Astute observers have noted that there is a religious component to government actions. I don’t wish to prolong further the point, but it is a good one to contemplate, which means that I have already changed my mind and will happily prolong the point.
The point is clear: the religiosity of the government is a quest for moral tyranny. There is no doubt that there is a religious component inherent in the Romans 13 code for state officials. They are servants/deacons of righteousness (13:4). In that institution, there is a clear religious dimension to how the state operates in its functional demands. Yet, the overarching concern of citizens like myself stems from the overreaching of its religious duties.
Nietzsche once referred to the “theologian instinct,” which was not a compliment. For the “God is dead” atheist, the problem with Christians is that they are too prone to dressing their moral language with too much “God language.” This was our dreadful theologian instinct. In other words, we like to have our cake and eat it too with gratitude and doxology and all. In my book, that’s a good thing and I am eager to dress up more of my foundational theological morals with “God language,” which is ultimately the language of redemption and eternity and judgment.
The reason such leaps in language are so alarming to many, and especially our nationally elected officials, is not because they don’t like “God language,” it’s because they wish to reserve the right to use it only for themselves. They don’t want to respect familial and ecclesiastical languages, they want to exercise the theological instinct and dress their language in transcendent categories. The idea is that they get to determine what “Love Thy Neighbor” looks like.
If the government officials with its decreed limitations according to the Scriptures have the right to go beyond its boundaries and exert their supreme influence in church and family, then it can easily exert religious and theological influence in the moral sphere of church and family. When the CDC has an entire page dedicated to LGBT issues, then you know that the concern is no longer with health, but with the application of health issues to diverse sexual expressions. As they observe:
“The perspectives and needs of LGBT people should be routinely considered in public health efforts to improve the overall health of every person and eliminate health disparities.”
They are digging into the abyss of sexual diversity so they can take the priestly robe and self-authenticate their ordination before church and family. This is easy to see, but we are a blind generation.
They are morally repugnant, and at least they are not shy about it. But where the rubber meets the church and the household is at the inability of Christian men and women to see this unvirtuous reality parading before their very eyes. Every decision made at a personal and corporate level these last 24 months, whether at the Church or at the family meeting, is a formational meeting. All our decisions have formed us into a stronger, weaker, or pathetic bunch (Rev. 3:16). We reap what we sow as institutions. Some of our decisions have given the state more religious authority and some have had the distinct ability to “hell no” their efforts.
I am not arguing that strategies can’t change and that we can’t readjust our tactics, but I am arguing that those who gave thanks to the government officials by handing them over the keys to the house and church will also put a little fight when these same officials come snaking back wanting to shut us down for teaching that the CDC has no business dictating the outline of sexual activities between man and man.
The reason we put up a fight now against interventions of priestly figures in the government is that the next time they come back, they will see our “Get-Off-My-Church-Lawn” sticker and at the very least they will know that we will put up a fight. I want all my kids’ lego pieces–the ones that penetrate the skin–set out in the front yard.
Indeed, if by now the Church has not seen the lengths of overreach and if they have not realized that the government officials are more eager to offer sacrifices to their gods than your average Levitical priest, then there is nothing else to gain here. But for the rest of us, we cannot deny our Kuyperian duty, which incidentally is our Christian duty, to use our theological instincts to see that what is happening is sheer religious indoctrination.
So, as for me, my house, and my church, we shall serve the Lord of hosts and as long as the deacons of the state keep acting like imbeciles and scoundrels, my theological instinct will be to act as if what they say are the meanderings of insanity like their prophet Nietzsche
