Far be it from me to explain religious texts to a noted theologian like Jerry Falwell, Jr., but when Jesus was asked whether Jews ought to pay the tax imposed by Rome, it was expected that he would say ‘no.’ At the time, Israel was suffering under foreign, pagan occupation. Tax resistance had led to riots, and many patriots saw noncooperation as a moral obligation. However, the questioners were actually seeking to goad Jesus into taking a subversive stand so they could inform on him to the Roman authorities. At least, that’s the story told in the Synoptic Gospels.
When Jesus surprised them by encouraging them to pay the tax he temporarily avoided arrest. Whether this was a shrewd effort at self-preservation or a deep matter of principle, the result was that Jesus taught his followers that it’s more important to focus on their religious responsibilities than to wage war against a foreign occupier. In the bargain, he justified paying your taxes even when you have good reasons to dislike how those taxes are spent.
Falwell Jr. seems to understand this very well in one respect. He distinguishes between the earthly kingdom and the heavenly kingdom and rightly notes that Jesus was concerned primarily with the latter. That doesn’t prevent him from spending most of his time shilling for a political party that portrays taxation as robbery, however, nor does it keep him from taking the position that Jesus somehow saw the Roman occupiers as legitimate authorities.
So, in his mind, it’s legitimate for a government to lack basic Christian principles like the importance of caring for refugees. He argues that a government should look out for the interests of its own people which means that it ought not ask its citizens to make sacrifices that might benefit a noncitizen.
It’s such a distortion of the teachings of Jesus to say that what he taught us to do personally — to love our neighbors as ourselves, help the poor — can somehow be imputed on a nation. Jesus never told Caesar how to run Rome. He went out of his way to say that’s the earthly kingdom, I’m about the heavenly kingdom and I’m here to teach you how to treat others, how to help others, but when it comes to serving your country, you render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s. It’s a distortion of the teaching of Christ to say Jesus taught love and forgiveness and therefore the United States as a nation should be loving and forgiving, and just hand over everything we have to every other part of the world. That’s not what Jesus taught. You almost have to believe that this is a theocracy to think that way, to think that public policy should be dictated by the teachings of Jesus.
…The government should be led by somebody who is going to do what’s in the best interest of the government and its people. And I believe that’s what Jesus thought, too.
It’s a nice twist that Falwell Jr. frames this as a defense of secular government. It’s a horribly garbled interpretation of history and the gospels, though, as it appears to say that Jesus thought Rome was acting in either the best interest of its Roman citizens, which was beyond reproach, or that it was operating in the best interests of its subjugated Jewish subjects, which is insane.
It also implies some kind of hard demarcation between the moral obligations of a citizen in his private life and his obligations as a public servant. The private citizen must make sacrifices to avoid damnation but the public servant should be applauded for the refusing to make sacrifices because it protects the narrow secular self-interests of the people he represents.
I actually agree that public policy shouldn’t be based on some interpretation of religious texts, but I also think that some religious principles have been rightly incorporated into public policy. It’s very odd to see a supposed Christian leader argue that the government should not seek to follow the teachings of Jesus wherever that is possible and consistent with respect for other faith traditions or no faith at all.
Jesus said to pay your taxes and to look after the orphans and refugees, to feed the hungry and clothe the poor. He never suggested that it was acceptable to turn your back on someone in need because it might entail some sacrifice.
Religious “philosophy” can be bent into any shape, made to say anything, to justify any action.
History is replete with examples (each bloodier than the last) but the current situation in America makes it as clear as day.
. . . current American Talibangelicals.
Great religious leaders saw the problem of religious hypocrisy. The Qu’ran, which Muslims would say came through Mohammad as a transmission but those secular would consider his teaching, states that one must be careful because the devil loves to quote scripture. In other words, ignore the overarching teaching by pointing at specific passages to justify that which opposes the teaching.
There was a recent good piece in WashPo why the Christian Right is the faction that remains most loyal to Trump, and why the right wing Christians are largely all in on taking a hard line on the Wall.
https:/www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/01/02/walls-around-trump-are-crumbling-evangelicals-may
-be-his-last-resort?utm_term=.6ba7d3cb7299 ..
The Klan was also a white “Christian” organization, and its burning cross a symbol of white christian, emphasis on “white,” domination.
Embattled minority that sees itself as under siege likes Trump specifically for his ability to treat poorly the people and forces they fear.
You ask:
Because…long-term…he wants to “shut down the government.” Why? To replace it with his own, unopposed rule. That aim was clearly enunciated by Steve Bannon years ago. The most frightening thing that I have heard from Trump…at the top of a long, long list…was the recent phrase “Declare a National Emergency” regarding the resistance to his border wall efforts.
That has the definite ring of an American Kristallnacht as far as I am concerned. Always remember…when Hitler was first elected chancellor only 1/3rd of the German electorate supported him and his party. Sound familiar?
