1
SERMON
SECOND
PRESBYTERIAN
CHURCH
460 East Main Street
Lexington, Kentucky 40507
Religion and Politics
April 19, 2015
1 Kings 22:1-8; Matthew 22:15-22; Romans 13:1-7
Rev. Dr. Daniel T. Hans
With politicians announcing their candidacy for the 2016 presidency and with income taxes due
this past week, I find myself unable to avoid the word “government” as I step into the pulpit
this morning. Someone has said that everyone needs a spouse because you can’t blame
everything on the government. Yet people do blame just about everything on the government.
Americans have always had a love / hate relationship with the concept of central government.
Nowhere is the grousing over government more pronounced than with the subject of taxes. The
libertarian Tea Party movement has deep historic precedence beyond the Boston Tea Party. In
1786 with the American Revolution barely over, Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Shays of
Massachusetts led a rebellion against the taxing policies of the newly forming national
government. A couple of years later in 1791, the Whiskey Rebellion in Western Pennsylvania
took a similar stand against taxes imposed by the government.
I
Even the people in Jesus’ day fumed about the government’s role in taxation. The Pharisees,
who were the religious right of the day and who opposed Roman rule and Roman taxation, tried
to trip up Jesus with a trick question. Assisting them was an unlikely ally, the Herodians, who
were the political liberals of the day and supported Roman rule and taxation. Both groups
wanted to get rid of Jesus. Jesus got hit from both sides like the preacher who talks about
politics in the pulpit.
Notice that Jesus did not denounce taxation as contrary to God’s will. However, he made clear
that the state is not all powerful and that no political leader should have unchecked power. By
saying: Give to the Emperor what is the Emperor’s and give to God what is God’s Jesus
affirmed the unique roles of politics and religion, which need not be enemies yet should not be
lovers.
And notice also that Jesus did not give us a prescription for determining exactly what belongs
to the Emperor and what belongs to God. While this church-state distinction is important, we
are left to struggle with how to live out our loyalties to God and to government.
II
2
Some Christians reject Jesus’ both/and approach to religion and politics. Opting for an
either/or approach, they view all government as bad. But traditional Judeo-Christian faith has
long taken a both/and approach, valuing and honoring the role of government while faithfully
serving God. Traditional religion has even recognized the value of taxation – albeit limited and
reasonable taxation.
Rabbi David Wolpe of the Jewish Theological Seminary in NYC said: As far back as the Bible,
where you owed all sorts of tithes, there has always been an obligation [of members of the
community] to contribute to the good of the whole.
Princeton Theological Seminary Professor Max Stackhouse said: Protestantism has always
affirmed the positive duty and Christian calling to support the political powers. This support
includes one’s obligation to be taxed as a member of the larger community.
The Apostle Paul declared to the Christians in Rome that government is ordained by God for
the welfare of the whole community. However, Paul did not advocate absolute and unlimited
government. The context for Romans 13, as for much of the New Testament letters, was the
misuse of the new-found Christian freedom that caused many early Christians to throw off all
restraints, all social structures, all external obligations. For this reason, Paul and other New
Testament writers spoke repeatedly of the importance of maintaining order and obedience
within the social structures of family, church and state.
Paul declared that the Christian citizen has a responsibility to obey government when it is just
and good. He implied we also have a responsibility to change government when it is not just
and not good. Paul implied this call for change when he said: Pay to all what is due to them:
taxes to whom taxes are due; revenues to whom revenues are due. Then he added: respect to
whom respect is due; honor to whom honor is due.
III
The qualifications of respect and honor are essential when we, as Christians, examine the role
of government in our lives. Along with the rest of God’s creation, government is accountable
to God. One aspect of the accountability to God of those in government is their accountability
to the people who elected them.
Reformed Theology, arising from the Protestant Reformation and the writings of John Calvin,
understands the sinful nature of humankind. Therefore, while it affirms the role of government,
it promotes a government with checks and balances. Thus the need for a Congress to hold a
President accountable. Reformed theologian Reinhold Niebuhr hit the nail on the head with
respect to accountability in government: Man is moral enough to make democracy possible and
sinful enough to make it necessary.
In our post-1960s world in which the authoritarianism of authority has been dethroned (or at
least was supposed to be), we recognize that while positions of authority are granted by the
social order and ultimately by the divine will, people in positions of authority must earn the
respect and honor needed to lead effectively. For example, a congregation calls a person as
their pastor and the greater church ordains and installs that individual into a position of
leadership in that congregation. This position of authority is given to us clergy by God and by
you. If we clergy are to have your respect and to carry any honor in your eyes, we must earn it.
For this reason, any type of clergy misconduct devastates a congregation. Certainly in the
realm of religion, character matters.
3
What about the character issue in the realm of politics? It matters there as well. However, the
character issue becomes so politicized by both political parties, depending on whose character
is in the White House, that it cannot be discussed without partisanship taking over. Sadly, what
once was said of Oakland Athletics professional baseball team owner Charlie Finley applies too
often to people in positions of political authority. Of Finley it was said: He had such a high
regard for the truth that he used it sparingly.
