Original Meaning

THE JEWISH LEADERSHIP now tries to trip up Jesus on political grounds.1 The issue is the Roman “poll tax.” This unpopular tax represented one of the most decisive examples of Rome’s sovereignty over Israel.2 The plot thickens by the way Luke describes the setting. The leadership has sent spies into Jesus’ midst, their assignment being to watch Jesus like a hawk. They hypocritically present themselves as “honest,” but they are looking for anything Jesus might say to allow them to hand him over to the governor on a political charge. The result would be in their best interest. In Roman custody, Jesus could be subject to the death penalty for treason, thus sparing the leadership of any direct blame for his death. In addition, Rome would appreciate the Jews’ looking out for Rome’s interests.

These infiltrators have a brilliant plan. They ask Jesus: “Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” If Jesus supports Rome, his allegiance to Israel will be questioned. If he sides with the Jews, then Rome can be called. Their initial praise of him as one who teaches “what is right” (v. 21) only highlights their hypocrisy. Everything they do represents a rejection of Jesus. They no more think that he teaches the way of God and the way of truth than they believe that Rome is the height of righteous piety.

The question is posed in either/or terms. But Jesus is aware of their craftiness (NIV “duplicity”),3 calls for a coin, and asks who is responsible for its inscription. This coin, a denarius, would have read, “Tiberius Caesar, Augustus son of the divine Augustus.” Roman sovereignty was minted all over it. The Jews were carrying such coins in their pockets, proof that they already lived under Rome’s sovereignty and accepted it by participating in its commerce. God had ordained such government and their current power over Israel (cf. Rom. 13:1–7).

Jesus’ reply is brief: “Then give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” He turns the question into a both/and. Government has the right to exist and function, but its presence does not destroy one’s allegiance to God (Rom. 13:1–7; 1 Peter 2:13–17). Jesus is not a political revolutionary who rails against Rome, nor is he an ardent nationalist. No one can charge him with political subversion. He does not step into the trap set for him, and the leadership recognizes their effort has failed. They can only be silent in the face of his reply.

Bridging Contexts

THIS TEXT IS the closest to a political statement Jesus makes. It is not a comprehensive one, but it does reveal much about how he dealt with (or de-emphasized!) issues of state. In many ways Jesus’ handling of this question shows that he is not interested in the political agenda of changing Rome. He is not a zealot. He is more interested that Israel be a people who honor the God they claim to know than being concerned with their relationship to Rome.

A basic principle about church and state is also in view here. Governments, even a pagan government like Rome, have the right to exist and to expect its citizens to participate in contributing to its functions. Supporting such a government, including taxes, does not violate one’s commitment to God.

But Jesus is after something far more fundamental and comprehensive than dealing with a specific government. He desires to call out a people from Israel (after his death, from the nations) who will walk with God and witness to him before a world across national lines. Jesus will not issue an attack on Rome. In fact, his earlier entry into Jerusalem (19:28–40) showed that he came humbly as a king who represented peace and the hope of directing a people into righteousness. What he seeks to build transcends national lines. That is partly why he can urge that taxes be paid to a government that was pagan. Jesus’ work involves spiritual transformation and the establishment of a distinct colony of God in the midst of Israel and the nations. There he hopes to manifest God’s presence, showing others how people should live in community before him (Eph. 1:22–23; 1 Peter 2:13–17). This distinction is essential as we contemplate how the church should function in the world.

Contemporary Significance

HOW SHOULD THE church view government? Does God desire a Christian nation? And what does that phrase mean? If we mean that God desires the structures of society to relate to people in a way that honors God and humanity, then the answer is surely yes. God holds nations, even those who are not in covenant relationship with him, accountable for how they treat people. But if we mean that God has a special contract of blessing with any given nation, the answer is no, since only Israel had a special relationship with God. Today, in the place where God is especially at work, the church transcends any national boundaries (Phil. 3:20–21).

The church today risks looking for God’s nation in the wrong place. That Christian nation is not in a political capital like Washington, London, Berlin, Tokyo, Guatemala City, Lagos, Sao Paul, or Moscow. That nation is the community Jesus has formed to be the world’s light, a citizenship whose roots are in heaven (Phil. 3:20–21) and whose call is to reach out to people in every nation and tribe to be a part of this community. To render to God what is God’s is to give to God faithful service on behalf of his kingdom in the midst of the nations. The Bible does not call the church to side with any particular nation or political ideology, but to conduct its mission before all people, since every nation needs God.

What does this imply about political activity? Christians have the right to be full citizens in any country, even the duty to do so. The church has the right to contend in the public marketplace for those values that make for a healthy community. John the Baptist himself challenged Herod on his lifestyle by raising the issue of his accountability to God. But the church is not in the business of wielding secular power or the sword. Its experiment with that approach in the time of Constantine and in the medieval church must be regarded a dismal failure. Even efforts like those at Geneva during the Reformation obtained only mixed results. When people who do not wish to belong to the church are coerced to be a part of it, the church is impacted negatively. God himself lets people refuse to be a part of his community and then holds them responsible for the choice.

We are called to serve, to display righteousness and personal integrity in the midst of a world that is slow to acknowledge the presence of sin and moral accountability. One should be able to point to the church and say, “Here is a place where healthy relationships and genuine, even multiethnic, community can be found.” In the world we should support causes that reflect a sense of moral justice that is not wedded to any particular ideology. In fact, one can argue that in order to do the work of testifying to God’s grace, every institution should be examined by God’s high standards. The political motto of the church is to love God and one’s neighbor. The application of that credo can take so many forms that it is limited only by the church’s imagination and energy. The church has much work and reflection to do in this area. Our capital is found at the right hand of God.