Does the remaining portion of this country’s political and/or military and/or media and/or judicial infrastructure have the courage and strength to tell him “Hell no!!! We will not let you do that!!!“???
I really do not know.
We will find out, eventually.
Before 2020 if Trump thinks that he is about to lose his position.
Watch.
AG
In these posts of Arthur’s he comes off as being excited by prospective attempts by Trump to declare dictatorial rule. I simply don’t find his protests credible, given his extremely regressive and radical ideology. I mean, this is a guy who wrote here that we should “BREAK UP THE U.S!!!” Given that Arthur has consistently defended that truly terrible and unworkable belief of his, Trump’s desires to break the previous paradigm sound right up AG’s alley.
If we were to accept AG’s protests and decide that he’s offering up these dictatorial prospects as alerts to us, I have two responses:
I think that Hillary Clinton would also have been “a uniquely horrible President,” and probably…much like Barack Obama…a much more skilled deceiver and blame-shifter than is Trump.
You write:
Oh yeah?
Where was your worry and alertness when Obama was creating a potentially Orwellian surveillance state and waging more wars in more place…overt and covert…than did your previous bugaboo, Butch II? Where was it when Clinton I sold U.S. industry…and with it the middle class/working class economy…down the river with NAFTA?
Spare me the lectures about Ron Paul. He’s old news now, anyway.
And so are you.
Go away.
AG
Bad faith regressive conservative offers critiques of Democrats in bad faith.
Tell us about your support for voter ID laws again, Arthur.
Tell us about your continuing support for the Permanent War state, centristfield.
AG
It’s the world-beating, Big Lie-level hypocrisy which fills me with a white-hot rage. Think about how Falwell and the rest of the white evangelical community responded to President Obama and respond to any governance done by Democratic Party leaders. Keep that in your mind as you read Falwell say things like “Jesus never told Caesar how to run Rome.”
So that means evangelicals will lay off any criticism of Speaker Pelosi and the new House majority? No? Oh.
We saw what they did. We know what they’ll do the moment a Democrat takes the White House. History didn’t start yesterday, motherfuckers.
Even better, it’s Goebbelsian Big-Lies + Straw Man bonus arguments! Because of course opposing separation of infants/toddlers from parents and desiring humane processing of refuge seekers = insane “Open Borders!”.
Yes, now those crazy Lib’ruls demand (in Jeebus’ Holy Name, no less!) that we “just hand over everything we have to every other part of the world!” Thanks, Rev. Falwell, I’ve got a clean conscience now!
Governmental crushing of “sin” by others, Yes! Giving material help to others, No!
That Jesus implied no collective moral action by Christians (or “Christian government”) would be news to the Catholic Church and (certainly) Pope Francis—but they’re papists in league with the Anti-Christ, no doubt. Certainly the early Protestant movements not only expected, but demanded, “Christian” government by princes. As for poor Imperial subject Jesus of Nazareth, it is doubtful that the idea of government “by the people” crossed his mind, if indeed one can even credit to the historical figure the famous saying “Render unto Caesar”.
And as for America in the “conservative” era, 2000 or so years after Jesus, it is a curious Christian theology that seems quite keen to “impute onto a nation” various teachings arising from the Old Testament (such as the ban on homosexuality and abortion, not to mention enforced prayer in public schools), but decline to collectively “impute” the various New Testament teachings you specify. The goal appears to be an attempt to lessen some of the cognitive dissonance that may be rending Falwell’s (generally spite-filled) flock. But this is slicing the baloney pretty thin, Jerry Jr!
I think that some (rather strait-forward thinking?) Evangelicals are indeed raising their eyebrows a bit at what is quite obviously anti-Christian governance by the National Trumpalists (and their Anti-Christ, Der Trumper), hence the need for a little bit of “correct teaching” by Christian Grifter Falwell…
. . . to the core of what’s so dishonest and hypocritical about Falwell’s bullshit.
And yet Falwell, and others like him, advocate that the state should have a law against abortion, because of their religious belief that it is a sin. He also claims to believe that the US is a “Christian nation” and that its laws should be informed by Biblical law, e.g. a theocracy. Biblically, they are hypocrites in so many ways.
For example, Jesus also said, in Matthew 6:5 (KJV):
“And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.”
And yet prayer in schools Falwell and his ilk have insisted must become public law.
As for immigration, Mary and Joseph and Jesus themselves were refugees, and the so-called Wise Men, who were sent originally by Herod to find them and tell Herod where Jesus was so he could have him killed, actually ended up warning them so they could flee and seek asylum.