IV
So that this sermon does not end up being just another hand-wringing, woe-is-us lament over
politics, I now move to the specific role of religion with respect to politics. I have already said
that God and government need not be enemies since the principle of government is ordained by
God. While religious people are to submit to government’s authority, government needs
religion to keep it accountable and truthful before God.
In ancient Israel, leadership involved three primary roles: the king, the priest, and the prophet.
The latter two (priests and prophets) were religious roles. However, the priests often became
pawns of the kings. From ancient Israel to Holy Roman Empire to fundamentalist Islamic Iran,
problems arise when religion and politics become too cozy.
The prophets of Israel were the ones who stood outside the halls of power and called for
accountability. Yet, as we heard in 1 Kings 22 even the prophets could become stooges of the
state if they weren’t careful. 400 prophets served as “yes men” to the King of Israel. Micaiah
represented the true prophet of God who spoke God’s word regardless of the cost. The King of
Israel hated him because he never said anything good about the King. The prophet’s job was
not to say what was favorable rather what was true, and yet to say it with respect since even the
opposition’s voice needs to be heard. Ancient Israel and the modern church are not prophetic
before political leaders, if they become disrespectful and dismissive of those leaders.
The church must always have a prophetic role in the political arena. Some of the great chapters
of our nation’s history have resulted from religion embracing its important and critical
prophetic role. Without the influence of the Christian faith upon our national political life,
there could not have been the abolition of slavery or women’s suffrage with their right to vote
or temperance movement against the abuse of alcohol or labor movement that freed children
from factories and insured a sustainable wage or civil rights movement or gay rights
movement.
V
There is a distinction between religion and politics and thank God for that difference. Without
it we would not enjoy the freedoms we do enjoy. When the boundary between religion and
politics is obscured both realms suffer. Today the boundary is threatened to the point of
religion being censored in a society that is not willing to censor any other voice. Religion is
being denied equal access to places where every imaginable expression of opinion has open
access.
Our nation’s Founding Fathers, from Puritan Calvinists to Unitarian Deists, agreed that the
moral and ethical foundation of their democracy and ours was dependent on religion. While
they grasped the important distinction between religion and politics, they never intended to
deny religion access to public life. The goal of the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights with
its wall of separation between church and state was to separate the institution of the church
from the structure of public government, but not to separate religion from public life which is
how the First Amendment seems now to be interpreted.
4
Today the courts rightly deny state support for religion but wrongly deny religion its legitimate
place in public institutions and conversations. This denial of freedom has spawned the
religious right’s attempts to gain access to the public debate. It is ironic that political liberalism
gives birth to religious fundamentalism – talk about the law of unintended consequences.
Today politics is doing to religion what the Bill of Rights prevents religion from doing to
politics – one imposing itself on the other in the public arena. Sociologist Peter Berger
describes our current religious and political climate this way: If India is the most religious
nation in the world and Sweden the least religious, then the United States is a nation of Indians
ruled by Swedes. That statement can be made regardless of which political party controls the
White House or Congress.
Religion and politics are both essential for a just and free society. When politics replaces
religion, a nation becomes a body without a soul. As Nigerian poet Wole Soyinka put it: When
a nation cannot be defined by an ideal, a purpose or a direction, it becomes nothing more than
a cameo of personalities. (“The Open Sore of a Continent”)
For a nation to have any moral consensus, religion needs access to public life and the church
must maintain its role as a prophetic voice from God. Sometimes religion’s voice is heard as
being liberal, sometimes as being conservative, but it must have the freedom to speak and it
must exercise that freedom.
While I have argued that government and the courts need to respect religion and not place
unfair barriers upon its free expression, I continue to affirm the importance of both religion and
politics existing together in creative tension as the strange bed fellows that they are.
VI
One of the values of the separation of church and state is the restriction upon congregations and
clergy from telling their members who to vote for. Not only is that option contrary to IRS Tax
Code it is also contrary to common sense and to Christian faith. How can anyone say that this
candidate and not the other is God’s choice, or that a true Christian can vote only for one
particular candidate?
As Christians, we may claim God’s governing purposes over life, but we may not claim that the
divine purpose can be carried out only through one particular person or one particular set of
policies.
The danger of some elements of the religious right and some elements of the religious left is the
naïve partisanship of each. They think their way is the only way or worse they think their way
is God’s way. The voices of the right or of the left often use code words to claim God’s
support, words like “morality” or “justice” depending on agenda of the person who is speaking.
While some elements of each group have partisan tunnel vision, voices in both the religious
right and the religious left offer important challenges to us as a faith community living under a
secular government. Yet both the religious right and the religious left must take care to keep to
their role as prophet and not seek to become king.
With the necessary distinction and important role of both religion and politics, there must
always be a healthy tension between church and state. Thus there will be an inescapable
5
element of tension in our lives of faith whenever we ponder politics, whenever we pray for
political leaders, whenever we go to the polls to vote and whenever we pay our taxes.