How Ethical Is This?

Separation of Church & State

Based on Luke 20:22-26

During this time of upheaval, uncertainty, corruption, and destruction, many of us tend to become distracted by arguments, debates, and fights. We protest and argue about whether creationism should be taught in school. We cry and debate over whether a woman should have the last word on when she will become a mother for the rest of her life. We shake our fists and fight about whether homosexual couples should have the same legal rights as their heterosexual counterparts.

These arguments, debates, and fights are fostered by our efforts to supplant our government’s laws with our religious dogma. Meanwhile, as we are busy bickering among ourselves over whose religious beliefs are more valid, the power hungry men and women in our country are busy taking away our rights, muting our voices, and co-opting our resources. The text for this sermon gives new insight into how we can start to address these important issues.

In the past, a popular use for Luke 20:22-26 was to justify government taxation and the financial support of religious institutions. Indeed, this text appears to instruct us to pay taxes and pay the church. But, these are new and more complicated times that call for new and more complex approaches to addressing the issues we face. We need to do more than pay our taxes and put our money in a collection basket. The stakes are too high for us to simply sit back and let the leaders lead. 9/11 ushered in a new age for America. We now know what other countries have known for decades.

We know what it is like to feel afraid as a nation. We know what it is like to watch buildings that are part of our heritage crumble into ruin. We know what it is like to see our leaders, those we look to for strength and direction, be confused, and full of emotion. This is a new age and it is time for new interpretation and new understanding. So, let’s look at Luke with new eyes and open to a new interpretation.

Is it lawful for us to pay taxes to the emperor, or not? But he perceived their craftiness and said to them, “Show me a denarius. Whose head and whose title does it bear?” They said, “The emperor’s.” He said to them, “Then give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

There is a challenge to be curious here. Jesus is challenging everyone to be curious enough to ask the questions that will help them determine what belongs to God (religion) and what belongs to the emperor (government). In addition, as Americans, we have the added challenge of determining what ethical standards we will expect our government officials to uphold.

Some of us will see this as an easy challenge. We will decide that God rules religion and governments rule countries. This is the approach we have taken in the past. This is certainly the approach that holds our country captive now. Our politicians constantly tell us that religion and government are separate all while they use religious rhetoric and religious leaders to promote their agendas. These politicians and their theocratic cohorts confuse the issues and blur the lines between religious belief and governmental rule. In so doing, they have brought us dangerously close to reducing America to the status of a state ruled by a theocracy. The present day religious hypocrites fiercely claim to be apart from the world and government all while they tirelessly work to control the world and government. They are the right-wing religious zealots and the left-wing political elitists who are both intent on establishing their version of religious expression as governmental law and social norm. Battles over women’s rights and lesbian and gay rights are framed by both right and left religious dogma.

So how do we render unto God and State appropriately? How do we stop the theocrats from taking over our country? We learn the difference between ethics and religious dogma. We make conscious choices about how we will live in the world based on our ethical standards rather than our religious beliefs. We strive to understand that our country is only as safe, only as healthy, only as ethical, only as generous, and only as equitable as the least of us. Most important, we learn to recognize the difference between our religious affiliations and our American citizenship. We do this by examining what each requires of us.

Our religious affiliations require that we accept a certain set of unsubstantiated beliefs as fact. Our religious affiliations require that we allow a certain group of people to claim us as their own. Our religious affiliations demand that we envision (or deny) a particular image of and name for a god (or gods). Our religious affiliations separate us from those we call ‘other.’

Our American citizenship requires that we behave as though we believe all have unalienable rights to personal freedom, life, and the pursuit of happiness. Our American citizenship requires that we protect our country from being invaded and overtaken by a foreign government. Our American citizenship requires that we support our government by: paying taxes, exercising our right to vote, learning about the challenges facing our country, and holding our elected officials accountable for their actions. Our American citizenship means that we have a responsibility to work to make our country more tolerant of its people, more respectful of its resources, and more aware of its impact on the world. Our American citizenship brings us together as a people.

This is what separation of church and state means. This is what Jesus was describing in Luke. No religious institution, expression, belief, or dogma should be imposed on the rest of us as law or established as the norm in our society. This means that we need to separate what is ethical from what is religious. To do this, we will need to ask and answer some very difficult questions.

For instance, how ethical it is for religious zealots who are against the use of condoms to go into African countries and preach that monogamy and abstinence are realistic answers to the spread of HIV and AIDS. How ethical is that?

How ethical is it that we allow our military to bomb, invade, and occupy Iraq while killing thousands of civilians. How ethical is that?

How ethical is it that our prominent news publications and media sold our right to freedom of speech and the free flow of information to advertising agencies with the highest bids, so that the only “news” we have easy access to is a watered down, sensationalistic, racist ‘spin’ on just some of the issues that are facing our country. How ethical is that?

How ethical is it that teaching is one of the least paid professions in America and public school teachers are among the least supported by our communities and our government. How ethical is that?

How ethical is it that school sports have more financial and community support than the arts? How ethical is that?

How ethical is it that an urban child can get crack cocaine easier than she can get a computer or a book? How ethical is that?

What do these facts say about who we are as a people? What do they say about our ethical standards as a nation?

We have the blueprint from our constitution and the examples left by our ancestors. Now, we have the task of building on what we have been given. We have to go back and remember and learn about the people who stood for American values in the past. We have to share their stories with our children and stop bickering among ourselves over whose religious beliefs are more righteous.

We need to go back and get what we lost in all the battles that confuse theology with politics. We need to go back and read the words of Ida B. Wells and John Wesley who are examples of how to constructively criticize our country from the stand point of love and respect. We need to study the lives of people like Bayard Rustin and Susan B. Anthony who demonstrate how to work for change in our country using ethical standards rather than religious rhetoric.

And once we have gone back and reclaimed what we have lost, reclaimed what it means to be American, we need to build on what we have claimed. We need to work together and develop our own critique of the direction our country is being taken and we need to do this from the stand point of love and respect for our country and each other.

We need to hold our elected officials to a higher standard than mud slinging, name calling, fear tactics, and religious rhetoric.

We need to demand dignity for our country and stop supporting those who cannot or will not behave in a dignified and ethical manner.

We need to stop expecting new answers to come from old failures, and make room for new people, new ideas, and new interpretations.

We need to engender, respect, and protect our youth so that they will have confidence in us and our government once again.

Most important, we need to look at ourselves and recognize where we fall short. Recognize where we are intolerant, where we are racist, where we are misogynistic, where we are homophobic. Only through this kind of ongoing self-exploration and disclosure will we be able to gain the necessary insight that we need to move our country out of the muck that has us ethically paralyzed.