Government vs. Religion: Power and Influence

SPEAKER 01 : 0:03

The CEM Network is pleased to present Ronald L. Dart and Born to Win.

SPEAKER 02 : 0:17

I can’t help feeling that we’re getting something wrong in the way we’re handling the welfare mess in this country. Oh, I know. Congress has passed some laws, and we’re trying to clean the thing up and trying to put people who have been on welfare back to work again. But an awful lot of people are nervous about it, and they’re very concerned about what’s going to happen to the children. You know, the situation sometimes reminds me of a hostage crisis. You know there’s waste and fraud. But so you come to Congress and you try to put through a law to deal with the waste and the fraud and to straighten out welfare. And then all of a sudden people are up giving speeches about all the children who will suffer. And they do. Children suffer. Of course, I think it’s fair to say there are more children suffering now than there were when we started Aid for Children. God forbid that we should ever as a people stop caring about the children and about the poor. But real care for children should lead us to call a failure what it is. a failure. I’ve listened with fascination to the debate, and I’ve heard the calls for compassion being handed down from politicians, be they the president, be they senators, be they congressmen. Now, as a Christian, I believe in compassion. But there’s something wrong with the picture I see out there. Compassion is a singularly human emotion. The problem with the government showing compassion is that the government is not human. The state is not human. Oh, I know government is composed of human beings, but the government itself is a system, and systems don’t feel anything, much less compassion. And when politicians start talking to us about compassion and about love, what they are really talking about is political power. Don’t ever forget it. And when political power pretends it is something else, it’s starting to become dangerous. We pay a lot of lip service in this country to the separation of church and state. But when we expect the state to exercise compassion, we’ve made a paradigm shift, I think. We have started to think of the state like we think of religion. Because compassion and feeling and love, these are the realm of churches, of religions, of faiths. Government. The state is another breed of cat altogether. Now, what is beginning to worry me is, I think the government is starting to think of itself in religious terms, in terms of being like a religion. And if that’s true, it would explain a lot of the antagonism, the antipathy that government is starting to show toward religion of one form or another. We Christians are the competition. Watch for it. It continues to show up in court decisions. It shows up in the laws of the land. It even shows up in the press, which sometimes almost seems to act like an arm of government. And when you look at all that and you see the government beginning to treat religion as the competition, something has gone wrong somewhere. Now, I don’t remember which politician it was who said it, but on one of the Sunday morning talk shows, he pointed to our social security system as being one of the great successes of government. Now, I wondered about that. Because I came of age not that long after Social Security was enacted. I was growing up with a lot of community memory around me about the time before there was Social Security. So I ask a lot of my old friends, and by old I mean the ones who are old enough to remember what things were like back before Social Security. And I ask them, what happened to people back then? Did they starve? Did they do without? I mean, were they homeless, the old people in those days? Were children starving in the streets and all that before the government stepped in and did something about aid for dependent children and Social Security? Well, their answer was fascinating. First, before Social Security, people knew that there was no government program for them. So guess what? They worked harder, they worked longer, and they got ready for their older years by saving for them. They may have had some sort of a pension where they worked, and they may have had their own pension plan. They got their houses paid for. They saved up some money and put it in the bank because they didn’t want to be destitute in their older years. Well, okay, but some of them didn’t, right? Some of them failed. What happened to them? How were they taken care of? I asked. And they said, oh, well, mostly they were taken care of by family. In other words, an old dad, when he was by himself and didn’t have any money, he moved in with one of his sons or one of his daughters, and he had a place to live and food to eat. Family took care of old people. Well, what about those that didn’t have any family? How were they taken care of? Well, there was the church. And in fact, churches took care of a lot of poor people in those days. In fact, back in that time, churches were the way in which the destitute who had no family and had no savings of their own were helped. But wasn’t there any role for government? Well, yeah, in a way there was. I remember there was the county old folks’ home. But you see, that was local government. That was right there where the people are. And the people who were taking care of the old people in the old folks’ home knew them. They’d grown up in the same community. They knew who these people were. And consequently, the care that was given was personal. It wasn’t from some government way off somewhere in Washington who really had nothing much to offer but money. And money, well, money is nice. But money is not compassion. Money isn’t there to put a hand on your shoulder, isn’t there for you to hand you a tissue when you’re crying because you’ve lost someone you love. Money, well, it has its place, but it’s not compassion. Now, what am I trying to say about all this? I’m trying to say that the American people have never failed to show compassion to their neighbors. We have always found a way to help. In truth, the county home took care of a tiny minority of the poor and indigent. Most of it was done by family and churches. But I want you to think carefully about this. Leaving the care of the poor to the churches left a lot of influence in the hands of the church, right? And for the word influence, read the word power. Because for government, institutions that have power are rivals. So with the onset of Social Security and aid for dependent children, power began to shift away from families and the church to the state. The government takes our money, and money is power. The government then uses our money to help the poor, and thereby to increase the state’s power over the poor. You know, any time a politician talks about compassion, you really ought to put your hand on your wallet. Because what he is really talking about is money and power. Your money and his power. Christian people should be the most compassionate of people. But when we attempt in our compassion to use the state as an instrument of compassion, we abdicate the only legitimate power we can hold. And at the same time, we corrupt the state. Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not anti-government. I am not a politician. I am just a teacher of the Bible, and my role is to look at things from the perspective of the Bible. When I come back, I’ll take a specific instance and show you how we should look at government from a Bible point of view.

