Following the Attorney General’s reference to Romans 13 as a defense for the Trump Administration’s current immigration policy, I was planning on writing a post regarding the poor interpretation of that passage and its historical misuse. This was planned to have been an update to my previous post on the subject. Others have covered that ground for me and you don’t have to look far, but I recommend these posts from Michael Gorman and Kurt Willems if you want to get deep. Another good summary is provided by Get Religion that gives a survey of mainstream media coverage.
I felt like I had to quickly jump into the fray to defend scripture against those who would twist it for their own ends. I felt like David facing down Goliath. David didn’t care about the extensive crimes against humanity of the Philistines, rather he was motivated by the need to defend God’s honor against a foe who was mocking him. Such an attitude, I realized after reading a post from a classmate of mine, gives the impression that I care more about the integrity of biblical interpretation than I do the injustice being perpetrated. She wrote, “no one needs to know what Paul actually meant in order to see evil steadily at work.” I was convicted because she was exactly right.
“No one needs to know what Paul actually meant in order to see evil steadily at work.”
But I’m not here to debate policy, nor am I going to complain for the sake of complaining. It has always been my goal with this space to apply scripture to current events to steer us towards a kingdom-attitude when it comes to politics, media, and life in the public square. Another social media post noted (paraphrasing), “If you see what’s happening and your first reaction is, ‘but they broke the law!’ Then we don’t have a difference of opinion, we have a difference in morality.” That nails it, and that’s what I want to address here.
A Difference in Morality
I am dismayed not only by the injustice being carried out by this Administration, but also the unashamedly-partisan support from many claiming to be Christian. I’m not here to question their faith or their salvation, but I see support of this ongoing atrocity as merely a symptom of something more insidious: idolatry. Idolatry is anything that we place in a position over and above God. And that means anything: usually career, money, or fame is often invoked as examples, but anything that ‘gets our blood boiling’ to the degree that we think, speak, or act in an ungodly way is an idol. We’re often not aware of when we do this, especially when we respond emotionally, but over time these things become more important to us than our relationship with God and the symptom is how it affects our relationships with other people. That is why the Old Testament is full of warnings against idolatry in the backdrop of prosperity, religiosity, and nationalism.
Paul wrote that, “The weapons of our warfare are not the weapons of the world. Instead, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We tear down arguments, and every presumption set up against the knowledge of God; and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:4-5) Basically, these divine weapons tear down idols that prevent others from knowing God. So what idols are driving the current debate?
The Idolatry of Ideology
This is the idolatry that brought President Trump to power in the first place. It is an idolatry that manifests itself as unwavering allegiance to partisanship. As Christianity Today pointed out at the time, American Christians weren’t voting for Donald Trump as much as they were voting against Hillary Clinton. Why? Because of two decades worth of vilifying the other side- initially embodied by President Clinton and his wife Hillary. This partisanship is an idol because by its very nature divides disciples of Jesus that should otherwise be united.
It’s not hard to see this all over on social media- when posts or comments refuse to consider things objectively, even when presented with contrary evidence. I think it’s telling that with respect to the separation of children at the border, even Franklin Graham spoke out against it, as did many politicians and media representing the Right. Yet I saw friends that refused to budge from their position with unequivocal support. It’s not just on the Right either, when someone would remind us that President Obama was called “the Deporter-in-Chief” his defenders wouldn’t acknowledge his administration’s culpability in what is going on now.
Such strong allegiance leads us into ungodly debate (cf. 2 Timothy 2:23) and divides relationships. This is where ideology steps over the line into idolatry. It prevents civil discussion, refuses to agree to disagree, and gives the impression that one’s ideology is more important than anything else.
Is this idol a temptation for you? Ask yourself, based on your social media profile or in-person conversations, are people more likely to know about your political party or your Christian faith?
The Idolatry of Moral Absolutes
This idol seems counter-intuitive. Christians hold to the Bible as their standard of morality, even though we may disagree on details or application. So it would appear that moral absolutes are a good thing, right? But the Bible offers very few absolutes relative to the real-life we experience every day. That is why the author of Ecclesiastes expresses frustration that everything is “meaningless, meaningless!” (Ecclesiastes 1:1-11) and the Psalmist cries out, “how long, oh Lord, will the wicked prosper?” (Psalm 94:3)
For every reference to Leviticus in order to argue against homosexuality, there is the counter argument that we should therefore abstain from eating shellfish or wearing cotton-poly blended fabric. For every sermon about biblical marriage, there’s a story about David and Bathsheba or about Abraham lying about his relationship with Sarah.
Holding to moral absolutes leads to self-righteousness. We become convinced we are right and there is nothing that can change our view. And if I am absolutely certain I am right, then any other perspective must be wrong. Yet Jesus said that the entirety of the Law can be summarized by these two commands: love God and love others (Matthew 23:36-40). If what I am convinced that is right cannot be expressed in love, then it is an idol. If I cannot hold my convictions while at the same time loving my neighbor as myself, then that conviction is an idol. This isn’t about policy, it is about the attitude when being right is more important than right-relationships (i.e. the definition of righteousness).
