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.
