In the Matter of Jesus and Caesar vs. Islamism

Three months ago I criticized Pope Francis for his own critiques of the new president, Donald Trump, in regard to the proposed border wall with Mexico.  If you recall the piece (just click the link if you don't), you'll recall that I invoked the biblical phrase that Jesus used in distinguishing the power on earth of man-made governments from the power of God that transcends all.

Asked about paying taxes, Jesus pointed out that the face stamped on the coin was that of Caesar.  "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's", He said, and "Render unto God that which is God's."

The meaning was perfectly clear.  Man is perfectly capable of creating governments on this planet and in this life, and the Lord is quite fine with that.  Government is the entity by which societies organize themselves to provide for the common good, at least in those societies which by their nature are inherently good.

I have always taken that reference as telling the world that it is perfectly reasonable for such governments to form and operate, and that they not only don't have to be theological, but it can be a trap if they are.  We have, of course, many ways around the world of worshiping God (check out those "Coexist" bumper stickers if you forgot that), and I have always preferred to let God sort out what is acceptable worship for Him around the world, and not worry about it myself.

But I was listening Monday to a news piece in which an American woman of the Muslim faith was contemptuously dismissing complainers on the left press, those who complained that President Trump had not used the specific phrase "radical Islamic terrorism" in his speech over the weekend to the Arab congress.  She noted that he had used about every one of those words (he left out "radical"), multiple times and with explicit meaning, and pointed out that the issue wasn't what Trump had said, but what Barack Obama had never said.

The woman pointed out that the president had used the terms "Islamic terror" and "Islamist radicals", or versions thereof, plenty of times given that his audience was all Muslims.  That was pretty strong verbiage, needless to say.  In passing, she pointed out the need for distinguishing between "Islam" and "Islamism", which has actually been a topic here about a year ago.

She explained that "Islam" was the Muslim faith, but "Islamism" was what she referred to as "political Islam", that is, the notion that Islam should govern our earthly political governance and not just be a faith and way to worship God.

As she said that, I thought that perhaps "Render unto Caesar ..." might actually have been a stronger piece of guidance.  Jesus -- who is regarded as a prophet in Islam, by the way, if memory serves -- may very well have been telling us that theological governments not only were not required, but were not a good thing at all.

Jesus, of course, was and is always right; it is simply up to us to interpret his messages properly as we hear them (as a Southern Baptist, I can tell you such interpretation is one of the five tenets of our denomination).  And perhaps I now hear a more strident message from that passage.

As I look across the nations of the world, I find that there are certainly two types that are extraordinary in their capacity to threaten their own people and their neighbors on earth -- those in which religion and the worship of God, in all nature, is suppressed (mostly communist nations such as China, Cuba and Venezuela), and those, primarily Muslim, in which the state is tightly aligned with a specific faith to the point that its own laws and those of the faith (sharia) are excessively intertwined ("Render unto Khamenei that which is Khamenei's, and render everything else unto Khamenei as well, or we'll kill you").

Then, of course, there is Israel, which is indeed a Jewish state but which allows the practice of other faiths inside its borders and acts more in the mode of "protecting Judaism but allowing everything else."  So maybe they're the exception proving the rule.

In the specific setting, Jesus was answering an intense query as to whether Jews should pay taxes, with the assumption by the questioner that He would oppose the support of the Roman government that taxes implied.  No, rather, his explanation that the Jews should indeed pay was an explicit separation of the role of government from the worship of God.

It will be a marvelous thought for each of us to go forward and look at the nations of the earth in 2017, and look at the value of that separation in defusing fanaticism.

And on that note, my quarterly tax estimates are due.

Copyright 2017 by Robert Sutton
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