The debate about Christ and culture is old, and various approaches have been taken to the issue. In 1951 H. Richard Niebuhr wrote his famous Christ and Culture, in which he considered five different options to this question in the history of the church: “Christ against culture,” “Christ of culture” (he is the author of culture), “Christ above culture” (he transcends it), “Christ and culture in paradox,” and “Christ the transformer of culture.”4 One option is missing: the church as the model of a reconstituted culture. The last option argues that the retooling of culture is something God does in the end.

Though we can seek it, the church’s call is not to reform culture, because reformation cannot take place by changing structures alone; hearts must be changed. The dynamic for that kind of structural and internal change exists in the church community, which serves as light—a place to which people should be able to point as one that operates differently from the world. The church should be able to show the world what healthy relationships look like, how the needs of the poor can be met with compassion, what absence of racism looks like, how people can engage in business with integrity, how reconciliation takes place when people have failed one another, and so forth.

What does this perspective mean for our involvement in politics? Many of us in the Western world live in participatory democracies, so we have the right to be fully engaged in the obligations that come with being citizens. We have the right to participate in the public square, and we should.5 As Richard Neuhaus has pointed out, a naked public square is not desirable:

The naked public square is, as Murray suggests, an “impossible” project. That, however, does not deter people from attempting it. In the minds of some secularists the naked public square is a desirable goal. They subscribe to the dogma of the secular Enlightenment that, as people become more enlightened (educated), religion will wither away; or, if it does not wither away, it can be safely sealed off from public consideration, reduced to a private eccentricity. Our argument is that the naked public square is not desirable, even if it were possible. It is not desirable in the view of believers because they are inescapably entangled in the belief that the morals truths of religion have a universal and public validity. The Ten Commandments, to take an obvious example, have a normative status. They are not, as it has been said, Ten Suggestions or Ten Significant Moral Insights to be more or less appreciated according to one’s subjective disposition. Even if one is not a believer, the divorce of public business from the moral vitalities of the society is not desirable if one is committed to the democratic idea. In addition to not being desirable, however, we have argued that the naked public square is not possible. It is an illusion, for the public square cannot and does not remain naked. When particularist religious values and the institutions that bear them are excluded, the inescapable need to make public moral judgments will result in an elite construction of a normative morality from sources and principles not democratically recognized by society.6

But we must be careful to let religion operate in its own sphere. It should not be coerced, but participation should come through conviction. On the other hand, our debate in the public square must be sensitive to make arguments grounded in what is the “common good” for our society. Here a case for public morality can be made, because what is moral is healthy for humanity (that is why God gave instructions on it). But confusion of political ideology and religion or ideology and civil religion should be avoided.7 God has no philosophy of government that matches any of our political party’s agendas. One could make the case that the record of each party is mixed from a biblical standpoint and that the moral quality of a party’s position depends on what point of policy or what issue is in view. The church as an alternative to the culture must stay above culture in its critique of how government or any other institution does business. Government exists to protect the people, administer law and order, collect taxes, and serve the common good as a principle of justice (Rom. 13:1–7); the church exists to nurture hearts and souls.

These questions become more difficult when one gets specific. What about abortion? This is an issue of public morality. It is an inherently religious and philosophical discussion in a culture that does not know how to have such discussions. That is why the discussion is so culturally painful. It is like teaching a married couple how to communicate, when both sides have no clue how to listen to their partner. As I write, ABC’s Nightline has just had a feature on abortion. Their statistic is that 2 to 3 percent of women of reproductive age had an abortion last year. We should, of course, encourage the protection of human life, but we must also be prepared to put in place structures that support the children if abortion were to be made illegal. We cannot argue passionately for the preservation of life, only to abandon that concern once the child is born. That means that arguments of financial expediency may cut against what is morally required. Some argue for abortion by stressing how much it costs for unwanted children to come into the world—both emotionally and economically. Those who argue against it may need to be prepared to bear the moral and social costs of making a moral choice. The road of righteousness is not always the easiest one. The choice to abort is often an expedient choice, while the choice to raise a child costs a lot of money. As we make the case, we will need to offer ourselves as good neighbors, willing to help on the follow-through of a choice to bear a child, especially in contexts where emotional and financial support is lacking.

What about prayer in school? Here is a delicate question. I am all for prayer and teaching the value of prayer to God, but how will we pray in a multicultural environment? We cannot argue, I believe, that we are a monoreligious community, for we are not. I prefer a public square where the issue of religious belief is treated openly and directly, as a matter of public interest and information. But we must exercise sensitivity, as Paul did on the Areopagus in Athens (Acts 17:16–34). I have been asked to pray at civil functions where I was aware of the scope of the nationalities and religions present. How do we function in this context? Are we like Daniel, faithful to our God in our own conduct and worship, yet discretely but truthfully generic in broader contexts? The prayers I have offered in such contexts have majored on God’s role in creating us and on our responsibility in humbly seeking his face. Our culture needs to reflect on the value of religious questions in general before it can ever focus on specific religious questions with care and concern. The best prayers in our multireligious contexts are those that allow the individual time for personal prayer. Otherwise, battles will ensue over who gets to write the prayers the class prays. What is rendered unto God should be rendered sincerely, not by coercion.