Letters From Timothy

Welcome to the second part of my reflections on God and…politics. I spent most of the first part on background, so let’s get right to it.

In part one, I discussed the separation of church & state in America. I maintained that America’s government was meant to be areligious. But what if it wasn’t?

Christianity didn’t become a major world religion until it was officially declared the state religion of Rome by emperor Theodosius I (hence the name Roman Catholic Church; this name, however, was not given to the church by itself). While Rome was still a major empire, Christianity went from being punishable by death to well on its way to a worldwide faith with over 1.5 billion followers. Clearly, Rome’s adoption of Christianity was very, very good for the faith. However, the Roman empire eventually crumbed, and Christians were further scattered throughout the world. Christianity, in some form or another, has been the state religion of many countries throughout history, most notably Spain and England. However, relatively few countries today have Christianity as their state religion; among them are Georgia, Argentina, and Monaco.

There’s a reason why there aren’t many countries that have Christianity as their state religion. In general, countries in the past who have-or have tried to-mesh the church with the government have had it end disastrously…for both parties. Consider England, who famously rebelled from the Catholic Church because the king wanted a divorce. Or consider Spain, who used its Church-Government power to torture and murder thousands upon thousands of non-Catholics. Kings in the days of old claimed they were chosen by God and used their limitless power to oppress their citizens.

But it isn’t just Christianity that has a bad track record with “God-backed” government. The Roman Empire, before its “Christianization”, held that the emperor was actually a god. Before even Rome, ancient Egypt was the same way. As Emperor Nero can attest, they certainly didn’t always do a bang-up job. The Japanese Emperor used to be considered divine. So did the Chinese Emperor.  As long as there have been governments, there have been rulers who called themselves divine. What we recognize today is that none of them really were. That is why so many of these countries no longer have religion-backed government.

Non-Christian religious governments also exist today. Many middle-eastern countries, such as Iran, are basically ruled by the Islamic (sort of) equivalent of high priests, Ayatollahs. While these Ayatollas do not consider themselves divine, their power is nonetheless vast.

The reason why religion is so often tied to politics is because it makes it much easier to get your citizens to do what you want. If some guy off the street told you to build him a pyramid, you probably wouldn’t do it. But if he said he was actually God…well, who are you to disagree? If God tells you to build a pyramid, you’d better build a pyramid. This is, of course, a silly example, but hopefully you get the idea. Religion can keep citizens in place better than even the greatest armies. Then there are rulers who actually do believe they’re divine, because they’re so obsessed with their power. Today this is recognized as megalomania, rather than divinity. Religious rulers who do not claim to be divine still claim their commands are straight from God. Of course, many people claim to act in the name of God. It’s hard to imagine, though, that a suicide bomber is actually carrying out God’s will.

And therein lies one of the major problems with wedding the church and the state: it means, inescapably, handing some degree of religious authority to a leader or ruler. And once that leader has such authority, the temptation to abuse it is far too great. Our leaders, after all, are human, and not divine. They will inevitably “mess up.” And when they do abuse their power, we get such horrible things as suicide bombers. And if you even start thinking that Christians are different, I have all of anno Domini to back me up.

Always, always, always be careful when putting the power of God into the hands of man.

-Timothy