The Intolerance of the Tolerant

Many of you have heard of the controversy surrounding Brendan Eich the former CEO of Mozilla that came to its climax last week. Eich was actually the founder of Mozilla and the board of directors of the company recently decided to name him CEO of the company. This announcement touched off a firestorm in the liberal community. In protest some businesses blocked the Mozilla Firefox search engine from visiting their sites. Their reasoning was to put so much financial pressure on Mozilla that they would have no other recourse but to fire Eich. Eventually, Eich stepped down and is no longer employed by the very company that he helped found. You may ask what had Eich done that was so terrible? Had he committed a heinous crime? Had he stolen some poor person’s last meal? His only fault was that he had given $1,000 to support a California amendment to ban same-sex marriage. It was found that Eich actually endorsed traditional marriage. Can you believe that! The audacity! With all joking beside it is a sobering reminder that we live in interesting times. The irony of this entire pitiful situation is that one of Mozilla’s commitments as a company is to tolerance and equality. I guess that commitment is only extended to people that agree with the country’s current slide into moral oblivion and relativism. What should we do as Christians? 1) Pray for our country. 2) Wake up and decide that we are willing to give up personal comfort so that we can take stand. 3) Realize that we belong to God’s kingdom first and we are just aliens in a world that has turned its back on God.

Church and State Relations

How many times have we heard, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's."? Many people use this sentence to justify a sharp Church and State separation. We see this interplay of Church and State in two extremes in the example of Emperor Theodosius I. Theodosius was raised to be a Christian and was an emperor in post-Constantine Rome.
One particular story illustrates how the Church's influence over the most powerful is used in a positive way. On one occasion Theodosius was angered at an uprising in Thessalonica. The Governor of the city was killed in a riot and the Emperor ordered the killing of 7000 people that were supposedly implicated in the murder. The Bishop of Milan, Ambrose, heard of this action and was outraged that a Christian Emperor would order such a thing. He blocked Theodosius from Communion and ordered him to do penance. Ambrose had such a strong influence over Theodosius that the logistics of how he could carry out the death penalty was altered and a 30 day wait period was instituted before the Emperor could carry out an execution. Ambrose was famously quoted as saying, "The Emperor is in the Church and not above the Church."

On the flip side we observe the opposite of Church and State relations with Theodosius making the Nicene Creed and dogma the official religion of the Roman Empire in 380 AD. No longer would paganism be the official religion of the Empire but now Christianity becomes the only religion recognized by the Empire. This would lead to many unsavory things that Theodosius probably never expected.

We look at the example of Theodosius and see the two visions of Church and State relations. This is a very complex subject that I definitely do not have the ability to answer. It is something that I have thought a good bit about because of the recent elections and many social issues that have come to the fore. Issues such as sanctity of life, justice for those less fortunate, and the struggle over all people being treated as if they are made in the image of God.

Going back to the original comment about Rendering unto Caesar and the popular perception of modern day people's thinking on how Jesus thought about the Church and State may be useful.

Jesus had just cleansed the Temple and wheels were being put in place that would take Him to the cross. The Temple cleansing act would have been a very Messianic act to the Jews and highly controversial. The two groups that come to Jesus only have one thing in common and that is their common goal to trap Jesus. The Herodians were in the back pocket of the Romans and had compromised with the pagans. The Pharisees were the Puritanical bunch that one day would side with the rebellion in AD 66 that would see the utter destruction of Israel. Two completely different agendas are trying to trap Jesus. If Jesus answers soft on the question then He basically sides with the pagan sympathizers and will be discredited with all of the people. If he answers as a revolutionary and says, “hey stick the thumb in the eye of the Romans”, they would have immediately gone to the Roman authorities and shared the info with them. His answer is radically different and they are just floored by it.

1^st of all – having the coin itself is against the Jewish Law. Even Herod Antipas would not have his own image put on a coin because of the prohibition against the elevation of oneself by the image. But this coin is even more over the top. The Roman Denarius would have an image of Tiberius Caesar and would say the ‘son of Augustus.’ Augustus was a divine title given to the Caesar by the Senate in 31 BC. to Octavian.

We have a false impression by Jesus comment, “Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and to God the things that are God's.”

From a Jewish mindset they would know that Jesus was quoting and augmenting a statement by Mattathias Maccabeus some years before.

We find in the 1^st book of Maccabees a statement by Mattathias right before his death.

“Pay the Gentiles what is their due, and obey the commands of the Law”

By this statement Mattathias meant to rebel and expel the Greeks from Palestine and Judas his son took up the banner and did just that. The people went through a rigorous time of returning to the Torah and taking up the sword.

Jesus is cryptic on purpose. This statement could not be used by either groups for their advantage. At face value the Romans would not see this statement as a threat.

Is Jesus saying rebel against the pagan power? Yes. But not like the Jews wanted to do.

Jesus' Kingdom is more real than any other and the ones of this earth are mere shadows and caricatures. Jesus is calling out both mindsets. Jesus would see both the Herodian stance as compromise and also the eventual violent revolution as compromise. By taking part in a violent revolution they would play right into the hands of the way Rome does things. Compromise on both fronts.

I don't know if this blog brings up any points for discussion but I would like to know what others think about this debate. I am still working through all of this and I find Christ constantly calling me into account and I am reminded of His Kingdom and the fact that we are to pray, "Thy will be done in Heaven as on Earth."

If God were in charge how would He run this show?