The Idolatry of White Privilege
Yes, I went there. I could also call this the idol of circumstance. It stems from a lack of empathy because we cannot conceive experiences different from our own. The example I always think of when it comes to this is Phil Robertson from ‘Duck Dynasty’ recalling that before the Civil Rights movement when he picked cotton with African-Americans they were all happy as if they didn’t have a care in the world.
When it comes to the immigration debate, we forget that unless you are First Nation or descended from slaves, you are an immigrant that voluntarily left a place to come here in search of a better life. It may be generations removed, but you’re non-native nonetheless. So the theme throughout scripture to “be kind to the foreigner, because you too were foreigners in the land” (Leviticus 19:34) is apt because we are all foreigners in this land. An inability to accept that puts your own point of view and your own experiences over all others and is, therefore, an idol.
We are also short-sighted when we prop our privilege up as an idol. We weren’t there, so we don’t know just how much our ancestors were mistreated when they came to this country. Look no further than how this country historically treated the Irish, Italian, and German. You can even go back to the colonies with Ben Franklin who said of German immigrants, “are generally of the most Stupid Sort of their own Nation.” Remember to treat the foreigner kindly, because you were mistreated as a foreigner in this land.
The Idolatry of American Exceptionalism
I’ve written about this before, but I’ll repeat it here- God owes the United States no particular favor. We, as a nation, are not in a covenant relationship with God. We are subconsciously biased towards territorialism- our news regularly reports the atrocities of others: Chinese currency manipulation and industrial espionage, Russian hacking and social media bots, and so on, as if we are completely innocent from participating in the same.
Sure, be ‘proud to be an American’, sing ‘God Bless America’, and stand for the National Anthem. But when we react with venom and hatred if someone kneels at a football game or disrespects the President, are we responding in a Christ-like manner? America is not perfect. It is not Zion. It is not the Promised Land. And our government consists of fallen human beings representing the interests of fallen human beings. There will be corruption, there will be deceit, double-standards, and backroom dealing. There will be laws we don’t agree with and there will be miscarriages of justice. For no other reason than because it’s human nature.
Going back to those most important commandments above, if your love of country prevents you from loving your neighbor, your patriotism is an idol.
The Idolatry of Government
This one is easy to slip into and I’m guilty of it myself. Because of the nature of our representative democracy and a relative prosperity for most of our lives (that is, if you’re not a minority), we can idealize the government as being able to fix all our problems. This is an issue for the Right and the Left. On the Right, the government should legislate morality. On the Left, the government should spend money to fix social issues. Neither approach is inherently wrong in and of themselves. But when we expect our government to be our savior (saving from whatever social ill of the moment), government replaces God.
In God We Trust is our national motto for a reason- it should be a constant reminder that God is bigger than government. That was the heart behind the American Revolution and the fight for our inalienable rights bestowed upon us by an authority higher than a monarchy.
The Idolatry of Safety
This is the idol I see more and more in our political dialogue. We instinctively look out for our own self-interest, even if it’s at the expense of others. So politicians use this to their advantage to stoke fear to motivate us politically. Communists, terrorists, immigrants… there’s always a boogieman. This politician wants to take away your fill-in-the-blank (gun, social security, retirement, bible). That politician is the anti-Christ. So we vote in such a way to protect what is ours.
I can say I love my neighbor… so long as my neighbor is not a threat. What is remarkable about the Good Samaritan wasn’t that the Samaritan stopped to help a stranger, but that the Samaritan was the social enemy of the stranger and still helped. We become numb to that distinction when the news highlights a “good Samaritan” any time someone stops to help a stranger. The Samaritan risked his personal safety, his social reputation, and denied his own feelings to do the right thing. Even for an enemy.
If we are against doing the right thing because doing so risks comfort, peace, or security, then our personal security has become an idol.
I need to call this out- with respect to the immigration debate, it doesn’t matter who’s to blame, who passed what law, or who did what first. I would hope that as Christians we can all agree that separating immigrant children from their parents, in the way it was being done (the literal devil is in the details because there are humane ways of handling this), was wrong. Period. Full stop.
But that’s not what is argued. Instead people complain about immigrants being a drain on the system, while the Administration hyperbolically accuses everyone of being an MS-13 gang member, and strict legalism towards the law and order becomes the only thing that matters. As a Christian seeing people suffer, for whatever reason and in whatever circumstance, what difference does any of that make?
As I said at the top, we could debate policy, but I’ve found that most people don’t sincerely want to. You can oppose immigration of any kind. You could favor amnesty and open borders. I honestly don’t care. When you hold to a position so strongly as to divide or when you vilify others, you are not representing Christ. To be clear, both sides are guilty of this- I try very hard not to bad-mouth the President or make statements that are personal. I’m not always successful. Yet while I am interested in policy (I admit I’m a politics junkie), my larger concern is how we treat others and how we represent Jesus to the world around us.
Can we disagree? Absolutely! But we need to be very mindful of why we disagree. Examine your heart. Honestly search for those idols. Because they stand in the way of God’s in-breaking kingdom. A kingdom of justice and compassion. Where we don’t need laws because God’s law will be written on our hearts (Jeremiah 31:33). Thy kingdom come, thy will be done; on earth as it is in heaven. (Matthew 6:10).
Amen