...Unto Caesar the Caesar-Stuff: Christianity and Conservatism's Weird Alliance

A good friend and I got into it good naturedly today about Christianity and democracy and good old fashioned conservative values.  (That's American conservatism, of course.)

I've never quite been able to see eye to eye with those who treat Christianity and conservatism as compatible, let alone mutually reinforcing.  They share a few surface-features in common, of course: a belief that human beings are naturally self-interested, for instance.  But that's hardly a premise that requires revelation on the one hand or that justifies a political philosophy on the other.

Consider these features and tenets of conservatism:

CONVERVATISM

• Enlightened self-interest
• Free enterprise
• Small government / presumption of tyranny
• Low taxes / individual economic liberty
• Compromise in the interest of democracy
• Strength on behalf of the weak
• Justice sometimes requires force.
• Strong defense budgets, sparingly used in defense of political liberty

The tenets of scriptural Christianity, on the other hand, might be embodied this way:

CHRISTIAINITY

• Enlightened self-sacrifice
• Care of one's neighbor at the same level as one's self-interest
• Hostility of government / presumption of emnity with government
• A non-regard for the material / worldly substance of taxes
• Profligate generosity
• No compromise with idolatry or other value systems
• Redemptive self-sacrifice on behalf of the weak
• Martyrdom over violence / trust in the redemption of God
• A belief that "he that keeps Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps" (Psalm 121:4)

Scriptural Christianity presumes a hostile relationship with the government of its day, the Roman Empire that must not only not be resisted, but which must be seen as having legitimate ownership over the property that is "of the world."   

If found, return to Augustus Caesar: postage is prepaid.Jesus' dictum (Matthew 22:21) to "render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's" is not merely a rhetorical evasion of a trap set by Pharisees.   It is a radical division between the things that belong to the world and which can therefore be set at no value and those that are subsumed under the Kingdom of God.  The second "half" of his parallelism makes this clear: "... and unto God the things that are God's."

The language is of some interest here.  In Greek, the utterance runs,

Ἀπόδοτε οὖν τὰ Καίσαρος Καίσαρι καὶ τὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ τῷ Θεῷ

τὰ Καίσαρος [Kaisaros] is translated as "things that are Caesar's."  It might be rendered "Caesar-stuff."  Render to God, though, τοῦ Θεοῦ, God-stuff.  Both words imply substantive "things," but they have an ambiguity to them that "things that are Caesar's" makes less intelligible.  "Caesar-stuff" would be better.

It's never made sense to me therefore that, in the common cause against abortion, American Christianity of the sort I grew up with made such easy common cause with political conservatism.  It seemed to me (and still seems to me) to be an irreconcilable collision of values, leading to all sorts of strange contradictions. 

Do Christians no longer believe that the dollar bill is as indelibly stamped with the images and icons of the United States of America as a Roman Augustan denarius was marked as the property of Caeasar?

My friend today argued genially that our government belongs to us and is "of the people, by the people, and for the people."

But this claim strongly suggests that the division Jesus insists on in Matthew does not exist, that "world" and "Kingdom of God" have erased their differences.  I suppose that's arguable, but I'd just like to hear somebody go ahead and say that Matthew 22:21 does not have force where democracy exists.

"Liberal scholars" (those whipping boys of Evangelicalism) will tell you that the author of Matthew had some idea of muting the anti-Roman passion of the Gospel of Mark.   Whether he did or not, it's worth remarking on this: he didn't make it easy to say "No" to taxation.  He made it (and I think meant to make it) difficult to practice enlightened self-interest.  In some ways, that's a stoic Roman virtue, not a Christian one.

September 11, 2001 raised a million issues: it shone in our face the nature of fundamentalism, unwilling to discuss, to compromise, to redeem.  It also confronted us with fear of death, the refusal of martyrdom, a need for human-wrought justice, and the passion of vengeance.

It rendered unto Caesar the things that are Caesars.  And it asked the question, "Are we not Caesar?"  It might be so.  But Christians should pause over these things.  They should wonder.

It's okay with me if they find those post-9/11 values to be preferrable to (and better than) self-sacrificing Christianity.  I have no problem with that.

But they should not pretend they are "Christian."

Comments

[Daisy]

The common ground (although, admittedly, the real estate is rapidly shrinking) between Christianity and conservativism is the ideal of Individual Soul Liberty. The belief in an individual judgment begets a quest for individual responsibility. All of this liberty means "every man did that which was right in his own eyes". To our shame, conservatives often ignore the words of Christ and instead, confusing personal liberty and personal power, they often damage the name of Christ by beating people over the head with the cross He bid them to carry.

[Susan]

What was it that the religious folks declared right before we hauled Jesus off to his death?

Oh, yes:

"We have no king but Caesar."