Church/State Competition

Day two of this interesting new reality and everyone has an explanation for it.  It always seems to me that if they can explain that fast, they could prevent it, because they had to see it coming.  So I take such takes with a grain of salt – they are grinding their personal axe against what happened.  The landscape is stunning though.  Has the electorate lost its mind?  It seems so in L.A.  If you are Mormon, you have got to be angry.  They were, after all, literally driven out of the country for something legalized on Tuesday.  We just may have put an enemy agent into office.  Personally, I see us in a state where the church and state are not separate, but competitive – and the church is losing big time.  But then so did Jesus….

It is not just that a religious opinion is invalidated in pubic discourse because it is religious in nature and must therefore be held “separate”  That is just garden variety bigotry.  Rather it is that government and church compete directly over things to to.

Yesterday, I ranted, “‘Bring healthcare to the sick?’  The nation used to be littered with charity hospitals for precisely that purpose, many belonging to churches – until government took over and drove them all out of business.”  Church and state in direct competition.  My link about Los Angeles above is all about homelessness.  The City of  Los Angeles will not let religious missions house the homeless.  Church and state in direct competition.    It would appear that state blessed polygamy is good, but religious based polygamy is bad.  Church and state in direct competition.  About that likely enemy agent?  Well that is all about religion, one willing to subvert government and one trying to honor the constitutional and historical deal.

The key questions here are not faith or values – they are money and power.  The state is simply jealous of the amounts of money flowing through religious hands for delivering healthcare and helping the homeless – they wanted the money and so they took it.  It really is no more complicated than that.  It is no different than when Henry VIII took all the church property during the Reformation.  Huge bureaucracies built, billions of dollars skimmed off the top.  In the case of Los Angeles, billions laundered through NGO’s in downright corruption.  Honestly, that’s all that is going on here.

I have said often in these spaces, “Leadership is seeing a parade and getting in front of it.”  The state saw the church doing these things, helping the poor, the sick and the homeless and decided to get in front of the parade  – mostly because it made them look in charge (power) and it let them control the money.  The polygamy issue is blatant.  It is a downright statement – God cannot order polygamy, but we can. While that adage does define American political leadership, I have always found it weak.  Real leadership organizes and motivates the parade.  Getting in front of the parade is a shortcut at best, probably a cheat.

Now ask yourself some questions.  Why was Jesus crucified?  He represented a threat to state power.  Why, throughout history, have Christians been persecuted?  They represent a threat to state power.  Not a direct threat mind you, Jesus could have done away with Rome on a whim, He was God after all.  No the threat was indirect.  Christianity sought to make better people, people of character.  The more character people have, the less government is necessary.  Our ideas about limited government are born of that very fact.  What makes that potential enemy agent so dangerous is that his religion doesn’t care about character, only power.

It is tempting to respond to recent developments by militarizing the church and taking it into battle.  It’s been tried.  It failed.  It corrupted the church for centuries.  Our response is do what Jesus sent us to do – “Go and make disciples of all nations.”  We do that and the whole government thing will work out just fine.