02/10/2025
The Church and Politics in 2025 (abbreviated version)
The Church Can’t do Politics? Why?
I don’t know whether or not anyone has an interest in Church history. My father was a great historian. I like to think I am, as well. So often just looking at the “surface stories” in the Bible or in Church History gives you only a report of the actions that were taken: “events as they happened.” However, that doesn’t really tell the entire story. The real story may actually be better understood by the history of the culture, politics, religious factions and history of the languages used at the time a particular version of the story was written. There are SOOOO many stories! Most of which the members of the church will never know unless they 1) dig into the Bible and its history on their own, or 2) have a preacher who enjoys the deeper levels of biblical data.
In this particular case, it is important to know that The Church WAS the original government! The Church was the LAW and the POLITICIANS before the time of the Roman Empire. In fact, the Roman Empire decided to use The Church as its proxy for law and order because it was already set up to function in that manner.
King of the Franks, in western Europe, King Charlemagne gave money and land to the Christian church and protected the popes. As a way to acknowledge Charlemagne’s power and reinforce his relationship with the church, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne emperor of the Romans and first ruler of the vast Holy Roman Empire on December 25, 800, at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
(The History Channel; Charlemagne: Facts, Empire & Holy Roman Emperor HISTORY.)
As you may recall, when Pope Leo III began to crown Charlemagne emperor, Charlemagne took the crown out of Leo’s hands and crowned himself Emperor. It was one of the most significant political moves in human history! At that moment, The Church and The Holy Roman Empire became “one and the same.” So what changed?
The Reformation! Since the Church and the Government were one and the same, the Church began adding outlandish expenses to the tax code. In fact, the Church could collect a “tithe of 10%” in addition to the taxes collected by the secular governors. Martin Luther railed against the greed of the Church in his famous open letter, nailed to the door of the cathedral at Wittenburg, Germany in 1517 AD.
In 1931, Pope Pius XI wrote:
“… the riches that economic-social developments constantly increase ought to be so distributed among individual persons and classes that the common advantage of all … will be safeguarded; in other words, that the common good of all society will be kept inviolate.” Oops. Something changed.
The short story is that the Church is now denied permission to be involved in political affairs because of TAXATION. The battle between the Church not being required to pay taxes and the taxation of the Church is a long and hard fought one. When modern governments decided that the “tithe” was NOT a natural extension of public taxation they also decided that the Church is no longer in charge of political affairs. Therefore, those who DO NOT pay taxes have no say in government matters. That’s the very abbreviated version of what happened. (It's actually MUCH more complicated.)
In 2025 – facing radical change in culture, social justice, immigration, taxation, cutting costs in government by cutting off “social justice institutions” by people who don’t see eye to eye with either the Bible or the Church, “We, the Disciples of Jesus Christ” ought to be enabled to behave in the same ways that Jesus of Nazareth behaved.
JESUS WAS A TOTALLY POLITICAL FORCE OF NATURE! Everything he did went against the mainstream of religious and governmental norms of his time. In this day and age “politics and the Church” is a major topic of concern. Churches can lose their tax exempt status when the leaders of the Church go back too the “old norms.”
Church leaders becoming political creates mass unease in the government. But we cannot be like Christ or follow the teachings of Jesus if we fail to speak out against evil and injustice wherever we see it. It is not just our duty – it is our CALLING as disciples of Jesus Christ.
As the saying goes, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good [people] to do nothing," which is attributed to Edmund Burke - but was probably first stated by philosopher, John Stuart Mill. This quote essentially means that if people who are considered good or morally upright choose not to take action against injustice or evil, it allows evil to prevail. No matter who said it – it is unassailably true.
I know. Every time you stand up for justice and goodness in the world you feel totally exposed. So, I’m going to say that “if you cannot bring yourself to respond to evil and injustice – as Jesus called us to do – you may not be a particularly good disciple of Jesus. How does that impact your personal salvation? That’s between you and God. The failure to risk being Christlike may be equivalent to the failure to acknowledge that God loves the just.
Selah!
Pastor Terry Tomlinson
