Jesus was Anti-Government
June 9th, 2007 by 
admin
Christianity affirms the 10 Commandments of Jewish law, and among them are “Thous shalt not kill” and “Thous shalt not steal”. All our governmental officials who profess Christianity should believe these things. And keep in mind that a key teaching of Jesus is that sin has no degree–stealing is wrong whether it is a penny or a million dollars. Adultery is wrong whether it involves 37 prostitutes or simply an idle fantasy.
That being the case, it is not very hard to reach the conclusion that government is theft because it involves coerced taking of property and money. Therefore, government is wrong and perpetuating it is a sin. The statist response to this is to argue in a Locke-ian maner that the government arises by the choice of the people for a social compact that provides them with certain services at the expense of certain freedoms. This is a fallacious argument that is easily refuted by a mild reducto ad absurdum: imagine a group of people getting together and deciding by majority vote to enslave one of the group. Is this right? Of course not. So it cannot be right for the majority to take from a minority even if the theft is less severe than total slavery (which is the theft of body and freedom). For Locke’s social compact theory to be ethically tenable, individuals would have to have the ability to withdraw from the compact. Try not paying your taxes and you will quickly find out that you cannot withdraw from the social compact.
Another possible response to my argument that Christians must be anti-government is to quote Jesus when he said, “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and render unto God that which is God’s.” It is important to keep in mind that this was in response to the Pharisees’ attempt to trap Jesus by asking him if it was okay to pay Roman taxes. If he had yes, he would have been seen as supporting the oppressors of Judea. If he said no, the Romans would have seen it as an act of rebellion and he would have been executed before his work was done. The most cogent explanation of this is that Jesus meant exactly what he said, but what he said is not what most people think he said. He said that you should give to the government that which belongs to it. But the key question is what belongs to the government? If it is wrong to steal then it is wrong to tax, in which case nothing belongs to Caesar. Examined from the other side we come to the same conclusion–if we give to God everything which to him belongs, then we give everything to him and nothing is left for Caesar. This explanation sense because by speaking in this manner Jesus was able to subvert the Roman order without directly seeming to oppose them.
I am not the first to interpret this passage in this way. See wikipedia for more info.
[Originally posted 10 May 2007]