SPEAKER 01 : 9:43

Where does a Christian draw the line between serving God and serving the state? Is it ever wrong to resist? To find out, request a free program titled, Should a Christian Submit to the State? Write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. Or call toll free 1-888-BIBLE-44. And tell us the call letters of this radio station.

SPEAKER 02 : 10:14

So how should we, as servants of God, look at government? How should we respond to it? Well, there’s a remarkable passage in Paul’s letter to the Romans that I think helps us a lot with this. It’s the 13th chapter. He starts by saying, “…let every soul be subject to the higher powers, for there is no power but of God. The powers that be are ordained of God.” Just a little sidelight, that’s where the expression, the powers that be, came into our language. Now Paul says then the governments under which we live are legitimate. They are legitimate to the extent that they are, in his words, appointed of God. Now, I think what he means by that is that it is ordained of God or appointed of God that these governments should exist, and therefore Paul establishes the legitimacy of human governmental systems. Now, are you ready for a shock? Paul was talking about Roman government. Yes, I mean the Roman Empire. that great persecutor of Christians, that great conqueror of peoples, that great power that Daniel forecast as being made of iron that broke in pieces and subdued whole nations, that Rome. You know, we’re not exactly sure when the book of Romans was written relative to some of the persecution of Christians in Rome. But we do know something odd in connection with it. When the city of Rome was in flames, and some people say Nero burned it. Actually, Nero and others said that Christians burned it. But the truth is that when that city was burning, Christians were actually dancing in the streets. They were seen rejoicing. They were seen celebrating over the fact that the city was collapsing in flames. Is it any wonder then that some people assumed that maybe the Christians set the fire? Because after all, they were happy that great Rome, you know, the Christians believed that Rome was Babylon the Great, that it was the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth. They believed that Rome was sin-ridden and deserved to be burned. And this was God’s judgment. They actually thought, apparently Christians thought, that Christ was about to return, that this was the judgment of God upon this city. And so… They were happy, but their neighbors thought they were arsonists. When you think about that, it puts a whole new light on the situation. And Paul’s letter coming into this situation says this, the powers that be are legitimate. Let every soul be subject to the higher powers. And he’s talking about, I’m sorry, he’s talking about Nero. So we are to be subject even to oppressive government. And Paul goes further. He says, Whoever therefore resists the power, resists the ordinance of God, and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. And an awful lot of Christian families suffered direct damnation in the days of Nero. They actually themselves were killed because they were accused of burning the city. Rulers, Paul says, are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Won’t you then be afraid of the power? Do what’s good, and you’ll have praise of the same. This has really ominous overtones when you think about it in light of the accusation of Christians burning Rome. The right response, think about this now, the right response for Christians in Rome when the city was in flames was sorrow for their neighbors, not rejoicing. The right response was tears. It was prayer. It was weeping. It was even helping their neighbors to rescue their belongings, helping their neighbors to save their children from the flames, helping people, because after all, Their neighbors were human beings who deserved, here’s the word, compassion. Christians were expected to have compassion for their neighbor, even if their neighbor was a persecutor. Now, there’s