Who is Caesar?
In our present economic times there is much angst over many things. Jobs are being shipped over seas (supposedly). Banks are collapsing. Mortgages are being defaulted. Fraud is rampant. Oh and there’s the bit about government spending. Back on April 15th I attended the Dayton tea party. It was a wonderful experience. It was the first time I’d done anything really political (outside of voting) since attending pro-life demonstrations back in high school. It was great to go and cheer and jeer at the Obama administration and all of the spending he’s doing. As a Libertarian, I’m generally opposed to the idea of taxes. I obey the law of the land because I don’t believe in dodging taxes - it’s not that kind of issue. But I support the repeal of the 16th ammendment and the abolition of the IRS.
But how does this jive with being a Christian. I’ve been mulling this one over for a while. Can I rightly be against taxes if I’m a Christian. What does the Bible say about taxes? Matthew 22:17-21 comes to mind. Several of the religious leaders of the day pose the question to Jesus, “Should we pay taxes to Caesar?”. What’s Jesus’s response? He holds up a coin and says “Whose image is on this coin?” They answer that it is Caesar’s so he delivers the line in verse 21. “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
So from this the most direct interpretation is that Jesus is telling us to honor the earthly King by giving him the taxes due to him. This is backed up by Romans 13. Case closed right? Maybe. This brings me back to my original question. Who is Caesar? At that day Caesar was the emperor - the supreme king over all the known world. Why was the coin Caesar’s - because he commissioned its minting and allowed his citizens to use it. It bore his image as a branding mark. But what about today? Who is Caesar in our culture? I think most people would say it’s the federal government. We don’t have a king, but we still have a central federal government that comissions the minting of money and allows its use. Therefore the federal government is Caesar and the money we owe in taxes is the federal government’s. Render unto the federal government what is the federal government’s. Case closed now?
I don’t think so. I think we’re missing a very key part of the equation. We have a unique situation here in this land. Abraham Lincoln described it best. We have a government that is “of the people, by the people and for the people.” I would argue then that the people are Caesar. In Rome the government was of, by and for Caesar. Now the government is of, by and for us. And as our stewards, the federal government owes us what is ours, not the other way around. We commission the federal government’s use of our money for the common good. So when the government uses our money to “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”, we allow it. But when they use our money to allow and fund the injustice of illegal immigration, insure domestic strife, dismantle our common defence, promote individual welfare and destroy the blessings of liberty to ourselves and especially our posterity, that is when we balk.
It is not as though citizens thing Caesar should not have his money. It is as though Caesar is unhappy with an underling who is using his money in a way he does not wish it to be used. I think this fundamentally makes sesne. It’s how I reconcile my Libertarian stance with my Christian world view. I think it works very well together. Thoughts?
The Truth War
I’m adding one more series to my plate here on this site. As you know I’ve taken a nose dive into the Cedarville conspiracy issue. I’ll give a brief history if for a wrap up. Cedarville has been in the midst of some philosophical controversy over the past 5-6 years, and as a result some Bible professors have been let go, for what has been cited as “violations of the faculty handbook”. These professors are some of the more “Conservative” professors at Cedarville. They stand for conservative hermeneutics. Because these conservative professors have been let go, and because certain other “Liberal” professors have not been let go, there has arisen a group of students, as personified in the Facebook group “Students who want the truth about the faculty exodus away from Cedarville,” who have jumped to the conclusion that Cedarville is intentionally trying to oust its conservative faculty to replace them with liberal faculty so that they can move away from such things as “Conservative Hermeneutics… Biblical Truth… Scriptural Authority… Her Baptist Roots…” Now there are a plethora of issues that surround this. I’ve tackled the logical error that is the assumption of what is going on – the conspiracy theory that has arisen. But now I’m going to get into some other areas of this.
Answers in Genesis Creation Museum
On memorial day, Answers in Genesis is opening its museum in Kentucky (sweet!) and the subject of Mike McConnell’s radio show has been about the fact that there’s a lot of evolutionists protesting the opening of this museum, for reasons you can guess, and McConnell has been coming down on the side of the museum saying that no matter what it’s their constitutional right to have it, no matter what.
So I wrote the following e-mail to McConnell to rebut his callers: (more…)
In Case Anyone Wonders
In case anyone is wondering why I’m so critical of IFB’s and IFBC’s and the way they do Evangelism, I have an answer for you. I’m critical because I see the way the world reacts. I’ve done street evangelism in the FE way. I’ve heard people’s reaction to the gospel we’ve given them, and it terrifies me to see the world reacting the way they do to the ‘good news’. Let me give you an example from pop culture: (more…)