“We Have No King But Caesar”

“Never think that you need to protect God. Because anytime you think you need to protect God, you can be sure that you are worshipping an idol.”—Stanley Hauerwas

Last week, President Donald Trump appealed to evangelical voters by claiming Joe Biden will “hurt the Bible, hurt God” and that Biden, a lifelong Catholic, is “against God.” This isn’t the first time he positioned himself as evangelicals’ knight in shining armor. In January 2016, Trump lamented that Christians “don’t exert the power that we should have,” going on to promise “Christianity will have power. If I’m there, you’re going to have plenty of power, you don’t need anybody else. You’re going to have somebody representing you very, very well. Remember that.” 

And remember they have. 

In the 2016 election, 81% of white evangelicals voted for Trump, and new polls suggest 82% will support his re-election bid in November. At first glance, it seems like a strange union between the religious right, i.e. those who claim to vote based on “Christian values,” and a thrice-married, foul-mouthed, former casino-owning billionaire who recently admitted to paying $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels as part of a settlement linked to their alleged trist. Yet when we consider what’s at stake—the ability to rule and shape the United States of America in their image—it makes perfect sense. This compromise with the powers that be, wealth, hedonism, and Christian nationalism have linked the Church in damning union with those first-century priestly voices who shouted in unison, “We have no king but Caesar” as they handed their rightful king over to Pilate. 

So let’s be real. Trump’s religious supporters have never backed him because of ethics or morality; it’s about power and protecting that power at all costs. 

But oh, what a cost. The Church struck a deal with the establishment rather than lose her privileged position at Caesar’s table. Astutely recognizing the shifting sands beneath her feet like the rise of religious pluralism, the ongoing sexual revolution, the racial “browning of America,” and the rapid increase in atheism, evangelicals decided they needed a savior, someone who would fight for their right to power. The President has been more than happy to oblige. Yet what do you profit if you gain the whole Supreme Court and lose your very souls?

Sadly this isn’t new, nor is it a uniquely American problem. For thousands of years, the Body of Christ has been wedded and bedded by power, believing the seductive lie that in order to transform culture, we must control culture. The faulty assumption of course is that if Christians aren’t in charge, culture will go to hell in a handbasket. But this desire for power has more often than not meant that “the oppressor and the oppressed have simply switched seats,” to borrow the words of ethicist Lesslie Newbigin. 

And history bears witness to the fact that when the Church has shared power with the State, things have gone off the rails pretty quickly. It was Christian Europe newly drunk with power that launched the unholy Crusades against the Muslims. It was Puritans who surrounded a sleeping Pequot Indian village in 1637 and set it ablaze, killing 700 inhabitants, mostly women and children. It was onward Christian soldiers who followed Colonel John Chivington in 1864 to Sand Creek, Colorado, where they massacred and mutilated 150 Cheyenne Indians (again, mostly women and children). Christian Germany acquiesced to Hitler’s reign of terror. Christian America dropped two atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, killing over 200,000 civilians. I could go on, but you get the point. Christians have always had a hard time serving God as He asks and trusting that He can and will bring about His Kingdom on His terms, so out of fear or greed, we’ve sought power, control, and dominance in order to do it ourselves.

But Jesus won’t let us get away with that. He shows us another way, one beyond power, control, or dominion—but at great cost. 

For a more thorough discussion of the cost of the American Evangelical Church prostrating itself to power and politics, check out our podcast episode “American Christianity’s Unholy Trinity”!

Immediately following His baptism, Jesus is led away into the wilderness where, we are told, He is tempted by the devil. In Luke’s version of the story, we read: “The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, ‘I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. If you worship me, it will all be yours.’” Satan parades all the kingdoms of the world before Jesus and offers to grant Him jurisdiction over them—as a vassal king of course. He’s promising protection, he’s promising power by any means necessary. He’s offering domination instead of suffering. He’s begging Jesus to bring about the Kingdom of God through evil means, to bend the world to His will, ultimately corrupting the entire enterprise in the process. 

From His first testing in the wilderness to His last one in the garden, Jesus’ unceasing temptation was to bring about His kingdom through coercion instead of invitation. To force Himself on a world powerless to resist Him. Thus, the temptation for Jesus then—which He thoroughly rejected—and for us now is to achieve good ends through unjust means. But for Christians, “there is no distinction between the end and the means. In the work of God, the means and the end are identical,” writes French political scientist Jacque Ellul. Unfortunately since Constantine, the Church has proven she is more than willing to accept the bargain offered to Jesus in the wilderness. She craves authority, splendor, and power regardless of who she has to worship in order to get it. 

And yet we preach Christ crucified, which is a stumbling block to Gentiles and foolishness to the fundamentalist. “In Christianity the cross is the test of everything which deserves to be called Christian,” wrote German theologian Jurgen Moltmann. And herein lies the scandal: We worship the crucified God, not a powerful President. Jesus was inaugurated in weakness, and His Kingdom has come through suffering love. The rightful King reigns from a tree, not a throne. That is why as Christians, we must face up to the crucified God by asking ourselves anew: What kind of God does the cross reveal? Does this God who is made known as a defenseless man on a cross need our protection or did He prove once and for all that nothing, not life or death or the powers that be will keep Him from bringing about His will on earth as it is in heaven? 

The politics of the cross therefore turn the world upside down and function as a clarion call to wake up the American Church resting far too comfortably in the bosom of power. Ironically to most believers,  the Church has always been most effective when she had absolutely no political power. Our task is not to control culture, but transform it. And that will only happen when we pick up our own political crosses and follow the way of the crucified God, who abandoned all notions of coercion, power, and domination and instead chose to save the world by suffering on behalf of his political enemies rather than defeating them. 

The political strategy God gives the world is not coercion, it’s the cross. That is why the Church, in service to King Jesus, functions as a community that would rather serve than rule, suffer than inflict suffering. 

And yet just a few weeks ago Christians cheered as armed officers tear-gassed peaceful protestors and shot them with rubber pellets in order to clear a path for Mr. Trump to march from the White House to St. John’s Episcopal Church, where he held up a Bible as a sign of Christian power. Obviously the meaning was clear, he alone stood between you and the death of God. He alone had the power to save. For the astute historian, one couldn’t help thinking Trump’s stunt was a modern version of the Emperor Constantine’s vision in 312 AD, when he is said to have seen the sign of the cross in the sky inscribed with the words, “By This Sign Conquer.” 

But Christians were never meant to conquer, and the Bible doesn’t need to be defended. 

The Bible isn’t an icon of coercion; it is an invitation to love. Whenever we are tempted to use force, to appeal to power, or to employ evil on behalf of God, remember these haunting words from author and priest Barbara Brown Taylor: 

Jesus was not killed by atheism and anarchy. He was brought down by law and order allied with religion—which is always a deadly mix. Beware those who claim to know the mind of God and are prepared to use force, if necessary, to make others conform. Beware those who cannot tell God’s will from their own. 

Never forget that in your best attempts to protect God, you might just be allied against Him. Do we trust in a suffering Savior or a strong man? Do we really believe God’s Kingdom will come through unjust means? Ultimately, we know no one can hurt God or the Bible, but as Yale Divinity Professor Miroslav Volf recently tweeted, “We can hurt the mission of God and drive people away from faith. The best way? Link faith closely to nation, political power, and rely on Cyrus-like rulers. The young will abandon faith and the rest will worship the Gilded Bull.” 

As Christ-followers, hopefully you find yourself where I do most election seasons: politically homeless. I realize no political party can lay claim to my ultimate devotion, and I also know God doesn’t need my protection, He simply wants my allegiance.