another thing from this short passage that’s important. It is legitimate for government to be a terror to evil works. Oh yeah, we don’t have to be compassionate with criminals. It’s okay to be a terror to evildoers. Rome, at its best, did exactly that. The Pax Romana, the Roman peace that prevailed during the empire’s great years, made for a safe and prosperous world. In fact, it made it possible for Paul to travel from one end of the empire to the other in peace and relative safety to preach the gospel. Bandits were removed from the roads, wars were suppressed, and consequently, the faith of Jesus spread throughout the empire. But, once the government gets into the business of compassion, the government becomes confused in its role. compassion toward violent criminals can actually have an equal value with compassion for hungry children because compassion is compassion right we got to have compassion all everywhere and all the time and so now we have a government which has compassion on men on death row men who have murdered not one not two not three but sometimes a dozen different people And we are supposed to be sorry for these people and to feel compassion for them. But in truth, the state cannot have true compassion. It can only have a pseudo-compassion, a false compassion. And false compassion makes the state weak where it should be strong, and it makes it strong where it ought to be weak. Don’t get me wrong. I believe every man is innocent until he’s proven guilty. But when he has proven guilty, it’s time for the state to be a terror to such a person. The tragedy is that the state really only has two things to throw at a problem, and that’s money and jail, it seems. In the Old Testament, they had another alternative. They had corporal punishment. Yeah, the law of God actually made provision that there were some things men did that were worthy of being beaten. It just put a limit on the number of stripes you could lay on a man, either with a rod or with a whip, whatever it was, that was determined to punish him with. It was caning. Yeah, caning. We are afraid, because we are a compassionate people, to punish criminals with caning. But in truth, when a man hasn’t stolen anything, when he hasn’t received any benefit from his crime, all he has done is cause misery and discomfort. Caning is a very appropriate type of punishment for him. I’ve often thought that that young vandal who went around Singapore painting cars with spray cans and vandalizing other people’s property after he was caned, would probably break out into a cold sweat every time he picked up a spray can of paint. But I digress. The truth is that a government ought to be a terror to evil works. And I think, by and large, if you do good works, the government doesn’t mind. The government will not interfere. Paul goes on to say about government, it says, “…he is the servant of God to you for good.” But if you do that which is evil, be afraid, because he does not bear the sword in vain. He is the minister of God. That means servant of God. A revenger to execute wrath upon him that does evil. Oh, yeah. That’s really funny that you hear from the compassionate people the idea that somehow revenge is an unworthy motive. I’d hate to surprise you on this too much, but the fact is the Bible says that revenge or vengeance is the central value of justice, not personal revenge, not revenge you take yourself, but it is the role of the state to exercise vengeance on behalf of the weak, on behalf of the oppressed. This is a clear statement, by the way, that the government has the power to punish evildoers all the way to the death. That’s what it means when it says, he bears the sword. Then Paul continues, therefore you ought to be subject, not only for wrath, but for conscience sake. In other words, you ought to obey the government, not only because you’re afraid of it, but also because you really want to do the right thing. Stick around.

SPEAKER 01 : 19:50

There’s more after these words. And tell us the call letters of this radio station.

