Conclusions
The notion of accepting everyday secular authority troubles very few of us. We depend on the government to make sure the mail gets delivered, that traffic lights function, and that the sewage system runs. Most of us would find civilized life intolerable if not impossible without some form of law and goverment.
It is when we move beyond basic services that the questions become more difficult. Is government entitled to legislate morality? Should we remain under the control of civil authority that we know to be at best indifferent to our concerns, and worst openly hostile, even malicious? Peter and Paul's answers to these questions cannot (and should not) be applied blithely. The apostles here show no familiarity with the kind of grassroots activism that modern democracies depend upon to right social wrongs. The idea of people fundamentally changing the social structures would have struck them as odd, perhaps even dangerous. The hierarchical authority of family and government was as much a given for them as the weather. Why bother fighting something you can't control?
At the most, Peter and Paul are able to suggest a new kind of egalitarian society within the Christian community; the world outside the walls of the church was unchanging and better left to itself, as much as possible. As many progressive communities have discerned, it is often easier to begin the new world inside than outside.
But the apostles' apparent conservatism should not be taken for indifference to or acceptance of injustice. Though they would most likely counsel civil disobedience over open rebellion, their words of caution are not to those who would legitimately resist authority; they are to those who would flout the law under the guise of "Christian freedom." This is exactly the argument heard in street protests today: fighting the power does not justify any kind of criminal rampage or violence. In fact, many of those who cause such trouble turn out to be plants of the police or other groups hostile to the demonstrators' intent. For Peter and Paul, engaged in a grassroots spiritual campaign, such plants would have been agents of the devil, not the police. The goal of the apostles was not to hold their people down, but to head off unnecessary trouble, most often in very specific situations where the need for prudence in their estimation outweighed general principles.
We should take their advice, then, not as "never fight," but as "begin with your own, choose your battles, and don't get tripped up on the little things". Or as Bob Dylan sang:
Don't follow leaders
Watch your parking meters
You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows...
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