Here’s who Falwell is:
https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/jerry-falwell-jr-funded-miami-pool-attendants-alton-road-real-est
ate-deal-10960428
“Falwell Jr. recently admitted in court that he paid $1.8 million to a pool attendant at Miami Beach’s Fontainebleau resort who had befriended the Falwell family. It was part of an exceedingly odd business deal in which the group tried to buy the Miami Hostel at 810 Alton Rd. in South Beach. The building is attached to the popular Italian restaurant Macchialina and also houses the 120-bed hostel, where a bed costs just $20 per night.”
“Falwell Jr. and his wife appear to have simply “befriended” a then-21-year-old pool attendant while the husband and wife were staying at the ritzy Fontainebleau. They then welcomed the pool attendant into their lives, began flying him around on a private jet, and even put up millions of dollars to help his business ventures.”
And this is an example of your Christian evangelical.
I commend Mr. Longman for taking notice of Falwell’s comments; particularly given his great influence in evangelical circles, they deserve attention. And I’m not surprised he has difficulty sorting out the issues involved.
The essential problem is that evangelicalism does not have a substantial intellectual tradition in the first place. As historian Mark Noll put it in his 1995 book, “The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind,” “The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind.” And within this missing element, it particularly lacks a developed idea of the relationship between religion and society — unlike the Catholic Church, which has examined this issue for many centuries. So intellectual lightweights such as Falwell — whose undergraduate education was at his father’s Liberty University and whose highest degree is a J.D. — are free to speak out of the abundance of their unreflective ignorance. This problematic situation is made worse because the congregational structure of evangelicalism makes the establishment of any unified line of though difficult and tends to privilege leaders with the most money and the largest groups of followers, however badly informed they may be.
Properly critiquing Falwell’s comments requires understanding of the broader Christian tradition on religion and society. That’s not available to Mr. Longman, which understandably leaves him puzzled. One can simply say that no one who understands that tradition would endorse the sharp separation between the Christian-as-believer and the Christian-as-citizen that Falwell does. But for some evangelicals, it’s a tempting outlook, because it relieves them from the necessity to engage issues for which their faith background doesn’t well prepare them.
There are evangelicals who approach these matters better; Peter Wehner and Michael Gerson are examples. And one can find others historically; many of the views of Frederick Douglass were broadly evangelical. But the broad tradition of deep thought on these matters that characterizes Catholicism is generally missing.
Gerson? Seriously?
Yes — seriously. My enthusiasm for Gerson has limits, but he is actually trying to address seriously the difficult questions about how evangelical faith should engage civic society — which is a lot more than Falwell is doing. Take a look at the essay I linked in another comment. I think that Gerson in that essay should have had more to say about evangelicalism in the South, especially the SBC, than he did; downplaying that very important part of evangelicalism amounted to deceiving readers by omission, and by doing so he made it much easier for himself to make a defensible case for evangelical involvement with politics. But that is an essay by someone who is really trying to address the concerns involved, and it deserves respect.
“…deceiving readers by omission…” has become Gerson’s brand; it’s all over his writings. He’s been trying to keep the Republican Party in power by any means necessary. He’s countenanced great varieties of immorality from members of the modern conservative movement and declared immorality by members of the progressive movement where there has been little to none. He’s not an honest broker.
Evangelical involvement with politics in the last 40 years has brought great immorality and ruin to both our political system and evangelical Christianity.
That may be a lot more than what Falwell is doing, but its still not saying much when the end game is civic engagement in order to sell a republican party that is hypocritical, at best, and at worst antithetical to Biblical values as professed by Christ.
That said, “deceiving readers by omission” is par for the course when you are working to align a religious ideology based on truth and love with a so-called conservative (as currently constituted; conservatism wasn’t always like this) political/social ideology that now only succeeds through fomenting values — hatred, greed, self-centered-ness, and deceit that are antithetical to Biblical values. If you are giving Gerson props for doing this, I agree with you; he’s good at it.
Far be it from me to judge, however when I read your justification for promotion of Gerson and his end game, caveats and all, and this analysis of Gerson, this comes to mind:
Matthew 16:26 What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?
Far be it from me to judge, however deceiving people to align a religious philosophy that distorts God’s word in order to sell a social order that does more harm than good to the average person is a soul-forfeiting exercise if ever there was one.
Just to add one note: Falwell’s remarks clearly reflect ignorance, real or assumed, about the history of his own faith community. As one outstanding example, many evangelicals — especially in the North — were highly active in the movement to abolish slavery in the first part of the nineteenth century. Indeed, evangelicalism split over this matter; the Southern Baptist Convention arose from the revolt of slavery-supporting evangelicals in the South against condemnation of slavery. (A century and a half later, the SBC officially recognized the gross failure of Christian witness that this action involved.) Those evangelicals involved in abolitionism, however, clearly rejected Falwell’s concept that their Christian faith was unrelated to their civic life.