SPEAKER 02 : 20:20

So Paul says it is a legitimate work of government to terrorize criminals, scare them, make them afraid to pick up an instrument of violence, make them afraid to pick up a knife and cut someone, make them afraid to steal someone else’s property. But we’re really conflicted in our society about crime and punishment. We are compassionate. Of course, our Constitution has a prohibition against cruel or unusual punishment. And that’s why we don’t cane people. But I’m not so sure that a good beating is any more cruel or unusual than jail. Because the chances are, when you put the criminal in jail, he’ll get a beating in there. Or worse. But again, it’s not the role of the government to be compassionate about It’s the role of government to keep criminals in fear. Paul goes on and says, For this cause, pay you tribute also. Tribute is just another word for taxes. Paul says, Pay your taxes. Well, the taxes are unjust, you say. That’s your tough luck. Pay your taxes, for they are God’s servants attending continually upon this very thing. And oh yeah, they do. That’s one thing they don’t let slide, is the collection of taxes. Paul says, Render therefore to all their dues, tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor. Do this, and you’ll stay out of trouble. Then he says, O no man anything but to love one another, for he that loves another has fulfilled the law. Pay your taxes. Pay your debts. If it was a Christian responsibility to pay them to Rome, do you think we have any excuse for not paying them now? Then he goes on to say, this, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not covet. And if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. You can do that. Love, he says, works no ill to his neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law. So I could say that if you love your neighbor, you’re not going to be rejoicing when his house burns down, even if he’s a Roman. And you’re not going to be rejoicing when his life comes apart, even if he has hurt you. You know, this has to do with the way you treat your neighbor, not the way you feel about him. Some fool is going to argue that, well, if we just love our neighbor, we have fulfilled the law. Sorry. Love is not a feeling. It’s a behavior. And the feeling that goes with that behavior is compassion. And that’s where the difference lies. Love your neighbor. as yourself you know that’s something that we can do we can actually do that because we’re people were humans but there is no way for the government to love people it’s not what government or the state is for paul continues and says knowing the time that now it is high time to awake out of sleep. Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent. The day is at hand. Let’s cast off the works of darkness, and let’s put on the armor of light. Let’s walk honestly, like you do in the daytime, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and don’t make any provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof. In other words, don’t keep around the instruments that actually will fulfill your lust and lead you to sin. Get rid of them. Now, there’s something I want you to understand that Paul is saying and that I am saying. I am not advocating that we take up arms against the government. I am advocating taking up compassion. I am advocating that we reclaim compassion as a Christian response to the world around us, to our neighbor, and to our community. Only when the people reclaim their rights and exercise their responsibility can we take back a power that we have allowed the state to take away. How do you do that? Well, one thing you do is you resist the temptation to exercise compassion with someone else’s money. Isn’t that simple? Use your own. Use your own time. Use your own money. Use your own work to exercise compassion. Don’t try to use somebody else’s because that’s not compassion. When the government, the state, exercises compassion, they do it with your money. And in the process, they take away from you the joy, the comfort, the sense of worth, the sense of accomplishment, and they take away the love that is generated when one man helps another. for when the Good Samaritan came along and found a man wounded and hurt in a ditch and picked him up and took him to the inn, paid his expenses, bound up his wounds, a bond was created between those two men that couldn’t have been created any other way. I can’t honestly say that I know what our government ought to do about the welfare situation and the welfare reform. That’s a political argument, and I’m not a politician. I’m just a teacher of the Bible, and I don’t have very much to offer in the realm of politics. But my master did know a lot about compassion. He was a compassionate man, which led him to heal the sick, which led him to feed people when they were hungry. He was a caring man. And he laid upon those of us who are his disciples the responsibility of also being compassionate and caring people. I don’t know how our government’s going to get itself out of the mess it’s gotten into with welfare. I don’t know how they’re going to deal with all the poor children out there who may be hungry, who may lack proper medical care. But we can’t bail them out. We can only reclaim our right to exercise the compassion of Jesus Christ. Winners are compassionate people. Until next time, this is Ronald Dart.

SPEAKER 01 : 27:32

and you were born to win. The Born to Win radio program with Ronald L. Dart is sponsored by Christian Educational Ministries and made possible by donations from listeners like you. If you can help, please send your donation to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. You may call us at 1-888-BIBLE44 and visit us online at borntowin.net.