Some related themes were explored by Gerson in an essay a few months ago very worth reading (even if it fails to deal adequately with the particularly repellent political past of the southern branch of evangelicalism):
https:/www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/04/the-last-temptation/554066
Evangelicals and fundamentalists with their multiplicity of churches, usually each started by a charismatic leader or a clever conman (like the prosperity gospel churches) are analogous to the Salafist Muslims in which anyone capable of commanding a following can start their version of fanatical and puritanical Islam some of which, as we know, are also violent. In contrast, Shi’a Islam has an elaborate clerical hierarchy – very similar in form to the Catholic Church. Of course, theologically, there is very little similarity between Christianity’s sects and Islam’s but it’s interesting how they choose to organize themselves.
You’re being rather too kind to state that Jerry Falwell, Jr. is a noted theologian (unless you were being sarcastic). Like his father Falwell, Jr. is a noted conman and shyster. He twists Christian teachings into the most abhorrent rightwing views and he is pretty outrageously hypocritical as in his FL. hostel, which embraces LGBTQ beliefs and proscribes the teaching of religion.
Any serious policy scholar should ignore Falwell, Jr. He’s only slightly more respectable than Alex Jones.
. . . was indeed the intent.
As a Christian, I find the amount of air time and column inches given over to people like Falwell etc to be extremely depressing. Over and over again we see these extremists being trotted out on CNN and so forth as the sole arbiters of the Christian worldview. Not as the spokespeople of an important — maybe even the largest — segment of Christianity but the only segment (aside from maybe Catholicism).
As a person who feels the Christian tradition has value still to provide the world (despite our many failings — we are only human, with all that implies), all I can see fools like this doing is driving ever more young people away from the church. They see hate and selfishness and hypocrisy and know it for what it is; why shouldn’t they go? Modern evangelicals are destroying the very church they claim to be trying to save. And maybe the rest of us should let it go. These evangelicals know nothing of Jesus. They quote his words and claim to be His disciples, but they don’t really know Him. As if Jesus would be the least bit put out if Rome gave alms to the poor! If he accepted the payment of tax for aqueducts and legions, surely he would have thrilled if some of it also went to help the poor!
I could go on for pages. I’ll stop. We all know the tune, anyway. /end rant
like don and don jr, and uday and qusay, and so many like them, jerry jr is just another in a list of pale imitations of their wretched fathers …
Jesus came out of a tradition. The Old Testament prophets had a great deal to say about the responsibilities nations have, as nations, to the poor and the widow and the stranger. And the judgment that would fall on them from heaven if they scorned that responsibility.
The prophets also set a special opprobrium on kings who neglect these duties. And in a democracy, we the people are the ostensible rulers. It follows we are under a double biblical curse if we don’t engage in public, collective, care for the needy.
You can pretend that the Sermon on the Mount is restricted to private expressions of charity. But you can’t profess to follow the Bible if you denounce government’s attempts to alleviate others’ suffering.
If Falwell were nothing less than a complete sociopath who cynically twists biblical passages to manipulate his followers into doing whatever brings him more power and money, his behavior would be different from what we see how?
His followers would act their way anyway, he is just one of many getting out in front of the parade. Franklin Graham, Tony Perkins, all the rest just take them where they want to go. That’s who they are.
Yes, but Falwell doesn’t believe this. He’s lying when he says that he thinks the government should be secular and held separate from Christian principles. The “Moral Majority” was formed to install Christian conservatives into government, so that they could pass Biblical rule. So you don’t actually agree at all.
And in any case, Jesus wasn’t having lunch regularly with Caesar.
There are numerous reasons I turned away from anything to do with religion, not the least of which was the hypocrisy of evangelicals back during my youth. If anything, that bunch simply got worse over time. Ultimately it came down to a realization that there was no rational basis for a being (or beings) in the sky somehow tinkering with the lives of living beings. We’re born. We live. We go on a few diets. We die. In the meantime, we have to figure out how to make the time we have tolerable enough for ourselves and those whose lives we touch.
I turned away from organized religion, but I believe in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior with all my heart.
“But Reverend Falwell … Reverend Falwell …. what about the Good Samaritan?”
Say what you will about the tenets of Calvinism, dude, at least it’s an ethos.
Jerry Falwell, Sr & Jr, are ConMen and thieves, just like all the others of their ilk.
The snake oil that they sell is done only & solely to enrich and enhance themselves. It has nothing to do with the Bible or the teachings of a prophet called Jesus or with any other spiritual goals and aspirations.
It’s only about making money, honey.
The end.
I suppose it’s no surprise that whenever Booman tries to write in a serious way about anything with a religious/spiritual flavor, the comments he attracts are primarily snark and ridicule.
One of these days progressives in the secular blogosphere may figure out that they share ideals and goals with people who are inspired and motivated by religion.